Irit Zahavi from Darchei Noam attended the Women of Reform Judaism conference in Toronto, and visited our sister congregation, Solel. She writes:
When I was offered to take a partially sponsored trip to the biennial convention of the WRJ in Toronto, I had only two things in mind. One was how I, a career woman with a business of her own, would fit into a group of women who I thought would be primarily women of no career, and on top of it total strangers to me. The second was of course how am I going to leave my business unattended. Nevertheless I decided to take the offer, because I thought it will benefit my congregation, because I love meeting new people and I would really like to have the North American congregations know a little more about our Israeli congregations, to develop new connections and keep up the dialog between the congregants on both sides. I also had in mind that it would be good to the cause to have a lay person on the Israeli delegation. As far as I know I was the only one of that kind. I am a regular member of Darchei Noam, Solel's twin congregation in Ramat HaSharon and I am a member of the Sisterhood there. I am also the program director on a strictly volunteer basis for the past 7 years.
The Convention was a total surprise to me. I met some very interesting women, many of whom were of course also career women. I listened to some very stimulating talks, and found myself, totally unexpected, in the most impressive services I have ever witnessed. At some of the occasions I felt like when I first came to the U.S. in the early 70s to teach in a Jewish summer camp. The summer camp was the first time I had a meaningful Jewish experience coming from a Austrian atheistic family and a very secular environment. During this convention I realized how important the relationships between the congregations on both sides of the Atlantic are and how much we have to do to improve it and that even though we are so different, we have a lot in common and we need each other for our survival.
I am so grateful to everybody who helped me come on this trip and especially to the Solel Sisterhood and Jill Rich and David Lepofsky, who opened their home and hearts to me. On top everything, this was the most warming and intellectual experience. I also thank Jill for having invited the Sisterhood members to her home and giving me the opportunity to meet them and get to know them.
Now that the convention is over, I am taking the opportunity to once again meet the Solel congregation and long time friends from Solel, especially Sheila and Leo Aldoroty whom we met about 15 years ago through the twinning program. I also want to thank Les and Beverly Rothschild and Larry and Cheryl Englander for every thing they did to make this trip so successful.