TEMPLE BETH EL of ONEONTA January The Shofar

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1 TEMPLE BETH EL of ONEONTA January 2018 Friends, The Shofar Many of us have had the experience of doing the mitzvah of consoling a mourner, also known as making a shiva call. A workshop on How to Make a Shiva Visit and/or Lead a Shiva Minyan will take place Saturday, January 20, 9:30-11:30 am, with Coffee and Schmooze at 9:00. Please join us for this workshop so that we can support each other in times of grief, and learn what to say and do at these visits or minyans. No prior knowledge is needed. Some of our retired or semi-retired members who enjoy each other s company would like to get together during the week. If you are interested in joining The Schmoozing Society, let me know!! The group will choose when to meet, and what, if anything, their agenda will be. A small sweet group of Religious School families gathered last month to make latkes and celebrate Chanukah. Thanks so much to Alice Lichtenstein and Iris Bercovitz for their latke-making leadership, to Janet Sutta for taking wonderful photos, and to the Heindl-Wintringham and O Leary families for joining in! Thank you also to Howie and Joyce Gelbsman for making delicious latkes for the Chanukah Potluck!! The group will gather again on Friday, January 19 for a fun Shabbat activity; I hope that you will be there to join us! You do not need to have small children of your own to participate; all members of TBE are welcome to join the children and their families! This is a great way for new and veteran members of the congregation to get to know each other! Please RSVP to me for this event!! We will celebrate Shabbat on Friday night January 5th at 7:30 PM, and on Friday night January 19 th at 6:00 PM, followed by our Potluck Dinner at 7:15. I hope that you will join us to create and share the warmth of our community and to enjoy the companionship of being a part of it. RSVP s for Potluck, along with the dish that you bring, help us to make sure that we have enough food for everyone. We are in need of more potluck people to set up and clean up. Please RSVP to Ken to help, let him know you are coming and what you will bring. Our very own Aliya Sider (aptly named, as it turns out), daughter of Ken and Heidi, is making Aliyah (moving to Israel). To honor this important event Aliya and her parents will be called to the bima Friday January 5 th for special blessings. Please join us to wish Aliya a safe journey, to bid her l hitra ote (until we meet again) and support her and her family in this milestone event. We have resumed the TBE practice of offering a special blessing to all in the TBE community who have a birthday, anniversary, or other occasion to celebrate. Please do let me know when you come to Temple if you are celebrating a simcha!! Adult chocolate will enhance the occasion!! Torah Study will meet Saturday January 6 th. Coffee and Shmooze starts at 9:00 am, and we begin our studies at 9:30. No previous knowledge is needed. Our Lunch and Learn Program continues with our study of Mussar and Mindfulness on Saturday, January 6 th and January 20 th at noon. This practice helps us to stay calm, focused and aware in a chaotic world. Please bring a meat-free, shellfish-free dish for yourself or to share. No previous knowledge is needed. As always, please don t hesitate to reach out to me at rabbimollyarp@gmail.com at any time. Kol tuv (all the good), Rabbi Molly Karp 1

