The city of Ramat HaSharon (population 38,000) will hold, for the first time, a Jewish Experience Week later this month.
The series of events will begin Saturday night, March 21. Events will include a Jewish-Israeli film festival, featuring films produced and written by young artists about Jewish/Israeli identity dilemmas.
Mayor Itzik Rauchberger explained, in his official letter of invitation to the city’s residents, the importance of Jewish Experience Week: “Our exposure to the world and openness to other cultures and ideas are a welcome phenomenon, without which we would not be able to enjoy the tremendous wealth of ideas in the modern world. But at the same time, with this tremendous competition, the place of traditional Jewish culture gets pushed off to the side. We are witness to the fact that this culture, which has developed for thousands of years, has stood off abashed in the corner in recent decades.”
“Happily,” Rauchberger continues, “the past decade has seen a gradual return of Jewish culture to the forefront of the public, education and cultural arena.”
“As part of this welcome trend, we in Ramat HaSharon have set ourselves a goal of paramount ethical and educational value, to act to disseminate the values of Jewish culture. These are values that many of the young among us no longer know in the deep manner in which we, the older ones, were exposed to and were part of our daily lives – and how much more so for our parents and grandparents.”
Rauchberger also noted that the above goals were not limited to one week: “The municipal culture department and the Jewish Culture unit work all year long and hold various events, designed for the broad public, whose goal it is to remind all of us of our roots and origins. The same is true for our school system, from kindergarten to high school.”
Other events of Jewish Experience Week are to include children’s activities and free musical shows based on liturgical and Biblical sources. Performing will be the Natural Choice, Nash Idan, David D’or, Ohr Zohar, and others.
The special week will end on Friday, March 27, with “Greeting the Sabbath” – song and discussion of the Torah portion of the week, led by Kabbalah teacher Ohr Zohar and his band.
Mayor for a Week
The city of Ramat HaSharon is also running another interesting program: Whoever saves the most water in the coming four months, compared with their water usage levels during the same period last year, will win the prize of replacing Mayor Rauchberger for a week.