Rabbi Ron Hoffberg, shown in his office in Prague, says working with the city’s young people gives him a feeling of “responsibility and satisfaction.”
If you go
Rabbi Ronald Hoffberg will speak about Jewish life in Prague as Selihot scholar-in-residence at Temple Beth Shalom in Livingston Friday-Saturday, Sept. 11-12.
He will address the congregation during Friday evening kabalat Shabbat services and Shabbat morning services.
He will also be part of the temple’s Saturday evening Selihot program, which will begin at 8 with Ma’ariv and Havdala and will include a service by Cantor Benjamin Matis and the Kol Zimra Quartet.
For more information, contact Beth Shalom at 973-992-3600.
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September 9, 2009
A 20-something man in Prague tells the rabbi that his mother, who had been a communist, has just told him that her mother was Jewish.
“So what does that make me?” the confused and curious Czech wants to know. “If I decide to be Jewish, does that mean people will hate me? Do I have to go and live in Israel where Jews live?”
Rabbi Ron Hoffberg hears that type of question often.
Hoffberg, 62 — who served as scholar-in-residence and taught courses at Congregation Agudath Israel of West Essex in Caldwell from 1998 to 2001 and organized the Rabbinical Assembly Conversion Institute of Northern New Jersey in 1997 — moved to the Czech Republic capital in 2001, right after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He established the first presence of the Masorti (Conservative) movement there.
Hoffberg initially was religious leader of Bejt Praha, the congregation particularly popular with expatriates and foreign visitors. He moved on from Bejt Praha after less than a year due to internal conflicts but decided to stay in Prague. (Bejt Praha is no longer affiliated with the Conservative movement.)
In an interview with NJJN from Chicago, where he is visiting relatives, Hoffberg described his original decision to go to Prague as a “mission.” Working closely with young people hungry for the message of Conservative Judaism gave him a feeling of responsibility and satisfaction, he said.
Hoffberg will serve as Selihot scholar-in-residence at Temple Beth Shalom in Livingston Sept. 11-12.
The sometimes closed nature of a society still emerging from more than four decades of communism did not make Hoffberg’s outreach efforts easy. Not to mention the fact that he earns no salary for his work as a rabbi — for that he teaches Jewish history at Charles University Overseas CIEE program in Prague and serves as a tour guide for foreign visitors.
Though he sometimes sounds pessimistic about Prague’s Jewish community, Hoffberg’s devotion to people who have had few spiritual choices over the past half century is clear.
“Out of about 12 rabbis from abroad who came and went at Bejt Praha, I am the only one who decided to stay in Prague long-term,” he said. “I saw I could make a difference to those who wanted to know more about Conservative Judaism.”
For the past eight years, Hoffberg has been holding weekly services at the headquarters of the Prague Jewish community. He is the only Conservative rabbi in the country, and shares space with the Orthodox community and its three rabbis. Anywhere from 20 to 40 people show up for his services regularly.
He also runs weekly adult education and conversion classes. Hoffberg has overseen more than 40 conversions since he came to Prague. Many of his students have Jewish roots but don’t know anything about their heritage.
“I discover people all the time who think they might have some Jewish roots and want to make their way to the community, but they just don’t know how,” Hoffberg said.
More important to him, however, is the fact that young people are beginning to engage more seriously with Judaism. About 10 of his students have made aliya, a large number considering his mailing list of just 70 or 80 people, he said.
He points out, sadly, that the community does not use the historic synagogues in Prague, which are now museums. And sharing space with the Orthodox community poses its own complications. “They do not like everything I do, and I do not like everything they do, but we get along.”
During World War II, thousands of Jews destroyed documents that would have proven their religious identity in order to avoid being sent to concentration camps. Jews also were persecuted under communism, so it was not in people’s best interests to restore their links to the religion during that era.
“They had simply forgotten — or hidden — their own history,” Hoffberg said. “It’s really a constant process of discovery in this country.” With a high number of atheists in the Czech Republic, among the most in Europe, the general attitude toward religion doesn’t make his job any easier, he said.
“One of the first things someone pondering the Jewish faith in the Czech Republic wants to know is whether or not he has to be religious,” Hoffberg said. “They are afraid that being a Jew means wearing a black hat and [side-]curls.”
He said he gets questions all the time from people born to a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother, who want to know why they can’t just be considered Jewish.
“So I tell them, ‘I’m not going to say you’re not Jewish. Maybe you know all about what it means to be Jewish,’” he said. “But it’s like driving a car. You can have 20 years of driving experience but you can’t legally drive on the road unless you take the test and get your driver’s license, right?”
While Hoffberg sees himself staying in Prague for the foreseeable future, he has set a specific goal for himself: to produce a local rabbi.
“What they really need is someone who comes from them — a Czech-speaking Conservative rabbi.” And with a number of young people from among his followers studying at the Conservative movement’s yeshiva in Jerusalem, he thinks that’s more than a pipe dream.
NJJN staff writer Johanna Ginsberg contributed to this article.
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