It is quite common among congregations in which there is no permanent cantor or Torah reader for members of the synagogue and even visitors to lead different parts of the service, but it’s rare for a whole family to do so.
There are always exceptions, however, as was the case at Hazvi Yisrael last Saturday when brothers David and Yoni Berkovich celebrated their bar mitzvahs, and all the males in the Berkovich family took over the entire service, from leading the prayers and reading the Torah to opening and closing the ark. The boys, the sons of Polina and Gene Berkovich of New York, along with other family members, displayed an exemplary command of Hebrew.
Their parents are to be complimented on giving all their children such an outstanding Jewish education, as well as on their desire to celebrate the maturity of their sons in accordance with Jewish tradition in Jerusalem rather than in their local synagogue in the United States.
BeSheva's Jerusalem Conference is here
■ TIME RACES by faster than we realize. It’s already time for the annual Jerusalem Conference hosted by the BeSheva Group of Communications. The two-day event, which, as always, is top-heavy with public figures, will be held at the VERT hotel on Monday and Tuesday, February 24 and 25.
Topics to be discussed include how to persuade haredim to serve in the IDF; leadership among mayors and regional council heads in a time of crisis; how to rebuild a flourishing economy; how to guarantee food security; vision vs reality in the Chief Rabbinate; and perhaps most controversial of all – settlement and sovereignty in the new Trump era. Citations will be handed out in recognition of the achievements of close to a dozen exceptional people.
Among the honorees will be Haim Bibas, who is to receive the Jerusalem Prize for leadership. Bibas, the mayor of Modi’in-Maccabim-Reut, has also spent the past decade as head of the Federation of Local Authorities.
Honoring Prof. Yigal Talmi with a nuclear seminar
■ IT’S A very old tradition among Jews upon extending birthday greetings to wish the person celebrating to live to 120, which was the age of Moses at the time of his demise. On Wednesday, February 5, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities will honor Prof. Yigal Talmi, an expert on nuclear physics, on the occasion of his 100th birthday, with an international seminar on nuclear capability.
Speakers from abroad will include Prof. Hans-Arwed Weidenmuller of the University of Heidelberg and the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, and Prof. Francesco Iachello of Yale University. Talmi, whose centenary falls on January 31, will also be among the speakers.
Take a tour of a haredi community
■ THE ULTRA-ORTHODOX community has been subjected to a lot of criticism and considerable injustice. Other sectors of the population spread negative stories about its members without actually knowing much about them. Controversial author Tuvia Tenenboom, in researching his book Careful, Beauties Ahead!, went to live among them in Jerusalem.
He spent a year with ultra-Orthodox of every stripe and, on the whole, found them to be delightful people, much more tolerant than is generally realized, and much more knowledgeable about secular affairs than is widely believed.
To remedy ignorance and misunderstandings about the haredi communities, several ministries and organizations have got together to arrange a series of Thursday and Friday tours through predominantly haredi areas of Jerusalem.
Two such tours will be held on Friday, February 7, from 9 a.m. to noon. Tour leaders will be Assaf Shapira and Shira Breuer. The tours are a joint initiative of the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research and the Tower of David Museum.
A year of Jerusalem anniversaries
■ THIS YEAR is an important one for anniversaries in Jerusalem. Aside from celebrating the 100th birthday of Yigal Talmi, it also marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the 90th anniversary of Leyada, the school near the Hebrew University whose alumni include Nobel Prize and Israel Prize laureates, senior army officers, government ministers, famous writers, and leading academics; and the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Israel Museum.
On Tuesday, March 26, at 10 a.m., art history lecturer Galit Ivgi will speak at the museum on what led to its establishment, the complexities involved, the selection of a site, the architecture, the interior decor, and the decisions on what it should contain while maintaining the focus on archaeology, Judaica, ethnography, and art. Ivgi will also deal with the personalities involved in the decision-making processes and other aspects of the museum.
An attorney's speech on judicial interference
■ WITHOUT TAKING sides, attorney Moshe Jaffe, who has degrees from Israeli and American universities, spoke at the Great Synagogue last Saturday on whether the High Court of Justice should interfere in military matters. Jaffe stated that he would not offer an opinion one way or the other but would simply state facts about the complexities involved in the court taking action. By way of comparison, he had contacted West Point to find out if the US courts gave rulings on army matters, and the response was a definite “No.”
Judicial activism in Israel began in the 1980s, said Jaffe, and over time the court has allowed itself to make decisions on every aspect of life in Israel. On the other hand, 90% of the thousands of appeals made annually to the High Court of Justice are rejected.
The most convoluted bureaucracy comes into play when the army becomes aware of Palestinians receiving gifts of foreign currency. Can the army break into a recipient’s home to confiscate the cash, even small amounts, on the grounds that the recipient is a known or potential terrorist? Jaffe went to great lengths to explain the point at which a legitimate appeal can be made to the High Court of Justice.
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