Rabi Chaim Weiner of the Conservative/Masort Olami Movement came to Valencia from Sept 8-11 for a visit.
On the evening of the 8th, I charmed Chaim into visiting the center where La Javura and the Asociacion Valenciana de Diabetes offer exercise and nutrition classes free of charge to the general public as a part of our social action service to the community at large. Next stop (somewhere around midnight), Chaim came to visit the cheery green-painted room which houses La Javura. We showed him the library and the strawberry plants in the window and all the rest of it. Chaim invited us for shajarit shabat and havdala the following day with him and his group of 12 others from Edgeware (London, England) at the recently formed masorti-affiliated, predominantly south-american group "Aviv" also here in Valencia. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience as Chaim is a very good speaker. During shajarit shabat, I couldn't help but notice that Aviv lacked jumash, siddur and majzor in English for their occasional english-speaking visitors. After shajarit shabat (but before I accompanied the Edgeware group on a quickie-tour of the Valencian Post Office, train station and Central Market), I asked them if they could use some books and they accepted the offer. I went home for lunch and came back just before havdala with my red shopping cart and: 10 Hertz humash 7 RA/USA Sabbath and Festival Prayer books 10 Silverman majzor The truth of the matter is that it is the USCJ Presidents on the e-Prez-list and the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) that we must thank for their unswerving generosity these last 8 years in sending La Javura donations of books, calendars, humash, majzor, siddur and other material such as but not only filmstrips and children's hebrew books. Though we ourselves only speak Spanish (in the main), we have been able to share these books (and material) with the reform, masorti and modern orthodox synagogues that have English-speaking visitors (not only in Spain). Last week a member of La Javura drove to the english-speaking modern-orthodox british synagogue in Alicante/Benidorm, tourist towns two hours down the coast south of Valencia, to deliver a box of 25 Silverman majzor in time for the new year. We have sent tallit to both Bet-El (masorti) in Madrid as well as Atid (reform) in Barcelona. I want you all to know that everything the guys and gals of the USCJ Prez's and AJL send us gets used and is appreciated (more than fingers can type). None of it ends up in someone's closet or forgotten in some corner (which would be pretty hard to do since there are only 4 corners in the green room of La Javura, anyway). Recently some of you might have received a letter from Alan Silverstien outlining the activities of Masorti Olami and asking for financial support (sure, why not, everybody does this time of year, it's practically my middle name...). Chaim Weiner travels all over Europe visiting most conservative synagogues with almost equal attention (some need more attention than others; there are just so many hours in a day...). Chaim runs the beit din in London and coordinates communication amongst us little groups. La Javura isn't the only itty-bitty island out there living in a semi-vacuum. In this new year if you happen to be considering a vacation trip to Europe or Australia perhaps and start rummaging about for a synagogue to visit, keep in mind that without the books, materials and the occasional donation either to the Masorti Olami movement in general or to a specific synagogue, we would most likely be dead and you would have to scratch that activity off your things-to-see-and-do list. So! Give heartily to your synagogues because there is no place like home and may you all have a sweet, well-rounded new year. Besos de Valencia Alba Toscano, presidenta y bibliotecaria Sinagoga conservador/masorti "La Javura" (28 individuals) calle Uruguay 59, pta 13 46007 Valencia (Espana) +34 96 380 2129 http://www.uscj.org/world/valencia Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the AJL =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: Hasafran @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
