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USCJ eNews: The United Synagogue Electronic Bulletin
uscj.org/eNews March 2009
What's Happening
Blessing of the Sun - Every 28 years, Jews celebrate the sun as it returns to the place in the sky where it had been during creation. This year, the celebration, called Birchat HaChamah, falls on April 8, erev Pesach, and the Leadership Council of Conservative Judaism offers ways to celebrate.
United Synagogue Congratulates the U.S. and Canadian Governments on Durban II Decision - United Synagogue supports Prime Minister Harper and President Obama's decision not to allow Canada and the United States to attend the festival of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism into which the United Nations' conference in Geneva is likely to devolve.
Let Someone Else Change the Dishes - Once again, United Synagogue can help you make Passover easier this year. Just to go the PGA National Resort and Spa in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, for an entirely kosher Pesach, and let everything be done for you.
Selling Hametz at College (and Beyond) – Purim’s just about here, so Pesach’s just around the corner. That means that college students will begin making plans for the holiday. Okay, okay, we know your kids, but even they will make their plans – eventually. In the meantime, starting right after Purim they can go online to sell the hametz in their dorm rooms and apartments through Koach, United Synagogue’s program for college students. And if you’re no longer a student but you have no outlet through your own synagogue, you also can go to Koach’s website and sell the hametz in your home or office. Email Koach more information.
New Timetable for New Directors Institute - For many years, United Synagogue has offered the New Directors Institute to educational directors of United Synagogue-affiliated religious schools who have three or fewer years of experience. This year, in response to the new economic realities, the program will include three days in New York – June 23-25 – plus two conference calls and yearlong follow-up phone sessions. Email Susan Wyner for information.
CJ's in the mail
CJ’s In The Mail - The next issue of CJ: Voices of Conservative/Masorti Judaism, focusing on Passover and on personal stories more than two years after the Conservative movement’s decisions on the status of gay men and lesbians, should be hitting mailboxes early in March. The magazine is also online.
High Holy Day Chazzanim - United Synagogue can help match affiliated congregations that need cantors on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with chazzanim. You can download an application; for more information, email Leah Rottenberg or call her at 646-519-9332.
Ednotes - Susan Wyner, United Synagogue’s North American consultant for synagogue education, offers Ednotes, a frequent email full of helpful and timely hints for educators. To join her list, email her.
One Shabbat - United Synagogue is a content partner for One Sabbath, part of the One Campaign, which seeks to raise public awareness about such issues as global warming, hunger, and disease. The One Sermon Challenge, set to end April 15, accepts original and inspirational sermons about global poverty and will put them online. Rabbis are invited to participate.
Bragging Rights
Meeting with Pope Benedict XVI - On February 12, our executive vice president, Rabbi Jerome Epstein, was one of a group of Jewish leaders who met with Pope Benedict XVI. Here, he reports on that meeting.
Southeast Region Goes to Cuba
Southeast Region Goes to Cuba - In February, United Synagogue-affiliated travelers visited the Jewish community in Cuba. Photo at right: The American visitors, joined by members of the Cuban Jewish community, at the Holocaust memorial in the Jewish cemetery in Santa Clara, Cuba.
Koach Kallah - College Students Met World
Koach Kallah – College Students Met World - The annual Koach Kallah, held this year at the Brandeis-Bardin campus of California’s American Jewish University, drew young Conservative Jews for the chance to join, meet, study, daven, eat, debate, learn, and have lots of fun together; the program’s last night included a trip to the Jewlicious Festival in Long Beach.
Early Childhood Directors at the JEA
Early Childhood Directors at the JEA - Almost 20 early childhood directors from around the country met for a conference-in-a-conference during the Jewish Educators Assembly meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was put together by Maxine Handelman, United Synagogue’s early childhood consultant. For more information, email Maxine Handelman or call her at 847-641-9963. Photo at right: The early childhood directors.
How to Cut a Budget - At the end of February, United Synagogue’s Mid-Atlantic region held an in-person conference on how to budget in these hard times – how to cut, how to find alternative income sources. The meeting is an outcome of our desire to provide both virtual and real meetings, understanding that different kinds of information are exchanged in each one.
Tu b’Shevat in Valencia - In Spain, 42 people joined Sinagogue La Javura’s 13th Tu B’Shevat Walking Seder in the Jardin Botanico de Valencia. The walk takes participants through the agricultural year as they pause seven times to eat nuts, citrus, pomegranates, olives, dates, fig, and grapes. Next year’s adventure is set for January 31 at noon. For a Spanish Tu B’Shevat haggadah, email the synagogue’s president, Alba Toscano.
New Ideas
Compact of Conservative Judaism - For the first time in 87 months, United Synagogue’s Compact, a compilation of modern texts for a month of study, is available online.
* Learn more about it
* Read earlier New Ideas
Calendar
Sulam – Newly elected synagogue presidents and vice presidents are invited to Sulam, where Rabbi Moshe Edelman helps them learn the skills they need to keep their congregations vital. This year, Sulam will meet in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, from March 5 to 9, and then in Newark, New Jersey, from March 19 to 22.
