Berkeley Community-Wide Yom haZikaron and Yom Ha'atzam'ut 5772

Berkeley Community-Wide Yom haZikaron and Yom Ha'atzam'ut 5772

 

Cosponsored by Congregations Netivot Shalom, Beth Israel, & Beth El

At Netivot Shalom (1316 University Ave, Berkeley)

Click here for the flyer - http://tiny.cc/yomhaatzmaut5772

 

7:15-8:00: Commnal Ceremony Marking Yom haZikaron

 

8:00-8:45: Celebratory Ma'ariv(s) for Yom haAtzmaut!

1.       According to the Custom of Beth Israel: Social Hall (1^st floor)

2.      According to the Custom of Netivot Shalom: Sanctuary (1^st floor)

 

8:45-9:30:

-       How Well Do YOU Know Israel? Israel Trivia

Trivia with Lenny Kristal (Sanctuary – 1^st floor)

 

-       Becoming Necessary: The Potential Gifts of the Diaspora to Israel

A conversation facilitated by Rabbi Avi Novis-Deutsch (Classroom – 2^nd Floor)

 

-       Some of My Favorite Israeli Songs!

A sing-along with Claire Sherman (Library – 2^nd Floor)

 

Coming Early? 6:00-7:15: Playback Theater Presents: "Ma Nishma Israel?" Ma Nishma Israel is a Playback theatre performance dedicated to conversation about the state of Israel. Audience members are invited to share personal stories and associations are related to their connection to Israel. Personal stories about: conflicted emotions, longing, connection, inspiration, disappointment, Jewish identity, values, community, peace, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, hope, freedom of speech, home and family.   What is Playback Theater? Playback Theatre is an improvisational theatre based on audience members' stories. The actors and musician will transform these stories into theatrical scenes using movement, ritual, music, and spoken improvisation. The audience tells, the actors perform!

 

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Congregation Netivot Shalom  || menachemcreditor.org  

Rabbis for Women of the Wall || Bay Area Masorti ||  ShefaNetwork 

To join Rabbi Creditor's email list, send a blank email to thetisch-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Check out my new album, "Within" on itunes!

Yom HaShoah veHagevurah 5772: "Stop. Then Go."

Stop. Then Go. (c) Rabbi Menachem Creditor Yom HaShoah veHagevurah 27 Nissan, 5772 // April 19, 2012   I found it hard to breathe during last night's communal commemoration of Yom HaShoah veHagevurah.  And when I woke this morning, it wasn't any easier.  I tried to conduct the business of starting my day, but couldn't pull away from my computer,where image after image held my soul fast, pulling me deeper and deeper into the experience of holocaust and of heroism. Two images were most intense. One was generated by Yad Vashem in Israel, with an older man standing alone while his shadow reflects the boy he once was and the family he lost. I have no words and can barely type as I feel myself in that shadow somehow.    The second image was not simpler, but it both took my breath away and then forced me to breathe once again. In Israel, every year, Yom Hashoa is punctuated nationwide by a two minute siren. It doesn't matter where you are, who you are, or what you believe. People in email labs stop typing and rise, people shopping stand still - even traffic on the highway stops and people exit their cars when they hear the wail of the siren. The country stands still. Someone posted the video online today (click the picture below). Holocaust Remembrance Day Siren As I watched those drivers on a highway in Israel stop, I stopped. I saw them exit their cars and stand at attention in the middle of a highway that seconds before had been moving very quickly, I stood. But then they returned to their cars and continued their day's business.    I suddenly realized I hadn't been breathing.    Watching my family get back into their cars on an Israeli highway pushed me out of my silence and back into life. It occurred to me that the Torah of the State of Israel in this moment was that there is no such thing as mundane. Everything can be holy. Time and place can be set aside, because even an Israeli highway can be a portal to time and memory, a shadow of where we've been and what we've endured.   I pray our family remain safe, everywhere around the world. May we engage in the work we are called to do, not missing the moments that demand of us that we stop and pay attention. Sometimes we should stop. But then we are called to go.   As we say to each other before embarking on a journey, may we come in peace, and go in peace. May every Jewish journey, touched by the shadows of our past, also be filled with enormous life and light.

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Congregation Netivot Shalom  || menachemcreditor.org  

Rabbis for Women of the Wall || Bay Area Masorti ||  ShefaNetwork 

To join Rabbi Creditor's email list, send a blank email to thetisch-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Check out my new album, "Within" on itunes!

