Diese Woche lesen wir den Abschnitt „Noach“ aus der Thora. Als ich mir die Online-Thora-Diskussionsgruppe unserer Schwestergemeinde in Zürich, Or Chadasch (info@jlg.ch), anhörte, die diese Woche von Sylvia Bodenheimer aus Migwan geleitet wurde, wollte ich mehr über den letzten Teil der Geschichte, den Turmbau zu Babel, lesen.
Do you recall some childhood picture book images of the Babylonian Ziggurats, presumably an inspiration for the Tower of the story?
Unlike the people after Noach, I believe we are so lucky at Migwan to witness the joy of communication; to actually hear one another, in several languages. I am so proud of our young school children and students who can switch from Swiss-German to High German, to English, and to Hebrew.
Our Bnei Mitzvot have recently shared their thoughts in Italian and French. Many of our Hebrew speakers know Arabic as well, and some of us grew up with Hungarian, Czech, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish or Maori…
Unlike the mistakes made by the builders of the Tower of Babel, we cherish not the bricks but the people! The builders of our community wanted a welcoming, diverse home, acknowledging the many ways of being Jewish, and being a place where locals and ex-pats, Mizrachim, Sephardim, Ashkenazim, Giurim and our visitors all feel at home.
As our early builders start to look back at their work and we take a moment to acknowledge their efforts to build a viable, safe community, we realise the community is coming up for renewal. What we have are thriving educational and cultural programmes, opportunities for social interaction, and warm, welcoming religious services. The office is organized, the website is maintained and newsletters are sent. There is something for everyone, and some-where in our systems for everyone to volunteer… Our community would love to expand and grow, drawing along with this growth, our cherished Migwan progressive Jewish values of inclusiveness and diversity.
Unsere Gemeinde würde gerne expandieren und wachsen und mit diesem Wachstum unsere geschätzten progressiven jüdischen Werte der Inklusivität und Vielfalt von Migwan weiterführen.
We need new “architects” and “engineers”, “brick-layers”, and “glaziers” with 2-way vision: to build our community from within, and to communicate our vision outwards to the world. Come along to our next General Meeting to hear about opportunities and the budget, on the evening of Thursday December 11th at 7 p.m.
Kol tuv
Chava Fleming: info@migwan.ch
Cultus/ Ritual Committee