Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 62, No. 28, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 10, 2008 Page: 2 of 24
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2 I July 10,2008
TEXAS JEWISH POST £ SINCE 1947
Beyt Midrash of North Texas closes after eight years
By Harriet P. Gross
Sometimes success surprises by
taking an unexpected toll.
On June 30, Beyt Midrash of
North Texas announced the end
of its eight-year-old program.
The boom in classes now offered
by almost all Dallas-area syna-
gogues and the Community Kol-
lel, and the start of an advanced
Gesher program for graduates of
the Florence Melton school at the
Dallas Jewish Community Center,
contributed to the demise of this
unique, independent adult learn-
ing opportunity.
Moe Stein, Ph.D., a former Jew-
ish Federation executive director,
and Rabbis Nancy Kasten and Jor-
dan Ofseyer started Beyt Midrash
in 2000, designing it to offer Jew-
ish learning far beyond the basics.
Virtually all its instructors were
ordained rabbis or doctoral-level
men and women, most of them
Albertsons
It means a great deair
university professors with special
areas of Jewish expertise.
At its beginning, Beyt Midrash
filled a then-existing void in lo-
cal Jewish education: It welcomed
adults of all Jewish streams and
levels of observance who wanted
to explore a range of topics in
depth.
Its inaugural offering, in the
fall of 2000, was "Recovering
the Sources of Jewish Thought,"
taught by Professors Joshua Parens
and Martin Yaffe. They continued
that course the following spring,
while two others were added to
the schedule: an exploration of the
Haggadah taught by Rabbi Kasten,
and "The Course of Modern Jew-
ish History" presented by Harvey
Richman, Ph.D.
An array of later classes, up to
a half-dozen each spring and fall,
included topics such as anti-Sem-
itism and Holocaust literature,
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both taught by Professor Zsuz-
sanna Ozsvath; history of Zion-
ism, by Meryl Nason, Ph.D.; is-
sues in halachah, by Rabbi David
Stern; and seminars on classical
Jewish texts facilitated by attor-
ney Reid Heller and Karen Prager,
Ph.D. Some were serious studies
of somewhat lighter topics, such
as Professor Nils Roemer's recent
course on Jewish culture in mo-
tion pictures.
"Our instructors had to be ex-
pert educators teaching subjects in
which they had real interest," Stein
said. "And they all — even the rab-
bis — had to understand that they
were teaching in a non-denomina-
tional environment. Beyt Midrash
brought Orthodox, Conservative
and Reform individuals together
to talk about what's Jewish. People
respected each other in these in-
terchanges, and we earned all the
rabbis' endorsements."
But some of Beyt Midrash's
unique strengths turned out to be
weaknesses as well, and ultimately
fatal ones.
"Our first rule was, find good
teachers," Stein said. "We acted like
a graduate school. Our goal was to
have interactive small classes." Yet
while it connected unrivaled edu-
cators to adult students wanting
deep yet accessible learning, "We
were never able to reach our mar-
ket. We saw the growth of other
adult education programs — Kol-
lel, Chabad, Melton. Either people
didn't know about us, or couldn't
differentiate us from them." The
ambitious program served almost
300 different individuals in its
eight years, but finally could no
longer be sustained.
To keep expenses down, Beyt
Midrash was totally volunteer-run
and did not maintain its own cen-
tral headquarters; even so, course
fees couldn't keep pace with rising
costs. At the end of last month,
Beyt Midrash closed up shop.
Eileen Rosenblum, Ph.D., was
its final president, the one under
whose watch this hard decision
had to be made. The organiza-
tion has turned over its remain-
ing funds to Melton's new Gesher
program at the Jewish Commu-
nity Center, asking for a takeover
of three courses which former
students want to continue: Rabbi
Hanan Schlesinger's "Evolution of
Jewish Thought," Professor Serge
Frolov's Bible study and Rabbi
Howard Wolk's Jewish ethics.
In symbolically writing Beyt
Midrash's obituary, Moe Stein re-
called a bit of old Jewish wisdom:
that in order for Torah to flourish,
people must also have bread. Then
he added his own touch of wry hu-
mor: "We just ran out of dough."
Kosher elk coming to stores
Elk meat is about to become
available to kosher consumers.
Noah's Ark Processors in South
Dakota, which sells kosher meat
under the Solomon's Finest Glatt
Kosher label, is expecting to
slaughter its first elk for the com-
mercial market on Monday. It
will be shipped to supermarkets
including Fairway and ShopRite
the week of July 14, according to
owner Ilan Parente. Those stores
have been carrying the compa-
ny's kosher buffalo for the past
10 years, he said. Parente said
Noah's Ark has been raising elk
for 11 years and exploring the
idea of processing its meat for the
kosher market for at least six. "It
took that long for the rabbis to say
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yes, it's kosher," he said. Elk is a
member of the cervidae family,
which includes deer. Rabbi Seth
Mandel, who oversees Orthodox
Union-certified kosher meat pro-
cessing in North America and
South America, says this is the
first commercial production of
kosher elk meat. Although he says
elk is "good meat, not as tough as
deer," Mandel expects elk to be a
specialty product like buffalo that
will "take a while" to penetrate the
kosher market. Parente disagrees.
"We don't look at it as exotic," he
said. "These animals have been
here before the cow was intro-
duced to North America. They're
native to this country." In addi-
tion, Parente points out that elk is
"70 to 80 percent leaner than beef,
it's tastier and a lot healthier."
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Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 62, No. 28, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 10, 2008, newspaper, July 10, 2008; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth188197/m1/2/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .