Discovering Our History: My Internship with BZBI
Why intern?
My name is Eva Litke. You may know me from seeing me around BZBI every week. You might know my parents, Suzanne Litke and Lisa Myers. Suzanne is currently the Chair of the Ritual Committee/on the Board of Directors, and Lisa used to sit on the School Committee as well as the Board for awhile.
I’m currently a sophomore in high school at SLA Beeber. One of the requirements for Sophomores and Juniors at my school is that we have to attend an ILP, (Individualized Learning Plan) or internship within our fields of interest once a week (generally Wednesdays) for a couple of hours. Every Wednesday we get out of school at 12:50 in order to attend our internships. When it came time to decide where I wanted my internship to be, I thought about my life at BZBI. My family has been a part of the synagogue since I was about 2 years old, and I’ve always felt comfortable here and enjoyed the sense of community every week. Therefore, I decided to contact Terri Soifer, (the Community Engager), to arrange an internship. Clearly, it worked out, and I have been coming in and working with Terri each Wednesday since mid October.
Discovering BZBI’s History
One of the main projects I have been working on with Terri during my internship is putting together a history of BZBI to display on our website. It’s so important to learn about the history because I have grown up in the synagogue, so knowing the background of it all really means something and makes my time spent here all the more meaningful.
Experiences in the Archives
One Wednesday in March, Terri and I went into the Temple University campus to look around at the BZBI archives that are kept in one of the libraries there. Looking through a lot of the (old) files was really really cool! Together, we found so many pictures, including one of the first confirmation class, which was especially fun for me since I am in the confirmation class this year. We also happened to come across Rabbi Marvin Nathan’s handkerchief. (He was the first Rabbi of Temple Beth Israel. Terri thought it was kind of gross, but we agreed that it was still pretty impressive 🙂 ) I went through a rather tall folder of the first Shofar newsletters, which honestly left me in some shock over how it was designed and what kinds of news pieces were scattered around them. In my personal opinion, I think the coolest thing we found was a letter that Rabbi Stone wrote to the congregation just as he was preparing to become the senior rabbi of the synagogue. There were also many moments while I was looking through the pictures when I found people I recognized and got very excited to see them. Altogether, we spent about 3 hours searching through the archives, and it was really an amazing experience! I was blown away as we headed back to the car at the end.
Tags: archives, education, history, intern, teens
