TORAH ON TAP

A new ‘Jewish tavern’ aims to bring Torah learning to Boston’s Jewish masses

Courtesy

To the extent that Lehrhaus, a new bar coming to Somerville, Mass., could be compared to anything, its closest analog would probably be an Irish pub, rather than a synagogue multipurpose room or a grab-and-go café at the local JCC. But the new neighborhood establishment bills itself as a Jewish tavern and house of learning, akin to a neighborhood watering hole and community library, with educators on hand to guide people in learning Jewish text. “We want to build on-ramps to Jewish learning in an environment that people understand and want to spend time in,” Lehrhaus director Rabbi Charlie Schwartz told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch in an interview last week in this still-under-construction space.

Place to be: “This is gonna be the place to be and the best kosher food in New England, if not farther afield. And good Torah, and community,” said Lehrhaus board chair Joshua Foer, who also founded Sefaria, a digital library of Jewish texts. The name comes from a term coined by the early-20th-century German Jewish thinker Franz Rosenzweig, who hosted a salon called the Freie Jüdische Lehrhaus, or “free Jewish house of learning.” During the day, Lehrhaus will be a members-only space for people who join the institution’s beit midrash and want to stop by to study alone or in hevruta, with a partner. In the evening, Lehrhaus will be open to the public, with a bar and dining program designed by award-winning veterans of Boston’s restaurant scene.  

Sneak peek: The food will be “pescatarian kosher.” A sampling of menu items shared with JI includes a signature “Lehrhaus kugel” with crispy Roman artichoke, and fish schnitzel with fries seasoned with Old Bay, the tangy spice popular on Maryland seafood. “It’s a Jewish tavern. The milieu is a Jewish one,” said Schwartz, adding that even the menu offers an opportunity for “passive learning moments that you can incorporate in a non-preachy way.” Take, for instance, those Old Bay fries: “What does it mean when the server knows the Jewish history of Old Bay?” (The seasoning was created by a Holocaust survivor.)

Making it happen: Lehrhaus is working with a handful of local and national Jewish organizations to create pluralistic content. Partners include the Jewish Review of Books, the Newton-based, nondenominational rabbinical school Hebrew College, the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America and Hadar, the New York egalitarian yeshiva. (Hartman and Hadar both expanded to Boston earlier this year.) Early funders of Lehrhaus, which is operating as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that hopes to offset most costs through profits from the bar, include Boston’s Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the city’s federation, the Jim Joseph Foundation and the Aviv Foundation. 

Read more here.

AUTHENTIC RELATIONSHIPS

Navigating Gen-Z Israel conversations

Courtesy Shalom Hartman Institute of North America

“There is consensus on very few issues in the Jewish community these days, but one thing we all seem to agree on is that educating the next generation about Israel is a top priority,” writes Avigail Schneiman, campus student relationship coordinator at Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.

One size doesn’t fit all: “Many of the college students I work with strive to apply their commitment to social justice to their relationship with Israel. For each student, the dynamic is unique, but it usually means grappling with how to be in relationship with Israel and how to hold the country they feel a connection to, to a standard they feel to be morally just.”

Still learning and growing: “I see my role as one of walking with these students as they develop their vision and dream of the Israel they want for the future. Often, that means modeling for them ways to embrace the stickiness and messiness of having aspirations for Zionism beyond the current reality. Frequently, students struggle because they feel they should have both their identity and their positions about the State of Israel ‘figured out.’  But this ignores that college students are still learning and growing. Why would we ask students to have a formulated position on Israel when they are still trying to figure out the world around them, and indeed their own identities?”  

Read the full piece here.

Worthy Reads

Coming-of-Aging Rituals: The older generation is reclaiming coming-of-age rituals, Paula Span writes in The New York Times, including b’nai mitzvah, and creating new ones, like a ‘simchat chochmah’ (celebrating the wisdom of age): “Harry Oxman’s bar mitzvah at the Society Hill Synagogue in Philadelphia looked much like the traditional Saturday morning event. He recited the customary prayers before and after the Torah reading. He discussed the meaning of the day’s Torah portion. He carried the sacred scrolls in a procession around the sanctuary. The rabbi offered a blessing; the congregation yelled a congratulatory ‘Mazel tov!’ and tossed pieces of candy to symbolize the sweetness of the days ahead. Lunch followed, with toasts from family members. The difference was that the celebration, a tradition that normally marks Jewish adulthood for 13-year-olds, occurred in 2019, when Mr. Oxman was 83… At Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn, Senior Rabbi Rachel Timoner plans to add blessings for congregants entering retirement or becoming grandparents to sabbath services. She also intends to offer a ritual developed in the 1980s for older women called simchat chochmah, a celebration of aging and wisdom. ‘The second half of life includes so many moments that are worthy of attention and communal celebration,’ Rabbi Timoner said.” [NYTimes]

Make Nonprofits Trustworthy Again: From the left, there are concerns that nonprofits are thwarting the efforts of grassroots organizations that could make a real difference; from the right and center come concerns about nonprofits being in thrall with progressive causes at the expense of liberal values, Greg Berman writes in The Chronicle of Philanthropy. All of this, combined with incidents of financial mismanagement, is at the expense of trust in the sector, he writes: “How can nonprofits bolster public trust in their effectiveness? The first step is to admit that while none of these critiques is completely accurate — nonprofits are not, after all, uniformly neoliberal, woke, or corrupt — there is at least some merit to all of them. Tackling these legitimate concerns won’t happen without concerted effort. Nonprofits must first engage in healthy self-reflection, with the emphasis on ‘healthy.’ This shouldn’t be seen as another excuse for navel gazing. Instead, they should take pains as part of their standard strategic-planning process to ask hard questions about whether they are making real progress toward achieving their mission as opposed to simply perpetuating their own existence.” [ChronicleofPhilanthropy]

Pic of the Day

JCC Association of North America

More than 1,600 Jewish teen athletes from 57 delegations and 67 JCCs from across Canada, the U.S., Mexico and Israel gathered alongside the San Diego Jewish community to mark the start of the JCC Maccabi Games on Monday. Jerri-Ann and Gary E. Jacobs, immediate past chairman of JCC Association of North America, and Sharon and David Wax, chairman of JCC Association of North America, are pictured with the torch.