Letters to the editor

Ideas evolve — so can peace
The recent lecture at Dor Hadash by Rula Hardal and May Pundak, and their interview by the Chronicle’s David Rullo, have left me mulling over the idea of A Land for All (“A Land for All, coming to Dor Hadash, presents a new vision of the two-state solution,” May 8). It sounds radical, but so was the kibbutz movement in the 1930s. It was the idealistic Hashomer Hatzair — the early kibbutz movement‚ that took my father’s brothers and
sisters from Montreal. My immediate family didn’t go because my mother said she’s a “business lady” not a kibbutznik. My aunts and uncles were all Hashomer Hatzair.

They wrote about their hard physical work and their dangerous conditions while trying to make the land fruitful. They also built the environment of a small socialist town. These kibbutzim still exist but in a quite modified form. My family helped build Ein HaShofet, Mishmar HaEmek and Netiv HaLamed-Heh. So some things were created and still exist, but in radically different form.

Social structure, culture and ideas can evolve. As a sociologist, I can imagine A Land for All growing and evolving into a productive confederation of peoples and their cultures.

Sarah Angrist
Pittsburgh

Honoring the past, embracing the future
I was unable to attend the May 15 farewell Shabbat service in the beautiful Temple Sinai sanctuary (“Rodef Shalom, Temple Sinai create ‘a house for all of us,’” March 13). As we watched the livestream from our home outside of Philadelphia, I was filled with deeply heartfelt emotions.

My family came to Temple Sinai — ironically, from Rodef Shalom Congregation — in 1962 as I entered sixth grade. My parents wanted me to become a bar mitzvah, which wasn’t yet offered at Rodef Shalom. It felt like family from the beginning as I became entrenched in the religious school, PAFTY, and then taught there for 45 years.

Three generations — I, my children and granddaughter — have experienced every one of our life cycle events on the Temple Sinai bimah. Temple Sinai is more than my congregation; it is my identity.

And our story is not unique. The Temple Sinai “Family of Families” is the heart and soul of the congregation. As Rabbi Jamie Gibson stated so eloquently, this feeling will not be left behind as we move to Beit Kulanu in the former Rodef Shalom building.

We will take our hearts and souls with us to build a new congregation, a new family of families. As I look forward to an exciting future in a new spiritual home, I will always carry the past with me. Temple Sinai will always be who I am.

Harold Marcus
Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania