Temple Beth El Blog

We are excited to announce that, in preparation for our High Holy Day online worship, we will create a video montage of families, couples, and individuals lighting their Shabbat/holiday candles in their homes. These images will be on our screens while Cantor Jacob Niemi offers the live audio of the blessings for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

We are looking for volunteer families, couples, and individuals who would be willing to create videos of themselves lighting Shabbat and holiday candles. We will edit the videos for length to include as many families as we can on the eves of Rosh Hashanah (which is also Shabbat) and Yom Kippur.
Here are the requirements for video submissions:
1. They may be in either MP4 or MOV format.
2. They should be shot in landscape (horizontal) orientation.
3. Do not be concerned about sound or your pronunciation of the blessings. When we include this footage in our holiday worship, Cantor Niemi will provide the audio to accompany your visual images.
4. If possible, dress in nice, casual clothes for the occasion.
5. Try to use an attractive area in your home as a backdrop to your candle lighting.
6. When you are ready, simply email your video to office@tbemadison.org, and we’ll take it from there.
The deadline for submissions is Monday, September 14, 9:00 am.

Shopping List

• Jim Beam® Honey Bourbon Whiskey
• Ginger Beer
• One Green Apple

Preparation

• Pour bourbon over Ice. 
• Top with ginger beer. 
• Add apple garnish.
• Enjoy an apples and honey beverage for Rosh Hashanah.

Volunteering is not as easy these days as it used to be, but there are still things you can do to help people in our community.

Catholic Multicultural Center
The Catholic Multicultural Center (CMC) meal program continues to provide grab-and-go meals from the CMC parking lot. Our volunteers drop off food every other Wednesday to meet the growing need. We cook for 80+ people by sharing recipes and dividing up the work. If you are interested in preparing food at home for delivery to CMC, please use the SignUpGenius link. Contact Sue Levy if you have any questions.

Porchlight
Porchlight has opened two shelters to provide more housing and to separate men who are ill from those who are healthy. They are in need of volunteers to do nightly health assessments at the Warner Park men’s shelter, from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm at 1625 Northport Drive. If interested, please email Kim Sutter.

Healing House
Healing House serves individuals without homes as they recuperate from surgery, illness, or childbirth. TBE cooks meals for the residents and staff on a quarterly basis. We have enough volunteers for the August rotation.

Healing House is also seeking volunteers to work in the house supporting the families who stay there. Volunteers assist with childcare, preparing meals, cleaning rooms, and supporting staff as needed. There is no type of “normal” day, as it depends on the makeup of the guests. The ideal Healing House volunteer will be consistent, flexible, motivated, and caring. Volunteers commit to at least two four-hour shifts a month, for at least six months. Shifts are offered 7:00 am–11:00 pm, seven days a week.

Thoreau and Emerson Elementary Schools
The Madison Metropolitan School District has announced that children will not be returning to the physical classroom until at least early November. This presents a difficult situation for many families whose food budget stretches further when their children can get two meals a day at school. We can support these families by volunteering with or donating to their partner agency, Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin. Sign up here to volunteer and here to donate. For Thoreau School, no decisions have been made yet about additional ways to provide food to families at home.

Emerson School is not likely to use literacy and math mentors for the foreseeable future. The principal has sent a couple of suggestions for how we can continue to support the school:

• Use Amazon Smile when you shop Amazon. Add Emerson Elementary PTO (Madison, WI) as your charity. This costs participants nothing.
• Download the BoxTops apps on your phone. Add Emerson Elementary (searching for zip code 53704 is fastest). Follow the directions—basically, take a picture of your grocery receipts—and anything that is a BoxTops brand will be counted. Also free.
• If you are feeling generous, support the school’s current GoFundMe for purchase of new smartboards.

United Way Volunteer Center
United Way of Dane County has compiled a list of volunteer opportunities specifically needed during the pandemic. They are currently looking for website managers, food bank warehouse workers, food pantry gardeners, sweet corn harvesters, blood drive volunteers, and a wide variety of other positions. Many of the volunteer jobs can be done using social distancing or from home.

Temple Beth El wove together a beautiful tapestry of Jewish values, tikkun olam, inclusion, diversity, immigration, and racial justice during PRIDE month in June. By celebrating LGBTQ people and values within our Temple and larger communities, we all felt valued, uplifted, informed, and motivated to help improve our world. We did this through many varied and engaging programs.

We decorated our digital world with rainbows, we filled our souls with music by LGBTQ composers and themes sung by Cantor Jacob Niemi each week, we added color to the recipes featured in our Quarantine Kitchen program (including two youth bakers), we learned with Rena Yehuda Newman about Queer Jewish Memory and with Cantor Niemi on looking at Jewish texts with a “bent lens,” we celebrated a spirited pride Shabbat, and we even learned how to make a few different Pride-themed friendship bracelets.

Rena Yehuda Newman’s Zoom meeting on Queer Jewish Memory was fascinating and provided a powerful message about “expanding the archives” and documenting personal stories to ensure that future historians have a complete picture. For example, Newman’s research showed that the history of the late-1960s Black student strike at UW reveals documents and perspectives of university administrators but few if any documents or perspectives from the Black students themselves. They challenged us to question what we would document and put in an archive to capture LGBTQ lives and struggles and what we want remembered, and to reach out to archives to do just that. What are we contributing to Queer Jewish memory?

Cantor Niemi’s insightful "bent lens” journey through Jewish texts was truly thought-provoking, depicting differing interpretations of texts through the ages. Cantor Niemi explained how the rabbis learned how to deal with gender fluidity and sexual differences because of the ancient Jewish tradition of having people bring questions and difficulties to the rabbis for advice and wisdom. While traditional norms may be continually reinforced through the centuries, there is ample evidence that Judaism has accepted and even embraced these differences.

Pride Shabbat was a beautiful service filled with meaningful prayers and heartwarming music from specially selected composers. We so appreciate our rabbi’s and cantor’s wisdom, caring messages and words, and inclusive support for all of us in our community.

The Pride committee also put together a wonderful list of resources that can be found on the
Temple blog.

You can continue to feel the Pride by watching these recordings:

Pride Shabbat June 2020

Pride Friendship bracelets (click here for instructions)

Quarantine Kitchen Pride Edition—Rainbow Challah with Jen Szlasa (click here for recipe)

Quarantine Kitchen Pride Edition—Pride Flag Cupcakes with Theo Jacobsohn (click  here for recipe)

Quarantine Kitchen Pride Edition—Rainbow Cheesecake Swirl Bars with Eliana Goff (click here for recipe)

Bo’u Nashir (“Come, Let Us Sing”) – June 2, 2020 

Bo’u Nashir (“Come, Let Us Sing”) – June 9, 2020 

Bo’u Nashir (“Come, Let Us Sing”) – June 16, 2020 

Bo’u Nashir (“Come, Let Us Sing”) – June 23, 2020 

Bo’u Nashir (“Come, Let Us Sing”) – June 30, 2020 

On September 13, Matt Rothschild will discuss the history and current practice of voter suppression in America and in Wisconsin. Matt is the executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which investigates and advocates on issues like gerrymandering, campaign finance, special interest lobbying and electioneering, and voter suppression. The program will conclude with a discussion of what we can do to combat voter suppression and support a healthy democracy.

Prior to joining the Democracy Campaign five years ago, Matt worked at The Progressive magazine for 32 years, most of that time as editor and publisher. His opinion pieces have run in the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, the Miami Herald, and a host of other newspapers. He has also appeared on Nightline, NPR, C-SPAN, and WISC-TV, where he does election night commentary.

This presentation will be offered by Zoom on Sunday, September 13, 3:00–4:30 pm. The program is sponsored by the Wisconsin Interfaith Voter Engagement Campaign and by Jewish Congregations for Social Justice, a collaborative effort of the social action committees of Temple Beth El, Beth Israel Center, and Congregation Shaarei Shamayim. You can sign up here for the Zoom link.

It is highly recommended that you watch the short 38-minute documentary “Suppressed: The Fight to Vote” before the program. This online video is both engaging and enraging, and will leave you wanting to learn more.

“God formed Adam out of dust from all over the world: yellow clay, white sand, black loam, and red soil. Therefore, no one can declare to any people that they do not belong here since this soil is not their home,” wrote Yalkut Shimoni some 800 years ago.

More than 70 Temple Beth El members participated virtually in “Looking Inward, Focusing Outward: An Urgent Conversation on Racial Justice” in July. Filled with music from Cantor Jacob Niemi and wise words from Rabbi Jonathan Biatch, Rabbi Bonnie Margulis, Racial Justice Action Team Co-Chair Betsy Abramson, and others, the program provided a much-needed opportunity for congregants to listen, learn, share, and plan next steps.

