Hate, civil rights and meeting the co-founder of Southern Law Poverty Center

This weekend at Lakeside we have a scholar in residence program focusing on combating hate.  Joe Levin from the Southern Law Poverty Center (SLPC) will be speaking Saturday night and Sunday morning.  On Friday night Rabbi Serotta will talk about his personal connection to the civil rights movement growing up in Miami Florida.  I can't wait to hear his story.  

Growing up in Crystal Lake, Illinois in the 1960's and 1970's  I  did experience some anti-semitism but I did not grow up in a very diverse community; being Jewish was as exotic as it got back at my schools.  I do remember going to visit my Aunt Corrie Diamond in Sardis, Mississippi in 1971 with my mom, grandmother and sister.  Aunt Corrie had been married to my great Uncle Sol and she was not Jewish and when they got married in 1942 I am sure it caused a commotion  on both sides of the family.   

Uncle Sol had owned the local dry goods store and he and Aunt Corrie had worked in Sardis for their whole lives.  When we went to downtown Sardis I saw for the first time two types of drinking fountains:  white and colored.  There were also white and colored bathrooms.  I was mystified and did not understand why this was so different than bathrooms in Crystal Lake and Chicago.   I asked my Mom why there were two different fountains and bathrooms and she tried to explain to me and my sister the situation in Mississippi.  It did not make sense to me then and it still does not make sense to me.  

As we go into our Scholar in Residence weekend if you have stories or your parents or grandparents have stories of the civil rights movement now is a great time to share these important memories and stories with the next generation!

Cheers For 60 Years; Ad Mayah Ve-essrim

Jerry and Marian Michaels 1955

My parents will be married 60 years this January and coincidentally the place I have worked at for 25 years, Lakeside, is also celebrating 60 years. 60 years is a long time. I am sure my parents and others who have reached their 60th anniversary can attest to that.  To do anything for 60 years you must work hard, love what you are doing and change with the times.  I think my parents and Lakeside have been very successful on these points.  

My parents moved to Crystal Lake, Illinois in 1959 after being married for 5 years.  My 27 year old parents moved to farm, the only place they could rent at the time as my father had bought a veterinary practice.  They had one car and my mom had one baby and one on the way.  Her only phone was a party line with the people across the street.  It was not an easy life.

I know that Lakeside’s beginnings were also humble.  We began as a school and then went on to become a synagogue.  Our founding members were very thoughtful when they went to build a structure and they were sure not to leave the future generations with a mortgage. Today we are very grateful that we don’t have a mortgage and we are able to keep fundraising to sustain Lakeside.

I am sure my parents could not imagine how their relationship and also their situation would change over 60 years.  The small town of Crystal Lake which they moved to is now a sprawling community.  Although there are not many Jewish families in Crystal Lake there is a synagogue closer to my house then my home congregation which was in Elgin.  My father still practices at Fox Valley Animal Hospital on Route 14 in Crystal but the whole area has exploded.  My parents are now grandparents to 5 great young adults (if I may say so myself!)

Michaels-Ehrlich-Shanker Families, Cuba Dec 2014

Lakeside has also weathered many changes.  We have a full time Rabbi, Cantor and Educational director.  We also have a song leader, teachers, a Hebrew school and t’filot, services on Friday night, Saturday morning, Sunday morning  and holidays.  I am sure some of our founders would be surprised at our programs which our younger families assume are  long standing traditions at Lakeside.  

In our 7th and 8th grade class we had an opportunity to interview different generations of Lakeside members. Our students heard about programs from Lakeside’s history and got a crash course in Classical Reform Judaism.  We are editing these interviews and hope to show them at our Cheers for 60 years.

Motzei Shabbat, Saturday night February 7 we will have a celebration at Lakeside, Cheers for 60 years.  Our celebration, for adults and children, will begin at 5:30 pm and you just need to RSVP to come to this party.  What a wonderful way to help us celebrate.  We are taking a Lakeside picture at about 6:30 pm and you will not want to miss that.

I am in the bottom row.

I am in bottom row and the last 3 in the second row

For 25 of Lakeside’s 60 years I have had the honor to be the educator. Check out all the pictures of me in our confirmation pictures on the walls at Lakeside.  I have been honored to  watch families grow and been a invited over the years to my students’ weddings, B’nai Mitzvah and of course family funerals.  The Jewish blessing May you live until 120 is often written as "till 120" (in Hebrew: עד מאה ועשרים שנה; "Ad Mayah Ve-essrim Shana" or in Yiddish "Biz Hundret un Tsvantsig").

The most often-cited source is Genesis 6:3;Then God said, “my spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.

In Deut. 34:7 the age of Moses upon his death is given as 120, but most importantly it says "his eye had not dimmed, and his vigor had not diminished." To have one's mental and physical faculties—that is why Jews wish someone via "till 120

I wish Lakeside Ad Mayah ve-essrim, until 120.  I know the next 60 years will bring change, nachos,(pride in coming generations)and and we will be a wonderful spiritual and educational home not just for us, but for our children and our children’s children.  

Lakeside Congregation 2015