Temple Beth El Blog

On August 22 a merry group from TBE came together to volunteer at the Emmett Schulte Food Pantry Garden. We enjoyed the beautiful weather, lovely scenery, and each other’s company while helping with the harvest. The tomatoes, cucumbers, string beans, and raspberries we picked (and sometimes tasted!) will be distributed through the Catholic Multicultural Center’s food pantry and served at their once-a-week free community meal (where many of us volunteer). In just 2 hours we picked over 152 pounds of produce! 

Madison Area Food Pantry Gardens have been in existence for over 20 years and have grown tremendously since their first inception. There are now 10 gardens located throughout Dane County that provide fresh, nutritious and culturally relevant produce (tomatillos, for example, for our Latino/a neighbors), to local food pantries, community meal programs and school programs. This year the program has sent produce to 30 food pantries throughout Dane County! It relies on volunteers to carry out this mission and our participation is greatly appreciated.

TBE has been doing this project for several year now. People return because it’s fun and social, while also giving to the community. We hope many of you will join us next summer!

Each year after the High Holy Day Food Drive, the Social Action Committee considers how to direct the donations most effectively. Our largest allocation goes to Second Harvest Foodbank because it is the most cost-effective use of our dollars. We also give smaller amounts to organizations we partner with throughout the year, to use for direct support of their clients through meals, food pantries, and grocery cards. Organizations we have supported in the past include:

Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin distributes food to over 300 community programs throughout southern Wisconsin, including fresh produce, meat, dairy, and milk. At Second Harvest our gifts go further: For every $10 we donate, Second Harvest can provide up to $24 in groceries for those in need. Second Harvest in turn supplies food to many of the food pantries we partner with.

Catholic Multicultural Center, located on Madison’s south side, is connected to Temple Beth El in multiple ways: Our volunteers serve meals at their nightly meal program, work at their food pantry garden, cook for them on Mitzvah Day, and support their work welcoming immigrants and refugees to our community. Their food pantry and evening meals are open to all Wisconsin residents who need food assistance.

WayForward Resources in Middleton provides a food pantry for people throughout Dane County. WayForward reports that more people are coming than ever before, pressured by rising rents and rising grocery prices. WayForward has also seen its own food purchasing budget skyrocket: see here for a simple and eloquent explanation of recent changes to the food distribution system. 

Temple Beth El is a longtime supporter of Jewish Social Services of Madison and their refugee resettlement program, which welcomes refugees from all over the world. Although federal funding for refugee resettlement programs has been abruptly halted, JSS continues to support refugees and immigrants who are already here as they work toward a safe and self-sufficient life. JSS uses our donations to provide grocery gift cards for clients, especially those who don’t qualify for any government programs.

The Fritz Food Pantry at the Goodman Community Center provides groceries for more than 350 households every week, offering a mix of fresh foods and dry goods, along with foods for special dietary needs. They are currently experiencing a surge in demand, with many patrons saying it's the first time they’ve ever had to use a food pantry. Every fall, our Religious School students help by collecting food items for the Goodman Center’s Thanksgiving basket program. 

Healing House provides a safe place for families experiencing homelessness when a member of the family needs to prepare for a medical procedure or to recuperate after childbirth or hospitalization. Temple Beth El has been supporting Healing House since it opened in 2019, with volunteers cooking a week of dinners four times a year. We also use funds from the High Holy Day Food Drive to help with the cost of breakfast and snacks.

The Porchlight Drop-In Shelter provides emergency overnight shelter to men over the age of 18. Guests receive two meals per day, personal hygiene supplies, access to showers and bathrooms, and case management services. In the past, Temple Beth El has cooked and served evening meals for the shelter. We also donate money collected during the High Holy Day Food Drive to provide residents with coffee and snacks.

To support the work of these fine organizations, please donate to the High Holy Day Food Drive as part of your holiday observance this year. If you have already donated, now you know how your money helps alleviate hunger and strengthens the organizations that work to keep our community strong and healthy.

This article also appears in the October 2025 TBE Bulletin.

The Board of Trustees is working on an initiative to deepen our connections with the community and make board members more visible and accessible to the congregation. 

