Dogs Rule by Casey Zickerman In 2013 my mom and I were on a hike in Boulder with my older brother, Dylan, and it was a hard hike. We saw this small dog hiking the trail and it was a Havanese. “Isn';t that hard for him?” we asked the owners said. “No, he can do it, he loves it. “ That day we went on a Havanese website. We learned there was a breed coming in, so we called and we ended up getting a puppy several months later. There were five puppies to choose from. We played around with all of them and my mom liked the one with the white paws, but he wasn’t very social. I was playing with a puppy called “Mumbles.” Ironically, this is the dog that is sitting next to me right now! He was by far the biggest of the breed, and he was playing with me and kissing me and getting all excited, and while my mom still wanted the one with the white paws, he didn’t come to us, so the breeder said that Mumbles would be our best bet. We ended up getting him and named him Levi. Eight weeks after Levi was born we took him home. It was the best day of my life. I have bonded with Levi so much and it has changed everyone for the better. I’m a kinder person and more openminded having a puppy. I can’t imagine my life without Levi. #dogsrule
Changed our story from grieving in Manhattan to second acts in Colorado. Said yes to life, yes to love again, yes to a blended, interfaith family. #NancySharp #micahstories
People Who Inspired Me By Lynn KlydeSilverstein My mother taught me that girls can do anything. She taught me how to be a feminist. She taught he how to be a mom. She taught me how to be a friend. She went back to school for her master’s degree when I was a toddler. She taught me that being a working mom didn’t mean you couldn’t also be there for your children. She also taught me her love of Judaism. She often told me that when she was young, she loved to accompany her father to synagogue on Saturday mornings. Her brother and sister made fun of her, but she went anyway. She grew up in a conservative home. When her children were young, she found a home in a reform synagogue. Later in life, she was drawn to the Jewish Renewal movement. She once told me the following: “You’ve been given a great gift. Don’t forsake it.” She was talking about Judaism, this great gift she gave to me. My father taught me my love of sports, especially baseball. When I was very young, he taught me to throw a ball. We spent countless hours playing catch in the yard. These are some of the happiest memories of my childhood. Sports was the way I bonded with my dad. To this day, it’s the way we communicate. When I was young, he’d take me to Yankees games and Mets games every year because we didn’t live far from New York City. Once he took me to Boston for a Red Sox game. That was very special. Whenever he visits Colorado, we go to a Rockies game. It’s still our way of bonding. I think he only missed one of my many games in 10 years of competition. He even came to a game on crutches once just a few days after an operation. Doing these things was his way of showing he loved me. What a great gift! My final inspirations come from a combination of the above. I’ve always been inspired by Jewish ballplayers. My alltime favorite is Hank Greenberg, the first Jewish baseball star, who played for the Detroit Tigers in the 1930s and ’40s. He almost tied Babe Ruth’s record for home runs in a season in 1938, but no one wanted a Jew to break the record, so pitchers started walking him late in the season. He ended up with 58 homers, two shy of the Babe’s mark. In 1934, Greenberg refused to play on Yom Kippur during a heated pennant race. Two decades later, Sandy Koufax refused to play in the World Series because of the holiday. What an example to set. And neither one was particularly observant. A few years ago, I fell in love with Kevin Youkilis, a Jewish player for the Red Sox. We Jews aren’t exactly known for our sports prowess, so it’s a great feeling knowing a member of the tribe is doing well on the diamond. Judaism and baseball are two of the things that bring joy to my life. I’m eternally grateful to my mother and father for passing down these loves. My story: The steps of my life that led me to Temple Micah and Reform Judaism by Cheryl G. Kasson
I was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1947, and as early as I can remember, my family belonged to Kehilath Israel (KI), a Modern Orthodox synagogue. Throughout my childhood and teen years, the congregation was affiliated with the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, popularly called the “Orthodox Union” (OU). In the 1980s, it left the OU when that organization insisted that its member congregations build a mechitza or partition separating men from women during services. The members of KI had preferred “family style” seating–men, women, and children sitting together–since their first sanctuary was built in 1959. Today, now located across state line in Overland Park, Kansas, KI is known as a Traditional synagogue, rather than Orthodox or Conservative. Until my Bat Mitzvah in 1960, I attended Hebrew school four days a week after school. Then I opted to attend religious school only on Sundays and was