A fun Megillah Reading and celebration of Purim open to everyone, followed by an exclusive adults-only Purim party (21+ and ticket required) – Wear your Purim costumes!
Register for the party in advance – $18 per person. Tickets at the door will be available for $20 per person, so don’t delay – register today!
You and your family are invited to celebrate the 2nd Night Passover Seder with Rabbi Farbman and your extended Temple Emanuel Family! Tuesday APRIL 11 @ 6:30 PMPlease do not let the cost of the dinner prevent you and your family from attending the Seder – speak to Rabbi Farbman confidentially.
Come one and all! Celebrate Purim Family-style with Temple Emanuel’s Religious School on Sunday, March 12th from 9:30am-12:00pm. We take our commandment to be silly very seriously and intend to have a day filled with hamantaschen, a spiel, a costume parade and a megillah reading. What will be backwards? Come to TE and find out! This event is free and open to all: young and young at heart! For more information, call our office at 203-397-3000 or email school@templeemanuel-gnh.org
Come one and all! Celebrate Purim Family-style with Temple Emanuel’s Religious School on Sunday, March 12th from 9:30am-12:00pm. We take our commandment to be silly very seriously and intend to have a day filled with hamantaschen, a spiel, a costume parade and a megillah reading. What will be backwards? Come to TE and find out! This event is free and open to all: young and young at heart! For more information, call our office at 203-397-3000 or email school@templeemanuel-gnh.org
On Thursday, April 26, JCARR welcomed a new refugee family from Syria, our third refugee family in a year. The normal anticipation and anxiety we feel in awaiting their arrival was heightened by the announcement of a proposed Executive Order that was rumored might be signed that very day that would halt refugee entry into the U.S. for 120 days and would cease the admittance of nationals of Syria.
We knew that morning that the family had boarded the plane in Istanbul. We knew they would land in JFK around noon. We didn’t know if they would be met in immigration and prevented from entering the United States. So, we waited, with heavy apprehension added to the normal anxiety.
When I received the phone call from the International Migration officer telling me they were leaving JFK for New Haven, I couldn’t wait to share the good news. The family of five arrived at 3:30 pm. Although they seemed happy when we settled them into their new home, the truth is they looked very tired. The mother explained they hadn’t slept in a bed for 50 hours. The three young children seemed anxious, needy, and the parents were doing everything possible to calm them, to reassure them, to give them what they needed to feel at peace.
Over the next weeks, JCARR volunteers provided needed clothing in the right sizes for each member of the family, familiar foods, toys and games for the children, and other household necessities. Our Cultural Orientation task force began the process of orienting them to their neighborhood and their new community; volunteers took them to a park, the library and the grocery store; we helped them apply for Social Security Cards, Cash Assistance and food stamps; we helped enroll the children in school and the adults in ESL classes. Medical appointments were made and transportation provided. We introduced them to the other Syrian family we welcomed on November 8, Election night. Little by little, our new family is settling in in their home in Hamden (see the pictures below).
The concept of Tikkun Olam tells us to search for a tiny spark of divine light, one small thing we can do to make the world better. In this time when we might feel overwhelmed by chaos, the folks involved with JCARR find that divine light in the eyes of the refugee children and the love their parents show for them. Doing what we can to help them build a new life here helps to soothe our fears and offers us hope for repair of the world.
JOIN GREATER NEW HAVEN HEBREW SCHOOLS AND SYNAGOGUE MUSIC BANDS TO CELEBRATE THE LEGACY OF DEBBIE FRIEDMAN Z”L with an Annual Memorial Concert.
This year the concert will be hosted by the Tower One/Tower East (18 Tower Lane, New Haven CT).
Free and open to the public!
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Come out for an incredible afternoon of A Cappella Music!
Every year, 14 senior Yale men are selected to be in the Whiffenpoofs, the world’s oldest and best-known collegiate a cappella group. Founded in 1909, the “Whiffs” began as a senior quartet that met for weekly concerts at Mory’s Temple Bar, the famous Yale tavern. Today, the group has become one of Yale’s most celebrated traditions.
