synagogue spotlight
What’s happening at ... Congregation Tifereth Israel
Congregation Tifereth Israel Gathering
Again in Bensalem Sanctuary
O n Rosh Hashanah and
Yom Kippur this year,
Congregation Tifereth Israel
in Bensalem set up 140 seats.

Sixty-two percent of members said
they planned on coming into the build-
ing for the High Holidays, but syna-
gogue President Jacki Cohen still wasn’t
sure what to expect.

She thought the temple might be “out
of sight, out of mind” for people in the
wake of COVID. Th ey had spent so
much time away and doing services on
Zoom. But on the fi rst day of Rosh Hashanah
“we were fi lled to capacity,” CTI Rabbi
Jeff Schnitzer said. Th en on Yom Kippur,
the main service of the day was “stand-
ing-room only,” he added.

“I think the need for people to recon-
nect aft er being separated for so long;
I think it is a prime motivation,” the
rabbi said.

Before COVID, Congregation Tifereth
Israel’s membership base dropped from
250 to less than 130, according to con-
gregants. But over the past two-and-a-
half years, it has gone back up a little.

In August 2020, the building
reopened aft er a fi ve-month pandemic
closure, and CTI’s nursery school had
24 kids. For the 2022-’23 school year,
it is up to 100. Many of them are from
non-Jewish Bensalem families who just
Cindy Citron, Congregation Tifereth
Israel’s educational director, has
seen school enrollments increase
in recent years.

need a preschool, but their enrollment
nonetheless helps the temple, explained
Cindy Citron, its educational director.

Citron also mentioned that in 2017,
CTI’s Hebrew school had maybe 10 or
12 students. Today, though, it is up to 48.

“It’s growing,” she said. “And most of
the kids in the Hebrew school right now
came through the preschool. So the pre-
school does serve as a feeder.”
Congregants also have started to
come back out for Shabbat. CTI’s hybrid
services, in person and on Zoom, can
draw 30 or more people, according to
Cohen. Schnitzer, 67, a Levittown resident,
joined the synagogue in 1979 as a mem-
ber, staying until 1985. Th en he came
Congregation Tifereth Israel’s sanctuary
32 OCTOBER 20, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
back in 1995 as a congregant in time for
his daughter’s bat mitzvah. Finally, in
1998, he became the temple’s spiritual
leader. He believes that, over all of that time,
the synagogue has felt like a family.

When he’s talking to a prospective con-
gregant, Schnitzer explains that mem-
bers “fi ght like family,” he said. But then
he says that, “When something hap-
pens, we celebrate and grieve together.”
It’s this feeling that has kept Tifereth
Israel alive, according to the rabbi. It’s
also a desire for this feeling that is bring-
ing some new people in post-COVID.

Going shopping or to an event can
create connections with other people.

But it’s not quite the same as going to
synagogue together, Schnitzer said. “It’s
not a personal kind of connection that
you get in a synagogue like ours,” he
said. “We look at our community as
family and not as members.”
Among existing members, there’s an
intergenerational quality to the com-
munity. Schnitzer’s daughter Rebecca
is now a Hebrew school teacher at CTI.

Cohen, a member for 33 years, has a
daughter, Julie Miller, who is on the
board, as well as two grandkids who are
in the Hebrew school.

“I want them to grow up in the con-
gregation,” she said. “I fully expect that
that will happen.”
Sherry Saks, a congregant since 1988,
also has grandchildren who are in
school at the synagogue. In her time
at Tifereth Israel, she’s served on the
board, as co-president of the Parent-
Teacher Organization, in the Sisterhood
and even in the gift shop.

Saks is motivated to help the syn-
agogue because she loves it, but also
because she does not want to see it
close. Even with the recent increases
in enrollments for the nursery and
Hebrew schools, she is worried that
CTI is not gaining enough new families.

She thinks that younger generations
don’t care as much about religious prac-
tice and Jewish institutions, and while
the congregant numbers have gone up
slightly in recent years, the numbers
bear her out.

At the smaller High Holiday ser-
vices, like on the second day of Rosh
Hashanah and on Kol Nidre, Saks did
not see many young families. She also
said that “that’s been going on for years,
and it hasn’t really changed much.”
“It’s not the same as it used to be,” she
added. “And that breaks my heart.”
But while Saks and another member,
Renee Feder, may be concerned, they
were still able to look around during
High Holiday services this year and see
a crowd. During the blowing of the sho-
far, Feder looked behind her at all of the
people and started to cry.

