The Olam Tikvah Men's Club has hosted a Military Shabbat program for the past seven years. Many current members of the congregation are active duty, in the reserve, or work at military bases nearby. Each Military Shabbat program has examined in a different angle Jews in the military. This year's program for the first time featured a military chaplain. Our guest, Rabbi Aaron Rozovsky, in addition to an ongoing role with the Mississippi National Guard, had within the past year, been named Director of Rabbinical Services for the Institute of Southern Jewish Life (ISJL). Being that Rabbi Rozovski would be traveling from Mississippi to Virginia, we decided that we would pair a Sunday Brunch program with the Friday/Saturday Military Shabbat Program. However, the Sunday Brunch program would be a discussion about his role with the ISJL, particularly, the delivering of a wide variety of services to southern Jews, no matter how small the community. The Sunday Brunch program was titled “Matzas & Magnolias.”

The first part of the program was a Shabbat dinner featuring Rabbi Rozovsky and several families from the club and general congregation that had prior military service. Members of as Men’s Club leadership attended as well. The dinner was hosted by our assistant Rabbi. The coordinators of the program invited members of various generations to help broaden the personal discussion of their military experience, particularly in their practice of Judaism while serving abroad.

On Saturday morning, the Men’s Club organized a Military Shabbat program where Rabbi Rozovsky gave the d’var torah. The Rabbi took us through his years of military service, his transformation into a Rabbi, reflections on his role as a military chaplain in various tours of duty, and strategies he put together in ensuring that soldiers found ways to practice their faith even when certain resources were simply unavailable. The Military Shabbat program incorporated club members with prior military service into roles within the Shabbat service and the club sponsored the Kiddush lunch. A detailed program guide was published, noting the military service of congregation members past and present, and the guide also included information about prior guests who participated in Men’s Club Military Shabbat programs from years past. 300-350 people attended the Shabbat service.

Sunday’s brunch was the final piece to the weekend of programming. Over 100 guests heard Rabbi Rozovsky talk about his role at the Institute of Southern Jewish Life and the organization’s mission. The ISJL describes its services as “Community Engagement, Education, Heritage & Interpretation, History, Programming, and Rabbinic Services,” across thirteen states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Olam Tikvah is in Fairfax, Virginia. It is a congregation that is 54 years old, and was founded in part by Jews who were brought to the area through work, sometimes with the Department of Defense and orders at the Pentagon. Most members of the congregation grew up elsewhere and then settled in the area. It was not too long ago that Fairfax, Virginia (only 20 miles from Washington DC) could be considered part of “southern Jewish life” and Virginia is in the geographic area of coverage for the ISJL. Southern and southwestern parts of the state, where rural communities predominate, are ripe locales for the services of the ISJL. Rabbi Rozovsky’s talk concluded with information about the Encyclopedia of Southern Jewish Communities, which got audience members so interested, that guests started looking up relatives on the website during the brunch to see if they were part of the database, and several indeed were. A grand takeaway of the event was an appreciation for the history of southern Jewish communities and that we must work to ensure this history is not forgotten.

Although the Military Shabbat and Sunday brunch featured programming on different subject matters, the thread between the two was undeniable. Wherever Jews are, even in the smallest community, there is much we can all do to help provide at least basic services towards observance and empowerment.