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Out of the Ashes: Reform Judaism on the Rise in Germany

By Don Rothberg

Two hundred years after the founding of liberal Judaism in Germany and two generations after its destruction in the Holocaust, the Reform movement is undergoing a revival in the land that oversaw the darkest period in Jewish history.

In the immediate aftermath of the defeat of the Nazi regime, there were no more than a few thousand Jews in Germany, nearly all of them survivors of the death camps. Within the world Jewish community, the widespread assumption was that as soon as they were physically able, the survivors would leave and Germany would become a country without Jews.

Gregor Wettberg, a tall, slender, quiet young man is proof that history took a different turn. A founder and chairman of Young and Jewish Germany, Wettberg, 26, is a central figure in Germany's Reform revival.

A student at George Washington University Law School, Wettberg regularly attends services at Temple Micah and will be guest speaker at the Shabbat service March 17.

Seated outdoors at a Starbucks on an unusually warm February afternoon, Wettberg told his story. His mother, Ingrid Wettberg, is "from a very old Jewish family, primarily from Frankfurt," he said.

His mother's father was Catholic and during the war he worked in a tire factory in Hanover, a job that was considered essential and that exempted him from military service.

"My grandfather had good contacts among Nazi officials" and was able to protect his Jewish wife, Wettberg said. When the Jews of Hanover were rounded up and confined to a single building to await deportation to the camps, Wettberg's grandmother succeeded in bringing them food. Soon, her husband learned she was marked for arrest. He sent his family out of Hanover, moving them from village to village to avoid capture.

The post-war years were a time of silence for many survivors. Wettberg's mother told him that his grandmother "never talked about being Jewish. They wanted to be like everyone else."

But as his mother grew older, Wettberg said, she "realized there was something wrong."

When the German government began considering Jewish claims for restitution, his mother searched Holocaust records and found the names of many relatives. Determined to reclaim her Jewish identity, she went to the local Orthodox shul.

"The rabbi was somewhat liberal," said Wettberg. "He did not send her away. He accepted her." She enrolled her son in the Jewish youth center and he became bar mitzvah in 1992.

Still, the Jewish population was tiny. Before the war, about 550,000 Jews lived in Hanover. In 1945, there were fewer than 400, and most of them were over 60.

"It was pretty clear in this period that the Jewish community was about to disappear," he said.

A dramatic change in that outlook occurred starting in 1990, when Helmut Kohl, chancellor of a newly reunified Germany, reached an agreement with Russia that allowed thousands of Russian Jews to immigrate to Germany.

The wave of Russian immigration bolstered the size of Germany's Jewish community. Sixteen years ago, the country's Jewish population numbered no more than 30,000. Today, Wettberg said, estimates put its size between 100,000 and 200,000.

But the Russians attended synagogue for cultural rather than religious reasons.

"They would go to temple to meet people they didn't meet in daily life--other Russians," said Wettberg.

Temple life was Orthodox. But within congregations, there was a yearning for something different. In the early 1990s at a Simchat Torah service, the rabbi handed the Torah to a woman.

The uproar that followed convinced many, including Ingrid Wettberg, that it was time to form a more liberal congregation. In 1995, 79 members of the Orthodox synagogue, broke away and formed the Hanover Liberal Jewish Congregation. Ingrid Wettberg is currently its chairwoman.

Five years later, Gregor Wettberg was among 30 young people from Hanover and Cologne to form Young and Jewish Germany, a group with an agenda very similar to that of the American Reform movement. Wettberg described it as creating "structures which allow members to deepen their questions regarding Judaism and to study and consequently develop their Jewish identity."

And You Are? A Quest to Match Names and Faces

By Rabbi Toby Manewith

The rabbi in the synagogue where I grew up did not know my name. A brilliant man and a mesmerizing orator, he did not have much time for the children of the congregation. I remember seeing him towering ominously from the bima during the megillah reading on Purim or when I would accompany my father for the last hour of Yom Kippur services before the shofar blew marking the end of the fast.

I know he spoke about me when I became bat mitzvah, though I am not sure how. Perhaps his skill at weaving words compensated for the paucity of real knowledge he had about my life, or the life of my family at the time.