JTA: "Israel’s Masorti movement to ordain gays and lesbians as rabbis "

JTA: "Israel's Masorti movement to ordain gays and lesbians as rabbis"

April 19, 2012

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/04/19/3093281/masorti-to-ordain-gay-and-lesbians-as-rabbis-in-israel

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Gay and lesbian students will be ordained as Conservative rabbis in Israel.

The Board of Trustees of the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary voted Thursday night to accept gay and lesbian students for ordination beginning with the 2012-13 academic year. The Conservative movement in Israel is known as Masorti.  

A seminary statement said the decision comes following a "long process."

"The Schechter Rabbinical Seminary views the serious process leading to this decision as an example of confronting social dilemmas within the framework of tradition and halachah," or Jewish law, Hanan Alexander, chair of the seminary's Board of Trustees, said in the statement. "This decision highlights the institution's commitment to uphold halachah in a pluralist and changing world."

Students are ordained by a beit din, or rabbinical court, made up of three members of the Rabbinic Advisory Committee of the seminary, all of whom are members of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Masorti/Conservative movement. The beit din members are chosen by the candidate and subject to the approval of the seminary's dean. They have different opinions regarding the ordination of gay and lesbian students, according to the seminary. 

"This unique mechanism is an expression of halachic pluralism, one of the founding principles of SRS," the seminary said in its statement. "The Seminary is a religious institution of the Masorti/Conservative Movement, bound by Halacha, whose inclusive approach allows for a variety of Halachic opinions."

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Congregation Netivot Shalom  || menachemcreditor.org  

Rabbis for Women of the Wall || Bay Area Masorti ||  ShefaNetwork 

To join Rabbi Creditor's email list, send a blank email to thetisch-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Check out my new album, "Within" on itunes!

Do You Have an incoming Eighth Grader Looking for a Truly Remarkable Summer Experience with other Jewish Teens from Across the Country?

Do You Have an incoming Eighth Grader Looking for a 

Truly Remarkable Summer Experience 

with other Jewish Teens from Across the Country?

USY is able to provide a $500 scholarship for USY on Wheels East! See below for more information and call David Kaplan, Regional Director for USY for more information at (408) 892-2732!

USY on Wheels East

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A Summertime Adventure for 8th Graders

USY on Wheels, East will cover the East coast of the United States and Canada on an incredible four-week adventure in Summer 2012.

Open to current 8th graders, highlights of the program include*:

Toronto ☺ New England ☺ Cape Cod ☺ Disney World ☺ Washington, D.C. ☺ Savannah, GA ☺Philadelphia ☺ Kennedy Space Center ☺ Touro Synagogue ☺ Hockey Hall of Fame ☺ Quincy Market ☺ Howe Caverns ☺ Virginia Beach ☺ Norfolk Naval Base ☺ Nashville Zoo ☺ Great Lakes Science Center ☺ and more!

• Click here to read more about the day-to-day activities for this group during the Summer of 2011.
• Click here to download a sample itinerary for USY on Wheels, East.
• Click here to read Frequently Asked Questions about USY Summer Programs.

-- 
David Kaplan

Director of Youth Activities, New Frontier USY & Kadima
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
1316 University Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94702
Mobile: (408) 892-2732
E-mail: DKaplan@uscj.org

Website: www.newfrousy.org

Facebook: NewFrontier USY

Twitter: newfrontierusy

CALENDAR OF EVENTS 2011-2012
April 29: Spring Kadima Day- Yom Great America! - Click here to REGISTER NOW!!
May 17-20: USY May Convention - Redwood City, CA Click here to REGISTER NOW!! 

62nd USY International Convention
Boston--December 23-27, 2012

USY: Shaping the future of Conservative Judaism...one soul at a time

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Congregation Netivot Shalom  || menachemcreditor.org  

Rabbis for Women of the Wall || Bay Area Masorti ||  ShefaNetwork 

To join Rabbi Creditor's email list, send a blank email to thetisch-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Check out my new album, "Within" on itunes!

American Rabbis to Methodist Church: Don't Divest!

