Sim
Shalom
Magyarul Annual Report 2000
Sim Shalom has made significant progress in this past
year toward becoming a well-functioning and vibrant Jewish community.
The year started with a well-attended Future Goals meeting where
priorities were set on those ideas that had a consensus agreement. Some
of these goals have already been met, including the adoption of a
constitution which sets up a badly needed governance structure, and the
adoption of a new Statement of Principles.
A governing board with several new members is in a Leadership Training
Program generously offered by Alex Dembitz of Geneva, where they are
learning the duties and responsibilities of a lay board in a volunteer
organization. The recently established Social Welfare Committee has
added a new dimension to the services the congregation offers its
members. A new Brochure and a monthly newsletter are proving to be
valuable aids in recruiting new members. One major goal not yet attained
is membership in the Mazsihisz, the Federation of Hungarian Jewish
Organizations.
Consideration of our application was postponed last
spring after receiving the disapproval of the Rabbinical Council, and
did not even appear on the agenda of the most recent Mazsihisz AGM last
December. We thank all those who have supported our application in the
past, and request that they continue to lobby in any way they can to
help us in this fight to gain local recognition. Although we were
successful in finding new premises last winter when our lease was broken
on short notice, the space is not as large or usable as the old one. We
are still far short
of our other main goal of having our own permanent premises with enough
space for all our programs and activities, including those we hope to
start in the next year or so.
A significant event in the religious life of the congregation was the
institution of regular, biweekly Kabbalat Shabbat services this past
year, alternating with biweekly Shacharit Services. The first Hungarian
Reform Siddur is being written, and will add greatly to these services
when it is finished. In the meantime, those attending services are
learning the traditional chants and tunes under the leadership of the
Rabbi, and finding that the music adds greatly to the spirituality of
the service. The musical contribution of Oliver Kurer as Chazzan at the
last Rosh Hashanah Service was a major factor in the quality of the
service, as was the performance of a membership choir at Pesach and the
High Holidays. Attendance at the High Holidays and other festivals
continues to grow, running from 50 to 100. Life cycle events such as
baby namings are becoming increasingly common, and unfortunately so are
funerals, especially for first and second generation holocaust
survivors. Also of note was the conversion ceremony of five converts,
one of whom was from Vienna, and supervised by Rabbi Kelemen. One more
convert is studying now, a woman from Israel, who is studying in our
community while living here for the year.
Several new educational programs were started in the past year. In an
interesting and successful experiment, the Rabbi is teaching a Hebrew
language course with the prayer book as a text, thereby combining
instruction in Hebrew with that in liturgy. The most recent new course,
run by one of the lay leaders, is on the history of the Hungarian
Kehillot. Successful ongoing adult education programs include the
biweekly Torah Study, with an attendance of 20 or more, a biweekly adult
class in Basic Judaism, and a biweekly Oneg Shabbat with talks by
members on their family history, and by invited guests on various Jewish
topics. A congregational member was sent to a Jewish Education course at
the Center for Jewish Education in London last summer. This is in
anticipation of an expansion of the children's educational program
beyond the monthly Havdalah Club meetings for toddlers and their
families, which is already bringing young families into the
congregation.
In the field of public relations and outreach, the community has been
quite active. Rabbi Kelemen delivered the concluding lecture at a recent
conference on the psychological support of Holocaust Survivors, as well
as talks to local groups such as the Budapest Zionist Club during the
year. She and congregational President Ibi Fischer attended the European
Region Meeting of WUPJ in Zurich last March, and the Rabbi had the honor
of giving the sermon at the Shabbat Service. Rabbi Kelemen attended the
CCAR Conference in London last May, and during the spring semester she
taught a course on Jewish Liturgy at the Peter Pazmany Catholic
University. Just a few weeks ago, an article appeared about her in the
respected Hungarian weekly news magazine, HVG.
It was with great pleasure and pride that Sim Shalom welcomed many
visitors from abroad at its Shabbat services and festival celebrations.
This occurs at least monthly, and included a visit by Rabbi Ted Levy and
several WUPJ officers last Purim, a delegation of friends and supporters
from the West London Synagogue last spring, and a happy group of U. S.
teenagers from Passaic, New Jersey last fall.
A major project for next year is to work toward getting larger and
permanent premises, both because we are now too cramped to do all our
activities comfortably, and because of the well-known advantage in
recruiting new members that good facilities provides. Toward this goal,
we will send representatives to a 5-month program on fund-raising run
locally this spring by the JDC. Recruiting of new members, especially
families with children will be a high priority. To aid in this, it is
planned to start two Cheder classes next fall, to run a children's camp
program in the summer, and to hold a weekend family spirituality
retreat, probably in the fall. In February, the first Bnai Mitzvah of a
child in the congregation will take place in Sim Shalom. We expect to
publish the first edition of our Reform Siddur in the coming year,
which will add greatly to the weekly Shabbat services. At the request of
the European Region Board, Rabbi Kelemen will begin to offer support to
the growing Reform communities in Vienna and Prague, possibly in the
area of conversion. A contribution by Rabbi Kelemen entitled "The
Rabbi's Role in Reform Judaism" to a conference next spring on The
Rabbinate should give Reform Judaism some good exposure among the young
Jewish intellectuals expected to attend the conference.