While we may be familiar with the statistics on racial inequities in every area of life here in Madison, in Wisconsin, and in the United States as a whole, seeing them on our computer screens still shocked and disturbed us. As with many things, the enormity of the challenge ahead felt daunting. Hearing about work done by the Religious Action Center and our Temple community showed us that we had a sturdy foundation to build on. Breaking it down into areas we could focus on, and talking about specific steps and actions we could take as individuals and as a congregation, helped all of us feel as if change could indeed happen.

But first, it was so important to listen, to reflect on our own experiences, and to share those stories with each other.

The first to do so was Martye Griffin, who spoke to us in a video he’d recorded to provide the space for us, as white congregants, to talk honestly, without worrying about being judged. An African American member of Temple Beth El, Martye described how his family always dressed up when they went out, and how he had to wear a tie each time. When he asked his mother why his family had to do this while the white families he saw got to dress casually and comfortably, she told him that because people were going to judge them by the color of their skin, they needed to present a picture that was impossible to criticize. He shared other stories about early school days and about college that echoed stories we’ve heard in the weeks since the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police. His stories showed the care and thought that had to go into every action African Americans take on a daily basis to stay safe.

In the virtual equivalent of sitting at tables together in TBE’s Swarsensky Social Hall, we were all placed in different “Zoom rooms” to talk about our own experiences seeing subtle and not-so-subtle examples of racism and inequality around us, as children and as adults. In my “room,” there were stories about experiences where there was no diversity, or where we were the only white people at community celebrations hosted by African American organizations. We shared memories of conversations with family members expressing racist views, or parroting those views as children and being taught profound lessons by parents who set us straight.

I shared a story that still haunts me, about welcoming back my third grade teacher, who was probably the only African American teacher in all of East Brunswick, New Jersey, after a short absence. We adored Mr. O’Kelly, and without him I’d probably never have become an expert on multiplication, one of the few math skills I possess. “Welcome back Aunt Jemima!” I shouted. Mr. O’Kelly looked at me, and quietly asked me why I had said that, why I had called him Aunt Jemima. I remember freezing, knowing I’d said something very wrong, but not being sure what. He gently moved on, but the day General Mills announced recently that they were retiring Aunt Jemima for good, I wished I could write him a note apologizing, more than 50 years later.

From our stories, we moved on to steps we wanted to take going forward. Many in my group were passionate about doing all we could to stop potential voter suppression in the fall elections. Others suggested that as a congregation, we join our community’s African American organizations, faith groups, and others at their life-cycle celebrations, and form coalitions with them to build meaningful relationships. All agreed that we needed to listen hard—and keep listening—to our African American neighbors, and to let those conversations guide us forward.

“It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it,” said Rabbi Tarfon. These sessions confirmed that there is much work to do, and a great passion not to neglect that work, no matter the challenges ahead.

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The Social Action Committee plans to continue this discussion at our meeting on August 6. One of the clear messages from these conversations is that people are ready to get involved and make a difference. A Zoom invitation will be sent to the Social Action Committee and to those who participated in our racial justice conversations in July. Please contact Aleeza Hoffertif you want to be added to the list.

Kreplach Dough (courtesy of Tori Avey)

• 3 large eggs
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 1/2-2 cups flour
• 1.25 tsp salt

1. In a medium bowl, mix eggs and oil.
2. In a large bowl, mix 1.5 cups of flour with the salt.
3. Make a well in the middle of the flour and pour in the egg and oil mixture.
4. Use a fork to begin incorporating the flour into the egg mixture. Continue until the mixture is too thick to mix with a fork. Then, begin using your hands to mix and knead the dough.
5. Add ½ cup of flour a little at a time until the door is no longer sticky. You might not use a fill ½ cup.
6. Let the dough rest for 20-30 minutes covered.

Vegetarian filling:

• 1 small head or ½ large head of cauliflower
• 1 medium onion
• 2 carrots, peeled
• ½ tbsp salt
• ½ tbsp pepper
• ¾ tbsp smoked paprika (regular is okay, too)
• ½ tbsp garlic powder

1. Break down the cauliflower into florets and pulse in a food processor until very finely chopped.
2. Break down the carrots into chunks and pulse in a food processor until very finely chopped.
3. Chop the onion into large pieces and pulse in a food processor until very finely chopped.
4. Add salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder and mix.
5. In a large frying pan, heat 2 tbsp olive oil over medium-high heat.
6. Add the vegetarian filling mix and cook until the vegetables are soft and begin to brown on the bottom of the pan. This takes about 10-15 minutes.
7. Remove from the heat and let cool.

