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Dear Friends,
We are thrilled to share with you,
two different articles that came out in the press today...
The first is from the "Jewish Journal"
and the second is from "My Daily Find."
Enjoy!
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From the "Jewish Journal" :
Community
September 16, 2009
Nachshon Reaches Out to Unfulfilliated
BY RACHEL HELLER
In an airy Encino dining room, Cantor Judy Greenfeld instructs 12 women gathered around a lace-covered table on how to relax. Eyes closed, she tells the women to lean back in their chairs, abandon stressful thoughts and picture themselves on a pristine white beach.
"We are at a moment before the New Year where we are shedding our old skin, shedding the things that don't work for us," Greenfeld intones calmly. "Sitting before a vast ocean of potential, we can visualize anything. We can prepare ourselves to be the best we can be, even better than last year."
The class is offered through the Nachshon Minyan, an alternative religious community Greenfeld founded three years ago to make Torah more vivid and accessible to a wider audience. And like everything the Nachshon Minyan comprises - monthly Shabbat services and holiday celebrations, a women's Torah-study course and Torah school for kids - this morning's High Holy Days class is imbued with a spiritual inclusiveness that has drawn a devoted and burgeoning membership of about 150 people, despite the group's lack of a permanent building. Greenfeld says the minyan has inspired many participants to embrace Judaism for the first time in their lives.
"My goal is to reach out to people who have been disillusioned - the unaffiliated, and the unfulfilliated," Greenfeld said. "I want to find those people on the fringe and give them something that is educational, personal and beautiful."
In practice, that has meant shaking up the Shabbat service a little. Greenfeld, a former professional dancer, makes music a cornerstone of her monthly Saturday morning services, which are held at the Baha'i Cultural Center in Encino and fall somewhere between Reform and Conservative ideology. She also shortens the service by forgoing the haftarah, and provides English translation and transliteration to all the prayers in an alternative prayer book she compiled herself.
One more thing - there's no rabbi.
Cantors are fully qualified to lead services, said Greenfeld, who was ordained at the Academy for Jewish Religion, California. And instead of having one religious figure give the sermon each month, Greenfeld invites activists and community leaders to speak at Nachshon Minyan gatherings about faith and tikkun olam.
On Rosh Hashanah this year, Greenfeld and her featured speaker, artist Benny Ferdman, will hand out white flags to members of the congregation - symbolizing surrender to God - which also will serve as blank canvases on which participants can list their commitments for the New Year.
For Yom Kippur, the congregation will host teacher Erin Gruwell, leader of the Freedom Writers high school diary project, dramatized in the 2007 film of the same name. Gruwell will speak at the Kol Nidre service about how people find their personal focus in the effort to better the world.
Past speakers have included educator Sandra Roberts of the Paper Clips Holocaust memorial project, publicized by the eponymous 2004 documentary; Rabbi Capers Funnye, an African American rabbi and first cousin of First Lady Michelle Obama; and Holocaust survivor Eva Moses Kor, subject of the 2005 documentary, "Forgiving Dr. Mengele."
It's this kind of programming, coupled with an air of friendly informality, that Greenfeld says appeals to unaffiliated Jews who had either left the fold or never felt like they were part of it. "I know that feeling of sitting in those giant rooms on the holidays and desperately looking in the prayer book for something to catch onto," said Greenfeld, who grew up "bored" by Conservative services in suburban Ohio. "When you don't feel like you matter, the service just leaves you cold and feels like a burden," she said.
Student Amy Somers calls the Nachshon Minyan "Judaism from the heart."
During the High Holy Days workshop, Greenfeld had her class read and discuss a packet she created called "The Holiday GPS System," encouraging participants to reflect on ways they could reach a place of forgiveness and balance before the New Year. Most of the students were from the Women's Torah Study Journey, a weekly group Greenfeld created to make the study of Torah - whose dense text and religious heft often intimidate new learners - more approachable. So many women wanted to join that Greenfeld had to create a second class last year.
Greenfeld also runs a Nachshon Minyan Torah School for grade-school children. Meeting weekly at the cantor's home, students learn Torah, prayer and Hebrew, and after graduation move on to the Nachshon Minyan's program for b'nai mitzvah. Pre-teens meet with Greenfeld individually, and she says she tries to inspire a love of Judaism. "I tell them, 'You're the next generation - if you don't love it, it's not going to continue,'" she said.
This year, Greenfeld hopes to have members plan the monthly Shabbat services. Friday night and Saturday morning services will be held on alternating months, with the children from Greenfeld's Torah school planning all of the Friday night gatherings. Set to be held at the nearby Los Encinos School, Friday services will feature themes such as Western Jewish heritage or a chocolate Shabbat.
Keeping services fresh and interesting is key to getting hard-to-reach unaffiliated Jews in the door, Greenfeld believes. And once they're in, she said, "I try to meet them where they are - wherever they are in their spiritual journey."
For more information and High Holy Days tickets, call (818) 789-7314 or visit www.nachshonminyan.org.
