PEORIA MAGAZINE October 2023

“Being small helps us at the federation know our community members. Who they are, what their needs are and how we can best serve them,” Katz said. Those relationships, she said, often lead to collaboration across congrega tions and organizations to put on events that bring everyone in the Peoria area Jewish community together. Abrams said her move from a major metropolitan area with a large Jewish community to Peoria was a culture shock, but a positive one. “Because the Jewish community here is small, it’s very tightly knit. Everyone knows everyone else,” she said. “In the short time we’ve been here, our family has developed stronger bonds with other Jewish families than we ever had living in a large Jewish community.” “You need to seek out a place to con nect with other Jews because people want to know how they can live a Jewish life here,” added Langsam. Milkow calls the Peoria area Jewish community “small, caring, devoted, and proud but not pretentious. There’s a place for everyone here, whether you attend services once a year or once a week, or come from a family with different religions.” COMMANDMENTS THAT ‘STRENGTHEN YOUR CONNECTION TO GOD’ So what exactly is Judaism? According to Langsam, that it’s merely a religion or a culture are misconceptions. “Judaism is a way of life,” he said, gov erned by 613 commandments that make up the code of Jewish law, believed to be given by God to the Jewish people. There are 248 positive commandments and 365 negative commandments. These commandments connect those who follow them to God, Langsam said, and bring all Jews into the Jewish family. “We don’t need to figure anything out when it comes to living our lives. It’s all there for us,” Langsam said. “These laws tell us what to eat and what not to eat, how to get dressed, how to talk ... everything.”

Rabbi Langsam blows the shofar, used for the Jewish observance of Rosh Hashanah

“Of course, I also know that someone who experiences anti-Semitism may have a difficult time sharing it,” he said. “They may want to hide it, rationalize it, say it was something else, or say, ‘Who cares?’” Abrams said in the two years she’s lived in the Peoria area, “we haven’t had a single negative interaction as a result of our Judaism. The community has made us feel at home.” Meanwhile, the Jewish community specifically “has received us like we have always been here, and our neighbors have embraced us and our differences, using it as an opportunity to teach their children about diversity and accepting that other cultures have different practices and beliefs. The majority of the people in the Peoria community are friendly and outgoing.” Despite feeling safe here, Jews remain vigilant. “Security in any Jewish community is a priority,” Katz said. “We’re thankful for the assistance we receive from the Peoria Police Department.”

A law that prohibits Jews from driving on Shabbat — the sabbath, from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday — and holi days requires Langsam to walk an hour and 15 minutes from his home to Bradley University to meet with students. “I take Bus No. 11 on those days. My two feet,” he said. Langsam emphasized that the Jewish way of life isn’t an all-or-nothing prop osition, “but every commandment you follow strengthens your connection to God.” The rabbi gave the example of a Jew who eats a pork sandwich — not a kosher food — then hears the ritual blowing of the shofar, or ram’s horn, on Rosh Hashanah, the celebration of the start of the Jewish New Year. “Eating that sandwich doesn’t take away the commandment of listening to the blowing of the shofar,” he said. “They don’t cancel each other out.” PEORIA HAS MADE LOCAL JEWS ‘FEEL AT HOME’ The specter of anti-Semitism hangs over every Jewish community, but Jew ish leaders here say it hasn’t been a pervasive problem. Lorch said the incidents he’s seen are mostly just ignorance, like someone displaying a swastika on a car or saying the Holocaust wasn’t as bad as it was made out to be.

Steve Stein is a longtime Peoria area print journalist

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