When I was 14 years old, I joined a Reform congregation after having fallen in love with the music and the warmth that surrounded me when a friend dragged me to a youth group event. At my first service at Temple Emanuel on Lake Michigan in Chicago, the elder rabbi, a short, but commanding man with piercing blue eyes and a German accent, greeted me by name. He knew my name! To this day, I'm not sure how he knew who I was; maybe the assistant rabbi or youth group adviser whispered it in his ear as I approached. Doesn't matter. I was 14 years old and the few words we exchanged that night changed my life's course.

A few years later when I made the decision to pursue the rabbinate--a decision which had its origins in that greeting--I thought: I'm going to be the type of rabbi who knows everybody's name. So far, I'm not. But I would certainly like to be. And I'm working on it. Every week, I learn two or three new names.

At this rate, I will reach my goal sometime between 2011 and 2014.

So why am I writing this now? Over the past week, a number of people have said something along the lines of, "I didn't think you knew who I was." It's a horrible feeling not to be known. It is especially difficult to have this feeling inside a synagogue, the very place people come to find community and a sense of belonging.

In Jewish tradition, names have valences. Some biblical names, for instance, tell us about the events surrounding a child's birth. Isaac, or Yitzhak in Hebrew, was given his name because his mother laughed (tzahak) on hearing she was to give birth; Jacob, or Ya'akov in Hebrew, was named that because he was born hanging on to his brother's heel (ekev). Others tell us about critical changes in a person's life. Abram is changed to Abraham--the additional "heh" signifying that he will be the father of a great nation (hamon goyim). Jacob gains the name Israel, signifying that as he matured, he became someone who struggled with God. To know someone's name is to know who they are.

In this same week, a number of people have extended their hands and told me their names. If you have not yet done so, please do. If you have, please do so again.

After eight months at Temple Micah, I've learned many things. I've mastered the pivot maneuver that is essential in taking the Torah out of the Ark. I know where we keep the stamps. I can load the copier. If I have not yet learned your name, please help me to do so. I want to know who you are.

Lerman to Examine Rituals At March Shabbat Service

Dancer and choreographer Liz Lerman will help lead the congregation in creative prayer during Kabbalat Shabbat services March 10. Lerman, a Temple Micah member, will help worshippers examine rituals and long-held beliefs about what "should" happen in synagogue. ?M

Micah Helps Lead National Effort to Make Modern Synagogues "Compelling"

By Shelley Grossman

When it comes to the dynamics of synagogue life, Rabbi Zemel is a Mr. Fix-It, always refining and tinkering, never content to let things slide. He's been in the right place to do that for more than 20 years.

From its days as an upstart congregation more than 40 years ago, Temple Micah has embraced innovation. A decade ago, the temple's progressive bent and willingness to experiment was recognized across the country when the congregation was chosen to participate in Synagogue 2000, a nationwide initiative to update the American synagogue.

Now Rabbi Zemel and Temple Micah are taking part in the next step of an ongoing process to transform synagogue life. Synagogue 2000 has changed its name to Synagogue 3000 and altered its mode of operation. Its mission, however, remains the same.

"It is continuing to think through the issues of how to make the synagogue a richer experience," Rabbi Zemel explained. Or, in the words of the Synagogue 3000 Web site: "Our mission is to make synagogues compelling moral and spiritual centers for the twenty- first century."

Rabbi Zemel and Liz Lerman, Micah's award-winning dance and movement impresario, have been named to the Synagogue 3000 National Leadership Network. Ten rabbis and 10 cantors and artists make up the 20-member network and comprise a "trailblazing group of synagogue innovators on the cutting edge of congregational life," according to Synagogue 3000's Web site. Other members of the group familiar to some Micah members are Cantor Benjie-Ellen Schiller, a professor at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and a former Micah scholar-in-residence, Cantor Rosalie Boxt of Temple Emanuel in Kensington (a regular at regional choral festivals), and Rabbis Ron Shulman of Baltimore and Elaine Zecher of Boston, colleagues of Rabbi Zemel.

The inspiration behind and intellectual leader of Synagogue 3000--like Synagogue 2000--is Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, Rabbi Zemel's teacher and mentor at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York.

Unlike Synagogue 2000, which engaged members of participating congregations in study and discussions to improve synagogue life, Synagogue 3000 focuses on the 20- member leadership network. It encourages the leaders to "push their experimental vision ever forward," as the Web site puts it, and to showcase their efforts in order to provide a model for other congregations.