2 A Personal Message from the President Since moving to Oneonta in 1984, I have quietly managed my chronic Jewish identity crisis. Being Jewish here is not like being Jewish in the Long Island suburb of my youth where neighbors visited one another on front stoops during Jewish holidays. Being Jewish in a Jewish neighborhood is very easy, but being Jewish in Oneonta where we exist in a Christian-dominant culture and are required to navigate what can be stressinducing Christian holidays is not always easy. In Oneonta, I often feel being a minority forces my Jewish identity to become a distinctive trait, like it or not. As many of you know, raising Jewish children in a small, rural community is a challenge. As parents, Heidi and I wanted our daughter, Aliya, to have a sense of Jewish pride. This required many visits to our downstate family for holidays and celebrations, regular attendance at Tot Shabbat, active participation in synagogue life and Hebrew School, reading Jewish books at home, practicing Hebrew together (more than Aliya wanted to), listening to Israeli music while driving to school, and celebrating her bat mitzvah. From what I can tell, Aliya, now nearly 20-years-old, has not shared my Jewish identity angst. Always a minority in school and at extracurricular activities, somehow she simply embraced and enjoyed her Jewish identity. Whether wearing an Everyone Loves A Jewish Girl t-shirt in elementary school, an ugly Chanukah sweater (with a giant Jewish star a la Seth Rogen) for Ugly Christmas Sweater Day in high school, or the gold Star of David necklace she received from her grandparents on the day she went to the mikveh (at age 4), Aliya always felt comfortable and confident with her Jewish identity. This amazes me, especially since she was part of a tiny Jewish community, went to a one-day a week Hebrew School, and attended Oneonta High School where anti-semitic comments and swastikas were present. As a student at the University at Albany, she is part of a diverse Jewish community (with Sephardic, Ashkenazi, Hasidic, Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews) and participates at Hillel and Chabad. The Jewish education and sense of community Aliya enjoyed at Temple Beth El clearly nourished her Jewish spirit and left her wanting more. (Thank you to all her Hebrew School teachers!) Ever since our family trip to Israel in honor of her bat mitzvah, Aliya has wanted to return. She achieved her goal this past summer when she went on a Birthright trip to Israel and later had an 8-week internship in Haifa working for women s rights with a joint Palestinian- Israeli women s NGO. She loved it in Israel and did not want to come home (and almost didn t). I am writing this column with great emotion because Aliya has decided to make aliyah to Israel, and her departure is quickly approaching. On January 9, she will join other new immigrants at JFK and board an El Al flight to begin her new life in Israel. She will study at a 5-month ulpan (Hebrew immersion program) in Tiberias before enlisting in the Israel Defense Forces. After completing her 2-year military service, she plans to continue her college education in Israel. I share this news feeling both admiration (it is bold, brave, and Jewish) and anguish (we ll worry terribly and miss her), but hoping she will be happy, healthy, and safe in Israel. To be honest, I have never seen Aliya happier than she is now. She is very excited to go home and be an Israeli. This column is an invitation to you, Aliya s synagogue family, to join us on Friday, January 5 at 7:30, for a special Shabbat service and Oneg in her honor. Rabbi Karp will call Aliya to the bimah for a blessing and to receive the good wishes of Temple Beth El. If you are available to mark this milestone in Aliya s life, Heidi and I hope you will join us. Ken 2

3 CHANUKAH PARTY at TEMPLE BETH EL On Friday, December 15, Temple Beth El was full of love and light. At 5:00, families from the Hebrew School gathered with Rabbi Karp in the social hall to celebrate Chanukah. With Alice Lichtenstein and Iris Bercovitz, the children made their own latkes and Chanukah decorations. At 6:00, a crowd assembled for the Friday night service and community menorah lighting. Rabbi Karp handed out her psychedelic Jewish star glasses to add to the spirit of the evening. At 7:00, everyone was rewarded with Howie's famous latkes. Thanks to Joyce and Howie, and the members who brought a dish to pass, our potluck was a delicious and traditional event. Pictures by Janet Sutta 3

4 MENORAH LIGHTING on MAIN STREET On Sunday, December 18, seventy-five people (including many TBE members) gathered in 25 degree weather to celebrate the lighting of Oneonta's first community menorah. The menorah, situated in Muller Plaza directly behind Santa's House, will now be part of the holiday scene on Main Street. The event and the menorah were all the result of Chabad of Oneonta, under Rabbi Meir's direction. Rabbi Meir spoke about the meaning of the menorah at Chanukah then introduced City of Oneonta Mayor Gary Herzig, who spoke and was honored with lighting the shamash candle. Temple Beth El President Ken Sider followed, led the two blessings and lit the next five candles. Following the community singing of the blessings, Chabad provided hot apple cider, latkes, donuts, light-up dreidel necklaces, and dreidels. This was a heart-warming event for our members, and for the Jewish population at-large. Ken's address at the menorah lighting follows: "Jewish families have lived in Oneonta since at least the late 1800s, but tonight, in December of 2017, for the first time, we have a menorah! From this Chanukah forward, Jewish families and particularly Jewish children, will drive through the heart of their town and feel part of the community in a way they never have. For those of us with children who are grown and gone, we really wish we had this menorah 20, 30, 40 years ago. Thank you to the City of Oneonta, Rabbi Meir and Fraidy Rubashkin, and the SUCO students. This is a pleasure for all of us." Photo by Irene Weinberg 4