March Webinar – Budget as Ongoing Process - On March 24 at 2 p.m. and again on March 25 at 8 p.m., Neal Price, the executive director of Denver’s Hebrew Education Alliance and the president of NAASE, leads a webinar looking at the budget process as an ongoing cycle and helps participants cope with that reality in this challenging new world. To register, presidents, executive directors, financial officers, and other interested professional or lay leaders of United Synagogue-affiliated congregations should email Leah Rottenberg.
Counting the Omer - This year’s omer counter is available on our website. We begin to count the omer on the evening of April 9 this year.
Conference on Domestic Abuse - United Synagogue is a supporting partner of Jewish Women International’s international conference on domestic abuse, set for April 26-29 in Washington, DC.
New Directors Institute - Our education department invites new directors of religious schools, along with directors who have been in place for up to two years, to New York City from Tuesday, June 23, to Thursday, June 24, to join our New Directors Institute.
Project Etgar - Everyone knows that it’s a challenge to present a positive, productive Jewish learning experience to middle-school religious school students, but Project Etgar thrives on that challenge and offers educators a curriculum and the training to use it effectively. The project is accepting applications for the next school year.
United Synagogue Youth - Most of USY’s summer 2009 trips are full, but there are still a few space available. Sign up now for the summer of a lifetime!
On Nativ, USY’s college/leadership program, students who have just graduated from high school take off a year before college to live in Israel. They spend the first semester at United Synagogue’s Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center, studying either at the Conservative Yeshiva or at the Hebrew University, and the second semester working on a kibbutz or volunteering in a development town. Registration is now open.
Nativ/Gesher, a new program, offers Nativ students the chance to spend the first semester in Israel, strengthening their ties to the Jewish state, and the second exploring and working with Masorti communities in Europe, getting a first-hand understanding of Jewish life there.
Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center
Students at USY High, a joint program with Ramah Israel programs, live and learn in Israel for two months and receive high school credit for it.
2009 International Biennial Convention - United Synagogue’s biennial convention, where leaders from across the continent gather to learn, study, network, share, and grow as Conservative Jews, is set for December 6 through 10 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. We’ll keep you updated as our plans develop.
Project Reconnect
Kol Dichfin - As it has for the last few years, Project Reconnect is matching alumni of the Conservative movement’s youth projects with Pesach seders. Kol Dichfin – let all who are hungry enter and eat.
Two New Initiatives - Project Reconnect, the Conservative movement youth program’s alumni association, is gearing up to offer two new programs. One will be online synagogue yellow pages – synagogues will be offered this free service, which will offer listings to professionals who are congregation members. The other, Ozer v’Shamor, is a mentoring program.
Zemirot Database - Project Reconnect is partnering with the Zemirot database to help create the web’s largest user-generated collection of Jewish songs and liturgy.
Go to Israel with SNUSY Alumni - Alumni of the Sierra Nevada United Synagogue Youth, along with their spouses, children, and friends, are invited to join a trip to Israel planned for next summer through Project Reconnect. Sierra Nevada USY is part of the New Frontier region. Email for more information and please put the words “Israel 2009” in the subject line. Scholarships are available.
Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center
Wine and Cheese at Fuchsberg - All United Synagogue members who will be in Israel on Sunday, July 5, are invited to United Synagogue’s Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center from 6 to 7 p.m. for a wine and cheese reception.
Summer at the Yeshiva - The Conservative Yeshiva at United Synagogue’s Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center offers two three-week sessions this summer, which include intensive Hebrew Ulpan and Talmud study. Sessions begin June 28 and July 19.
From Our Book Service
April 8 brings us Passover and Birchat HaChama, which comes only every 28 years. To learn about these festival and celebrate them better, our book service has some suggestions:
The Feast of Freedom Haggadah
The Sun’s Special Blessing, by Sandy Wasserman and illustrated with papercuts by Ann D. Koffsky, for 9- to 12-year-olds, is a story about children celebrating the return of the sun to the place in the sky where it was during creation. $17.95
The Feast of Freedom Haggadah, edited by Rachel Anne Rabinowicz, provides step-by-step instructions for the seder. Children will appreciate the accompanying coloring book and the whole family can join in the Passover singing on the CD led by Max Routtenberg. Haggadah, $14.95; coloring book, $1.95; CD: $11.95.
Haggadah and History: A Panorama in Facsimile of Five Centuries of the Printed Haggadah was compiled by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi from the collections of Harvard University and the Jewish Theological Seminary and shows the way more recent Jewish history is reflected in the retelling of our ancient foundational story. $75.
Around the Conservative/Masorti World
Masorti Concert - The Simon Quartet will play works by Hayden, Smetana, and Debussy at a concert to benefit the Masorti Foundation for Conservative Judaism in Israel. The concert, set for Sunday, March 29, at 4 p.m., will be at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. Email for more information.
Guardians of the Earth - Working together with United Synagogue and the other organizations that make up the Conservative movement, understanding the Jewish imperative to protect the earth, the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs offers suggestions to make our synagogues greener.
* Solar Ner Tamid
* Shabbat Eco-Candles
* Edward Don Green catalog
* World Centric catalog
* Credit card form
* Credit card application form
* Comparison of costs
With Just One Click
* Take advantage of free Internet hosting services to affiliated synagogues, USY chapters and afternoon/day schools
* Got two minutes? Get some Torah! Enjoy our weekly podcast and sign up for email alerts. www.koach.org
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