Chicken filling

• 2 chicken breasts, approximately 1 pound, cooked
• 2 chicken legs, approximately 1 pound, cooked
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• ½ black pepper
• 1 tsp smoked paprika (regular is okay, too)
• 1 egg

1. Remove the chicken from the bone if not using boneless meat.
2. Place the chicken in a food processor and pulse until very finely chopped.
3. Add the salt, garlic power, onion powder, pepper, and paprika and mix until incorporated.
4. Add the egg and mix until incorporated.

Beef filling

• 1 – 1.5 pounds ground beef
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1.5 tsp garlic powder
• 1.5 tsp onion powder

1. Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a large pan over medium-high heat.
2. Add the meat to the pan along with the salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. Use a spoon to incorporate the spices into the meat as it begins to cook.
3. Brown the beef until cooked through.
4. Use a potato masher to break the meat up until it looks finely chopped. Alternatively, use a food processor.

Folding techniques:

• For half-moon, three corner, and triangle folding techniques, refer to Tori Avey’s blog: https://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/chicken-kreplach/
• For the tortellini folding technique, follow the half-moon steps in Tori Avey’s blog. Instead of rolling the edge of the kreplach after it’s folded, bring the two corners of the half-moon together and press to seal them. You can use a little water to help with the seal.

On warm summer days, everyone appreciates a cool meal, or at least a cool side-dish, to take the heat away from your body and to chill down emotions and feelings. So here is a simple Israeli salad that has served as a staple of Israel dining tables for many decades. The addition of the pita bread, the zaatar spice mix, and the labneh yogurt cheese is just a sense of the fun one can have with Middle Eastern cooking. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 4 fresh medium tomatoes, chopped or cut into ¼-inch pieces
• 1 decent-sized cucumber, chopped or cut into ¼-inch pieces
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped or cut into ¼-inch pieces
• 1 medium to large red onion, chopped or cut into ¼-inch pieces
• 1 whole carrot, chopped or cut into ¼-inch pieces
• 30 (approximately) mint leaves chopped chiffonade style, enough to make about ¼ cup packed.
• 2/3 bunch of fresh parsley, rough chopped, for about 1 cup’s worth.
• Salt to taste
• Freshly cracked pepper to taste
• Lemon juice from 1.5 lemons
• 5 tbsp of Olive oil
• Zaatar spice blend (optional)
• Sumac (optional)
• ¾ lb labneh yogurt cheese
• Whole wheat pita bread cut into triangles

Preparation:

In a large bowl, mix together all the vegetables, lightly salting and peppering to taste. Be sure to keep the liquid from the vegetables in the bowl.

When the vegetables are uniformly mixed, add pepper to taste, the oil, and lemon juice, and continue to nix more.

Now, toss in the mint and parsley and mix again.

The third event of our 80th anniversary celebration, originally scheduled for June 27, unfortunately had to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We encourage you to support the following businesses that generously sponsored our 80th anniversary celebration series throughout the year.

Platinum Level
Celebrations Entertainment
Dewitt LLP Law Firm
Rocky Rococo Pizza and Pasta

Gold Level
Cress Funeral & Cremation Service
Great Dane Pub and Brewing Co.
Johnson Financial Group

Silver Level
Best Defense Fire Protection & Security
Camp Interlaken JCC
Madison Computer Works
Tree Health Management
URJ Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute
Willy Street Co-op

Bronze Level
Ayelet Tours
Bauer & Raether Builders
Crystal Cleaners
Destree Architecture and Design
Hausmann-Johnson Insurance
Images Plus
Lake Mills Cleaners and Dyers Inc.
Meicher CPAs
Metcalfe’s
Sergenian’s Floor Coverings
Sondel Family Veterinary Clinic
Squeaky Clean Window Washing

Each year for Pride Shabbat, we like to bring an accessible craft to the community. We try to make sure there are varying levels of difficulty to keep people of all ages engaged. Last year we accomplished that with a variety of designs to create your own rainbow yarmulke. This year, I’ll outline friendship bracelets, three ways. The first will be the simplest method: a 6-strand rainbow candy stripe. The second will be a 12-strand chevron. The third will be an alphabet pattern spelling out LOVE–AHAVAH in rainbow colors. Feel free to scroll down to whichever pattern/level of difficulty you’d prefer.

