BY JULIE IRWIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Tristate's newest Jewish congregation belongs to the newest of Judaism's many branches.
Congregation B'nai Tikvah, part of the Reconstructionist movement, held its inaugural services Friday in Butler County's Union Township Building. B'nai Tikvah -- the name means "Children of Hope" in Hebrew -- is the first Reconstructionist congregation in Southwest Ohio.
Reconstructionism was founded in the 1920s by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan. Raised Orthodox, Rabbi Kaplan was teaching in a Conservative seminary when he developed the ideas that Judaism was an evolving religious civilization and Jews were not the chosen people but rather equal to the other peoples of the world.
Judaism "is not just a religion, it's also language and art and music and dance," said Rabbi Bruce Adler, who heads B'nai Tikvah. "All those things comprise a civilization. And Judaism is not just a religion, it's a civilization."
About 2 percent of American Jews identify themselves as Reconstructionist, and 100 congregations nationwide are affiliated with the movement. By comparison, roughly 41 percent of American Jews are Reform, 40 percent are Conservative and 7 percent are Orthodox.
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SCHOOL TO OPEN
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Congregation B'nai Tikvah is starting a religious school for children on Sunday evenings at St. Anne Episcopal Church, 6461 Tylersville Road, in West Chester. Call 777-1656.
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The Reconstructionist movement, the only branch of Judaism to originate in the United States, was the first to perform the bat mitzvah ceremony for girls. Before 1922, when Rabbi Kaplan held the coming-of-age ceremony for his daughter Judith, the bar mitzvah was reserved for boys. The ceremony has since become a staple of the Reform and Conservative movements, although the Orthodox continue to restrict it to boys.
Reconstructionists ordain women as rabbis and use gender-neutral language in their prayer books. The B'nai Tikvah prayer book will be loose-leaf, in Hebrew and English, written by Rabbi Adler and open to change.
"Nothing will be carved in stone except our desire to create a caring community," Rabbi Adler said. "We're going to try to build a congregation that's non-hierarchical, egalitarian, open and flexible."
The Reconstructionist movement also allows its rabbis to perform interfaith weddings, and it considers the child of either a Jewish mother or father to be Jewish. The Orthodox and Conservative consider only the children of Jewish mothers to be Jewish.
Rabbi Adler, who previously headed the Conservative Beth Israel Congregation in Hamilton, is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia. He and the founding members of B'nai Tikvah debated what movement, if any, to affiliate with. "I thought at first we'd be non-affiliated and draw from the best of all worlds," he said. "But people knew I was from the Reconstructionist movement, and they voted to become Reconstructionist. They thought it would give us a unique identity, that it would set us apart."
