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| THE CHRONICLE
MEET HUC-J IR’S STUDENTS
citizens. It was made perfectly clear to us that
this party line is not embraced by all within
the government, and certainly not embraced
by the German people as a whole. That these
are the official stances, however, in a country
that at one point so despised the Jews, cre-
ated a sense of optimism within our small
group.
We also toured many parts of the city of
Berlin (especially the Jewish areas), talked
with a group of religion students at the
Humboldt University (with whom we had
a screening of the Israeli film
Walk onWater
),
and met with various organizations as well as
with the cultural and media relations chair
of the Foreign Office and representatives of
the American Jewish Committee. We visited
the infamous Wannsee Villa, where the Nazis
solidified and launched the implementation
of the “Final Solution of the Jewish Prob-
lem.” A Jewish artist took us around Dresden
to picture the once great Jewish presence
there.
Two of the most powerful experiences
of the trip, however, came while we were in-
teracting with the Abraham Geiger Kolleg,
the progressive rabbinical (and now cantor-
ial) school affiliated with the University of
Potsdam. While the college “campus” only
spans one office suite in a city building, the
enthusiasm of the staff as they described their
program made me very proud.
What made me even more proud was
what immediately followed that meeting. We
met with the Geiger students for
Shabbat
services and a potluck dinner at the Jewish
Museum of Berlin. While the museum and
sharing
Shabbat
with our Geiger peers were
powerful experiences, what made the night
even more extraordinary was what happened
when the museum closed and we had to leave.
We hadn’t yet recited the
Birkat HaMa-
zon
or sung
Shabbat zemirot
.
So what did we
do? We sat outside on the steps of the mu-
seum, in the streets of Berlin, and together –
HUC-JIR students, Geiger students, and one
of the Geiger faculty rabbis – we sang our
hearts out, drawing the curiosity of passersby.
We sang and we prayed. We ended the
evening by singing
Hatikvah
.
AN UNPREDICTABLE JEWI
Marion Lev Cohen, N ‘10
I
n an age of unpredictable Jewish journeys,
I imagine that the winding road that led
me to rabbinical school at HUC-JIR is about
as unpredictable as anyone’s. My life’s jour-
ney begins with an Orthodox childhood,
followed by years if not decades of a sort of
Jewish wandering, and an epiphany (in Cuba
of all places) that brings me back to inten-
sive Jewish involvement and where I am
today – a 5th-year HUC-JIR rabbinical stu-
dent, with two grown children, two homes
(
one in New York, the other in Jerusalem),
and a second (or maybe, third) career.
To start at the beginning … I was born
in 1948 into a Modern Orthodox home in
Queens. My European-born parents sent me
to Ramaz Yeshiva, and to a Zionist summer
camp where we spoke only Hebrew. My
early adult years saw something of a rebel-
lion against my Orthodox Jewish youth (the
details of which I’ll leave to the imagination),
and a suburban life in the Boston area quite
distant from intensive Jewish involvement.
But with all these twists and turns in my
Jewish journey, what has been a consistent
thread and probably the underlying reason I
am at HUC-JIR today, has been a lifelong
quest to live a meaningful life. My career
choices have been animated by the endur-
ing question of what it means to be in
relationship to God and how I can make a
difference. These questions have informed
my first two career choices: to become a clin-
ical social worker and a Jewish communal
volunteer. In both capacities, I sought to help
better the lives of others. As a clinical social
worker – where I worked with individuals
particularly around women’s health issues
and also ran a graduate training course for
social work students at a Harvard teaching
hospital – I tried to help people live happier
and more productive lives. As a communal
leader, I tried to help Jewish people and com-
munities lead richer and more meaningful
lives.
Both of my prior careers impelled and
informed my decision to become a rabbi. In
1993
I moved back to New York City and
faced some personal and professional situa-
tions that taught me the limitations of
psychotherapy to help cope with crises, tran-
sitions, and loss. It was then, as an adult
Marion Lev Cohen, N ’10 (third from left), with her Talmud class study partners.