5 Hebrew School Chanukah Celebration At Hebrew School on December 17th, we sang the Chanukah blessings, had the senior class member light the menorah, sang songs, spun dreidls, ate chocolate gelt, and celebrated our heritage and the right to worship as we wish. Pictures by Hollie Jaffe CHAI to LIFE Please remember to send in your $18.00 Chai to Life payment for January. Every donation helps us pay the synagogue s bills and maintain Rabbi Karp s visits to Oneonta. Thank you for your on-going support. 5

6 Please join us for a special Shabbat service on January 5, at 7:30 pm, when we will give Aliya Sider a send-off before making aliyah to Israel, studying Hebrew at an ulpan, and enlisting in the Israel Defense Forces. For more information, see the President's column. Israeli Film Series Saturday January 13 th at 7:00 PM Ahead of Time, the Extraordinary Journey of Ruth Gruber A documentary on the remarkable life of Ruth Gruber. At 97 years old, Brooklyn-born Ruth still has that same sharp intellect and moxie that propelled her to become the world's youngest PhD at age 20. At age 24, she became a New York Herald Tribune reporter and photographer and the same year was the first journalist to enter the Soviet Arctic. A trusted member of the Roosevelt Administration during WWII, she was given a dangerous secret mission. A feminist before feminism, Ruth was never just an observer, she was a participant in the making of history. Ruth covered the turbulent Middle East throughout the 1940's, and the film combines verité footage of Ruth traveling back to Israel, with interviews and archival material. Best Documentary Denver Jewish Film Festival, Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival, Berkshire International Film Festival Ruth Gruber is remarkable indefatigable a riveting raconteur.. an inspiration New York Times A case study in pioneering feminist courage Time Out New York Donations for admission and snacks are appreciated. 6

7 Oneg Shabbat Announcement Dear Temple Family, I am certain that you are all aware of the Oneg that takes place at the conclusion of Shabbat services. It is the collective joy or pleasure celebrated by those of us attending services. At Temple Beth El the Oneg is a relatively simple affair. Either one or more congregants personally sponsor the Oneg as a memorialization of a significant event, i.e. Yahrzeit, Birthday, Bar or Bat Mitzvah, Baby Naming, etc. Hosting an Oneg creates a nice opportunity to talk with friends about your loved one or special event, and it brings us together as a community. In an effort to sustain this tradition and create a more equitable distribution of this mitzvah, we are asking you to provide an Oneg. Sponsorship of an Oneg requires: fruit, dessert, challah (available at BJ s, Price Chopper, and Hannaford), small gluten-free snack, small sugar-free snack, seltzer and juice, and half-and-half. If you are out of town on the date of the Oneg you wish to sponsor, you may make a donation of $50.00 to the Temple Beth El Oneg Fund so that the Temple can continue to perform this important but costly function. In order to schedule an Oneg, please contact me at hlkaminsky@gmail.com. I thank you in advance. Shalom, Howard L. Kaminsky, Oneg Coordinator Shabbat Torah Study followed by Rabbi Molly Karp s Adult Education Classes Torah study is interactive No preparation required we read the weekly portion together January Lunch and Learn Saturday, January 6 th and 20 th at noon Our Lunch and Learn Program will continue with Mindfulness Practice for veterans and newbies. This practice helps us to stay calm, focused and aware in a chaotic world. Please bring a meat-free, shellfish-free dish for yourself or to share. You can me to receive the handouts in advance. No previous knowledge is needed. Please contact Rabbi Karp for information. Shabbat Torah Study: at 9:30 am, following 9 am coffee and schmooze on Saturday mornings. 7