Register for Plenum Methodist Church Farm Bill
Have you Registered for Plenum? Join the JCPA and experts like Israel Ambassador Michael Oren in Detroit this May Have you registered for the JCPA Plenum? When you do, you will be joining experts such as Ambassador Michael Oren – the first Israeli Ambassador to the United States to visit the Motor City in decades.  Amb. Oren will offer his insights about Israel's challenges, the U.S-Israel relationship and community based Israel advocacy. Senator Debbie Stabenow, Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, will speak about what is on the Congressional docket including the upcoming reauthorization of the Farm Bill.  This large piece of legislation governs important programs like SNAP (formerly food stamps). Together with accomplished Jewish communal professionals like Ruth Messinger, president of American Jewish World Service, John Ruskay, CEO of the UJA-NY Federation, and young and innovative Jewish activists from Detroit, we will discuss inspiring the next generation of Jewish youth to become tomorrow's leaders. We will explore the Jewish stake in private and public education, balancing community building with our concern for the separation of church and state, with experts Dr. Jonathan Sarna, Professor at Brandeis, Marian Stoltz-Loike, Dean of Lander College for Women/The Anna Ruth and Mark Hasten School, Touro, and Ted Kirsch, President of the American Federation of Teachers Pennsylvania. And with the 2012 elections on upon us, Ron Kampeas, JTA Washington Bureau Chief, William Daroff, Vice President for Public Policy and Director of the Washington Office of JFNA, Richard Foltin, Director National Legislative Affairs at the American Jewish Committee, and Rabbi Amy Eilberg, Chair of the JCPA's Civility Committee, will discuss Judaism's approach to civility and its role in this year's campaign. These are just a few of the exciting sessions we have planned, including others on preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, stopping mass atrocities around the world and the social equality debates in Israel. Register now and learn more about getting involved. American Rabbis to Methodist Church: Don't Divest Rabbi Steve Gutow, President of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, joined more than 1,200 American rabbis in signing a letter that is being sent to United Methodist Church delegates. The letter opposes an anti-Israel divestment resolution being considered at the Methodist Church's quadrennial General Conference which opens next week in Tampa, Florida. Delegates at the Conference are expected to debate a resolution calling for divestment from three companies for their sales to Israel. Additional proposals of concern under consideration are support for an embargo of goods made in settlements and an endorsement of the controversial Kairos Palestine document. The Presbyterian Church (USA) will vote on similar divestment resolutions when it meets two months later.  The PCUSA will also consider a resolution labeling Israel as an apartheid state. "A letter signed by so many Rabbis demonstrates the breadth and depth of the American Rabbinate's commitment to the finding a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; something which cannot be achieved through divestment," said Gutow. "I am privileged to join my colleagues from all fifty states, leaders from the Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform, and Orthodox movements, rabbinic groups and seminaries, and some of the most influential Jewish thinkers and theologians of our time.  There is a clear rabbinic consensus - divestment efforts will tear the fabric of our interfaith relationships and undermine ongoing efforts for efforts." The Rabbinic letter spells out the profound concern of the signatories about the one-sided nature of the divestment proposals, which "shamefully" paint Israel as a pariah nation. "For Jews, the use of economic leverages against the Jewish state is fraught with inescapable associations," the letter states. "They resonate in the Jewish consciousness with historic boycotts against Jewish companies and the State of Israel…policies that knowingly tap into the deepest fears and pain of another is, in our tradition, a serious failure of relationship." It also spells out a commitment to a negotiated two-state solution, which includes Palestinian state building and economic development, programs of reconciliation, understanding of multiple narratives, humanitarian aid and other areas where collective action is needed to help foster peace. Divestment, the note explains, runs in opposition to these goals and "is more likely to encourage those with extreme aims" - and is so contentious that it "drowns out the real conversation about how to end the conflict." "At a time when politics in general have become so divisive, here and abroad, our efforts should be aimed toward reconciliation," the letter continues. "Together and independently, Christians, Jews, and Muslims must give the parties to the conflict the confidence they need to move toward peace." To view the letter and all signatures, please visit www.LetterInHope.org. SNAP and the Farm Bill Debbie Stabenow, Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee will talk about the Farm Bill at the JCPA Plenum in May Both the House and Senate Agriculture Committees are poised to take up the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) legislation in the coming weeks. Next week the Senate is expected to unveil language for the Farm Bill reauthorization, including language on the funding of SNAP. It is rumored that a potential $4 billion cut to SNAP could be included in the Agriculture Committee's proposed language. The House of Representative's Agriculture Committee is expected to consider budget legislation that could make a $33.2 billion cut to SNAP over ten years. The JCPA is following both of these pieces of legislation closely and working hard to advocate on behalf of hungry families and protect SNAP. Take action and urge your Members of Congress to protect SNAP. Join with the Jewish Farm Bill Working Group in calling on Congress to pass a just Farm Bill.	April 17, 2012 in the news Making Words Real About Hunger: John Ruskay, executive vice president and CEO of UJA-Federation of NY looks at Rabbi Gutow's Food Stamp Challenge in his call for each of us to better understand hunger.  click here to read more Earth Day Heralds New Environmental Network: COEJL is excited to announce that the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Morngingstar Foundation have awarded $65,000 to start a collaborative Jewish environmental movement.  click here to read more Decrying Food Stamp Cuts: Faith in Public Life highlights the op-ed by JCPA's Rabbi Steve Gutow and MAZON's Abby Liebman in their roundup of responses by clergy and lawmakers to plans to cut SNAP.  click here to read more happening now Virtual Vigil for Equal Treatment and Opportunity: Next week, the Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments on Arizona's controversial anti-immigration law. Join people around the country for solidarity events.  click here to continue House Proposes Food Stamp Cuts: This week, the House of Representatives rolled out budget cuts that would reduce SNAP (food stamps) by $33.2 billion over 10 years.  click here to continue Hunger Hits Home: The Food Network is airing a first-of-its-kind documentary on childhood hunger presented in partnership with Share Our Strength's No Kid Hungry campaign. As we advocate for SNAP, learn more about who's helped.  click here to continue Take Action to Protect Women: Call on Seantors Reid and McConell to schedule a vote on the bipartisan Violence Against Women Act Rauthorization click here to continue Mother's Day Flower Project: When you buy a card for your Mom from JWI, you will also be helping their work for the 45,000 women and children spending Mother's Day in a battered women's shelter this year.  click here to continue about us The Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) is the united voice of the organized Jewish community. For more than sixty years, the JCPA has identified issues, formulated policy, developed strategies and programs, and given expression to a strongly united Jewish communal voice. JCPA's has an unparalleled capacity to mobilize grassroots activism, through our network of 14 national and 125 local member agencies. The JCPA serves as a catalyst that heightens community awareness, encourages civic and social involvement, and deliberates key issues of importance to the Jewish community.

