THE
Jewish
OBSERVER Vol. 89 No. 2
www.jewishobservernashville.org
FEBRUARY 2024 22 Sh’vat - 20 Adar I 5784
Nashville Rabbis and Community Members Visit Israel on Solidarity Mission Rabbi Mark Schiftan: It began with an extremely targeted goal: A united solidarity mission to Israel with the rabbis of our Nashville community, traveling to learn, to listen, to see, to witness and to stand with and to console the members of our extended Jewish family, and to then return to share the lessons learned from that experience with the greater Nashville Jewish community. There are several solidarity missions visiting our Jewish homeland now, but none of them this unique. Nine Nashville rabbis, representing all five of Nashville’s congregations, spanning the religious spectrum from Reform to Chabad, representing all genders, ages, and years of experience in the rabbinate, along with a handful of other Jewish communal professionals, academics, and philanthropists. We were 14 in all, each of us deeply and profoundly affected by our brief yet extensive view into the current mood, morale and resilience of our Israeli brothers and sisters. We toured the communities bordering the Gaza Strip, met with numerous soldiers, both in active duty and recovering from being wounded in the field. We met with evacuees from those same communities, and with parents and children of the hostages. We experienced the powerful and moving images at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv and visited the graves
ambulances to the Israeli first responder organization, United Hatzalah by Bernie Pargh, who also underwrote the land costs of the trip for all participants. All in all, it was a sacred, meaningful, moving, and powerful experience. It brought all of us in the clergy closer together, something which will benefit the entire Nashville Jewish community. The people of Israel are traumatized yet incredibly resilient, as are we. Their strength in turn strengthened us. I remain incredibly proud of each and every one of my colleagues for joining me on this journey. What follows are reflections offered by many of them. To hear more from the rabbis, the community is invited to the Rabbi’s Report event on February 8, 7-8pm at the Gordon Jewish Community Center.
Nashville rabbis and community leaders traveled to Israel on a solidarity mission.
of the young soldiers who have fallen in combat since October 7 — row after row of them — at Har Herzl, Israel’s Arlington, in Jerusalem. We volunteered packing vegetables at a moshav, helping
to fill in the gap of foreign laborers and others who have fled the country since the start of the conflict. And we had the honor of witnessing the donation of two armor plated
Rabbi Dan Horwitz, The Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville: Vignettes from Israel Sunday: I arrive to a near-empty Ben Gurion airport. I hop in a taxi to head towards my sister’s apartment in Tel Aviv. At a stoplight, my cab driver rolls down his window to chat with the driver of the car stopped next to us, who is pulling a Formula 1 racecar on an attached trailer. My cab driver asks the other driver for his cellphone number. Continued on page 8
Chai Lights: Congregation Micah Celebrates 18 Years of the Rabbis Rice By BARBARA DAB
T
he saying, “Time flies when you’re having fun,” could easily apply to Rabbis Philip “Flip” and Laurie Rice of Congregation Micah. The two will be celebrated next month for their 18 years of service, and to hear them talk, those years really have flown by. In fact, it was during their final interview that they learned they were expecting their third child, daughter Eden, who is now a senior in high school. The position was initially open for just one rabbi, but the two decided to propose they serve together and share the role. “We decided to come clean and tell A Publication of the
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them we both just really wanted to work there,” says Rabbi Laurie, “They had just lost their senior rabbi and their half time assistant rabbi, so we presented ourselves as filling the one and a half positions.” Flip, who was the initial applicant, teases that it really was Laurie who sealed the deal. “They met me and liked me, and then they met her, and it was, ‘We like her, you can come.’” That bold move was something that both Rices say helped them seal the deal. “The fact that the congregation rolled after the process had begun showed us it was at least innovative and alternative and was willing to talk to us,” says Flip. Continued on page 12 Find Love and Continue Your Story: The Jewish Matchmaker is Coming to Nashville , page 3
Local Student Speaks Up and Speaks Out About Antisemitism at Indiana’s Legislature, page 10
Camps Section, page 15