in the confirmation class in 1965. As a teenager, I was active in the Synagogue Youth Organization, joined the choir for awhile, and participated in teen discussion groups after services on Saturdays. However, as I approached high school graduation, I grew increasingly alienated from what I regarded as the dogmatism and intolerance displayed by some of my religious school teachers and the congregation’s rabbi. I became more interested in social justice than in the 613 commandments and the Thirteen Principles of Faith. By the time I left for the University of Denver in the fall of 1965, I was ready to see and take on the world in a whole new way. I joined the campus Hillel group, but I soon discovered that the other members tended to be more socially and politically conservative than I and concerned more about status and financial success than about the world around them. I began engaging more with nonJewish groups, such as the student YMYWCA, involved in civil rights, economic justice, and antiwar activities. Some of my friends at that point were Jewish, but many were not. In 1968, I met Micheal Kasson at the Sign of the Tarot coffeehouse in Denver on the eve of my 21 st birthday. He was not Jewish, but we were so compatible it didn’t matter to me. We shared the same values, interests, tastes, and passions, and it was easy to conclude that we were soulmates. In late 1968, Micheal received a notice from his draft board to report for a physical. After he passed the physical, we had to decide what to do. He chose to apply for conscientious objector status, and I helped him with the application. Miraculously, his draft board approved it, and then he had to find an alternative service job (outside of Denver, his draft board insisted, so that he would experience a disruption in his life comparable to military service). He applied to several places, and received an offer of a position as a central supply technician at Children’s Hospital in Washington, DC. On Sunday, March 2, 1969, we were married by Rabbi Lewis Bogage in his study at Temple Micah (in the building on South Monaco Parkway). At that time, he was the only Denver area rabbi who would officiate at weddings of interfaith couples. The next day, we left on a Greyhound bus for Washington, DC, where we lived and worked for the next 14 months. While we were there, we frequented a coffeehouse on Columbia Road called the Potter’s House. One night there, a Palestinian poet read from his writings. That was an eyeopening experience for someone like me who had grown up in an environment of uncritical acceptance of the Israeli government and little exposure to the realities of life in the occupied territories.
Micheal was able to transfer to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Denver to complete his alternative service in May 1970. After we returned to Denver, I completed my studies in English and elementary education, graduated from DU, and worked for a couple of years in an innercity alternative school. Then I decided to pursue graduate work in Foundations of Education at the University of Colorado in Denver and later at the Boulder campus as well. On both campuses, I was further exposed to a information and a variety of viewpoints on the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. In 1976, I joined the Middle East peace program of the American Friends Service Committee in Denver. I helped organize a number of events in the metro area promoting peace in the Middle East, bringing in Israeli and Palestinian speakers, and helping to educate people on the issues. One evening I participated in a panel discussion on the topic hosted by Temple Micah (still at the Monaco location). Then one of the other Jewish members of the AFSC group invited Micheal and me to join an informal gathering of young Jews, most of whom were not affiliated with any congregation. It came to be known simply as the “Jewish group,” and we gathered monthly for over a year to celebrate holidays and other occasions. Two of the members of the group with whom Micheal and I became friends were Louis and Judy Wolfe. After they had joined Temple Micah, they invited us to attend services with them. We liked what we heard and saw there, and we joined in 1979, not long after the congregation had moved to the new location at 2600 Leyden Street. We got along well with the people there, liked the views that Rabbi William Cohen expressed, and felt that we could find a spiritual home there. However, I wasn't yet used to the Reform prayer book nor other aspects of the services, and I didn't know much about the Reform Jewish movement. During the next few years, I read a number of books about the history and principles of the Reform movement, including Why I am a Reform Jew, by Rabbi Daniel B. Syme (D.I. Fine, Inc., 1989). I love the friendliness of Micah members, the congregation’s dedication to Tikkun Olam, the full equality of men and women in the congregation, and the embracing of diversity among the members, including gay and lesbian couples and interfaith families. I am happy and proud to call Temple Micah my congregation, and I am grateful to have found this place and the welcoming people here.