And now, the Whiffenpoofs are adding Temple Emanuel to their list of performance venues! Meet the entire group, ask questions, and have your picture taken with them!
Don’t miss the chance of a lifetime to see this incredibly talented group locally at Temple Emanuel of Greater New Haven! Seating is limited, so buy your tickets early! See you there!
To kick off the 15th year of the TE Sisterhood Book Discussion Group, we are doing something a little different: a book discussion Co-Sponsored by Sisterhood and the Men’s Club!
On Wed., Feb. 8th, at 7:00pm, Prof. Rachel Ranis of Quinnipiac University will lead a discussion on the book “Hillbilly Elegy – a Memoir of a Family & Culture in Crisis” by J.D. Vance. Due to the timeliness of this book & its reflection of the current political climate in this country, this will be open to all TE congregants. There will be no cost to paid up Sisterhood and Men’s Club members. All other guests are welcome to join us with a $5.00 donation. Maybe we will start an annual “1 Temple, 1 Read” !!!
My dear friends, I am amazed, impressed, thankful, and absolutely blown away by your response to this year’s Yom Kippur Food Drive! Twenty-three years ago, on our first attempt to collect food for the hungry in our community, “little” Aaron Webber, then only an adolescent, helped me weigh the food we collected. Repeatedly stepping on and off my bathroom scale, we calculated that we collected nearly a ton (just under 2000 pounds) of food. We were thrilled with the results and thanked you all for your generosity. Fast forward and skip ahead to this year. As you all know, the food we collected was divided into two piles and donated to the food pantries of both the Jewish Family Service and the Town of Orange. JFS continues to weigh the food donated by local congregations and recently informed us that we gave them 1,752 pounds of food that translated into 1,348 meals for the needy. They further told us that we donated more food than any other participating congregation! How about that! But that’s only half the story. Knowing that we donated an equivalent amount of food to Orange means that this year you donated more than 3,500 pounds. That ‘s 1,500 pounds more than our first year. Almost double. Did I say I’m blown away by your overwhelming generosity? Now while that’s a pretty high bar to jump over next year, I have every confidence. Thank you so very much for your response to this important tzedakah project.
Will Sherman
In 1963, songwriter Bob Dylan wrote, “the times they are a-changin.” For Temple Emanuel this is true in more ways than one! Daylight Savings will soon end; we will have a new President in the White House; and the results of the TE Service time survey are in and are being acted upon. Whether or not Bob Dylan decides to accept the Nobel Laurette in literature I think he got it right when he said, “If your time to you is worth savin’, Then you better start swimmin’, Or you’ll sink like a stone, For the times they are a-changin’.” And I believe TE has the ability to change with the tides of our growing congregation (165 member units strong now!).
For many years the time for the start of services has been the subject of animated discussion for the Ritual Committee and for the community. Three years ago the Ritual Committee charged the Board with the task of looking at the issue and seeing if we needed to change. Our first explorations into this task involved discussions with individuals and small groups and a paper survey. This gave us good information but didn’t represent a majority of the congregation (only about 71 responses). So the Survey Monkey was created and was answered by 135 members.
Briefly, when asked, 57% of the responders preferred a late service with 55% preferring the 7:30pm start time. Of the 43% of the responders who preferred an earlier service, 58% preferred the 6:30pm time. In both groups there were about 20% with no preference. While this is not a scientifically validated survey, it does give us a feel of where we are as a congregation. The Board feels they have enough information to act upon and begin a small test of change for 6 months.
Beginning January 1, 2017 we will begin our usual service at 7:30pm instead of 8:00pm. The Family Service will remain at 6:30pm on the first Friday of the month. At the end of June, we will again send out a survey to see what people thought of the change and if we plan to continue it or make other changes. I believe we still need to provide a few more 6:30pm opportunities for our congregants, but we don’t want to create a confusing, unwieldy schedule.
Thank you to all of you who provided this valuable input. Thank you to Robin Levine-Ritterman for spearheading the effort, creating the Survey Monkey, and presenting the results to the Board. Thank you to the Board for voting on a change. I am looking forward to hearing from many of you over the next few months.
