Dor Chadash - A New Generation in Budapest
Reported by Adam Schoenberger, Marom Coordinator in Budapest

Congregation "Dor Chadash" was established in Budapest in August 2007. Dor Chadash means "a new generation", and members are indeed the new generation of Hungarian Masorti Jews. The kehillah include Marom members, high school students from the Lauder school, university students and other young adults. The average age of members is under 30.

After seven years of the existence of Marom Budapest, (the Masorti young adults' organization), which began with totally unaffiliated young members, we are indeed proud of the establishment of our own Masorti community. It is important to mention that some of the Hungarian Neolog rabbis non-officially started to help us by donating tallitot and other equipment.  

Dor Chadash will be participating in the Marom Budapest Chanukah Festival this year. We are looking forward to studying with Rabbi Judit Rubin who will be visiting Budapest in December and will come to Dor Chadash to teach.

We are in need of sidurim, chumashim, tallitot, tefillin, Jewish books, etc. Please be in contact with Adam Schoenberger if you are able to help:adamschonberger@yahoo.co.hu 
We welcome visitors to our community. Anyone who wants to spend a Shabbat in Budapest, please contact Adam.

For more information, visit our website: www.maszorti.hu (in Hungarian)

Adam Schoenberger (in yellow shirt) with members of Dor Chadash

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At the recent Masorti Europe Conference in Paris, Masorti Europe proudly announced the affiliation of its newest community, “Centre Juda?ca” - Communaut? Massorti Marseille-Provence. With an estimated 100,000 Jews, Marseilles is the second largest Jewish community in France and the third largest in Europe. The kehillah is made up of Jews of North African descent, making this one of the few Masorti communities in the world to follow the Sephardic tradition.

The community in Marseilles joins the newly formed association "Massorti France", along with Congregation Adath Shalom in Paris, Maayane Or in Nice and Masorti Havurot in Aix-en-Provence and Adath Shalom East Paris. Sergio Wax serves as president of Massorti France.

For further news about developments in France, please visit www.massorti.org

Welcoming Communaut? Massorti Marseille-Provence (l to r): Rabbi Yeshaya Dalsace (Nice), Rabbi Rivon Krygier (Paris), Gerard Adjadj and Jean Marc Benaccoun (Marseille), Alan H. Silberman (President Masorti Olami), Rabbi Tzvi Graetz (Exec. Dir. Masorti Olami and MERCAZ Olami)

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By Michael Gluckman, Director of AMS

The Masorti teacher training course, which took place in October in Israel, was a great success. An enthusiastic group spent the week with top educators working on the theme of "L’dor vador" – from generation to generation gaining a deeper understanding of how we transmit our heritage. A big thank you to Barbara Stern for all the work in enabling it to take place. Work is already underway to ensure that the valuable ideas and techniques that were learned filter through to our communities.

Part of the Masorti European conference and the activities of the succeeding days in London were devoted to the launch of the European Academy for Jewish Liturgy  - EAJL-  the brain child of our first woman chazzan Jacky Chernett. The phenomenon of the birth of Jewish communities all over Europe, has given rise to the need for these congregations to sustain themselves by accessing their often lost heritage. The European Academy for Jewish Liturgy is a facility that provides competent lay individuals and groups with dedicated professional coaching and mentoring in leadership of Jewish prayer. EAJL nurtures and inspires able individuals who seek to lead their groups in tefillah (prayer), by matching each of them with a professional cantor according to the tradition and language in which they wish to learn. For full details visit www.eajl.org

Chazzan Jacklyn Chernett at Masorti Europe Conference (photo by Anne Baer)

A public event entitled "Is There Still Reason to Believe?" took place on December 2 at the North London Synagogue to mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Louis Jacobs’ book, We Have Reason to Believe. The evening began with a film of Rabbi Jacobs on "We Have Reason To Believe in Torah Min Hashamayim", filmed in 1997. Speakers included Rabbi Jeremy Gordon, Miri Freud-Kandel, author, and Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg. Peter M. Oppenheimer, President, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies led a discussion.

Next week Elstree and Borehamwood Masorti Community will celebrate their first birthday with a full weekend for Shabbat Chanukah. The group is very excited to welcome student rabbi Rafi Kaiserblueth who will be leading services for the weekend.

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Reported by Rabbi Shmuel Szteinhendler

Representatives from five kehillot in Santiago, Chile including Comunidad Israelita de Santiago, Comunidad Israelita Sefaradi de Chile, Comunidad Bnei Israel, Comunidad Israelita de Vi?a del Mar and Comunidad Beit Emunah, have begun meeting once a month to work together on several joint projects. For Chanukah, we are publishing a special brochure about the holiday that will be distributed to all the congregants of these kehillot (approximately 2,000 families) and we will be lighting a Chanukiya together in a public park.

We are also publicizing our activities in a weekly newspaper sponsored by the Comunidad Israelita de Santiago and distributed to 3,200 homes as well as in the monthly magazine sponsored by the Comunidad Israelita Sefaradi and the Comunidad Bnei Israel. This enables us to reach out to other Jews in Santiago that are not affiliated with the Masorti movement, who we hope to interest in our activities and programs. The committee is also working on setting up a special agenda for activities related to the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel in 2008.

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