What's New?

Congratulations to Benjie Gruber on his ordination.

Congratulations to Debby Greenberg on the birth of her son.

Fellows' meetings:

The last three meetings focused on "Educational programs and rituals for bar/bat mitzvah." In these sessions, fellows presented the programs in their communities and the conceptual views underlying them. The next series of meetings will deal with the topic of the 'High Holidays,' and will also include three sessions, in which we will address different topics dealing with this period. Prior to immersing ourselves in the material, however, we paused to devote the March session to the topic of the African refugees now in Israel. We met with the head of the refugees' organization in Tel Aviv and visited two shelters in South Tel Aviv.

Synagogue 3000:

Fellows Ayala Miron, Itamar Lapid, and Uri Ayalon, together with program director David Lazar, flew last February to the third convention of the Synagogue 3000 working group, this time in Boulder, Colorado, on the topic of behavioral patterns, volunteer development, and community structure, both in the U.S. and in Israel. They also took advantage of the trip to hold a two-day meeting in Boston with RIKMA fellows currently in the United States: Claudia Kreiman, Yonatan Rudnick, Chen Tzafoni, and Golan Ben-Horin.