Dear Congregation Kona Beth Shalom:
The October 24 Shabbat service was moving and delightful, highlighted by a wonderful visit from Trio Sefardi, who deeply educated and entertained us with traditional Sephardic music. 
You can watch the recording and enjoy the musical performance at this link on the Kona Beth Shalom YouTube channel.
A huge thanks to Yehudah & Aviva Plaut and Alan & Nella Silverman for the difficult setup, technical greatness, and cleanup and packing up. This was yeoman work as always—much appreciated and never to be taken for granted!
These are fraught times, and as we reflect on Parashat Lech-Lecha, we are reminded of the choices before us. Just as Abraham told his nephew Lot that he could choose to go left or right, we all have that choice. Like our patriarch Abraham, we can also stand our ground. Part of standing our ground means calling out Jew-hatred directly—including the dangerous rhetoric and Nazi salutes of Elon Musk—and fiercely defending Jewish victims of childhood abuse and political smearing, such as Ohio gubernatorial candidate Dr. Amy Acton.
Our geographic placement here in Hawaii (the furthest left on US wall maps) is a long journey all KBS members have made. Jesus and his disciples were fully circumcised Jews, but at the Council of Jerusalem around 50 CE, the early Christian apostles officially decreed that Gentile converts did not need to undergo circumcision to follow the faith. Let’s be honest: when it comes to recruiting grown men, swapping out a sharp surgical blade for a mild dunk in a pool of water was history’s most successful marketing pivot. Becoming a Christian became super easy, while becoming a Jew required an incredibly difficult physical commitment—and it still does.
As I alluded to yesterday in my D’Var Torah, in the summer of 1941, following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa), Nazi Einsatzgruppen squads crudely identified Jews by pulling down the pants of captured Soviet soldiers at train stations and along transit lines. Tragically, hundreds of Muslim Red Army prisoners of war (primarily Muslim Tatars) were mistakenly identified as Jewish because of their circumcision and were executed on the spot.
I closed my D’Var Torah by reminding everyone that despite their historical fractures, Ishmael and Isaac ultimately reconciled to bury their father Abraham. This ancient brotherhood suggests that even now may be a time for further Jewish-Muslim reconciliation, especially as we consider American political candidates who are Muslim and do not seem radical.
Mahalo to everyone who joined us for an unforgettable, deeply meaningful Shabbat. We will meet together in person again on November 28 for Shabbat, and I hope to see you at Torah Study online every other Saturday morning. Life goes on. The Torah goes on. So should America and Israel. But with some changes. Kona Beth Shalom encourages voting and supports democracy.
Craig Silverman, Esq.
President – Kona Beth Shalom