Events

Rich Kuperman will be our guest this month. He is the Coordinator of Volunteer Services for the Jewish Family Service of MetroWest New Jersey. Rich comes to JFS with an extensive and diverse résumé of volunteer leadership roles within both the Jewish and secular communities. He will cover for us the importance of volunteering and receiving volunteer services, Friend Advocate program, Friendly Visiting program, Telephone Reassurance program, Care Link program, and a Q and A game about intergenerational relationships. Rich assures us we will not be bored! All interested adults are warmly invited. Prior RSVP required for dinner.

We gather in our beautiful sanctuary every Saturday at 10:00 a.m. for Shabbat Morning Services which include prayers, songs, and discussion of the weekly Torah portion. After services there is a kiddush for meeting and greeting - and, of course, eating. Please join us this week as we celebrate a Bar Mitzvah.

Lydia Aizenberg has been giving tours of the "green line," "the fence," and what she calls "limboland" for Givat Haviva, Jewish - Arab Center for Peace in the Galilee, for the past decade. She will speak about the ongoing evolution of the Galilee as evidenced by Barta'a, a city split in half by the green line, closed off by Jordan in 1948, and then reopened in 1967. It now finds itself half in Palestinian Territory and half in Israel, where one can find Jewish Settlers and Palestinians living side by side. Come with your curiosity for a veteran Israeli activist and freelance journalist.

Please join the Bnai Keshet community for a special participatory Shabbat morning service during which we welcome our newer members and celebrate the growth of our community! Everyone is welcome! During our Meet & Greet Kiddush, newer members (and anyone simply looking to be reacquainted) will nosh and schmooze with BK's founding families, long time members and lots of other friendly people, all of whom are eager to get to know you better!

Rabbi Goldsmith is Professor of Yiddish and Jewish Studies at Queens College and Rabbi of M'vakshe Derech, the Reconstructionist shul in Scarsdale. He was a long time student of both Mordechai Kaplan and Joshua Heschel, and wrote an introduction to Dynamic Judaism, a collection of writings by Kaplan. His views on liturgy, services, prayer, and Reconstructionism are eye-opening and refreshing. You can meet Manny electronically at: You Tube. All interested congregants are welcome to attend.

We gather in our beautiful sanctuary every Saturday at 10:00 a.m. for Shabbat Morning Services which include prayers, songs, and discussion of the weekly Torah portion. After services there is a kiddush for meeting and greeting - and, of course, eating.

Please join us this week as we celebrate a Bar Mitzvah.

As part of Rabbi Elliott's Spring series, The Challenge of Prayer, a number of services will be dedicated to exploring alternative modes of prayer. All of our explorations will be related to the course readings and are intended to help bring some the theory down-to-earth. Hopefully they will be opportunities for us to explore different modes of prayer, some new and some very old, that will deepen our communities spiritual practice.

At our February meeting, we looked at the distribution of American Jews along denominational, age, marriage, educational, income and many other lines. This month we'll explore the over 70 nontraditional Jewish groups that currently are meeting for discussion, worship and other aspects of Jewish life. These, mostly young, adult groups involve a large number of Jews. They do not join any of the established denominations but still maintain Jewish community in a variety of ways. Join us to discuss this uniquely American phenomenon. For more information, or to be added to our e-mail list, contact the BK office.

For those with beginner's knowledge, this class will help you brush up on your reading skills and get more into vocabulary and meaning. 8-10 sessions; Tuesday nights, 7:30 PM at BK. Suggested donation: $50. Contact the BK office to enroll.

For parents and their infants, toddlers and/or preschoolers.
 
BK Play Group meets Thursdays, 9:30 - 11:00 AM. For more information, contact Naomi Cohen.

We will have guests from Adat Shalom, a Reconstructionist congregation in Bethesda, MD. They are taking a Reconstructionist Heritage Tour, first visiting the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and talking with President Dan Ehrenkrantz. They will join us for dinner and services. Jane Susswein and others will talk about the JRF. In the morning they will leave for New York, and services and a talk at the SAJ. $12 per person. RSVP to the BK office by Wednesday 3/5. All are invited.