Original Article & Photos Can Be Found
In this Week's Jewish Journal
or
www.JewishJournal.com (Community Section)
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FROM "MY DAILY FIND":
Encino's Cantor Judy Greenfield reaches out to the
unaffiliated
September 15, 2009
BY RACHEL HELLER
Of all the reasons why people lose their faith, there are few Cantor Judy Greenfeld doesn't understand.
At age 16, Greenfeld's father was held up outside a theater and shot to death. The youngest of five children growing up in suburban Ohio, Greenfeld said she was, for a long time, "angry with God."
"Overnight, my life changed," she recalled recently, lighting a candle in her home office in Encino. "It made me question everything; it turned my world upside-down."
Greenfeld found little comfort at synagogue, where she found services "boring" and "a burden." It would be decades before she decided to explore Judaism again, but this time, she approached her faith from a spiritual angle that sparked a fervor she'd never felt before. Greenfeld became ordained as a cantor and three years ago founded the Nachshon Minyan, an alternative religious community geared toward unaffiliated Jews who are - as Greenfeld was - for something more.
"My goal is to reach out to people who have been disillusioned - the unaffiliated, and the un'fulfill'iated," she said. "I know that feeling of sitting in those giant rooms on the holidays and desperately looking in the prayer book for something to catch onto. A lot of Jews are turned off; they're missing that sense of connection in these big congregations. When you don't feel like you matter, the service just leaves you cold."
Greenfeld, a former professional dancer, discards a surprising number of traditional synagogue trimmings. There's no permanent building, no haftarah (meaning a much shorter service), and - oh yeah - no rabbi.
Instead of having one religious figure give the sermons at her monthly Shabbat services, held at the Baha'i Cultural Center in Encino, Greenfeld invites activists and community leaders to speak about faith and social justice. On Yom Kippur this year, for example, the Minyan will host teacher Erin Gruwell, leader of the Freedom Writers high school diary project, dramatized in the 2007 film of the same name. Past speakers have included educator Sandra Roberts of the "Paper Clips" Holocaust memorial project; Dr. Judea Pearl, father of slain journalist Daniel Pearl and head of the Daniel Pearl Foundation; and Rabbi Capers Funnye, an African American rabbi and first cousin of First Lady Michelle Obama.
In the Nachshon Minyan's devoted community of 150 members, a sense of friendly informality pervades activities, which include holiday celebrations, a women's Torah-study group, Torah school for grade-school kids, and life cycle services, such as weddings and Bar/Bat Mitzvahs. Her services are filled with music as she leads on the guitar and often distributes various hand-held percussion instruments to those in attendance to participate. Greenfeld said the Minyan has built a loyal following and inspired many participants to embrace Judaism for the first time.
That was the case for Tarzana resident Laura Drexler, who first heard about the Nachshon Minyan three years ago. Drexler, who never had a bat mitzvah and remembered synagogue services when she was young as "bland and meaningless," initially rejected a friend's offer to join Greenfeld's Torah study group.
"I said, 'No way, that's not for me; I'm not a religious person, I've never been interested in that,'" Drexler, an educational therapist, recalled. But when she finally gave in and went to a class, she got hooked. "There was something about Judy and the way she presented the material that almost made me feel like I was hearing it for the first time. She breaks it down and makes it modern and relevant. Since I started I've been growing and learning and experiencing Jewish life in a completely different way."
This year, Greenfeld will hold Friday night and Saturday morning services on alternating months, with all Friday night services planned by her Torah school students. Other events on the Nachshon Minyan schedule include a family retreat, a Tu B'shevat tree planting, a Passover cooking class and Shabbat under the stars.
At all services, participants follow along in an alternative prayer book Greenfeld compiled herself, with thorough English translations and transliterations. This way, newcomers don't have to feel intimidated if they don't know the Hebrew.
As Greenfeld says, "God knows all of these languages."
Services are held at the Bahai Center, 4830 Genesta Avenue, Encino, Ca. 91346. For more information about attending High Holiday services, visit www.nachshonminyan.org or call (818) 789-7314
High Holiday Calendar
Friday, September 18, 7:30 pm - Rosh Hashana Evening Service
Saturday, September 19, 9:30 am - Rosh Hashana Day Service; Taschlich at the Beach 5 pm
Sunday, September 27, 7:30 pm - Kol Nidre Service, Speaker Erin Gruwell,Real Life Freedom Writer
Monday, September 28, 9:30 am - Yom Kippur Day Service; Yizkor, Neila 5 pm
Rachel Heller is a Sherman Oaks-based freelance writer and grammatical stickler whose work has appeared in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, the Sun Community Newspapers and the Los Feliz Ledger. She is a graduate of Boston University and an incoming graduate student at USC. She shudders at misspellings of "then" and "than," and can subsist for weeks at a time on Menchie's frozen yogurt.
Original Article & Photos Can Be Found At
www.MyDailyFind.com
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