***Please RSVP for Adam Berman’s Bar Mitzvah Lunch THIS Saturday 2/3 on our Events Page ***
The Season 8 episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm when Larry finalizes his divorce from Cheryl contains a hilarious scene where Larry’s lawyer Andrew Berg, who keeps a shofar on his desk and a mezuzah on his office door, is revealed to be Swedish despite his Ashkenazi sounding name. Larry proclaims he’s “been Sweded”, drops the Scandinavian and hires a Jewish lawyer named Hiram Katz who proceeds to negotiate a far worse settlement than if Larry had stuck with the Swede in the first place.
The underlying assumption is that Berg’s Swedish identity negated the possibility of his being Jewish. Few outside the Arctic Circle would disagree. Of course, they would be wrong. Sweden’s Jewish community dates back centuries with synagogues located in Stockholm, Gothenberg, Malmö and Norrköping. The community of 15,000 are full participants in Swedish society with notable contributions to culture, sport, politics and commerce throughout its history until today.
A land of contrasts where you can go weeks without seeing the night sky in summer or sunlight in winter, Sweden’s relationship with its Jews also swings back and forth. Only permitting Jewish settlement without conversion to Lutheranism as late as 1782 and with anti-Semitism at such a fever pitch that the issue merited its own New York Times article in 2017, Sweden can nevertheless proudly claim to have rescued nearly the entirety of Denmark’s Jewish population from the Shoah. On Rosh Hashana 2013, the rabbi of the Great Synagogue in Stockholm caught a break when the High Holiday sermon was instead delivered by President Barack Obama whose remarks focused on the remarkably altruistic work of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg whose efforts saved tens of thousands of Budapest’s Jews from certain death towards the end of the war.
A strange and ignominious bit of notoriety surrounds the most famous rabbi Sweden ever produced, Morris Jacob Raphall. First the positive. Nearly 163 years ago to the day, on February 1, 1860, Rabbi Raphall became the first rabbi in American history to open a session of the US Congress in prayer. “Lo! How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity” he declared. The less good? Just prior to the Civil War, Rabbi Raphall engaged in a famous rabbinic debate wherein he extolled the virtues of chattel slavery thereafter publishing a pamphlet on the subject titled ‘The Bible View of Slavery’. Defending the Fugitive Slave Law with a Torah comparison, Rabbi Raphall writes “the slave who ran away from Dan to Beersheba had to be given up, even as the runaway from South Carolina has to be given up by Massachusetts.” So yeah, not great but we can hardly blame Sweden for that especially since Rabbi Raphall was also educated in Denmark, France, Germany, Belgium and Great Britain.
The peripatetic nature of Sweden’s Jews continues to hold true in the example of our Bar Mitzvah boy. Adam Berman has miraculously managed to call five cities on three continents home before he can even grow facial hair. Please join us and the Berman family (the BerMen) this Saturday morning when Adam will ascend our bimah in Tokyo and read from Parshat Yitro carrying on a tradition that would make Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf, Europe’s longest reigning monarch, proud. An added bonus is the recitation of the Ten Commandments in the portion’s Sixth Aliyah when the congregation stands in unison as at Mount Sinai.
Services
Kabbalat Shabbat
Friday, February 2nd
Services: 6:00pm
Dinner by reservation: 7:00pm
Shabbat Parshat Yitro – Setsubun Shabbat
Bar Mitzvah of Adam Berman – All Are Welcome!
Please reserve on our Events Page: Reserve
Saturday February 3rd
Services: 10:00am
Kiddush: 12:00pm
Kabbalat Shabbat – Guest Speaker Professor Marc Shapiro
Lecture on Rabbi Shlomo Goren and the formation of the IDF’s Military Ethics open to all regardless of dinner reservation
Friday, February 9th
Services: 6:00pm
Dinner by reservation: 7:00pm
Lecture: 8:30pm
Shabbat Parshat Mishpatim – Rosh Chodesh Adar I – Two Torah Takeout
Kiddush open for sponsorship
Saturday, February 10th
Services: 10:00am
Kiddush: 12:00pm
Kabbalat Shabbat
Friday, February 16th
Services: 6:00pm
Dinner by reservation: 7:00pm
Kabbalat Shabbat
Friday, February 23rd
Services: 6:00pm
Dinner by reservation: 7:00pm
Shabbat Parshat Tetzaveh – Shushan Purim Katan
Kiddush open for sponsorship
Saturday, February 24th
Services: 10:00am
Kiddush: 12:00pm
Kabbalat Shabbat
Friday, March 1st
Services: 6:00pm
Dinner by reservation: 7:00pm
Friday Night Dinner Reservations can me made on our website .
Events
Stay tuned for film screenings, cooking classes, lectures and of course Purim with the world’s best klezmer band.
If you have an idea for an event or a topic you would like to share with others, please visit our website .
Announcements
On Tuesday, the JCC hosted a delegation from the American Jewish Committee including AJC President and former Congressman Ted Deutch. After getting to know the community and eating a delicious lunch prepared by our kitchen, the AJC folks left for a meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Thank you to Blair Perilman, Eiko Matsumoto-Tischler, our board and staff for going above and beyond in welcoming the group to the JCC. The star of the show? As always, Izaki-san and her famous challah.
Thank you to the Israeli Embassy and German Embassy respectively for holding two events in commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On Monday the Israeli Embassy hosted the aforementioned AJC delegation with speeches by senior government officials and on Wednesday the German Embassy hosted with the theme Zikaron ba’Salon. At both events, JCC member Janos Cegledy played a series of compositions that spoke directly to the soul of each attendee.
Happy Setsubun 節分 to all who are celebrating. Time to get in those last ski/snowboard runs in at Niseko, Hakuba, Gala Yuzawa or the less well-known but no less outstanding resorts of the Tōhoku region. As the loosely translated saying goes in Fukushima and Iwate, ‘if you’ve never skied northern Honshu, have you really skied Japan?’ Honestly yeah, but it’s probably pretty nice and certainly less crowded. Enjoy the JAPOW while you have it.
Carmel Tanaka, founder of the Jewpanese Project, will be visiting in March 2024. The Jewpanese Project is an oral history initiative recording lived experiences and stories at the intersection of being Jewish and Japanese or what we at the JCC like to call our everyday lives. If you are interested in participating, please visit her website .
As part of running the Yamaneko Marathon on Iriomote island in Okinawa, JCCer Peter Harris is raising money for charities dedicated to providing relief for those affected by the earthquake. If you would like to contribute, you may do so on his fundraising page .
Yiddish Club with Jack Halpern: Please contact Jack at jack@cjki.org if you are interested to join. All levels are welcome, from beginner to advanced. Much more than just language, the club’s monthly meetings explore Yiddish culture as well.
Shabbat Yitro
Candle Lighting: 4:50pm
Havdala: 5:49pm
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Andrew Scheer