Starting this month you can look forward to seeing the following features in communications and around the building: 

• Board members’ name tags with “Board of Trustees” ribbon 
• Board of Trustees tag in the membership directory (tbemadison.org/member/directory; member login required) 
• Bulletin board featuring photos and mini bios of all board members 
• Board member photos on the Leadership page of the TBE website (member login required) 
• Virtual comment/suggestion box that goes directly to the board on the Leadership page of the website (tbemadison.org/leadership; member login required) 
• Board member feature in Weekly Happenings with photo, mini bio, and an event that they will be attending during the upcoming week 

The Board of Trustees welcomes ways to enhance connections with all Temple members.

Thanks to the generous support of Jeff Levy, we enjoyed another incredible summer celebrating Shabbat in the beautiful parks around Madison. Each gathering drew over 100 participants, creating a vibrant sense of community as we began with shared meals and continued with inspiring outdoor services.

Our journey took us from the scenic lakeshore at Olin Park to the welcoming green spaces of McKee Farms Park in Fitchburg, then to charming Lakeview Park in Middleton, and finally to a camp-style end-of-summer celebration at the Goodman Campus in Verona.

We’re deeply grateful to Jeff Levy for funding park fees and providing delicious food that brought people together. A heartfelt thank you to all the volunteers who contributed—whether by bringing a dish, helping with setup and cleanup, or warmly welcoming attendees. Your efforts made each Shabbat truly special.

Planning for next summer is already underway—and we can’t wait to do it all again!

This article also appears in the October 2025 TBE Bulletin.

In our previous reports, we shared a summary of the points we’d heard most frequently from the task force’s meetings with congregants and from congregants’ written comments. Those common points included: 

• Start Friday night services significantly earlier and be sensitive to their length. 
• Have services where families with younger children truly feel welcome, including new Shabbat activity bags available as you enter the sanctuary. 
• We value a message at each service that gives us something to think about spiritually and/or intellectually. 
• Make food a larger part of the Friday-night-at-Temple experience. 
• Recognize the key role of familiar music; utilize more instrumentalists. 
• Make Torah a regular part of the Friday night service experience. 
• Expand communications about what’s going to be in each week’s service. 
• Make every person in the sanctuary genuinely feel part of the community. 

Our work is far from done, but we hope you’ve had a chance to attend Friday services over the summer (alongside growing numbers of other congregants) and that you agree that significant progress has been made in addressing a number of these suggestions. Specifically: 
    The uniform 6:00 pm start time and hour-or-so length seem to have been very well received—it is the plan to continue with those features. 
    If you were at a service this summer, whether outdoors or in the sanctuary, we hope you noticed the joyous atmosphere, welcoming to all ages, including (but not limited to) our youngest members—we certainly hope to build on that. 
    Enjoying food together has also been well received—“pre-neg” food before services has been enjoyed, as is the option to stay and connect with others at the oneg Shabbat after services. We will certainly look for ways to continue and even enhance these food offerings. 
    Rabbi Prosnit’s pre-service discussion sessions with us—particularly on the conflicted opinions and emotions many of us have about events in Israel and the territories—have been informative, heartfelt, even cathartic, and he plans to continue those discussion sessions as a way to share his thoughtful, inspirational words, outside the liturgy, that he threads through the services. 
    The task force will continue to evaluate the other suggestions that have been generated, successful innovations of other congregations, and our congregation’s response to any changes that are implemented. The experience of being in the sanctuary on Shabbat can bring peace and separation from the noise and cares of our daily lives. Finding ways to help every person in the sanctuary genuinely feel part of the community, and feel inspired by the experience, will remain our touchstone and will guide this continuing work in progress.
 

I had the honor of attending the Rabbi Marla J. Feldman Social Justice Conference in Arlington, VA, April 4–7. This was not only my first Social Justice Conference, but my first large WRJ event in general. I was excited for the content, nervous for not knowing what to expect for my first large-scale event, and elated for an opportunity to lobby with our representatives and senators on important topics.

From Kabbalat Shabbat services on Friday night to our closing session on Monday morning, the conference itself felt like something my soul needed. Having the ability to connect with 350 others with shared values yet different experiences for a full weekend was a very needed connection during a time of increasing strife in our country. 

