​by Rabbi Aaron Weininger
​
The so-called war on Christmas doesn't happen on the outside of a Starbucks coffee cup. The war on Christmas and the war on people of all faith traditions happens when cynicism and fear are allowed to corrode what’s inside, the soul. Donald Trump's call to bar Muslims from entering the US threatens to do just that to the soul of this country. His words threaten to silence the call engraved on the Statue of Liberty, "I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" 

by Sharon Garber, Adath Congregant 
​
​I admit it – I was a skeptic and non-believer. Ever since I started attending the SPA service in the library, I felt there was something different about this experience, unlike any service I had previously attended.

I tend to fidget after just a few minutes of a typical service and plan a quick escape route.
I first attended SPA because I thought my out-of-town guest might enjoy it. He did, but the big surprise was that I did too; enough to return almost every month since that first experience. I’ve even invited others to attend who have since become regulars despite the fact that they had not walked into any synagogue for a very long time. The cozy space in the library with a beautiful view out the window provided the perfect setting to match the vibrancy of the service. Over the year or so of services, I bounced to the music during snappy tunes and swayed gently to the slower melodic ones.

By Mark Freeman and Elly Zweigbaum
Youth Commission Co-Chairs
 
The Adath Youth Commission is excited for another sensational year of activities in our youth department. Our Director of Youth Engagement, Sue Shrell Leon, has been fantastic and has scheduled a year full of activities for the youth here at Adath. We are drawing in more of our congregation’s teens and getting them involved in the activities at the Synagogue.

​The week of October 19th the 27th World Zionist Congress was held in Jerusalem. This congress was established by Theodore Herzl and first met in Basel, Switzerland in 1897. The World Zionist Organization (WZO) was essential in the founding of the State of Israel and continues its important work today.
 
Representatives from countries all over the world participate in the Congress and work on issues like combatting anti-Semitism, promoting aliyah and connecting world Jewry with the State of Israel. I had the honor to attend the Congress as a member of the Mercaz delegation. Mercaz is the American Zionist organization of the Conservative movement. Mercaz is the Hebrew word for "center" and it symbolizes the idea that Zionism is central to Conservative Judaism and that we reject both political and religious extremes. Masorti (Conservative Judaism in Israel) offers meaningful religious alternatives to Israelis which until recently were missing from the landscape of Israeli life. Thus, one of the key agendas of the Mercaz slate at the World Zionist Congress was pluralism in Israeli religious and political spheres.