[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 105 (Friday, June 21, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E815]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            RECOGNIZING REMARKS OF RABBI DR. ISRAEL ZOBERMAN

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ELAINE G. LURIA

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, June 21, 2019

  Mrs. LURIA. Madam Speaker, I rise today to include in the Record a 
statement submitted by Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman, founder and spiritual 
leader of the new Temple Lev Tikvah (Heart of Hope), a Reform Jewish 
congregation in Virginia Beach.

       My heart indeed overflows with hope, gratitude and love as 
     I humbly though proudly announce the blessed birth of the 
     youngest synagogue in Virginia Beach and Hampton Roads. It is 
     housed in a unique ecumenical Christian setting, the only 
     such in the world, making it now an even more exceptional 
     interfaith center. Church Of The Holy Apostles, established 
     in Virginia Beach in 1977, is both an Episcopal and Catholic 
     congregation. Their loving embrace of my new Reform Jewish 
     Temple is ample and inspiring testimony to their genuine 
     ecumenical spirit reaching beyond their own common and 
     diverse Christian traditions. With this golden opportunity we 
     are making and impacting history. Our one God is surely 
     smiling upon us.
       They graciously invite their Jewish brethren to tend to our 
     four-thousand-year-old nourishing roots that have blessed the 
     human family, instrumental in birthing the two other great 
     monotheistic world religions of Christianity and Islam. 
     Bishop James Magness of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern 
     Virginia and Bishop Barry Knestout of the Roman Catholic 
     Diocese of Richmond are to be commended for their broad 
     ecumenical vision, spiritual fortitude and shining faith in 
     action. Together we reaffirm a holy bond in face of a complex 
     and trying history. We are committed to overcome troubling 
     past shadows. Having already made major strides forward, we 
     should maintain and build upon those breakthrough 
     accomplishments of monumental change.
       We are mutually enabled to cultivate a precious interfaith 
     linkage, appreciating each other's differences and 
     particularities while celebrating our often overlooked but no 
     less important commonalities, as we collectively admit to our 
     shortcomings, ignorance and biases. This awesome journey of 
     mutual discovery while interfacing under one roof, challenges 
     us all to bring out the best God planted within us. It gains 
     added critical significance against the unsettling backdrop 
     of the global resurgence of consuming dark forces. Anti-
     Semitism with its recent deadly and shocking manifestation in 
     American synagogues, along with horrific terrorist attacks on 
     Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and others at worship and 
     elsewhere.
       I am acutely mindful of my personal sacred responsibility 
     to ever be a builder of Shalom's essential bridges of 
     healing, hope and harmony. After all, I am a family member of 
     the Holocaust's surviving remnant of European Jewry.
       Let us count our blessings even as we commit to turning 
     blemishes into blessings and keep from turning blessings into 
     blemishes. We shall together yet repair our blemished planet 
     into a blessed and better home for all of God's children. The 
     Divine delights in diversity, God's divinity and human 
     dignity are one and inseparable.

                          ____________________