Volume XXV, Issue XVII | www.jvhri.org Serving Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts
BAR | BAT MITZVAH
3 Heshvan 5779 | October 12, 2018
Rabbi Wayne Franklin honored for lifetime achievement BY NOEL RUBINTON
Temple Sinai in Cranston
Temple Sinai celebrates its 60th anniversary BY LARRY KESSLER The founding members of Temple Sinai, in Cranston, each had individual reasons for taking the first steps, but they were united in one goal: starting a Reform temple that would serve the growing Rhode Island Jewish population outside of Providence. Their determined efforts were successful: On Saturday, Nov. 3, Temple Sinai will celebrate its 60th anniversary with a gala event. Phil Segal, 92, the temple’s second president, still lives in the same house in Cranston as he did 60 years ago, and he’s as dedicated to the temple now as he was in 1958, when 10 couples, including he and his wife, Barbara, attended a series of exploratory meetings. “We all wanted a Reform [Hebrew] school for the kids. We wanted a local temple,” Segal said of his and Barbara’s motivation. Founder Ada Winsten, 83, and her first husband, the late Jordan Tanebaum, also had personal reasons for joining the undertaking. “I wanted my children to have a Jewish community,” Winsten recalled. So, after hearing about the
group, they got involved too. Winsten, who arrived in the United States at 15, after her family fled Nazi-occupied Poland in 1939, traveling first to Lithuania and then to Shanghai, has never looked back. Sinai, she said, was the first real Jewish community she was a part of, and she and her husband embraced the temple: She joined the sisterhood and he served in the brotherhood and on the temple’s board of directors. Winsten, who still works out of her Providence home as a psychotherapist and social worker, said they especially enjoyed spending Friday nights at services in those early years and then going to people’s homes for an Oneg Shabbat. “I formed my closest friends from those days. … I formed lifelong relationships,” she said. The founders’ hard work eventually led to a ground-breaking on June 4, 1961, and to the temple being dedicated on May 10, 1963, but it all began with that first exploratory meeting at Allen White’s house, according to an article written in 1983 by the temple’s then-librarian, the late Edith Grant, for the silver anniversary celebration. SINAI| 20
As part of an evening celebrating people who have acted as bridges to link diverse communities, Rabbi Wayne M. Franklin of Temple Emanu-El in Providence received a lifetime achievement award on Oct. 4 from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities. Franklin was singled out by the council for his “more than three decades of service as a faith leader, educator and advocate for civic dialogues.” Council board chair Touba Ghadessi said in giving him the award: “We will find common ground” through such work. The Honorary Chairs' Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Humanities came at the council’s 2018 “Celebration of the Humanities” event that was themed “Bridge.” With nearly 300 people on hand, including Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza and U.S. Rep. Jim Langevin, council Executive Director Elizabeth Francis praised the honorees as “people who contribute so much to the humanity and civility of the state.” Franklin, who will retire next summer after 38 years as senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, has
Rabbi Wayne Franklin accepts the Honorary Chairs’ Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Humanities. led numerous dialogue initiatives in Rhode Island, involving Jews working with many other faith groups, including Catho-
lics, Protestants, Muslims, Hindu, and Buddhist, as well FRANKLIN | 19
Mohammed Al Samawi to tell his incredible story at Alliance Annual Campaign event BY SETH FINKLE What do four strangers, three faiths and social media have in common? Mohammed Al Samawi. Who is he and what is his story? You can find out on Sunday, Oct. 28 at 7 p.m. as the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island hosts Al Samawi at the Dwares Jewish Community Center in Providence. Come hear Al Samawi talk about his incredible journey from hatred to tolerance at the 2019 Annual Campaign event, co-chaired by Marisa Garber and Dan Gamm. Al Samawi’s book, “The Fox Hunt: A Refugee’s Memoir of Coming to America” will soon be made into a major motion picture by “La-La Land” producer Marc Platt. Born in the Old City of Sana’a, Yemen, to a pair of middle-class doctors, Mohammed Al Samawi was a devout Muslim raised to think of Christians and Jews as his enemy. In a recent phone interview, he said that he was taught that Jews cannot be trusted. “If they are smiling in your face, they will kill you in the back. They hate us and want to destroy Muslim and Yemenites.” AL SAMAWI | 4
Mohammed Al Samawi