“Th ere were people. It was diff erent,”
she said, comparing it to Zoom. “Very
diff erent.” JE
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
Congregation Tifereth Israel on Bristol Road in Bensalem
Photos by Jarrad Saff ren
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER



d’var torah
Creating Humanity and
Midrash in the Divine Image
BY RABBI SHAI CHERRY
Parshat Bereshit
W hen teaching midrash, I
enjoy showing how paint-
ings are just as much
midrash as classical rabbinical texts.

A Renaissance painter, Bacchiacca
(1494-1557), depicted Eve lovingly
holding Abel aloft , while Cain, vying
for her attention, tugs at her hem. Th e
Torah gives us no indication that Cain
murdered Abel due to Eve’s maternal
favoritism, but that is what Bacchiacca
suggests. Blame the woman!
Earlier, in the Garden, Eve was pun-
ished by God for her transgression:
“Your desire will be for your man, and
he will rule over you” (Gen. 3:16). Th e
traditional commentators try to deter-
mine if the husband’s rule over his wife
is general or limited to the beginning of
the verse, which references her desire.

In either case, patriarchy is planted in
the garden.

Bruria is among the few women
mentioned explicitly in the Talmud.

Rivka Lubitch, an Israeli rabbinic advo-
cate for women, imagines what is found
in Bruria’s Torah: “Your desire will be
for your woman, and she will rule over
you.” Lubitch’s midrash explains that
“whoever desires someone is ruled by
them; but the Torah of Moses spoke in
the language of humans, which is to
say, males.”
Lubitch’s midrash is off ered in a
newly translated volume of the Israeli
women’s midrash, edited by Tamar
Biala, entitled “Dirshuni.” Biala
unpacks each midrash for those unfa-
miliar with rabbinic literature.

Bruria, Biala explains, is the wife
of Rabbi Meir who is known for hav-
(1.) (2.)
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(15.) ing variant readings in his Torah!
Moreover, since Hebrew is a gendered
language, b’nei adam, the words we
translate as humans, is literally, “the
sons of Adam.” Th e recognition that
the Torah (of Moses) is written in the
language of “humans” is found fre-
quently in the Talmud where it is used
to neutralize a hyper-literal reading of
grammatical conventions or common
idioms. Lubitch reinterprets this common
rabbinic notion to destabilize and
uproot the Torah’s patriarchal ori-
gin story of both gender and sexual
orientation. In our world of power
and politics, whoever possesses what
another desires enjoys the advantage.

Lubitch, Biala and the other writers in
“Dirshuni” have appropriated the tra-
ditional method of midrash and writ-
ten themselves into the tradition. For
those of us familiar with rabbinic lit-
erature and supportive of their eff orts,
the result is breathtaking
At Congregation Adath Jeshurun,
we are celebrating this year 5783 as
the Year of the Woman. A series of
distinguished female authors, scholars
and Torah teachers will lead many of
our educational programs. For regular
Shabbat services, we are highlighting
female voices whose wisdom is now
enriching our tradition.

Th e fi rst female rabbi, Regina Jonas,
was ordained in Berlin in 1935. In
1972, Sally Priesand became the fi rst
American woman to be ordained.

In the 50 years since then, we have
benefi ted as a community from the
insights and perspectives of the other
half of our people. We will, of course,
continue to bring the widest range
of Jewish talent aft er the Year of the
Woman, but we wanted to begin the
second half of this century of woman’s
rabbinic leadership with a year explic-
itly devoted to women’s voices.

Feminism has also generated mid-
rash by men now able to see Torah dif-
ferently from our male ancestors. Years
ago, I noted that the language of human
creation in Genesis One (verse 27), for
example, is not how it is usually trans-
lated, male and female. Our verse in
Genesis One says God created human-
ity “masculine and feminine” (zakhar
u’n’kevah). (When God instructs Noah
to bring male and female animals
onto the ark, the Hebrew is ish v’ishah
[Genesis 7:2].)
One of our congregants, Mikayla
Fassler, astutely noted that such an
expression is not necessarily binary,
masculine and/or feminine. Like “day
and night,” the expression might be a
merism, one that is inclusive of every-
thing in between — like twilight.

Just as the divine image in which all
humans are created is neither exclu-
sively masculine nor feminine, the
Torah may be suggesting that human
gender identity is also not exclusively
binary. Rabbi Shai Cherry is the rabbi of
Congregation Adath Jeshurun in Elkins
Park, the featured lecturer for Th e Great
Courses’ “Introduction to Judaism”
and author of “Torah through Time:
Understanding Bible Commentary from
the Rabbinic Period to Modern Times”
and “Coherent Judaism: Constructive
Th eology, Creation, and Halakhah.” Th e
Board of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia
is proud to provide diverse perspectives
on Torah commentary for the Jewish
Exponent. Th e opinions expressed in
this column are the author’s own and
do not refl ect the view of the Board of
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