The network has met about three times. "They bring the most interesting people to talk to us," Rabbi Zemel said. "It is enormously reinforcing and reaffirming."

Meanwhile, Temple Micah is to be one of eight congregations featured in a book on the North American synagogue to be co-authored by Rabbi Hoffman and published by Synagogue 3000. A researcher, Ari Kelman, has visited Temple Micah, observed services and other activities and interviewed some members. Rabbi Zemel said the book will provide a "mirror on the way we do everything, what we do well and what we do poorly" and offer an explanation of "what helps keep Temple Micah interesting and cutting edge."

Going, Going, Gone! Auction Tempts Buyers

Like To make connections with Micah members and support temple programs at the same time? Come to the annual Spring Auction, a social affair and fundraiser that allows participants to bid for the chance to attend smaller, informal events and get to know other Micah members. Socialize while touring a museum, sharing a gourmet meal or sailing off into the sunset--all while donating to Temple Micah.

The auction will start at 6 p.m., Saturday, March 11. Tickets are $36 each, discounted to $15 for members who have joined since April 2005. A video iPod, a KitchenAid mixer, a magnum of wine and a $100 gift certificate to Nordstrom will be raffled at the door.

The evening begins with the Silent Auction, where attendees can bid on retail items, personal services, restaurant meals, wine, concert tickets and more. There also will be a cash-and-carry area where items such as jewelry, artwork and chocolate will be sold.

Throughout the Silent Auction, hors d'oeuvres and drinks will be served. There will be no formal dinner as in past years, but auction chair Carolyn Margolis promised that bidders will not go hungry. "Food will be plentiful, with great variety, and there will be enough for a meal," she said.

Following the Silent Auction, guests will go upstairs to eat dessert and participate in the live auction, where the highest bidders will net gourmet meals, vacations and private meetings with all sorts of interesting people.

Auction details, forms and the catalogue are on the temple Web site, www.templemicah. org. Catalogues will be mailed to members before the auction. For additional information, e-mail auction@ templemicah.org.

Religious School Roundtable Provides Chance for Feedback

By Debra Beland

There are days when I feel like all I do is run around the building, handling a million things a minute, all the while hearing people call out my name. I call those days Sundays. And while I am one of those people who thrives on a little chaos, the downside is that I often don't have the chance to sit down and talk to people, especially parents.

Feedback is vital in my ability to do my job well. I take comments from Temple Micah members of all ages very seriously and when it comes time to make change, I draw on that feedback to create a religious school experience that, I hope, meets the needs of all our learners. While it always is wonderful to hear how satisfied people are with our program, it's also very important to hear what people have concerns about or where they feel there is room for improvement.

Feedback finds me in a number of ways. People leave me voice-mail messages and send me e-mails, they make appointments to meet during the week and, occasionally, they catch me in a rare moment of quiet during religious school. Sometimes I solicit opinions about a specific topic, like the Family Minyan survey I sent out a few months ago, and I'm always awed by the honesty and thoughtfulness of the answers I receive.

One of the things I've always wanted to do is have a regular forum for religious school parents to drop in and just talk about the school with me and with one another. I think the time has come to give that idea a try, so I'm officially declaring the first Tuesday afternoon of every month Religious School Roundtable.

We'll meet during midweek Hebrew in the sanctuary and talk about the school, about what works and what needs tweaking. I'll bounce ideas off of you and you'll do the same for me. We won't have any fixed agenda and we won't have any illusions of instant change. What we'll have is a dialogue, a continuing conversation about the important, sacred work that is our children's religious education. I hope that those of you who participate (and I hope there will be a lot of you) will enjoy this experience and will see the value in it. And I hope it will also help you to feel more connected to one another and to the larger Temple Micah community.

So join us, from 5-6:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 7, for the first Religious School Roundtable. I look forward to seeing you there.

Five Members Set to Join 25-Year Club in March

By Dan Moskowitz

Real estate experts are fond of saying that the three most important determinants of value are location, location, location. For the five Temple Micah members who will be celebrating 25 years of membership this month, the congregation's former Southwest Washington site was indeed an important factor in their choice. But the mantra runs more like: location, education, collegiality.

