Navigation

Tag Archives | hakhel

hakehilla

Hakhel Spotlight: The Kehilla in South Korea

By on November 6, 2018 in Hakhel Blog

Hakehillah is a Jewish cultural community focused on welcoming and including all who wish to celebrate Jewish tradition, religion, and culture. There aren’t many Jews in South Korea, and we want to make everyone feel like they have a family here, whether they’re a “good Jew” or “bad Jew.” We’re family. Using photos of Korea taken by our members from throughout the year, we’ve produced a calendar which includes both Korean and Jewish holidays from September 2018 to October 2019, or in other words the Jewish year 5779. If you would be interested in supporting our community in a small way, the calendar can be ordered here. The suggested donation is $35, and it can be shipped to most countries. The calendars were designed by Sarah Gavin of www.coffeecatskimchi.com who is also a core Kehilla member.   Hakehillah is a Hakhel community. Learn more about Hakhel – the first-of-its-kind Jewish Intentional Communities Incubator

Continue Reading
Hakhel (25) sq

Hakhel Spotlight: Urban Moshav Boston

By on November 6, 2018 in Hakhel Blog

by Jonas Parker On our Hakhel tour of intentional communities last month, our small group bonded quickly. With representatives from Baltimore, Boston, New York, Philadelphia – as well as Mexico, Ukraine, and Russia – we easily bridged our linguistic and cultural differences (everyone speaks some English and everyone enjoys good food). At Degania, the first kibbutz, founded in 1909, we had the opportunity to speak with Muki Tzur, one of the foremost leaders and historians of the kibbutz movement. Now in his 80s, Muki spoke with a deeply grounded knowledge and wisdom about what it means for Degania to now be entering its 6th generation. He also explained how the “poison of nostalgia” freezes the past into a false ideal, and he drew the distinction between testament and heritage: testament is an approach to the past that says “this is the way things were and must be, therefore I will tell you what to do”, while heritage says “I trust you to look at our shared past, and decide what to keep and adapt for your future.” The gifts history has to offer are insights into how people of the past thought about the future; across time, people are always […]

Continue Reading
pittsburgh sq

Hakhel Spotlight: November Newsletter Message

By on November 6, 2018 in Hakhel Blog

Dear friends, “There were shots in a synagogue in Pittsburgh,” my hosts in New York informed me last Saturday night when I returned from a wonderful Shabbat with UWS Jews, a community of young Jews in New York, who are part of the 2018 cohort of Hakhel. “There are 11 dead, an anti-Semitic murderer.” In the second before the shock hit me, I still had time to think about the blessing of Shabbat that cuts us off from the world for a moment and enables us to gather as a community, and even to postpone such bitter news for a few more hours. On Monday, I was supposed to continue to Canada for meetings with other communities, but I quickly concluded that it would not make sense to continue with the schedule as if nothing had happened: I canceled the meetings, organized what I needed and arrived in Pittsburgh after a six hours drive from New York. “You may have gotten used to such things in Israel,” Dafna told me, “but you just live in a constant sense of anxiety.” I met Dafna after I arrived at Pittsburgh’s JCC. All attempts to contact acquaintances and colleagues in Pittsburgh in advance […]

Continue Reading