Masorti Olami

During Rosh Hashanah 5754/2003 a group of people from different countries met to share a dinner for the Holiday. The seed of a new Kehilla was there, in the wish of those people to have a Jewish Community in Valencia. We needed to have a place to share experiences and be able to live a Jewish life in a country where Judaism is unknown and Jews are a very small minority. From an initial group of 5 people, we began to grow. We are 30 paying members with over 100 participants of our activities. We rent a small flat to use as a Synagogue and as a meeting place and celebrate Kabalat Shabbat and Holiday Services. Our Community is young, dynamic, egalitarian and democratic. We want to promote the respect and tolerance between religions and cultures. We offer Hebrew and Judaism classes, Jewish related theme cinema sessions and conferences. Activities for children are a priority for us; we offer a Sunday school for different ages and have special activities for kids at every holiday we celebrate. We meet for every important day of the calendar: Pesach, Iom Hahoa, Purim, Chanukah, Kabalat Shabbat, Iamim Noraim, etc. From the beginning the members knew this would be a Masorti Community. Rabbi Joe Wernick and Rabbi Chaim Weiner visited us and gave our Community the support we needed. In 2005 we registered Kehillat Aviv as a non-profit association and on February 14th we became a part of the World Council of Conservative synagogue Masorti Olami. In October 2005 we received the donation of our Sefer Torah, from Rabbi Alex Felch Synagogue in USA.
 
 
Kehillat Aviv Valencia
Report February - June 2009

These past months have been difficult due to the lack of funds, but we decided to continue with all our activities, maybe making them smaller or more sporadically. But we know that if we stop one of them, will be harder to start over again.
We continue offering our regular activities, lessons, sending our newsletter and celebrating every Chag.
Our Hebrew classes and the activity for children "Jug la Ieled" continue every week and are very successful, new families keep contacting us because of these.
We keep offering educational, cultural and religious activities for all ages. For example, we offer Cooking classes, where we teach traditional dishes and explain Kashrut questions.
One of our main goals is to improve and grow our relation to other Jewish Communities in Spain. We attended to activities organized by Beth Shalom Alicante and by the Ortodox Community in Valencia and received visitors from both Communities in our activities.
 
Here we explain some of the highlights of the last months:
 
In January 31 we offered the "Guefilte Fish" concert, an Argentinean music duet, coming back from their Israeli tour visited for a great concert. Over 50 people attended, including people from Beth Shalom Alicante.
During the conflict in Gaza, on February 2nd we had a conference and discussion with an expert, very well attended.
We had a Tu B’shvat Seder and for Purim a special Kabalat Shabat, we attended to the Reading of the Meguila together with the Ortodox Community and travelled for the Purim party in Alicante organized by Beth Shalom.
For Pesach we organized a cooking class, we cooked for the Communitary Seder and the donations that students gave for the class, were used to pay for the dinner of families that couldn’t pay. The Communitary Pesach Seder, was attended by 60 people.
We had a Iom Hashoah memorial act and open classes for adults and children about Iom Haatzmaut, with videos and singing.
In May we offered a Rikudei Am workshop. Was a very successful activity, a professional teacher came from Madrid to teach us, not only dances, but the history of Israeli music and dances. As the activity was held in a cultural centre for immigrants, many non Jewish people attended, even Islamic people came, and we all enjoyed how art and good will can bring us together.
Regarding more formal events, we held a Masorti Spain meeting in Alicante, and we continue to work together to develop the Movement in Spain.
Also, last week we were formally accepted as associate members by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain and we attended to the annual dinner. This means we have official recognition as Jewish Community and have the chance to apply for funding.

This is a difficult year, but we'll continue with our activities. Some plans for the future are:
In November we'll have our first Bar Mitzvah, will be a big event for us and we expect to receive the visit of a Rabbi or a Chazan to make the occasion more special and give the boy support.
We are in process of sending a group of children to Noam UK camps for the first time, this summer; we hope this will the beginning of a fruitful relation.