by Beth Surdut
While growing up in Buenos Aires, Martha Goldenberg Lichtenstein
MA'91 listened to stories of her grandparents' emigration from Russia to Argentina in 1905—tales of Jewish
gauchos (cowboys) and Yiddish-speaking policemen on the pampas. Her grandfather, a bootmaker for estate owners, read Yiddish tales aloud as a community service. But what sparked personal exploration of her Jewish heritage—a spiritual and educational journey taking her from Buenos Aires to Brookline to Aruba—was a bribe.
"I was not a practicing Jew," says Lichtenstein. "When I was 17, my father made a deal with me: If I would go to Hebrew school for a year, he would buy me a guitar that I wanted. I started studying Hebrew at the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires. I became fascinated."
That fascination would ultimately blossom into Lichtenstein's commitment to building Jewish community in the Caribbean islands, as President of the Union of Jewish Congregations of Latin America and the Caribbean (UJCL), and Honorary Consul of Israel to Aruba. Her Jewish journey took several detours along the way, some planned, some by chance, all connected by Lichtenstein's spirit of adventure, ingenuity and desire to connect with fellow Jews.
Trained as a speech therapist, Lichtenstein moved to the United States in 1964. "I had the famous green card, but could not get a job in my field due to my accent," she says. Undaunted, she taught Spanish at Newton Country Day School of the Sacred Heart, worked at the Boston University library and took classes, ultimately earning a BS from the Boston University School of Education. A friend engineered a blind date with a young man, Adolph Lichtenstein, and it was a match. They married in 1966, and Martha moved to her husband's homeland, yet another territory new to her—Aruba.
There the Lichtensteins started a family. They encouraged their three growing children, Arieh Demian, Daphne Yael and Yair Gibran, to learn English as a first language. But the international school in Aruba was the only institution where kids could do just that, and it stopped at the eighth grade. To further their schooling beyond that point, Martha brought their children to Massachusetts in 1986. Adolph commuted once a month; her parents moved in. During the five years she lived in Milton, Lichtenstein picked up the Hebrew study she had pursued as a Buenos Aires teen, taking conversational Hebrew courses at the Stoughton JCC. Her Israeli teacher there recommended that she pursue a master's at Hebrew College.
"I had already a fairly good knowledge of Hebrew and, most importantly, I liked what I saw: real people who were very motivated, and professors who loved what they were doing," she recalls of her years on Hawes Street. "I was not a number—they listened to me, and were ready to help. Hebrew College was home, roots and warmth." Over the past ten years, Martha has given back to Hebrew College and is a member of the President's Circle.
Valedictorian of her 1991 Hebrew College class, Lichtenstein remembers the encouragement of registrar and friend Norma Frankel, and copious writing in Steve Copeland's class interpreting The Song of Songs. What she describes as "the outpouring of how I felt about life and being Jewish" surfaces in thoughtful essays she published in
Chadashot Beth Israel, the newsletter of Aruba's synagogue. She also writes the UJCL's marketing materials and newsletter.
Lichtenstein, who returned to Aruba after her years at Hebrew College, implemented UJCL's website,
www.ujcl.org, two years ago to create unity among the members of progressive micro-communities in Latin America and the Caribbean who otherwise felt isolated. "Our goal is to connect with each other. We share aspirations and problems every day," she says. The communities, in Aruba, Bahamas, Costa Rica, Cuba, Curacao, El Salvador, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Puerto Rico and St. Thomas, are linked primarily in cyberspace, meeting face-to-face only once a year. Since 1991, membership has grown from roughly 50 to 150 members, and last year the organization held its first youth encounter.
Although Lichtenstein describes the UJCL communities as liberal, she explains, "To be a liberal Jew in Central and Latin America could be compared to being Conservative in the States. We want to keep an open mind, and survival and continuity are the key words. Each community solves its problems in its own way."
Her Jewish journey took several detours along the way, all connected by Lichtenstein's spirit of adventure, ingenuity and desire to connect with fellow Jews.
According to Lichtenstein, the Aruban Jewish community constantly redefines itself. It has approximately 45 families in Aruba year round and 150 overseas members. Though a 250-year history of Sephardic settlers exists, Beth Israel Synagogue, the island's only congregation, wasn't inaugurated until 1962. There was a rabbi in Aruba for two years; during the next three years there was only a cantor to lead services, teach Hebrew School and act as spiritual leader. Now, while congregants wait for the newly ordained rabbi to arrive from Argentina this fall, bar mitzvah boys and bat mitzvah girls take turns leading services.
Explaining another challenge the Aruban Jewish community faced, Lichtenstein says, "We did not always have equality of religious rights for women." When Lichtenstein's daughter became a bat mitzvah, restrictions
on Torah reading alienated her. Moved by this and the concerns of other young women in the congregation, Lichtenstein instituted a service led exclusively by women, which honored all the pioneer Aruban mothers who were the real community builders. "Ever since, our bat mitzvah girls have been responsible for equal amounts of Torah reading, and lead a complete service."
In dealing with issues like these in education and spiritual leadership, the micro-communities, much like Lichtenstein herself, have generated alternatives out of necessity. "If you have 20 children, you can't afford to open a school, so Jewish education is informal," she says. Such informal instruction in Aruba, for example, used to come from volunteer students,
areivim from the World Union of Jewish Students, serving for a year in Diaspora communities. With the growth in the Aruban Jewish community over the past seven years, however, children will now be taught by both a young rabbi and his wife, a Jewish educator.
Lichtenstein's warm and thoughtful approach may well be the reason that she has been Honorary Israeli Consul
to Aruba since 2001. "When the Ambassador of Israel to Venezuela asked me, at first I didn't believe him," she says. "The post entails promoting relationships and strengthening ties between Israel and other friendly nations. You become a spokesperson for Israel and all the country has to offer." Charged to build community no matter where she lives or what resources are available to her, she was a natural choice for the post.
Now a grandmother herself who carries on her family's storytelling tradition, Lichtenstein recounts a children's tale from Leo Lionni's
Swimmy: As a defense against large predators, an orphaned red fish convinces a school of other small red fish to swim in the shape of a big fish, with a leader as the eye. "The essence of the story is that when you get together you are stronger and can have a say," she says. As a leader who builds community virtually and personally, through communication, concern, hard work and philanthropy, Lichtenstein strengthens Jewish voices, one micro-community at a time.
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