8 Many thanks to the following for their generous donations to Temple Beth El: Irene & Rick Weinberg Louise Fishman and Ingrid Nyeboe Howard Kaminski, Rabbi s discretionary fund Sidney & Harriett Goldman, towards the repair of the roof Zach Weinberg for the recovery of Catherine Sason, Ernest Feder and Jonathan Grell Ron Feldstein, Oneg Shabbat Member News Column If you have member news that you would like to share with the congregation, please send it via by the 20 th of the month to Sue Carbone at tbeshofar@gmail.com for publication in the Shofar. Please put Member News in the subject line of your . Thank you. The Lord s Table Linda Burkhart, Alice Lichtenstein and I served and cleaned up after 50 meals at Lord's Table on December 14th. With each guest using 3-4 plates (dinner, green salad, fruit salad, and dessert), a mug, a glass, and silverware, that's a lot of cleaning up. Thank you so much to the dedicated Temple Beth El volunteers (and to the help given by Fred Healy, without whom we would have been on clean-up duty much longer.) Our next Lord's Table volunteer opportunity is on January 11th. Hollie (hjjaffe@hotmail.com) VOLUNTEERS NEEDED Are you interested in helping at Temple Beth El or with any of our programs? We have opportunities for people who would like to be more involved. Whether it is being one of The Potluck People (helping with our monthly potluck), working at The Lord's Table (a soup kitchen/community feeding program) or joining a committee either in the synagogue or outside as a synagogue representative, we welcome your participation. Contact Ken Sider for more information, ksider@hotmail.com or Chesed Committee The Chesed Committee provides help and support to Temple members in times of need and in times of joy. Anne Green and Bernadette Winters Bell are available to offer support. Bernadette Winters Bell b15lola@aol.com Home # cell # Anne Green la0130@stny.rr.com Home #

9 The Women s Club of Temple Beth El The Women s Club met in December with 9 women attending. Amy Zoltick shared her loom and information about fibers and weaving. We were able to try weaving on a simple lap loom. We also had a great discussion about living in a Christian world and the impact that has in subtle and not so subtle ways on our Jewish children s identify. We examined school practices surrounding the Christmas holiday and the need for more education of teachers for not having academic activities connected to Christmas themes. Our January meeting will be on Sunday, January 7 th at 12:00. Marnie will be giving us instruction about how to draw. Marnie is recognized as a local artists and has had works displayed at local shows. She will share her techniques and ideas for making a good drawing. Marnie and I will supply the paper and pencils we will need. Get ready to engage your imagination and do some drawing and join us that day. Save the date for January and plan to join us for lunch and good conversation. See you soon. Stephanie Bauer Good News From Israel News of Israel's Achievements and Heartwarming Stories from the Jewish State. ISRAEL S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS Diagnosing autism in newborns. I reported previously (16th Apr) how Israel saves lives with early diagnosis of autism in toddlers. Now an Israeli, Raffi Rembrand, father of an autistic son, has invented the SensPD which detects a newborn suffering from sensory overload a key factor in autism. Men s Club Breakfast Men s Club Breakfast will be held 10 am Sunday, Jan 21st in the downstairs social hall. DONATIONS TO TEMPLE BETH EL It is a mitzvah to make a donation to honor or remember friends, family, or a special occasion. Please remember Temple Beth El when you have news to share, to recognize a death or remember a yahrzeit. 9

10 You re Invited! The Women s Club of Temple Beth EL would like to welcome all women members of the Congregation to join us for our first biannual Book Club meeting. Please Save the Date: February 4, noon The Book: The Boston Girl, A Novel by Anita Diamant When Addie Baum's 22-year old granddaughter asks her about her childhood, Addie realizes the moment has come to relive the full history that shaped her. Addie Baum was a Boston Girl, born in 1900 to immigrant Jewish parents who lived a very modest life. But Addie's intelligence and curiosity propelled her to a more modern path. Addie wanted to finish high school and to go to college. She wanted a career, to find true love. She wanted to escape the confines of her family. And she did. Told against the backdrop of World War I, and written with the same immense emotional impact that has made Diamant's previous novels bestsellers, The Boston Girl is a moving portrait of one woman's complicated life in the early 20th Century, and a window into the lives of all women seeking to understand the world around them. (from Amazon website) The book can be purchased on Amazon. Dates to remember: January 22, 2018 February 4, 2018 Please RSVP by this Date Book Club at TBE Please contact Phyllis Sherman to RSVP p.wsherman0@gmail.com (That is a zero after my name.) Refreshments Will Be Served! 10

