They put us up at Hilton's Netherland Plaza, a skyscraper right downtown with a shopping mall attached. It's a beautiful Art Deco/ Moderne building, a National Historic Landmark. The room was cramped, but everything worked. It was the tenth anniversary of Joe's ordination, and many of his classmates were there. I was with Joe the last three and a half years of his time at school, so I knew all of these other rabbis, and was close to a few. It was good for both of us to see old friends, and especially for Joe to compare career paths with his classmates. Some have changed jobs a few times, some are political activists, some are happy with where they live, but not happy with the congregation, some love their congregation, just not the city they are in. A few are completely comfortable with their job and city.
One highlight of the trip was a weekday morning service at Plum Street synagogue, from 1866, and an early Reform synagogue with an organ, prohibited in more traditional synagogues. Two rabbi/cantors, a man and a woman, led the service with singing and guitars. I knew the man decades ago in Los Angeles. He had been a cantor and went back to school to become a rabbi and now leads a congregation in Bel Air in Los Angeles. Sometimes it's hard for a singer to get people to sing along, but there were six hundred people at the service, almost all rabbis, and everyone belted out the melodies. It was just beautiful. There was another morning service at the hotel, where an Israeli couple introduced their own melodies to the traditional text. They travel frequently, and I would love to get them to come to Morgantown.
We had dinner out with friends, mostly Joe's classmates. Everyone was able to relax bit, and I enjoyed the company and being in a big city. One night with just the two of us, we walked across a bridge to Covington, Kentucky, then to Newport, which I had visited before. We ate at a nice Italian restaurant and took a shuttle bus back to downtown, where we joined others for yummy ice cream at Graeter's, a famous place in Cincinnati with excellent ice cream.
We both attended a workshop for rabbis at small congregations. A woman I knew from L.A. ( I had tutored her kids for their bar and bat mitzvah) is now a rabbi in Davenport, Iowa. Another woman is in Alexandria, Louisiana. The problems people talked about were low pay, lack of a social life, and how the reform movement "glorifies" rabbis in big important congregations in major cities. One woman pointed out that rabbis in small congregations are really doing "God's work." I also noted that these rabbis tended to be second-career rabbis, LGBT people and women. Although the Reform movement makes congregations swear they won't discriminate by age, gender or sexual orientation, they do. Still, most of the rabbis expressed satisfaction with their work. What Joe does here in North Central West Virginia is important to the community, and he and the other rabbis in that workshop understand that. I suggested that maybe the Reform movement could subsidize these smaller congregations. It's up to the rabbis to push for that.
We also visited the home campus of Hebrew Union College, uphill from downtown, in what was the suburbs a hundred years ago. We had box lunches in a tent, then split up for workshops. The one I went to was too academic for my taste, so I left before I got roped into a second one, and walked back to the hotel through the neighborhood just north of downtown called "OTR" or Over-The Rhine.
The last full day, we had signed up for a workshop in Over-The Rhine, at one time half-abandoned and in need of repair. It is gradually being gentrified. We had two tour guides for an hour each. One told us about the tremendous progress being made in the neighborhood, and the other, more of an activist, complained that poor people were being shut out, that boutique stores were being built for rich suburbanites, and parking garages, where they needed low-income housing. Morgantown is not much like Cincinnati, but there is a danger of a "Disney-fied" High Street here, a place for rich people to come down and buy stuff they don't need, or for the more adventurous, "moderate-income" housing for people in the top ten percent.
Two other interesting workshops were held the last night. One was about hate crimes and hate groups, with the shocking information that hate crimes against Jews, and anti-Jewish propaganda were increasing in the United States. Lastly, we met with Jim Obergefell, who won the case in the Supreme Court for marriage equality. With him were the two Jewish women who were his attorneys.
I hadn't been in Cincinnati before, but my travels have taken me to many of the surrounding counties. We traveled there via US 50 from Clarksburg and SR 32 in Ohio, and came back on Interstates 71 and 70. We had lunch in Athens, Ohio, where I typically go for lunch when I'm in that area, and at a Chinese buffet in Zanesville on the way back. I've learned where the good places are three hours out from home.
I was a little out of place in a rabbi convention, but I did work as a cantor for seven years, and after all my years with Joe, I at least know what they are talking about, and people were friendly. My only shock was how much younger so many of these rabbis are. Most of Joe's classmates are forty or close to it, and they are now considered the "old-timers."
At Hebrew Union College
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| Isaac Mayer Wise, or Plum Street Synagogue |
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| Netherland Hotel |
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| Bridge across the Ohio River to Covington, Kentucky |
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| Fountain Plaza, where there is a branch of Graeter's Ice Cream |
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| On tour in Over-The Rhine |
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| Dinner with friends |
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| With Jim Obergefell |
