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Volume XX • Number 51 • December 19-25, 2013 •
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Synagogue in effort to attract young Jews By PAULETTE SCHNEIDER Roni Tabick has a flair for community-building. Tabick, the rabbinic intern at the Conservative Synagogue Adath Israel of Riverdale, leads a new and growing group of young adults who’ve hiked together in Riverdale Park, reveled at a post-Hanukkah bash in someone’s home and partied in a sukkah with board games and pizza. They hold monthly soirees and Friday night dinners. Plans are afoot for an
ice-skating event in Van Cortlandt Park. The group, called the Riverdale Jewish Project, was envisioned by CSAIR’s Rabbi Barry Dov Katz. “He wanted me to take it on and run with it,” Tabick said. “It suits me. I love working with young adults.” RJP was started, he explained, to serve a population that synagogues typically neglect—singles in their twenties and thirties who haven’t yet found the right partner.
War monument sees the light
On Monday, Bronx Parks Commissioner Hector M. Aponte, City Councilman G. Oliver Koppell, and Community Board 7 Chair Adaline Walker-Santiago cut the ribbon on a new lighting system for the WWI Monument on Mosholu Parkway. Councilman Koppell allocated $100,000 to fund this energy-efficient metal halide lighting system. “For nearly 90 years, this monument on the historic Mosholu Parkway has stood as a testament to the courage of Bronx servicemen in the War to End All Wars,” said Bronx Parks Commissioner Hector Aponte. “But without lighting, it was only visible in the daytime. Now, thanks to funding allocated by Councilman Koppell for a new lighting system, the monument will ‘shine a light’ on this pivotal era in American history at all hours of the day.” The bronze monument honors local
servicemen who paid the supreme sacrifice during World War I. The monument, designed by artist Jerome Connor (18751943) depicts a fallen soldier, protected by a comrade who stands vigilant with bayonet in hand. At his feet, an eagle with wings spread symbolizes the victorious call to arms. This monument was unveiled before thousands of spectators on November 11, 1925. Mosholu Parkway is a landscaped highway connecting Bronx Park to Van Cortlandt Park. It stretches from Allerton Avenue to Gun Hill Road, with an extension north through Van Cortlandt Park. The parkway was designed in the 1860s by distinguished landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed a number of historic parks in New York City, including Central Park, Prospect Park, and Morningside Park.
But around half of the group’s current members are couples, and at least half are men. Through word of mouth, some show up from Yonkers, some from Manhattan. Young adults are even moving to Riverdale from Manhattan, Tabick said, for the better housing values but also because they’ve felt drawn to the CSAIR community. Some also have roots here and decided to return. “One of the things about CSAIR is that it’s a living, breathing community, which has people in it from all segments of the population, all different ages,” he observed. “In most of the Conservative world, the average age is going up. In CSAIR, the average age seems to be going down as more and more young people come into the community.” As a Gladstein Fellowship recipient at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Tabick is spending his fourth and fifth year of rabbinical school working in two different settings—a larger established community and an emerging community. CSAIR, the larger community, is one of two area synagogues that host Gladstein Fellows. “Rabbi Barry Katz is a phenomenal mentor,” Tabick said. “He was brought into the program because he’s so great at training rabbis.” Tabick’s emerging community is the New Stoke Newington Shul in London, a 40-family congregation. He travels there one weekend each month to participate in Shabbat services and, of course, to bring young adults together for Jewish-themed social gatherings. He plans to settle there with his family once he graduates. A London native, Tabick is the son of two Reform rabbis—his mother was the United Kingdom’s first woman rabbi. He and his wife moved to Riverdale last June and he began his post at CSAIR last August, just when the couple’s daughter was born. For RJP, Tabick has a vibrant core group to help with the planning. “It’s been very exciting,” he said. “It takes a lot of work off of me—it means I can focus on the community-building and meeting people and recruitment because I’ve got this amazing team that just wants to organize events.” That team seems to reflect the CSAIR culture. “Rabbi Katz is someone who gets to know everyone who walks in the door,” Tabick said. “He creates an atmosphere where other people also do the same job—everybody is trying to get to know everyone who walks in the door.” Tabick is also a fan of Cantor Elizabeth
Rabbi Roni Tabick Stevens, who can “pitch how she davens depending upon the audience.” She may sound more cantorial on the High Holidays, but “on a regular Shabbat, she tones it all down to make sure everyone can join in with her. She brings other people in. She brings in new tunes. People have said ‘she davens like she means it.’” Tabick sees ritual observance as a form of building community. “Ritual allows us to get together and do stuff together in a formal way and feel like we’ve done our job,” he said. “It allows us all to feel good that we’ve achieved something together.” For example, “When you come to Yom Kippur, you spend all day praying and at the end of it, you have ‘done’ Yom Kippur.” Another fundamental for Tabick is identifying with Jewish narratives, from ancient ones like the Exodus from Egypt to modern ones like the creation of Israel. For thousands of years, he said, the foundational narrative of starting out in slavery and heading toward freedom has resonated with Jews, making Passover the most celebrated of the holidays. “People in the ancient world would tell stories about how they use to be great and emphasize their greatness. But we chose as our foundational narrative that we used to be slaves. That gives us the obligation to help other who are slaves and help others who are downtrodden. And that’s what it means to be Jewish— to identify with that story and feel the call to go out and help make the world better.” A comic book aficionado, he compared it to an origin story that defines a character. To get involved in the Riverdale Jewish Project, visit meetup.com or Facebook.