Just because Sacramento Congregation B’nai Israel was the victim of an anti-Semitic arson attack doesn’t mean its charitable spirit has gone up in smoke.
The June 1999 firebombing damaged the Reform congregation’s administrative building in addition to gutting the library, incinerating more than 7,000 books and videos. All told, damages reached roughly $1 million.
Yet in the midst of its fund-raising drive, B’nai Israel opted to spread the wealth.
When a Reform child becomes bar or bat mitzvah, “it’s recommended the parents donate 3 percent of what they’ll spend on the party to tzedakah,” said B’nai Israel congregant Mark Berman, a regional member of ARZA/World Union, North America. The Reform organization supports pluralism in Israel and progressive Judaism worldwide.
“I thought, ‘Well, if we’re raising money for ourselves and receiving tzedakah at the same time the Northern California ARZA/World Union is seeking money in support of a project, why don’t we just marry the two?'”
The result: While raising funds for its damaged administrative building, scorched library and overcrowded sanctuary — a problem even before the fire — the congregation earmarked a percentage of the donations for a Reform project within Israel.
Aided by the strong advocacy of B’nai Israel’s senior rabbi, Brad Bloom, Berman’s plan came to fruition at last month’s World Union for Progressive Judaism conference in Washington, D.C., when he presented Rabbi Meir Azari of Tel Aviv’s Reform Congregation Beit Daniel a check for $20,000.
The money goes toward the Jaffa Project for the construction of a combined Reform synagogue, youth hostel and community center in southern Tel Aviv. The complex will relieve a great deal of strain from Beit Daniel, the only Reform congregation in the entire city.
“The idea of helping any Reform synagogue in Israel get four walls and a roof is appealing to me,” said Kent Newton, one of B’nai Israel’s top fund-raisers. “In Israel, there’s virtually no funding for the Reform movement’s clergy or schools or synagogues or anything else, and it isn’t going to come from the same sources as other movements.”
The notion that a congregation with such an obvious financial handicap would be the first in the nation to donate to ARZA’s pet project amazed leaders of the Reform organization.
“We were surprised — no, a better word than surprised — deeply moved and gratified that they wanted to share like this, particularly since their building had been arsoned,” said Marsha Felton, ARZA/World Union’s regional director. “They’re the first Reform temple in the nation to take on a specific fund-raising campaign to help fund an ARZA/World Union project or program in Israel.”
In addition to B’nai Israel’s $20,000 donation, Felton hopes to solicit an additional $54,000 toward the Jaffa Project from local congregations.
To Berman, B’nai Israel’s donation to the Jaffa Project was an avowal of the congregation’s strength, even in the face of adversity.
“I think everyone recognized that this is part of a statement: ‘If you knock us down, we’re going to come back even stronger,'” he said. “Part of that statement is we need to help the Reform, progressive Jewish community to get the message of pluralism and acceptance. In fact, at my short presentation at the World Union for Progressive Judaism, I mentioned that more and more we seem to be in a world of extremists. So I suggested that we, too, must become zealots. Zealots for moderation.”
In addition to making a statement to the world, B’nai Israel’s donation also makes a statement to itself.
“This shows ourselves and the world that we’re not trying to build the Taj Mahal, we’re not trying to raise all the money so we can have the biggest and best-est congregation in California,” said Berman. “We want to show ourselves and everyone else that we’re looking beyond ourselves.”