Aug: WAR IN ISRAEL #10
Baruch Hashem, one rabbi's curation of the month's best videos, media and moments.
PHOTO OF THE MONTH
COMEDY OF THE MONTH
TORAH THOUGHT OF THE MONTH
VIDEO OF THE MONTH
SONG OF THE MONTH
HERO OF THE MONTH
MITZVAH OF THE MONTH
MEMES FOR ISRAEL
CLICK HERE FOR MORE
PRO-ISRAEL MOMENT
CHARITY OF THE MONTH:
CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO A REAL LIFE SUPERBOY
SHIDDUCH CORNER:
Torah Classes with Rabbi Welton:
All Times are Eastern, all classes meet online. Classes are interactive and fun.
SECURITY FOR ISRAEL: Mon nights, Google Meet Video, 7-715pm. Discussing the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s opinions and advice for keeping Israel (and the world!) safe and secure.
WEDNESDAY PARSHAH CLASS: Wednesday, 11-1130am, WhatsApp Video, Advanced material catered to a beginner audience. In this class, we analyze and debate the weekly Torah potion, just like they do in Yeshivahs!
THURSDAY TORAH: Thurs night, 7-730pm, WhatsApp Video, an online very conversational class for JewishYoung Professionals. We learn a little bit of Maimonides Laws and watch short YouTube videos and then discuss.
Tuition: Suggested $180 per year. But it’s up to you and we don’t solicit.
ARTICLE OF THE MONTH:
“Finally Going Home” by RENEE SKUDRA
The naturalist John Muir famously said “The mountains are calling”, referring to the home where he found spiritual solace in the unifying power of nature. The first time I stepped foot in a Sephardic synagogue, I experienced a similar emotion – it was as if I had finally found the place which grabbed and held my very soul in perfect tranquility, equipoise, and happiness.
Having grown up with a German-Jewish mother and a Sephardic-Spanish father, the traditions had inexplicably always been Ashkenazic ones, raised as I was in the shadow of her large and dominating family which intentionally showed no interest in his background. It was not until my thirties when I began wondering about how to discover and then aggregate the Sephardic history which I felt much more drawn to. Perhaps it was the fact that my olive skin disambiguated me from my mother’s fair-haired, blue-eyed clan or that once I started learning Spanish, I felt so comfortable in its idioms and nuances. Using the internet as a resource, I was able to locate a Sephardic congregation and synagogue in Philadelphia, eventually making a journey there with my son which was transformative not only in the growth of my knowledge but also by the heightening of my faith at a time when its foundation was not entirely shored up due to feelings of brokenness and isolation.
In March, 2023 we took the train to The City of Brotherly Love, eagerly looking forward to attending the Shabbat dinner at Congregation Mikveh Israel at 44 North 4th Street in the historic district of Philadelphia. I had been studying its history and had a number of factual artifacts in my intellectual satchel: a Sephardic Orthodox Jewish synagogue which traced its history from the 1740’s, it was the second oldest congregation in the United States and the oldest continuous congregation in our country. Its early members were Spanish and Portuguese Jews who first worshipped together in a small rented home on Sterling Alley. As additional Jewish families began settling in the city, a tiny congregation incorporated in 1771 as Kahal Kadosh Mikve Israel. Over time, a president, officers and a board of trustees were designated, Torah scrolls were acquired and some prayer books from London as well as a silver reading pointer (yad). In 1782 land was purchased by the congregation and a building erected on Cherry Street. In 1825 a new building was completed to accommodate the growing congregation in the first quarter of the 19th century. Its design was inspired by the Neo-Egyptian style of architecture which in England had become popular after the British General Nelson’s victory at the Battle of the Nile.
A third building was to follow, erected on property purchased in 1859 at 117 N. 7th Street. A prominent architect of the time, John McArthur, designed the synagogue. That however was not the end of the story for Congregation Mikveh Israel. Two further buildings were subsequently erected – one in 1909 and the other in 1976 – whose construction was motivated (among other things) by a strongly articulated desire to move to the historic belly of the city. The current synagogue now sits adjacent to Independence Mall and in close proximity to the Liberty Bell. The sense of historicity there is inarguably palpable. Congregation Mikveh Israel’s rich history as a colonial synagogue permeates the area, its force and lifeblood which had not only shaped Jewish life in Philadelphia but contributed enormously to the formation, viability and character of the nation itself.
