Voices

Bylined opinion and news columns published by United Hebrew Congregation Terre Haute.

Temple celebrates a busy and productive year, continues to build community

By Betsy Frank
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This past year has been a productive one for United Hebrew Congregation. Your board of trustees has worked tirelessly to keep our congregation solid. A big thanks to all of the board.

One big accomplishment has been Phase One of our restoration project. Due to your generosity, donations more than matched the requirement for the grant received. Terry Fear continues to be diligent in seeking other grants to help continue the restoration process. However, we still need funds from you. So, please consider continuing to support this important effort.

We welcomed one new member family — Patricia, John, and baby Robert Sharp. Patricia is Patty Lewis’s granddaughter.

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We’ve lost Estelle and John Corrigan, but celebrate Robert and Izaak

By Patty Lewis
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I am so sorry we have lost a beautiful woman and our friend, Estelle Corrigan, this past month.

Estelle and John Corrigan were a beautiful couple. I loved to listen to them tell how they met and how much they loved dancing.

When I think of Estelle and John as a young couple, I think of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. When I think of them now, I think of them dancing in a ballroom holding each other and gazing at each other with so much love. They both will be missed as part of our congregation.

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Kylynn bids farewell to Terre Haute: Each scroll, and congregation, has its own story

By Student Rabbi Kylynn Perdue-Bronson
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Much as time and care go into our generic, daily, Jewish lives, an inordinate amount of care goes into crafting, reading or lifting a scroll.

The first time someone picks up a Sefer Torah scroll really conveys the weight of the book. Maybe that is the reason we keep using this ancient technology. The scroll has the heft of a toddler, is at least as cumbersome and is almost as holy.

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When it comes to achievements, UHC proves that small is beautiful

By Debra Israel
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The past month of April, and now the month of May, present a microcosm of our congregation’s character.

In fact, instead of lamenting the small size of our congregation, after seeing all that we accomplish, we might instead start proclaiming that small is indeed beautiful.

From my professional view as an economist, we talk about the concept of “free-riding”, when people do not contribute their share of the work even while enjoying the community’s benefits because they know that someone else will chip in (particularly with volunteer time or monetary contributions).

This is easier to do in a large organization, because your individual participation may or may not seem to matter.

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