Visiting a synagogue in Haifa

Our rabbi at Emet V'Shalom, our Reform congregation in Nahariya, is on sabbatical for 6 months. Normally, we are still attending there, of course, and, in fact, I often participate in leading. But this past Friday night, we decided to check out one of the 2 Reform synagogues in Haifa. On Friday morning, I wrote to both of them. Of course, I should have written a day or two earlier. Anyway, one of them, אור חדש Or Chadash ("New Light"), managed to write back to me the same day, and so that's where we went. We'll check the other one out another time, since they, too, have now answered my e-mail to them.

Or Chadash has a beautiful building with a spectacular view of Haifa Bay, and they sponsor many activities going on all the time. It's not the sort of place that appeals that much to us, but we still enjoyed our visit. Groups of people from 2 different congregations in the States were visiting there that evening, together with their respective rabbis. Both visiting rabbis spoke, partly in Hebrew but mostly in English. One of them was quite fluent in Hebrew and had relatively little American accent. The other had a really bad American accent! At any rate, I was pleased to find that I understood virtually ALL the Hebrew, from the American rabbis AND from the rabbi of the congregation.

The most moving part of the evening for both of us was the welcoming of a couple of new converts to Judaism. They live in Katzrin, the city in the Golan that we can see from our house. They were a middle-aged to older couple, and by their names we could tell that they were Russian. They had traveled for something like a year, every week, all the way to Haifa (a drive of at LEAST an hour and a half to two hours!) to study at Or Chadash for their conversion. According to the rabbi, a full 2% of all people converting in Israel study at Or Chadash! However, they all have to appear before and be approved by an orthodox Beit Din (religious court). After introducing them and reading the official proclamation, the rabbis led us in welcoming them by saying 3 times:

את אחותינו at akhoteinu ("You are our sister.")

אתה שחינו ata akhinu ("You are our brother.")

What a wonderful way to welcome new Jews! Both David and I were moved to tears.