As I continued my exploration into the history of the synagogue, I learned that many of its early members were engaged in activities that led to the Revolutionary War. Largely of Sephardic origin, they served in that conflict. Later members of Mikveh Israel served with distinction in the United States Armed Forces and all of America’s wars. One such personage was Uriah Phillips Levy, the first Jewish Commodore in the U.S. Navy and a veteran of the War of 1812. Uriah had his Bar Mitzvah at Mikveh Israel in 1807 and was a regular attendee there. He was the grandson of Jonas Phillips, a Sephardic Jew, who was instrumental in the construction of the first synagogue building. Throughout a bold and brilliant life and often in the face of antisemitism, Uriah referred to himself proudly as “an American, a sailor, and a Jew.” An interesting and curious fact was that Uriah was the third owner of Monticello, having purchased the house (at that time in quite dilapidated shape) and some acreage for the mere sum of $2,700. He lived there on and off but instilled his mother as a permanent resident. After having had 21 children, it is certain she deserved a peaceful abode to live out her last days. She is buried on the grounds of Monticello, the only Jewish person who can make that claim.
As we entered the doors of Mikveh Israel, I saw on the lobby walls many oil portraits of famous people from its past, such as its founding father, Reverend Gershom Mendes Seixas, a Sephardic Jew who had a friendship with President George Washington and was the only representative of the Jewish community to having attended his inauguration. Although we arrived somewhat late (due to our delayed Amtrak train), we were able to attend a part of the services, listening to the Hebrew of the texts and the lovely Spanish-Portuguese melodies, reveling in the fact that we were indeed there – in the Synagogue of the American Revolution as it seems to have been called from time immemorial. Afterwards, we were greeted warmly by Rabbi Yosef Zarnighian (also a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force Reserve) and Rabbi Albert Gabbai (himself born in Egypt). We were told that about the Spanish-Portuguese tradition of Mikveh Israel and how it still retains those rites, following specifically that of the Amsterdam esnoga (synagogue).
When I told Rabbi Zarnighian that my son and I were the direct descendants of Rabbi Jonatan Eybeshutz of blessed memory, whose Spanish ancestry went back at least to the 1400’s, the Rabbi became very excited and exclaimed that he would be reading one of his poems following the Shabbat dinner. As I looked out upon a sea of at least 500 people, now sitting at their dinner tables, awaiting a resplendent feast, many who clearly looked Sephardic like myself, I felt an emotion which is difficult to describe – one of affinity and being embraced in a huge and exhilarating family circle. Although I had not been raised as an Orthodox Jew, I suddenly felt that would not matter to my Jewish brethren who greeted us with interest, vigor and kindness. Being there was akin to being held by our greater Jewish family in an enormous group hug, full of religiosity and the embrace of the Torah. We silently aid “todah rabah” to God for making it to the synagogue, despite a mountain of pragmatic issues.
My son, ever the historian, was awestruck by someone’s mention at our table of the fact that Congregation Mikveh Israel’s history also had a small non-Jewish background. Prominent (non-Jewish) Philadelphians such as Benjamin Franklin and Robert Morris contributed to its building fund and a nearby church helped to finance some of its latter-day construction as well. As we sat there enjoying a scrumptious meal, we reveled in the fact that the synagogue’s colonial history had so forcefully continued to the present day, yoking itself to the history of a developing nation which so many Jewish hands, hearts and minds had contributed to. I know at that moment that we had finally found our spiritual home in Congregation Mikveh Israel and that we would forever celebrate our Sephardic roots in a synagogue which glories in them and makes real the proposition that history is a living, breathing thing whose influence gives every Jew – Sephardic and otherwise – an intractable place in Hashem’s beautiful world.
BOOKS BY RABBI WELTON:
