Israeli Shlicha Letter to the Communities

February 22, 2008

Dear community members of Cairo, Carbondale, Alton, Belleville, Benton and Paducah!

I hope this letter finds you all in good health and humor and that you survive the ice-storm without much trouble.

These days I'm busy working on my MA thesis and the different cancellations of programs because of the weather, as disappointing as they are, give me much needed time to finish my academic duties. Other than that, I am really enjoying the beauty of it all – last week the storm made all the trees in the area look as if they're made of glass and it was lovely. The lunar eclipse that occured this week just added to it all. Rare winter, people say. Good timing, I think.

Well, last week I've had a first of its kind experience. I led Friday night services at Belleville. In my wildest dreams, if you had told me half a year ago that I would ever serve as a "rabbi" and lead religious services, I would have laughed out loud, not believing this is even possible. The thought of my friends/family in Israel watching me as I am doing this makes me realize just how far fetched this idea is to us, Israelis. For us, a religious service is something that is led by an older male rabbi clad in a black suit, wearing a black hat, having a huge black/white/yellow/red beard (you choose) and reading the prayers from the siddur in a solemn tone, everything is very serious and structured – and I must admit, I like it. When I first got here it caught me by surprise to see so many lay-led services which are much more flexible, colorful and relaxed. Seeing so many of you leading services reading the Hebrew prayers with your cute American accents made me realize that I can do it too and even with the right accent! Belleville was my first experience doing that and it felt good, if very (very!) strange… me as a substitute to a rabbi, who would have thought! I was contemplating to go back home the same night, because it seems normal to do that, but just the thought that distance and time wise it's just like going from Tel Aviv to Nahariya for Friday night services and then returning to Tel Aviv that same night made me realize how absurd it is, how huge the distances are here and how many hours I spend on the roads going from one place to the other during my time here. The thought made me accept Arlene and Don Katz's invitation to spend the night at their house, and I feel that going back to C'dale the following day after a good night sleep and in day light was a good decision.

Saturday night we had a wonderful cooking workshop with Israeli chef Avi Sekerel, as a part of our Israel at 60 event series. Ruth Grater's house was full of guests from Paducah, Carbondale, Belleville and Alton and it was exciting to see how the different people that I know from the different places get together and get to know each other. Avi did a wonderful job and all of us had a wonderful time. Because of the road conditions many of us had a hard time getting our cars out of the ice/snow at the end of the evening, and some of us even had to spend the night at Ruth and Simeon's house. Emily Martinez joined me the next day for the Wine Trail here – what a beautiful Southern Illinois this is! I don't know how many people are aware of it outside this area.

I was also happy to finally meet Ed Benyas of Carbondale this week after a beautiful concert of the Southern Illinois Symphony Orchestra of which he is a Music Director. Ed was conducting the orchestra and hypnotizing us all with his words and music. Hal Pearlman took me to the concert and I thank him and Susan for doing this and so many other things for me. I am truly grateful.

I would like to wish Jonathan Wiesen and Natasha Zaretzky of Carbondale a big Mazal Tov for the birth of their son, Julian. May they know happiness and Nachat always.

Refu'ah shlema to Sara Faye Marten of Murphysboro. She has gone through an operation on her hand recently and is feeling well. We wish her good health now and always.

Mazal Tov to Don and Vivian Ugent for their wedding anniversary! We wish them many more happy years together.

            As you know, Israeli channel 2 TV journalist, Sagi Bashan, is going to speak at SIUC and at MSU (KY) as part of our Israel at 60 event series. Here are the details (I'll send a separate announcement about it soon):

 

For more events, please refer to the schedule that our webmaster Bill Bruns posted on the Federation's website: http://www.simokyfed.com/israelat60.html

Quiz 6:

The last quiz was: what year did Israel's national soccer team make it to the World Cup finals and in what country were the games taking place?

Alan Andich (Belleville), Bill Bruns (Carbondale), Karon Donahue (Carterville) and Mick Brown (Alton) all wrote back with the right answer: Mexico, 1970.

The first one to send me the answer, however, was Sheila Bengtson (C'dale) who wins this week's copy of Dershowitz's The Case for Israel.

Quiz 7:

She's an Israeli actress that appeared in Stargate (1994) and in some episodes of Law and Order (and also dated one of the stars of Friends). What is her name and what is the title of the latest Israeli movie she starred in? The first one to send me the right and full answer will win our regular prize (Dershowitz's The case for Israel), and the second one to do that will win Rick Recht's CD What Feels So Right.

I wish you all Shabbat Shalom!

Revital

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Revital Yona
Israel Emissary to the Jewish federation of Southern Illinois, Southeastern Missouri and Western Kentucky
314-956-9247
revitalsimokyfed@gmail.com