Monday, September 10, 2007

Googlebombing the progressives

To my great jubilation, I have just located the liberal Jewish chavurah in Basel.

This was much more difficult than it perhaps should have been, because Googling "liberal jews Basel" or "progressive chavurah Basel", or equivalent German phrases such as "liberale Jüden Basel" or "jüdische Progressiven in Basel" did not... prior to my posting this blog entry... turn up any references to the egalitarian Jewish group in Basel.

Instead, Ofek refer to themselves by such bureaucratic circumlocutions as "the Association for Pluralistic Judaism"... which is probably helpful for maintaining good relations with the Orthodox-led, nominally pluralistic main synagogue of Basel, from whom they receive funding (after all, it would not do to imply that they were any kind of embryonic splinter group, as opposed to a helpful committee), but is a good deal less useful for Reform Jews in Basel seeking a progressive Jewish community in north-western Switzerland.

Nonetheless, they are clearly the real deal -- they are bringing in post-Holocaust Germany's first woman rabbi to lead Yom Kippur services in Basel. Which makes me much happier about attending Rosh Hashana services in the Einheitsgemeinde.

And if you happen to have arrived here googling in search of gleichberechtigte jüdische Göttesdienste in der Schweiz... you're welcome, and see you at services! :-)

Update: This is a very good article which explicates my annoyance at the "frummest common denominator" approach of Basel's "multidenominational" main synagogue.