BK Blast Archive

Saturday, November 2nd 7PM

8th Annual Bnai Keshet Roabst 

Honoring the One and Only 

Barbara Reisman

Dinner Reservations and Tribute Pages are available now! 

Click to Buy Tickets and Sponsorships/Tributes

Beginning Wednesday, November 6  8:00 PM - 9:30 PM

"Let all who work for the community do so from a spiritual motive, for then the merit of their ancestors will sustain them, and their righteousness will endure forever --Rabban Gamliel, Ethics of the Fathers 2:2

"The highest act of gemilut chesed (acts of loving kindness) is that which is done for the dead, for there can never be any thought of repayment." (Tanhuma Vayehi 107A)
 

Rabbi Ariann Weitzman and members of Bnai Keshet’s nascent Chevra Kadisha will offer a three-session course in November to explore ways the community can expand and deepen its responses in the end-of-life continuum --from visiting and supporting those who are gravely ill (and their loved ones), through death, burial and bereavement.  Participants will learn what traditional Jewish practices are in this regard, consider why they have been done through the centuries – their functions and meanings, and how certain aspects (e.g., tahara) are performed. This course will be an excellent, hands-on and text-based opportunity for anyone who wants to find a role in these activities, whether by helping congregants to plan for their funerals long beforehand, taking part in shmira (sitting in the funeral home so the body is not alone) or tahara (cleaning and dressing the body for burial), developing our own tahara manual, sewing tachrichim (burial clothing), or providing the logistical support needed for all of these activities to occur seemlessly. 

 

Click here to read more about class topics

Bnai Keshet and Watchung Booksellers present:

Saturday, November 23, 2013

An Evening With Sara Paretsky, one of the foremost mystery writers of our time

7pm: Pre-reading Nosh: BK cooks Viennese and Chicago-style food in honor of Paretsky's characters, with a glass of wine and a chance to browse our Book Festival

8pm: Reading by award-winning novelist Sara Paretsky, followed by a Q-and-A and book signing

Paretsky will be reading from her just-published novel CRITICAL MASS, in which her famous detective V. I. Warshawski investigates the dramatic past of her close friend, the Viennese-born doctor Lotty Herschel. This riveting narrative moves between present-day Chicago, where Kitty's daughter and her grandson are missing, and the story of a Jewish woman physicist in Nazi-occupied Austria, as Warshawski tries to prevent the awful past from asserting itself again upon her friends. 

ADMISSION IS FREE, BUT PLEASE RSVP! 

The Book Festival continues on Sunday, together with the New Member Brunch, 11am-2pm, with a picture-book reading for young children at 11:30am.