On September 21, 2014, heads of state from around the world met at the United Nations in New York to discuss climate change. TE members joined some 400,000 people from businesses, unions, faith groups, schools, social justice groups, and environmental groups in the People’s Climate March in New York City to demonstrate our belief that the world we want is within our reach: a world safe from the ravages of climate change.
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TE Tag Sale – Sunday, August 24; Main event 9 am-3 pm, Early bird special 8-9 am
The TE Tag Sale is almost here! Tag Sale hours on August 24 are 9:00 am-3:00 pm and there will be an early bird special from 8:00-9:00 am ($5 donation for early birds). The Tag Sale Team has everything ready and waiting for you so be sure to come by on Sunday and support TE! There is something for everyone so bring your family and friends! Have questions? Click here to contact Jake and Anna Zonderman.
Shabbat under the stars June 27 at 8pm and July 25 at 7pm!
In what has become a beautiful annual tradition at Temple Emanuel, we will be greeting Shabbat on our beautiful patio, surrounded by nature on our wonderful grounds. Bring your voices, your friends and your family for this not-to-be-missed Shabbat service! Please bring a lawn chair or a blanket.
Get your tuchus in gear… it’s a tag sale year! Tag Sale 2014: Sunday, August 24th
Drop off items at TE beginning Sunday, July 20th or by appointment.
Pick Up and Drop Off
You can begin dropping off items on Sunday, July 20. Stay tuned for a schedule of drop off times.
If you are unavailable during these times, need to drop off items before July 20, need assistance packing or preparing items for donation, or if your car is too small to transport the items you wish to donate, please make an appointment with the Tag Sale Team (see Contacting the Tag Sale Team for more information).
Donation Guidelines
1. All items must be in good condition. Please see specifications below. Items that do not meet these requirements will not be accepted.
Metal Minimal rust
No pitting or breaks
Wood Minimal gouging or water stains
Glass No cracks or breaks
Minimal scratches
Plastic No cracks or breaks
Electronics Must be in working condition
All batteries must removed (exception: phones)
Books Must have front and back covers
As few torn pages as possible
Minimal highlighting and underlining
Toys No dirty plush toys
No broken plastic toys
Furniture Minimal staining, wear and tear
No broken parts (arms, slats, legs, etc.)
Rugs and carpets must be clean and in lightly used condition
Kitchenware No cracked ceramics and minimal chipping
No rust
No missing screws, bolts, etc.
DVDs/VHSs Minimal scratching and wear
Must be in playable condition
2. The following items will NOT be accepted for donation:
Bathroom fixtures (sinks, toilets, etc.)
Bedding
Clothing
Full sized floor rugs or carpets
Mattresses
3. All fragile items must be packaged for transport before pick up / drop off. Bubble wrap, boxes and other packaging materials will not be provided for donations.
Contacting the Tag Sale Team
Have Questions? Need assistance? Want to join the tag sale team? Please contact Anna and Jacob Zonderman at TagSale@templeemanuel-gnh.org
Havdalah at the Lincoln Memorial
I just returned from a long weekend in Washington, D.C. where I accompanied two TE teens (Noah Simon and Anne Ryack) who attended the L’taken seminar of the Religious Action Center (RAC) of the Reform Movement. They were part of a 12-strong group from New Haven area, bringing together teens from Temple Emanuel, Congregation Mishkan Israel and Temple Beth David. I have asked Noah and Anne to share some of their thoughts about the experience with you all, and they have provided a wonderful report below. All I can add is how much I was impressed with our kids, their incredible ability to discern important issues, their passion for justice and their grasp of what matters in this world. It made me truly proud of our kids and of the life lessons they are able to draw from their heritage and Jewish identity. My heart was filled with pride as I ‘kvelled’ at the way they presented themselves and the issues they felt passionate about: gun control, stem cell research, LGBT rights and protection for people with disabilities. The response of congressional staffers and Rep. Rosa DeLauro was a great testament to the work that went into the visits.
As part of the weekend, we got a chance to have Havdalah ceremony with 300 other Jewish teens, rabbis and educators at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. In the heart of the capital, with the Lincoln Monument behind us and Washington Monument and the Capitol building ahead of us, we celebrated the end of Shabbat and the transition from sacred to ordinary. It was an amazing opportunity to acknowledge the blessings bestowed upon us all – a simple act, unthinkable in virtually any other place in the world. The words of Rabbi Michael Namath of the RAC rang so true that night, as he reminded us that while we work to make our country a better place, we show tremendous gratitude for all the wonderful freedoms and opportunities that we get to enjoy every single day.
The teenagers left Washington, D.C. with a renewed sense of commitment to making our country better for all its citizens. I leave humbled by their talents and their passion for justice – and awed by the Havdalah lights at the Lincoln Memorial… Until next year.
Rabbi Farbman
In our opinion, it is not unfair to be skeptical about the L’taken seminar when you are first told about it. It wasn’t until the program actually started that we realized the power that it can offer for us and for our Jewish peers. The program is run by the Religious Action Center, a Union of Reform Jews determined to fight for what they believe in, and incorporates numerous workshops to inform you about various issues such as gun violence prevention and LGBT equality while also connecting it to Jewish values. With all the new information you accumulate over the weekend, you have the opportunity to write a speech on a topic of your choice and walk up Capitol Hill to lobby about it. Even in our packed schedule, we still had time to go to the Holocaust Memorial Museum and the National Museum of American, walk around Georgetown, see the MLK, Jr. Memorial, as well as have Havdallah at the Lincoln Memorial. And on top of that, we had the privilege of staying and hanging out with 10 other great kids and meeting a ton more. We highly encourage anybody that is thinking about taking the seminar when it is available to do so. It was an unexpected, though pleasant, surprise that turned out to be much more than just a trip to D.C. We were able to connect to our religion as well as learn about Congress. Learning all the Jewish perspectives on the different policies we thought we knew so well was a truly new and wonderful treat. But we both agree, meeting and bonding with hundreds of other Jewish teens was the greatest part of the trip and is something that we could do more often.