The five--Jeffrey Cohn, Karen Zizmor and Bruce Rinaldi, and David and Carla Rosenbloom--will be honored at Shabbat services Friday, March 24, on the 25th anniversary of their joining Micah.

As Zizmor recalls, for her and husband Bruce Rinaldi, Micah "had a nice flavor and the people were mensch-y and it was near our home on Capitol Hill."

The Rosenblooms were living on Capitol Hill, too. "The whole place seemed very homey," David Rosenbloom recalled. "It just fit like an old shoe."

Cohn and his late wife, Patricia, picked Micah because it was convenient. But "once having joined, we found Micah a wonderful place to be," he said.

For all three families, religious education for children was important. Sarah Rinaldi was just three, but enjoyed the pre-school sessions. Cohn said that his wife was so determined that their son Josh, then nine, get a religious education that she threatened to enroll him in a Catholic school if Cohn did not join a temple. The Rosenbloom children had naming ceremonies at Micah, and went all the way through religious school.

The March 24 service will include reminiscences by Zizmor and Rinaldi and readings from 25 years ago.

Singer Tom Chapin to Perform in May

Singer-songwriter Tom Chapin will perform at this year's NFTY Scholarship Concert at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, May 20. Chapin's music delights both the young and the young-at-heart.

Tickets, which will be available March 1, are $30 for adults and $15 for students (suggested minimum age is eight).

Proceeds from the concert provide scholarships for Temple Micah students to attend North American Federation of Temple Youth camp and Israel programs.

Temple Micah's own Doug Mishkin will join Chapin to perform during part of the concert.

Bowling Together

TempLe Micah's "Bowling Together" drew 280 people to the Bethesda Naval Bowling Center in early February. The community-building project was inspired by Robert Putnam's book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. The event, conceived by Rabbi Zemel and spearheaded by committee chair Adam Klinger, was so successful that the temple already has booked the bowling center for next year. "Temple Micah Bowling Together, Frame 2" will be Feb. 10, 2007. Perhaps by then the temple staff, above and right, can have their names embroidered on their bowling shirts! Photos by Judy and Fred Horowitz.

Yahrzeits

At the following Shabbat Services, yahrzeit will be observed for these relatives and friends of the Micah community:

March 3 and 4: Elizabeth Claster, Thomas Coates, Charlotte W. Cohen, Leon Glick, Robert Jay Greene, Stephanie Hadley, Ruth A. Halpern, Ida Heftman, Rose C. Heller, Abraham Komisar, Fannie Kramer, Peggy Levitsky, Julian Meer, Leon Passel, Herbert Ross, Eugene Seelig, Jerome Silver, Minnie Skoler, Susan Skoller, Shirley Walter, Fred Wegner, Sadie Weinstock

March 10 and 11: Ester Bialek, Jacob Cron, Rae Goren, Samuel Iker, Leona Kessler, Robert Levine, Martin Lindenberg, Emily Greenwald Meyer, Howard Pollack, Izidor Pollack, Alice Apte Rosenbaum, Samuel Rosenbluth, Samuel Roth, Douglas Saunder, Abraham Schimel, Opal Smith, Maude Stanfield, Max Tochen

March 17 and 18: Beatrice Bornstein, Paul Henry Brody, Jack Chernak, Charles Eby, Audrey Pearl Feldman, Bernice Glossman, Sara Ominsky Gould, Sidney Greenberg, Louis Jacobson, Abe Kobrin, Bobbie Landsberg, Mary Prince, Manuel Rosen, James Salzman, Rosalind Salzman, Betty Ann Schooler, Lillian Seiger, Allan Sharlin, Harvey Simon, Lionel Stanfield, Miriam Zizmor

March 24 and 25: Eli Berg, Rose Ginsburg, Irving Gordon, Isabelle Greenstein, Jacob Grohman, Charles Iker, Estelle Levite, Henry Lipczenko, Jacob Meyers, Seymour Miller, Bette Mishkin, Paul Nussbaum, Jeannette Rosen, William Tenenbaum, Frances Williams, Reginald Williams, Faye Goldman Wilson

March 31 and April 1: Ken Appelbaum, Irene Chait, Jerry Cohen, Mary Coken, Isidore Dashevsky, David Goldberg, Glen G. Kiggins, Ruth Levine, Warren Mountain, Nettie Rogers, Samuel Schlein, Tiby Sharlin, Sadie Cooley Shreck, Stanley Tanz