11 YOU CAN EARN MONEY FOR TEMPLE BETH EL BY SHOPPING AT AMAZON.COM Every time you shop at Amazon.com, Temple Beth El receives a percentage of that sale with no cost to you. You still pay the same Amazon prices as usual and Amazon donates a portion of that sale to our Temple. It s EASY. All you have to do is go to the Temple s webpage at this address: Once at our website, click on the AMAZON tab at the top of the page (second tab from the right) Then, click on the Amazon.com link and shop as you normally do. For everything you buy, Amazon will donate to the Temple. It s as simple as that. Two extra clicks (first, go to the Temple s website, then, click on the Amazon Tab and Amazon link) and you re ready to donate, just by shopping. It really helps and it really adds up. Remember us when you shop. You have to do a few extra steps but then it s shopping as usual and we reap the benefits. Just continue buying what you would buy anyway, and the Temple makes money. How great is that? 11

12 Yahrzeit List for January 2018 January 1 4 (Tevet 14 17) January 5 11 (Tevet 18 24) Israel Goldman Rose Wagner Schoenfeld Abraham Krohn Abraham Rosen Mirian Miller Rose Klein Lillian Grossman George Marcus January (Tevet 25 Shevat 2) January (Shevat 3 9) Ross Auerbach Rika Einstein Samuel J. Smith Mina Vogel Sarah Assinovsky Rachel Stein Shirley Schiffman Morton S. Auerbach Selma Kaplowitz Rothman Zacharia Kaplowitz Katie Kleinman January (Shevat 10 15) Estelle Stember Goldsmith David Chidell May they be remembered for a blessing In case of emergency Rabbi Karp is not reachable via on Shabbat and festivals. To reach her in the event of a rabbinic emergency, or in the case of an urgent need on Shabbat, please contact Temple Beth El's President, Ken Sider at or ksider@hotmail.com. At all other times, you can reach Rabbi Karp at rabbimollykarp@gmail.com. In the event of a death, please contact Steve Feuer, at

13 MEMBER AND SUPPORTER BUSINESSES 13

14 TEMPLE BETH EL WEBSITE ONLINE BUSINESS DIRECTORY Please for more information about this FREE service for members. Thanks, Dr. Neal Schultz! Purchase any products from BeautyRX. The profits from all purchases from Temple members will be donated to the Temple. Just go to redeem it by applying code "tbeth" in the shopping cart or checkout page. Or call beautyrx - that s , thank you. 14

15 Temple Beth El Shofar published by TEMPLE BETH EL PO Box Chestnut Street Oneonta, NY Rabbi Molly Karp 607/ (synagogue) Rabbi Emeritus Donald Neil Roberts Jan 2018 Tevet/Shevat 5778 Ken Sider Howie Gelbsman Irene Weinberg Anne Green Hollie Jaffe OFFICERS President Vice President Secretary Treasurer Past President BOARD OF DIRECTORS Stephanie Bauer Robert Garfield Susan Carbone Debra Marcus Rick Weinberg Save the Dates: Friday January 5 th, Erev Shabbat at 7:30 PM. Special Shabbat service to give Aliya Sider a sendoff before making aliyah to Israel Saturday, January 6 th, Torah study at 9:30 AM following coffee and schmooze at 9:00 AM. Friday January 19 th, Erev Shabbat at 6:00 PM, followed by a potluck dinner at 7:15 PM. Saturday January 20 th, Workshop: How to Make a Shiva Call at 9:30 AM following coffee and schmooze at 9:00 AM. Sunday, January 7 th Women s Club lunch at noon. Thursday, January 11 th, Lord s Table Community Feeding program Saturday, January 13 th, Israeli Movie Night 7 PM Sunday, January 21 st, Men s Club Breakfast at 10:00 AM. Steven Feuer Men s Club President Irene Weinberg/Joyce Gelbsman Sisterhood Temple Beth El PO Box 383 Oneonta, NY