First up, you’ll need some string. My favorite is DMC, and here are the color IDs if you’re looking for an easy way to order online. They also have great photos of the entire palette on their website if you’re looking for a precise shade. Local shops can easily retrieve the floss by color name/ID for curbside pickup.

Candy Stripe

Start by cutting about 3 feet of each color: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. Tie a knot at the end.

At this point, I sometimes include a safety pin in the knot to clip the bracelet to my clothing and keep it taut as I tie the knots. For this demo, I’ll be using a clipboard, which achieves the same goal.

If you’re adding a safety pin, do so now, and attach it to a pant leg to keep the bracelet in place and with you on the go. Alternative methods of securing the knot include the clipboard below or just taping the bracelet to your work surface. Spread out the colors, red to violet.

For the candy stripe, you’ll be using the same knot over and over again. It looks like this: arrange the two strings in the shape of a 4 by bringing the left string over the right and wrapping it underneath the right string (see figure below). Then repeat this same process again with those strings. This completes the “forward knot.” This knot swaps the position of the two colors so you can work a stripe across the whole bracelet. The entire bracelet will consist of forward knots with each color working your way from red to violet in succession.

Forward knot: Take the red string, and tuck it under the orange string, then pull the knot tight, all the way to the top of the bracelet.

The knots may not look perfect on your first row. Don’t worry about it! Keep going one color at a time.

Once you get through the rainbow once, just keep repeating until the bracelet reaches your desired length!

Rainbow Chevron

This will be largely the same as the candy stripe, but with a second knot variety and more strings to track. You’ll want to slightly more than double the length of string that was used for the first bracelet since they’ll be halved to make the pattern—approximately 7 feet should work. Again, you’ll want one of each color of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. Tie a knot roughly the same as before, but leave a loop to help with tying the bracelet later.

Fasten the bracelet:

Arrange your strings in rainbow order starting from the middle. This will result in the red appearing to be the top once the chevron forms.

Start tying the forward knot across the strings from left to right. The first row of knots is the most important because it sets the order of the remaining strands. Start by tying violet over blue, then green, then yellow, then orange, then red.

Then tie a backward knot starting at the right-hand side and working your way through the same colors from right to left: blue, green, yellow, orange, red. If you need help visualizing the backward knot, I’ve included it below for the red string.

At this point, you’ll have your two violet strands in the middle. It doesn’t matter what knot you tie here since both strands are the same color. Continue the pattern with the remaining strings.

Forward knot:

Backward knot:

LOVE–AHAVAH Alphabet Pattern

This last pattern is for an alphabet-style bracelet. Unlike the other patterns, this one consists of one very long string weaving back and forth across rows of background colors. Cut each color of the rainbow plus two black strands about 3 feet long. Measure about 9 feet of black string as the leading strand. Tie a knot at the top and fasten like the other examples. Arrange in rainbow order with one black strand on each far side and the long strand at the left.

Start with the leading (long black) string, tying forward knots across the rainbow strands left to right, slightly angling the knots to keep the line straight. Then tie backwards knots from right to left to establish the foreground color. The colored knots appear by tying a knot in the opposite direction to the leading strand. For example, for the L, start with a forward knot tied with the leading strand, then tie backward knots with each of the rainbow colors (red, then orange, then yellow, etc.) to get the vertical line of the L. Then tie a forward and a backward knot with the long background strand on the right black strand. Work your way back from right to left tying backward knots using the leading strand, tying a forward knot with the red to start the horizontal part of the L. Continue with this method to complete the entire words: LOVE–AHAVAH

Friendship bracelet pattern: I flipped the rainbow on my bracelet, but both orientations work great!

I went ahead and added a candy stripe at the end just for a fun flourish. Feel free to get creative with the pattern once you learn the basic knots!

Last month we did a survey of our partner programs to see what they had done to adapt to rapidly changing conditions and what kind of support they needed. Here are updates on a few of these programs.

Catholic Multicultural Center

The Catholic Multicultural Center (CMC) meal program is currently a grab-and-go meal for guests to take with them from the CMC parking lot. Our volunteers are now cooking (in their homes) and dropping off meals every other Wednesday to meet the growing need. We cook meals for 80+ people by sharing recipes and dividing up the work. If you are interested in preparing food at home for delivery to CMC, please use the sign up genius link. Contact Sue Levy at 608-273-4527 if you have any questions.

Many thanks to the excellent Temple cooks who have already cooked at least 350 meals for appreciative Madisonians at Catholic Multicultural Center who needed a helping hand.

