Paris, Paris, Paris - a shabbathon with friends

The Marom Europe network has started the secular year with an inspiring meeting in Paris between 4-6^th February.  Participants came from Stockholm, Budapest, Valencia and London to meet with local Marom Paris members and leaders, as well as to plan the year ahead. The discussions centered around the Marom Europe website, the next Marom Europe seminar in Spain (26-29^th May 2011), the Marom Europe conference in the summer in Hungary within the frames of the Bánkitó festival www.bankisnotdead.org  (1-7^th August – save the date!), as well as about the challenges, plans of the individual Maroms groups. The discussions were lively, with the active participation of everyone, and the results will be visible for everyone in the next months! Stay tuned!

Beyond the planning and common thinking we also had time for entertainment, spiritual inspiration and resting. We participated in the bat mitzvah of a member and one of us had her first aliyah to the Torah in her life! We have spent shabbath together with the Adath Shalom community, and most prominently members of the Masorti Europe board, representatives of the Masorti communities from all around Europe. Sivan Navon-Shoval, the new Marom Olami coordinator, an alumni of the Hartman Institute, has facilitated a great session about “Michtav harabbanim”, with special illumination about the responsibility of the Masorti / Conservative movement in standing up against such cases in the Jewish world.

At motsei shabbath we had a joint event with Marom Paris at rabbi Yeshaiah Dalsace’s house which was a very interesting Marom experience. We watched a documentary about Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Jewish philosopher. The film showed the controversial, striking personality of Leibowitz through his criticism of Israeli politics. The harsh criticism of the state of Israel was articulated by a man who himself lived in Israel, spoke Hebrew and clearly believed in the existence of the Jewish state, nevertheless he was passionate about his ideal how this State should look like. The evening was memorable as we met with local Marom members and we saw the house of Yeshaiah Dalsace, an apartment in Paris where he lives with his wife and five children and where he has events every day!! It was like an “adult Moishe house”, or rather it evoked the atmosphere and the concept of the rabbis of old times, who lived in shtetls, and whose door was always open to their disciplines, visitors or members of the community.

We left Paris with a lot of ideas, inspirations and a long to-do-list. Thank you Marom Paris, thank you Adath shalom! Au revoir!