B'midbar, May 22, 2004, by Leslie Davis
HaMakom has created the Leslie Davis Memorial Fund. When the shock and exhaustion of death wear off, we will ask Bill what he'd most like this fund to create. You can make this contribution from the web site or send checks to HaMakom, PO Box 520, Tesuque, NM 87574. In both places, please mention Leslie's name.
St. Bede's wants to plant a tree in Leslie's honor, either at our community home, in Israel, or at the Lazars.
A Profile Of Leslie by Cristi Cave, December 2004
ABOUT LESLIE DAVIS
Ask HaMakom's President, Leslie Davis, to tell you about herself and chances are you will end up hearing about the community she serves. Leslie has been actively involved throughout her time with Hamakom in the "experiment," as Rabbi Malka Drucker has termed it, of which we are all part. "It is," she says with an excitement that is almost palpable, "The continual creative act of building a community, of something almost tangible that wasn't there before." She experiences her position at the helm of this challenging project as both a blessing and a great honor.
God, Leslie believes, can be found between people and in relationships, and this is why she is so fascinated with the making of Hamakom. Communities like these require us to leave our personalities behind, she says. We begin to "institutionalize" who we are and how we behave, setting standards for ourselves as we attempt to meet the "group ethos." Like an extended family, she says, HaMakom "helps us learn how to grow, how to do better, how to act."
It is possible, with some persistence, to get Leslie to tell you a little about herself. She grew up in an assimilated and unaffiliated family on the North Shore of Chicago, where -- as her grandmother ruefully observed --she and her siblings "ran around like little pagans." To remedy this, her grandmother held shul at her house on Sundays for the kids for several years and took them to synagogue for holidays and an occasional Shabbat.
On her mother's side, Leslie's ancestors were German Jews. Her father's family was French and Lithuanian. Her parents moved to Tesuque in 1969, where her father still lives. Leslie says her grandmother was a "bohemian," a painter who embarrassed her husband with her risqué costumes. Her mother was an artist as well, and was very active in local community groups in Santa Fe and Chicago.
When Leslie found HaMakom in the summer of 2001, she knew little about Judaism. Even so, Rabbi Malka requested that she and Bill Lazar work with the Foxes, Brouses, and Ellie Edelstein to create HaMakom's first board. Only months later, Leslie was diagnosed with cancer--and in the hospital, she told Rabbi Malka that she wanted to do her bat mitzvah. So it was that HaMakom's first b'nei mitzvah classes began in the autumn of 2002. She graduated alongside her classmates eighteen months later.
Asked about her accomplishments and goals as President for the last eight months, Leslie is pleased to be able to report that HaMakom's membership has increased by 50% and that Hamakom has made its budget this year with $36 to spare. Her personal goal is to begin a HaMakom savings account to provide a buffer in case of emergency. She wants to see HaMakom become involved in social action projects like the one on which Yafa Chase, Bill Lazar, and Batya Kramer are working along with other Jewish congregations to begin delivery of Jewish social services in northern New Mexico, as well as the Abraham salon that will soon be up and running and providing interfaith dialogue. She believes HaMakom is in a unique position that will allow it to function as a bridge-builder among Jewish communities and also with other faith communities.
Leslie intends to ensure that at HaMakom everybody has a place--that every single person, regardless of personal resources or size of contributions, is "visible." "We all want that, don't we?" she says, spreading her hands. "To be visible. Am I right?"
Accordingly, Leslie was particularly insistent during her interview that space be made here to emphasize that congregational members are welcome to call her with questions, needs, or concerns relating to the organization of HaMakom. She wants to hear them--because it's the only way, she says, the experiment can work.