A delegation of four Ugandan coffee farmers representing the interfaith Peace Kawomera Cooperative will share their story of building peace through fair trade. Joab ("JJ") Keki visited BK last year, leading us in Abayudayan (Ugandan Jewish) melodies of the tehilim that brought the room to a standstill. We are honored to have him join us again, this time with his fellow co-op members and partners from Thanksgiving Coffee. BK has been brewing Mirembe Kawomera Delicious Peace Kosher Fair Trade Certified Coffee for over a year. In stock and always fresh. Available through the BK office or contact Lori Ziliotto.

We gather in our beautiful sanctuary every Saturday at 10:00 a.m. for Shabbat Morning Services which include prayers, songs, and discussion of the weekly Torah portion. After services there is a kiddush for meeting and greeting - and, of course, eating.

Please join us this week as we celebrate a Bat Mitzvah.

10:00 AM - 10:30 AM  Tot Shabbat (0-4 years)
10:30 AM - 11:00 AM  Simchat Shabbat (K-2nd grade)
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM  Junior Congregation (3rd-6th grade)

Please join us at Bet Am Shalom Synagogue, 295 Soundview Avenue in White Plains, for bagels and lively conversation with Rabbi Lester Bronstein about Reconstructionist Judaism - all questions welcomed! Learn about the history of the movement and how the tenets of Reconstructionism influence the values, customs, and sense of community at Bet Am Shalom Synagogue. Members and non-members and their friends are invited to attend. Children are welcome; babysitting will be available for those who are interested. RSVPs appreciated by March 7. Please contact the synagogue office at (914) 946-8851 or betamshalom@betamshalom.org.

Martin Golan will read from and discuss his new book, Where Things Are When You Lose Them. His book, a collection of 12 short stories, delves into the nature of loss -- from the mundane, like misplacing your keys, to the heartbreaking, like losing your youth and the life you expected to have. Wine and cheese will be served, and copies of the book will be available for sale and signing. Further information about the book is available at www.martingolan.com.

Any resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must address the future of Jerusalem. Unfortunately, discussions about this reality often focus on simplistic and rhetorical notions of Jerusalem needing to be the eternal and undivided capital of the State of Israel. Come join us in a discussion that focuses instead on the current realities in Jerusalem, examines the ways in which the city is not currently unified, and discusses options for the future. Aaron Back is director of the Ford Foundation Israel Fund, a philanthropic partnership between the Ford Foundation and New Israel Fund to promote social justice and peace in Israel.

For parents and their infants, toddlers and/or preschoolers.
 
BK Play Group meets Thursdays, 9:30 - 11:00 AM. For more information, contact Naomi Cohen.

At Union Congregational Church United Church of Christ, 176 Cooper Avenue, Montclair. At Bnai Keshet, we have been experimenting with ways to extend our social action work to include a broader focus on social justice. For the past six months, Rabbi Elliott and a number of congregants have been speaking with organizers from the Industrial Areas Foundation, a congregation-based community organization, about ways to focus our activities on the Montclair Area. We believe that Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) has an approach that is applicable to the greater Montclair community and consistent with Bnai Keshet's values and philosophy. On March 13, Michael Gecan, the author of Going Pubic: An Organizer's Guide to Citizen Action and one of the leaders of the Industrial Areas Foundation, will meet with clergy and lay leaders of local synagogues, parishes, and congregations to explain IAF's approach. All are welcome. If you have any questions or concerns in advance of the meeting, please contact Rabbi Elliott.

We gather in our beautiful sanctuary every Saturday at 10:00 a.m. for Shabbat Morning Services which include prayers, songs, and discussion of the weekly Torah portion. After services there is a kiddush for meeting and greeting - and, of course, eating.

10:00 AM - 10:30 AM  Tot Shabbat (0-4 years)
10:30 AM - 11:00 AM  Simchat Shabbat (K-2nd grade)
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM  Junior Congregation (3rd-6th grade)

Time is tentative.