A holiday for all

Thanksgiving: A holiday for everyone.

What a great American tradition that helps unite all.

Food, family, friends, community gatherings, all combine to make this holiday a lot of fun. Yes, we have all heard the stories and seen the movies about the dysfunctional families that come together on Thanksgiving-the wayward son, the divorced mother, the insensitive parent, the wacky uncle and the sourpuss aunt. I remember the scene in the movie, Avalon, when the entire Thangiving dinner is basically ruined by latecomers to the table..." I can't cut the turkey, until everyone is here" (said in a thick yiddish accent).

Yet in spite of all the stereotypical depictions of the holiday, Thanksgiving is a wonderful time for all of us to give thanks and to celebrate together. Enjoy the holiday!

General Assembly

Having just returned from the GA, the annual conference of the Jewish Federations of North America, I was struck by the issues we are now facing as a global Jewish community:

- the worldwide effort to de-legitimize the State of Israel
- the growing distance between the Jews of the Diaspora and the Jews of Israel
- the changing affiliation and identity patterns of today's Jewish community.

Yet I was encouraged by the efforts to face the new realities and our communal efforts to deal with these issues.

- A new initiative called the Israel Action Network-a community driven effort by the North American Jewish community to proactively lead the conversation about the legitimacy of the State of Israel and counter those who challenge her legitimacy

- A new focus on Jewish peoplehood and an expansion of exchanges of Israeli and North Americans. Over 250,000 young people have experienced Birthright Israel. Our own young emissary program is creating a new understanding of our connection to Israel.

- Re-imagining the Jewish community to meet the diverse needs of an ever changing Jewish population not tied to the traditional modes of identification. Check out our own community Young Jewish professional group. We will be hearing from Dr Steven Cohen this weekend who is the preeminent scholar researching these new trends and offering innovative alternatives.

Lots of important issues that we all need to be aware of.

Learning Together

Our community has been organizing community wide learning programs for over 15 years. Yes, we were one of the first to initiate the concept of bringing everyone together to learn from one another within a community setting. Today we here about "innovative" approaches to community learning like Limmud and others.

We should all know that while others were thinking about this, we we were doing it!

Lets learn together this weekend at Torathon!