April 7 and 8: Edna Charney, Sarah Dubinsky, Miriam Edelman, Ruth Gitlitz, Julien Mezey, John B. Oakes, Pearl Obrand, Pauline Povill, Theodore Seelig

Temple, Kol Isha Offer Seder Options

On the evening of April 12, families and friends will gather in their homes to share the age-old story of Passover, to create new traditions and to savor the meal that begins this beautiful Jewish festival. Temple Micah would like to ensure that everyone is able to enjoy this first-night seder ritual. If you have seats available at your seder table or would like to join others at theirs, e-mail administrator@ templemicah.org, and Temple Micah will see that this mitzvah is fulfilled.

Kol Isha, "a woman's voice," will sponsor its fourth annual seder for the entire Micah community on Saturday, April 15, at the temple. The seder includes a unique Hagaddah, special songs and great food. Reservations, which can be made through the temple, are $35 for individuals, $60 per couple, $10 for children under 15 and free for children under five. Families can attend for $75. Checks should be mailed to the temple in care of Kol Isha.

It's a Mitzvah: Student Returns Cash

Religious school student Ryan Slayen, 12, recently was featured in a local newspaper for doing a mitzvah. As reported in The Gazette, Ryan was walking to his school bus stop in Bethesda in late January when he noticed a wallet on the ground.

"It looked a lot like my mom's wallet," he told The Gazette, "so I picked it up. Then I looked to see if it had any money in it and it had a lot."

The wallet contained $1,270 in cash, as well as credit cards and personal identification. When he arrived at Thomas W. Pyle Middle School, the seventh-grade student gave the wallet to a security guard, who called the owner.

"She came to the school to pick up her belongings with tears of joy streaming down her face," The Gazette reported.

Slayen and his parents, Gary and Lynda Slayen, told the newspaper they were proud of his good deed.

A Walk Through Jewish Washington

The adult education committee is sponsoring a walk through the Jewish History of Washington from 10:30 a.m. to noon, Sunday, April 2. The tour is organized by the Jewish Historical Society and costs $15 per person. Transportation from the temple is available. For more information, email the temple.

Peter Edelman Peter Edelman to Address Impact of U.S. and Israeli Policies

Peter Edelman, a Georgetown University law professor and a nationally recognized authority on poverty and welfare, will speak on the impact of America's global priorities during the Public Issues Forum at 7 p.m., March 19.

Edelman, president of the New Israel Fund, will address "The Three Faces of Tikkun Olam: The United States, Israel, and the World." He will explore what he contends are misplaced American priorities that reduce resources for foreign aid and fan the flames of hostility toward the United States.

Edelman also will take note of parallels between the United States and Israel in policy and demographic trends, and will discuss policy and civil society initiatives in both countries.

A Temple Micah member, Edelman was assistant secretary of the U.S. Department Health and Human Services under President Clinton. In 1996, he resigned in protest when Clinton signed into law new welfare provisions that Edelman predicted would hurt poor people.

Once a legislative assistant to the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Edelman is the author of Searching for America's Heart: RFK and the Renewal of Hope, published in 2001. He is a co-author of Reconnecting Disadvantaged Young Men, published this year. His article entitled, "The Worst Thing Bill Clinton Has Done," published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1997, received the Harry Chapin Media Award.

Edelman is a board member of the Center for Community Change, the Juvenile Law Center of Philadelphia, the Public Welfare Foundation, Americans for Peace Now and the Center for Law and Social Policy. In 2005, he received the William J. Brennan, Jr., award from the District of Columbia Bar Association for "passionately applying legal brilliance to the most intractable social problems of our times."

I.B. Singer's Memoir Recalls Hasidic Past

By Brenda Levenson

The now-extinct world that Isaac Bashevis Singer brings back to life in his book of memoirs, In My Father's Court, defies all idealized and romantic visions one might have about Eastern European Jewry at the start of the 20th century and beyond. Extreme poverty and malnutrition made people vulnerable to disease, as did the filth in which many of them lived. And yet, families did strive, romance between young men and women developed, love and hatred coexisted side by side.