Porchlight

Porchlight has opened two new shelters to provide more housing and to separate men who are sick from those who are healthy. The Food Fight restaurant group provides catered meals for both shelters, so no meals are currently needed from volunteers. The Warner Park shelter is working well while serving anywhere from 65 to 95 men per night. They are in need of volunteers to do the nightly health assessments at the Warner Park Men’s shelter, from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm at 1625 Northport Drive. Volunteers will be given gloves and N95 masks and training. If interested, please email Kim Sutter.

Porchlight has been in the news lately:
You can read about their innovative COVID-19 screening process in this article from U.S. News and World Report.

The Wisconsin State Journal offers an in-depth look at the city’s exploration of alternatives to the prior program providing shelter in church basements.

And this PBS article talks about the impact of COVID-19 on people experiencing homelessness in Wisconsin.

Healing House

Healing House is operating and has implemented safety protocols. They are working closely with city and county staff and other homeless service providers to keep residents safe. So far the congregational meal program is continuing in modified form as volunteers drop off uncooked meals to be cooked by staff. TBE will be cooking meals next during the week of August 9 to August 15. You can sign up to volunteer here.

Thoreau and Emerson Elementary Schools

The Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) is asking people to support MMSD families by volunteering with their partner agency, Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin. In order to meet the food needs of vulnerable families while protecting the health and safety of volunteers, Second Harvest has moved to the distribution of pre-boxed groceries, calling it their “Care Box Campaign.” You can support this campaign by donating or volunteering your time. Sign up here to volunteer and here to donate.

United Way Volunteer Opportunities

United Way of Dane County has compiled a list of volunteer opportunities specifically needed during the pandemic. United Way also offers a guide to safe practices for volunteering your time and donating material goods. They are currently looking for hospice visitors, food bank warehouse workers, virtual home check-ins for seniors, meals on wheels delivery, virtual ESL and literacy tutoring, food pantry gardeners, and many other positions.

As COVID-19 precautions move into a new phase, Temple Beth El has created a task force toestablish safe practices as we prepare for a gradual return to communal life. On the national level, controversy has grown over whether houses of worship should be allowed to reopen for large gatherings. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, issued the following statement on May 22 on behalf of the Reform Jewish Movement:

“We have known for millennia that houses of worship are essential institutions. While we long to gather in person, we believe that there is no higher value than pikuach nefesh, saving a life. We are entrusted with the holy responsibility of being God’s partners in that work. The Reform Jewish Movement will continue to look to the wisdom of medical professionals to guide us on when reopening our synagogues can be done safely in keeping with our values.”

Rabbi Jacobs’s view is shared by many faith leaders in Wisconsin. These leaders spoke out in April by signing an amicus brief to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in favor of maintaining the Safer at Home order. The brief was supported by 131clergy and faith leaders—Protestants, Catholics, Quakers, Jews, and Buddhists—refuting the lawsuit’s contention that the order led to “decreased access to community and religious support.” The brief included 29 letters describing the strength, resiliency, and creativity of faith communities in moving their worship, pastoral care, religious instruction, and programming online. The statements highlighted how moving online made worship and other activities more rather than less accessible to those who would otherwise have been unable to participate due to age, disability, or geographic distance. Despite the disadvantages of not gathering in person, these religious leaders share a commitment to avoid putting members or anyone else at physical risk.The amicus brief was filed by Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice, of which the TBE Social Action Committee is a supporting member.

It’s fair to say that the April election did not go as smoothly as the people of Wisconsin might have hoped. Last-minute court challenges led to confusion, voters in some locations stood in line for hours, and social distancing was often difficult. Municipal clerks were hard-hit by a flood of last-minute absentee ballot requests, and voters who didn’t get their ballots on time either went to the polls despite the Safer at Home order or gave up their right to vote.

If you would like to vote by mail in the fall elections, now is the time to request your absentee ballot. All Wisconsin voters are able to request an absentee ballot without providing a reason—you don’t actually have to be absent. While the Wisconsin Elections Commission decided on May 27 to mail absentee ballots to all registered voters, the April experience suggests that more challenges may lie ahead.

If you are already registered to vote, the easiest way to request a ballot is online at MyVote.wi.gov. You will be required to upload a copy of your voter photo ID if one is not already on file with your municipal clerk. You can also request an absentee ballot by contacting your municipal clerk by mail or email. City of Madison residents may request an absentee ballot form; any other municipality should use this form.