Ben Harris
Groups seek to infuse new themes, agendas into Chanukah observance
This is the logo of "A Light Among the Nations," a project of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, which aims to get Jews to switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs during Chanukah. COEJL
One of the Jewish calendar's most widespread and public observances, the Chanukah holiday has traditionally emphasized two miracles: the military victory of Jewish rebels over Greek invaders and the single vial of oil that lasted for eight nights.
But just as other holidays have seen their historic purpose shaped to contemporary narratives, Chanukah is increasingly being used as a vehicle for other Jewish agendas that seem to stray far from the holiday's original meaning.
This year, much of the focus is on global warming. The Shalom Center, a Philadelphia-based group focused mainly on environmental issues, has launched the Green Menorah Covenant campaign to promote improved energy efficiency among Jewish communities. The campaign, which is timed to coincide with both Chanukah and a U.N.-sponsored conference on climate change in Bali, Indonesia, follows a similar effort, begun last year, to encourage switching to more energy-efficient light bulbs.
Israeli prof. among dead
Virginia Polytechnic Institute Prof. Liviu Librescu was reportedly killed while protecting his students. Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Among the things said to have inspired Liviu Librescu to leave his home in Israel and resettle in southwest Virginia was the area's pastoral surroundings.
A professor of engineering at Tel Aviv University, Librescu came to Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1985 for a one-year sabbatical, but stayed more than two decades.
"It was the right place for him," Librescu's son Arie told JTA from his home in Israel. "It was the right school in terms of what he was working on. He liked the quiet and the peace of that area."
That peace was broken April 16 when a gunman, a '3-year-old senior from South Korea, stormed Norris Hall, where Librescu was teaching. Librescu was killed, along with 3' others, in the worst shooting rampage in American history.
Debate on gay rabbis decision
NEW YORK – In announcing that gay and lesbian students would be allowed to apply for rabbinical training at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Chancellor-elect Arnold Eisen sounded the movement's popular refrain about halachic pluralism — the notion that competing interpretations of Jewish law can coexist under one roof.
Eisen was seeking to mollify those who have resisted liberalizing the Conservative movement's traditional position barring gay clergy.
That’s a wrap — a tefillin wrap
Irving Sklaver, right, helps Ilana Schwartz, 9, put on tefillin at the Fair Lawn Jewish Center Men's Progress Club's annual tefillin wrap. Photo by KEN HILFMAN
Some Jews were wrapped up in more than football on Super Bowl Sunday.
For the Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs, an association of '70 Conservative synagogue groups, America's secular holiday was a perfect opportunity to draw attention to the often-overlooked mitzvah of tefillin.
The wrap aims to promote the donning of tefillin, a pair of black boxes containing prayers that are affixed to the head and arm by leather straps during prayer.
The seventh annual event "is a signature program to involve Jewish men in Jewish life by building and strengthening men's clubs in the Conservative/Masorti movement," said Peter M. Gotlieb, president of the Northern New Jersey FJMC.