-Noah Simon and Anna Ryack
TE & the 38th Annual 2014 Greater New Haven Walk Against Hunger
The Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) called upon area synagogues to send teams to the 38th Annual 2014 Greater New Haven Walk Against Hunger on Sunday, May 4 in East Rock Park, New Haven. TE members answered the call and joined folks from many congregations from the greater New Haven area to amplify what we all do as individual congregations to help those in need around us. Walk Against Hunger events are a non-competitive 2.5 to 3 mile walk. Participants enjoy the camaraderie, the exercise in the outdoors, and the sense of solidarity with others who share a concern about feeding the hungry in our area.
Adult Education at TE: Coping With Death and Dying, Sunday March 30th, 10:15 am
Bagels 9:45 am, talk 10:15 – 11:45 am, TE Sanctuary.
How do we accompany our friends, family and fellow congregants in difficult moments,such as serious/terminal illness or end-of-life?
How do we care for ourselves as we seek to care for those we love?
Chaplain Lisa Irish, MEd, MA, BCC and Chaplain N. Sarah Blum, MS, DMINc, NAJC, both from Yale-New Haven Hospital, St Raphael campus will present a point of view that responds to these questions. Their presentation will be followed by TE members Rise Siegel, Ed Cantor, Sandy Boltax Stern and Steve Rivkin sharing their personal experience in coping with death and dying. Chaplains Sarah and Lisa will then facilitate a discussion on this topic that touches all of us in some way.
Interfaith SCHOLAR IN RESIDENCE Sunday, March 30, 2014 “END OF LIFE CHALLENGES IN HEALTHCARE FOR PEOPLE OF FAITH"
Join the Orange Interfaith Community in a Unique Learning Experience:
“END OF LIFE CHALLENGES IN HEALTHCARE FOR PEOPLE OF FAITH”
A discussion with our own orange clergy facilitated by Dr. Julius Landwirth, Past associate director & current member of the Yale interdisciplinary center for bioethics.
Potluck Dinner at 4:00 PM, Program at 5:30 PM
To sign up for potluck (essential!) please follow this link.
Shabbat Dinner to honor Past Temple Emanuel Presidents on February 21, 2014
You and your family are invited to a Shabbat dinner at 6:30 on Friday, February 21, 2014.
On Legacies, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Future Generation of Jews
I am writing this column at the end of a very long Sunday. This morning our Hebrew School marked Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy and engaged in a series of projects to make the world a better place. The students shared their dreams and prepared gifts for those in need. It was a perfect way to celebrate this day in a very Jewish way.
The day continued with the second session of our new teen program that brought together 17 teenagers from Temple Emanuel, Congregation Mishkan Israel (Hamden) and Temple Beth David (Cheshire). The program is dedicated to exploring the issues of Social Justice with our teens, and one of the important elements of the program is the residential weekend in Washington, D.C., the ‘L’taken’ seminar organized by the Religious Action Center (RAC) of our movement, that we will attend in March. This Sunday, in honor of MLK Jr., we wanted to engage our students in both learning and action, allowing them to experience first-hand the opportunity to engage with the world’s problems, and to heal the world in a small measure with the work of our hands.
After a few ice breaker games, allowing the teens to get to know each other a little, Rabbi Brockman spent some time teaching about the ancient biblical laws of ‘peah,’ that required the farmer to leave the corners of the field unharvested, thus allowing the stranger and the widow and the orphans – the unprotected within the ancient society – to have access to food required for basic survival. In the following session, I asked the students to come up with the dinner menu for a family of four, create a shopping list and then price out the dinner. The four teams came back with $18.50, $21, $25 and $63 meals (the last one clearly sounded like a gourmet dinner!) You can imagine their reaction when I shared the SNAP (formerly food stamps) numbers with them: a family of four has a maximum of $17.73 per day to spend on food… A wonderfully sobering discussion ensued, one that helped us frame in very Jewish terms what we were going to do for the rest of the day.
With the help of Harvey Cheskis, a leader of the group ‘Life is Delicious’ from Congregation Mishkan Israel, our TE kitchen and social hall were transformed into a buzzing, pulsating ‘cooking central.’ Within a few hours, the teens had fully prepared from scratch a meal for nearly 120 homeless men. There was meatloaf, mashed potatoes, salad, fresh fruit salad and sponge cake. While the food was in the oven, we watched a recent documentary “A Place at the Table’ that discussed the realities of hunger and food insecurity in our country. Listening to the students discuss the film with Rabbi Whinston was one of the highlights of the day; they were not afraid to probe the issues, to raise their concerns and to listen to each other. They were truly engaging with the challenges of the world, making their teachers and their rabbis beam with pride…
The long day ended at an overflow shelter of Columbus House, a sobering room filled with over 100 homeless men who were yearning for some homemade food and a kind smile at the end of a very cold day… The students helped serve about 120 meals and then were cheered and applauded, quite appropriately, by a room full of strangers who appreciated their kindness. They did a great deed that day, but they gained far more than they shared.
I could think of no better way to spend the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, than to be able to go on such a journey of learning and service with a group of phenomenal Jewish teens.