In My Father's Court is a memoir only in terms of "how the many events [Singer] remembers affected him, how he felt about them," noted one of our readers. The author's father was a Hasidic rebbe who tended to his flock in a poor neighborhood of Warsaw, where the family had moved when he was a small child. The traditional role of a rebbe was that of judge, arbitrator and therapist. When a problem brought to him was beyond his Talmudic expertise, his wife could be counted on to apply the "rational mind" with which Singer credits his mother. He does not explain how her "rationalism" was able to blend in with the Hasidism of her own ancestors. The portrait that Singer draws of his father is that of a scholar and a saintly man, but the parochialism of his fundamental religious beliefs must have been stifling.

With few exceptions, those who came to the rebbe for help were poor. The man dying of cancer, who wished to divorce his wife in order to save her from a levirate marriage, was but one of those with unusual requests. The story illustrates how death passes and life continues. Singer casts an ironic look at the Hasidic establishment of rebbes in silk caftans smoking expensive cigars. For most, the wretched conditions of daily life offered little hope. In the absence of a future, the past was sometimes viewed as the Garden of Eden. Their different religious customs and ignorance of the Polish language erected a wall between the Jews and their neighbors, who were feared and despised. Attempts to breach such a barrier would come from the emerging Zionist movement, which appealed to younger generations.

The sense of fun and the empathy for his subjects that Singer shares with his readers makes the book less depressing than it might appear to be. "I lived Jewish history," he notes in conclusion. Born in 1904, Singer was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1978. He died in 1991. Writing about the humble, the crooks and the eccentrics who went through his father's office in a continuous parade that evoked what Balzac called "the human comedy," Singer observed that "the analysis of human characters is one of life's greatest entertainments." We concur: "Amen!"

The Book Club will discuss None to Accompany Me, by Nadine Gordimer, on March 7, and Murder on a Kibbutz: A Communal Case, by Batya Gur, on April 4. For more information, contact Michelle Sender at 202- 462-3177 or michellesender@ yahoo.com.

Ex-Resident Joins Micah House Board to Share Lessons

By Genie Grohman

One day last spring, former Micah House resident Diana M., home with the flu, was contemplating her life. She had a good job in D.C. Superior Court, her own home and supportive friends and family--in short, nothing to complain about. Yet she felt something was missing.

Then the telephone rang. Tina Coplan, vice president of Micah House, asked Diana if she would join the Micah House board. Diana was stunned at first and could barely respond. But the answer was obvious: What better way to share some of the lessons she had learned than to help at the place that had played such a key role in her life?

"I was so honored and so surprised," she said. "I could hardly believe that this opportunity was being offered to me. And when a former resident learned of my new role in Micah House, she, too, was surprised. I'm sure it gives her another glimpse of what is possible in her own life."

Diana initially began using drugs in New Jersey, where she grew up. She tried to get a new start on life in the mid-1980s, with a move to South Carolina. But she couldn't kick the habit, and ended up in a welfare hotel. For a while, she worked for a sheriff 's office, but lost her job. She got another, in a judge's office, and felt that her life was getting on track. Diana moved to the Washington area in 1989. But a few years later, her three-month-old baby died of pneumonia. And in her grief, she returned to drugs.

Diana recognized she needed help. She gave up her apartment and her job, and entered a drug treatment program. In 1993, after six months in the program, she moved into Micah House.

She never looked back. During her two years at Micah House, Diana worked and saved enough money to make a down payment on a house. In 1995, Ann S., then president of Micah House, accompanied Diana to the settlement. The late Renee Achter, also then a Micah House board member, served as a mentor to Diana. Since leaving Micah House, Diana has continued her work in the criminal justice system. She worked for the D.C. Public Defender Service, a private law firm and the D.C. Court of Appeals. She also works annually as a tax preparer for H&R Block.

Diana, 46 and celebrating her 13th year of being drug- and alcohol-free, said she is delighted that she can "give back" some of what she received from Micah House. Now she serves as a role model for other women looking for a second start in life.

Micah Celebrates Purim with a Twist at Middle East Side Story

Since when does West Side Story have Jewish characters? Since when is the main love interest no longer named "Maria?" Since when do hot sand dunes replace tough street corners?

Since Temple Micah started rehearsing for this year's Purim schpiel, Middle East Side Story!

Watch the story unfold, as a special cast turns things upside down and inside out during a Purim celebration, starting at 7 p.m., Monday, March 13.

In this show, even the audience (that's you!) wears costumes.