MERCAZ USA Newsletter — Spring 2008

President's Column — Dr. Stephen S. Wolnek

There is a saying that you can't teach an old dog, new tricks. Not being a canine expert, I won't comment on the veracity of the adage. But what I do know is that you CAN teach veteran Jewish leaders something new and this I learned by personal experience.

This past fall, following the quarterly meetings of the Jewish Agency's Board of Governors meetings that took place in Jerusalem, I had the privilege of participating in the Masorti Europe Conference, which was held in Paris in the beginning of November.

As a former president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, a veteran member of numerous Conservative Movement organizational boards and, currently, president of MERCAZ USA, I have grown used to thinking about the Conservative Movement as not simply a North American phenomenon but one that has set down roots in Israel as well. However, I never thought that the continent that lies between New York and Jerusalem as having anything to offer Conservative Judaism.

Imagine my surprise when I arrived in Paris and found myself amidst a sea of fellow Conservative/Masorti Jews, with 220 adult representatives from Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and UK and an additional 50 members of European MAROM (Masorti young adults) groups, all together to plan for the future growth and development of the Conservative/Masorti movement in Europe.

Dr. Stephen Wolnek (right) with Dr. David Breakstone, chairing a session of the Masorti Europe conference.

What was so inspiring about the conference was the sense of enthusiasm and energy that was present. In contrast to so many of the Conservative Movement meetings that take place these days in North America where there is a feeling that our best days may be behind us, that we are aging and shrinking in numbers and unable to keep pace with the movements to our left and right, in Europe, we are the new kid in town with a drive and commitment to succeed in offering Jews disaffected with radical Reform, on the one hand, and rigid Orthodoxy, on the other, a dynamic third way.

The positive energy was everywhere, from Rabbi Gesa Ederberg, the first woman and Masorti rabbi chosen to lead Berlin's historic Oranienburger Strasse Synagogue, to Chazzan Jaclyn Chernett, the first woman in the UK to be ordained as a chazzan, who has launched the European Academy of Jewish Liturgy, to Adam Schonberger, a MAROM leader who led the effort to establish the first Masorti congregation in Hungary, and on to Sergio Wax and Elisabeth Sabbah, who announced the incorporation of "Massorti France", the new association of French Masorti congregations.

Especially moving was the report of Rabbi Jules Harlow who, with his wife Nava, has been working in Lisbon with Kehillat Beit Yisrael, a community of "conversos", Jews whose ancestors more than five hundred years ago were forced under the heavy hand of the Inquisition to convert to Christianity but who maintained secretly certain Jewish practices and who are now making their way back to the Jewish world.

I am proud that as Co-Chair of the WZO's Budget and Finance Committee, I, with my MERCAZ colleagues, have been able to triple the amount of funding, from $140,000 to $420,000, that is now being provided annually to Masorti communities outside of North America and Israel, such as those in Europe and their counterparts in South America, to grow and develop.

The large increase in funding that is coming to Masorti Europe is a direct reflection of the increased size of the MERCAZ delegation at the last Zionist Congress. My hope is that the positive energy that I experienced here in Paris will inspire us to redouble our efforts here in the United States on behalf of MERCAZ membership recruitment now and electoral success towards the 2010 Zionist Congress.

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