We spent Saturday and Sunday in sessions with a variety of topics, designed to challenge us, engage us, and prepare us for lobbying on Monday. We heard from leaders who experienced adversity and rose to the challenge. We honored leaders who inspired transformative social change across the world. We held space for difficult conversations in sessions and learned about each other's views both inside workshops and at our dinner tables. I walked away from these moments with a variety of takeaways, but perhaps the most meaningful to me was what I heard in a session on Immigration Reform and Refugee Rights: "You are not in this alone, even when it feels isolating. Find like-minded people who share your beliefs. Your beliefs matter. Don't deter from what is important to you. No one does it alone."

On Monday, my Wisconsin colleagues and I had engaging conversations with Senator Baldwin and Representative Pocan's office on reproductive freedom, democracy and voting rights, and Israel. Being able to share my "why" on reproductive freedom with our state's leadership was especially overwhelming in the best way. As the song goes, "I have a voice, my voice is powerful, my voice can change the world." So can yours, and I encourage you to look into further WRJ events to help find your voice in our community. You won't regret taking the chance to be heard.

Thank you to WRJ's Heartland District for providing me a scholarship to help cover my travel costs for this impactful event! I will carry these themes and this experience with me for a long time to come.

It’s fall! The air is crisp, the apples are ripe, and we are anticipating the grandeur and awe of the High Holy Days. This is the time of year when we ask you to renew your annual commitment to Temple Beth El Sisterhood, or even to join us for the first time. 

By paying dues at a membership level of your choice, you become a member of Temple Beth El Sisterhood. What you may not know is how important and far-reaching your contribution becomes, locally, across North America, and around the globe. I want to share with you just a few ways in which your gift makes an impact.

At Temple Beth El:

• Sisterhood provides scholarships to youth to help them attend Jewish summer camps. We have also helped support TBE teens to spend a high school semester in Israel.
• Sisterhood provides refreshments at Oneg Shabbat receptions throughout the year.
• Sisterhood has been able to fund numerous special projects at TBE that benefit the whole community. Some recent examples include funding the upgrade of our kitchen, paying for the new carpet during the sanctuary remodel, and funding the purchase of new furniture for Rabbi Prosnit’s office, to help him make the space his own.

Around North America:

• You may not know that $18 of your Sisterhood dues goes to Women of Reform Judaism (WRJ), our parent organization in North America. WRJ has a remarkable reach, funded in part by dues from women’s groups like ours.
• As a philanthropic funder, WRJ supports many organizations and individuals. These include scholarships to rabbinic students, making it possible for many people to become rabbis who might otherwise not have that opportunity. We have funded girls and nonbinary youth to attend STEM summer camp, helping to close the disparity in numbers of campers between boys and girls. And we gave Innovation Grants to 12 exciting newer organizations that are committed to creating welcoming places for our diverse Jewish community in North America. 
• WRJ is also front and center in social justice, being a prominent Jewish voice on a wide variety of issues. We subsidize one of the legislative assistants at the Religious Action Center in Washington, DC. She is our eyes and ears on the Hill, helping us and the entire Reform movement react to issues as they occur.

Globally

• WRJ has strong ties to organizations in Israel and around the world. Your dues help support many initiatives that help our global Jewish community.
• We give funding to the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, to support female rabbis in Israel.
• We support the World Union for Progressive Judaism to create their Shlichei Tzibur Prayer Leadership Program for Women.
• We support a bat mitzvah program at the Leo Baeck Education Center in Haifa, as well as an adult Bat mitzvah program in Latin America.
• We make a gift to the Israel Religious Action Center to help in their work to advance gender equality and fight discrimination in Israel.
• We regularly respond to emergency requests for funding, whether in Ukraine, Israel, or other locations around the globe.

Your membership in TBE Sisterhood creates ripples well beyond our own community. See this article on the WRJ blog for more details about this year’s WRJ grants of over $300,000. 

I hope that you will renew or join us for the first time today. Click here for more information and to join online.
 

Thank you to everyone who has donated additional funds when registering for an event at TBE. Your donations help Temple Beth El continue to offer high-quality educational, worship, and community-building opportunities. Many of our program expenses for special events, including concerts and lectures, are supported by generous donations to funds that were created for those specific purposes. Your donations to these funds help to ensure that programming in these areas can continue. 

