I spent a wonderful morning with Shirley Brohner going over the early archived albums of Temple Brith Shalom. The Jewish community did some things back then that we don’t do today, and we might reconsider doing them again:
1. When something medical happened to a national or international figure, Temple Brith Shalom wrote that person a get-well greeting. It certainly provided a powerful statement of outreach and caring. I suspect the Pope and President Reagan didn’t personally get our well-wishes, but the intention was good, and we should do it more often.
2. We put blurbs into the local newspaper about EVERYTHING that we were doing, and we included the Phoenix Jewish newspapers. We worked so hard toward creating some Jewish visibility in Prescott.
3. We notified the Jewish community of every activity of Jewish interest in the entire Tri-City Region.
4. We wrote annual explanations of Jewish holidays for the local newspaper with photographs of congregants involved in the holiday celebration.
5. We took photographs of every Temple Brith Shalom activity.
6. We created a true Temple Brith Shalom archives.
Despite these slippages over the years, we have come such a long way in such a short time. Thanks to Rabbi Berkowitz, we are actively involved in social resource groups in the Tri-City Area. Robyn is now Vice Chairperson of the Interfaith Council For Compassion and Justice. We’re both involved in World AIDS Day. Temple Brith Shalom’s services are well-attended. There are three Comparative Religions college courses offered in the Tri-City area, and I speak at each. Yavapai College continues to offer an Introduction to Judaism course. Our seven Hebrew courses attract an interesting variety of non-Jews and Jewish non-members. Our Basic Judaism course has attracted a large group of non-Jews and non-Jewish members. Our Yiddish Group is growing. Our Sisterhood is growing. We have more than thirty children in our Religious School. Our Movie Night is well-attended. Our new Book Discussion Group is fascinating. Thanks to Seymour and his unflagging energy, our monthly Men’s Club Schmoose is growing. Our Torah Study class is growing. The Jewish Foundation is gaining positive visibility. And our members continue to be appreciated as an extraordinary group of volunteers, meeting the needs of Tri-City residents. We have much to celebrate, and we have the night to celebrate it.
One of the annual Jewish functions that has gone back more than 25 years is our Annual Latke Party. The Archive Albums show dedicated women (yeah, it appears to have been uni-gender in the kitchen in the 70’s….) preparing huge mounds of latkes for Chanukah. This year, we are holding our POT-LUCK LATKE CHANUKAH BASH on December 6. Don’t miss out on this celebration of our growth and success here in Prescott. Twenty-five years ago Shirley Brohner was cooking latkes for EIGHTY here in Prescott. With our growing Jewish population, how many can we stuff on December 6? Call Lynda Foldesh to find out how you can join in the festivities.
Rabbi David E. Lipman
