So the good news is that I had a very interesting, satisfying and productive time at the Rabbinical Assembly convention in Boston. The bad news is that I was only able to stay for a day and a half before having to return to New York. What can you do? Something was better than nothing would have been!

While I was there, I went to a lot of interesting sessions and heard some very good lectures. But what struck me most of all was the way the face of the Conservative movement is changing. When I first joined the R.A. in 1978, it was an entirely different organization. For one thing, the entire membership was male. For another, the members lived, almost exclusively, in the U.S., Canada and Israel. There were other differences as well, but this last one is the one I'd like to write about this week.

The movement faces different problems in different countries, but the stories of growth, development and expansion I heard about the least likely places really struck me as evidence of the continued vitality of our philosophy of Judaism.

From Rabbi Jules Harlow, I heard a report about the establishment of a masorti congregation (masorti, the Hebrew word for "traditional", is the preferred term for Conservative congregations outside the U.S. and Canada) in Lisbon, of all places...and, at that, one made up almost entirely of the descendants of conversos who were forced to abandon Judaism in the dark days of the Inquisition and yet whose descendants have somehow kept the recollection of their families' Jewishness alive.

From Rabbi Ron Hoffberg, I heard the the most extraordinary talk about the work he is doing establishing a masorti community in Prague. We heard very complicated, fascinating stories about the growth of the conservative movement in Latin America, including in countries such as Peru and Uruguay, where we previously had no presence at all.

My friend Rivon Krygier, whom many of you met in shul last week, spoke at length about his community, Adat Shalom, in Paris, and the very successful way he is managing to establish himself and his community as a permanent part of the Jewish scene in France. (What he had to say about anti-Semitism in France and the long-term prospects for the existence of a vibrant Jewish community there, on the other hand, was dramatically less sanguine.) And Rabbi Gesa Ederberg, who spoke at Shelter Rock last spring (at the JTS dessert reception) and whom many of you met, spoke as well, describing her successful campaign to be recognized as a rabbi in Germany not solely by our movement, but by the government itself, and, as a result, to have her appointment as rabbi of the Orangienburger Strasse Synagogue, which I mentioned in an e-letter a few weeks ago, confirmed as an official state appointment.

So that's a lot of progress in just one year. Of course, my colleagues from overseas were complaining about money (some things don't ever change) and about the way endless internecine Jewish tension impedes progress that could only benefit the Jewish community as a whole (ditto.) But what can you do? I was so impressed by these people, and so pleased by the stories I heard. They are all truly doing holy work, and work that involves difficulties American rabbis such as myself rarely, if ever, have to deal with.

In the course of these last two years, I've brought Rivon Krygier and Gesa Ederberg to Shelter Rock for visits, but I'd like to bring them back again to speak in detail and depth about their work. And others too--including rabbis from the U.K. with whom I am very friendly, and some, perhaps, even from Latin America. We will only profit from thinking of ourselves as part of a world-wide effort to promote a kind of Judaism that is rooted in intellectual and spiritual integrity, and which embraces the core values of tradition at the same time it insists on maintaining the flexibility necessary to grow and to develop in new, interesting directions. That's who we are...and it was heartening to see that it is who so many others are as well, including people in the most unlikely places!

Cordially,

Rabbi Martin S. Cohen