For example, in the registration for Swarsensky Memorial Weekend events, an opportunity to make an additional donation to the Rabbi Manfred E. Swarsensky Fund was available. These donations support future Swarsensky Memorial Weekend speakers and events. 

Donations to special events are now recognized in the Mitzvah of Giving section of the Giving Spotlight newsletter, along with the other dedicated donations that we always recognize in Giving Spotlight. Thank you for your generous support. 

TBE introduced our Annual Sponsorship program as a way for businesses or organizations to gain exposure to our members through social media, direct emails, livestreaming, and other communication media. Our communication reaches approximately 600 households directly, with a larger reach through our social media and livestreaming. Cress Funeral and Cremation Service has been a TBE gold-level sponsor for many years, recognizing the benefit of sharing their name and business details consistently through our many media platforms. 
If you know of a business or organization that could benefit from being a sponsor of TBE, please contact Stefanie Kushner at exec@tbemadison.org. 

Dear Friends, – 

I write to you in the wake of the terrible act of antisemitic violence in Colorado last weekend. It is also on the heels of a rise in antisemitic attacks across the country, including the tragic murder of two young Jews in front of a Jewish museum in Washington, DC, two weeks ago.   

These attacks make Jews uneasy and unsafe and do nothing to bring about peace in Gaza and to help Palestinians. We will continue to pray for the victims of the attack in Boulder during our healing prayers this week.    

As always, we take matters of security remarkably seriously. We are in touch with local law enforcement, and we meet regularly with Ari Friedman, the executive director of the Wisconsin Jewish Security Network, to ensure the safety and security of Temple Beth El. There are no immediate threats to us or our property. As always, Madison Police Department officers will be present at our events and programs, including the outdoor Shabbat this Friday in Olbrich Park and the campfire Havdalah at the Goodman Campus on Saturday. 

We know many of you feel anxious and overwhelmed. This is an understandable response to the news of the last few weeks. We are not powerless, and the best way to respond to these acts of antisemitism is to continue to live a loving, open, and proud Jewish life.  As Jews have done throughout our history, when we keep walking as a community, we will get to the other side together. 

If you or your loved ones have any questions, please reach out to me or Stefanie Kushner. 

The following is the section of Temple Beth El's food policy addressing Passover observance:

• During Passover, Temple Beth El will observe food guidelines suggested by the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR). Legumes (kitniyot), rice, and similar substances are permitted in Passover s’darim and other Passover meals. If these grains are present, an effort should be made to also offer an alternative that does not contain these grains.

 For more information about these Passover observance guidelines, please see Gates of the Seasons, CCAR 1983, page 68, B-3: “The mitzvah of abstaining from eating leaven (Chamets),” and recent CCAR responsum RR21, found at https://www.ccarnet.org/ccar-responsa/rr21-no-5756-9/, excerpted from Reform Responsa for the Twenty-First Century, CCAR Press.

Temple Beth El’s staff should adhere to these guidelines in the performance of their official duties.

On Sunday morning, January 23, Temple Beth El welcomed Dr. Robert Hamers to give the Joel Pedersen Lecture on Tikkun Olam and the Environment. Dr. Hamers is a professor of chemistry and director of the Center for Sustainable Technology at UW–Madison. His talk focused on how nanomaterials can mitigate the effects of global climate change on food production and help us advance toward sustainable agriculture. The slides from Dr. Hamers’s talk are posted on the members only page of our website.

Nanomaterials are materials with a dimension of <100 nanometers (less than 1/1000 of the width of a human hair) that are used in biomedical equipment, batteries, paints, computers, and many other products. Their unique properties allow them to interact with organic materials in useful and environmentally beneficial ways. For instance, nanotechnology holds great promise for food production in terms of soil fertility, disease resistance, and minimizing chemical use.

However, like many technologies, use of nanotechnologies may also cause unintended negative effects. Dr. Hamers said that chemists have the responsibility to society to examine nanomaterial interactions with biological and environmental systems before they become widely distributed and to propose rules for their use. Together with the late Joel Pedersen and another colleague, he worked to create the Center for Sustainable Technology to explore how nanotechnologies can come to fruition with little or no negative environmental impact. This work is currently supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.