Upcoming at CNS: Yom haShoah, Shabbat Dinner & Scholar in Residence, Yom ha'Atzma'ut, & Gala 2012!

Upcoming Events at Congregation Netivot Shalom:  Yom haShoah veHagevurah, Erev Shabbat Dinner & Scholar in Residence, Yom ha'Atzma'ut, & Gala 2012 This Friday night, April 20th at 6:30pm in the CNS Library!  Erev Shabbat at Netivot Shalom cosponsored by the Young Adults & Minyan Lev Shalem! Featuring dinner and a special Scholar-in-Residence, Dr. David Breakstone, Vice Chairman, World Zionist Organization! Minyan: 6:30, Dinner: 7:30 If you would like to attend the dinner, please RSVP ASAP to office@netivotshalom.org!(14$/adult,  9$/children 4-12)  Click here to purchase a copy of Paths of Torah!   Yom HaShoah v'HaGevurah 5772 The Day of the Holocaust and the Resistance    Wednesday, April 18th  at 7:00 p.m.  Congregation Beth El  (1301 Oxford Street, Berkeley)    Congregation Beth El will host the Berkeley Jewish community's annual commemoration of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day. The somber program will include song, reflection, testimonials and prayer. Our guest speaker this year will be Yaa'kov Harari, a Holocaust survivor, long-time Berkeley resident and member of congregation Beth Israel. The Beth El Men's Club has arranged for Mr. Harari to speak at Beth El and tell his story as part of our commemoration of the Holocaust.   Save the Date!  The Berkeley Jewish Community Yom haZikaron and Yom haAtzma'ut!  Wednesday April  26th, 6:15pm @ CNS cosponsored by Congregations Netivot Shalom, Beth El and Beth Israel CNS Gala 2012! Honoring the tenth anniversary  of Rabbi Menachem Creditor's Ordination click here to register! Sunday, April 29th, 6:00 pm  The David Brower Center / 2150 Allston Way / Berkeley

This Wednesday at 7pm: The Berkeley Community Yom HaShoah Commemoration - hosted by Congregation Beth El

This Wednesday at 7pm: The Berkeley Community Yom HaShoah Commemoration - hosted by Congregation Beth El -- http://cnsberkeley.blogspot.com/2012/04/this-wednesday-yom-hashoah.html

Yom HaShoah v'HaGevurah 5772 The Day of the Holocaust and the Resistance   Wednesday, April 18th at 7:00 p.m. hosted by Congregation Beth El, (1301 Oxford Street, Berkeley)   Congregation Beth El will host the Berkeley Jewish community's annual commemoration of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day. The somber program will include song, reflection, testimonials and prayer. Our guest speaker this year will be Yaa'kov Harari, a Holocaust survivor, long-time Berkeley resident and member of congregation Beth Israel. The Beth El Men's Club has arranged for Mr. Harari to speak at Beth El and tell his story as part of our commemoration of the Holocaust. Our annual service is jointly organized Congregations Beth El, Netivot Shalom and Beth Israel and is co-sponsored by the Jewish Community Federation of the East Bay.