Congregation Rinat Yisrael to Host Scholar-in-Residence
Rabbi Ari Berman will visit Congregation Rinat Yisrael for Shabbos June 5–6. Rabbi Berman is a noted speaker and author whose shiurim combine profound psychological insight and sensitivity with deep erudition, conceptual sophistication, path-breaking creativity, humor and inspiration. He is also the former rabbi of the Jewish Center in Manhattan and instructor of Talmud (Reish Metivta) at Yeshiva University. Rabbi Berman lives in Neve Daniel and is completing his doctoral dissertation in Philosophy of Halacha at Hebrew University.
Rabbi Berman will speak Friday night and multiple times on Shabbos day. The schedule for the weekend is: Friday night: Dvar Halacha before Ma’ariv, Shabbat: Sermon at the 9 a.m. minyan Shabbat afternoon, 6:50: “Can a Traditional Community Accept an Untraditional Jew? Toward Formulating a Jewish Theory of Tolerance,” and Shabbat after Mincha: “New Tools and Strategies for Learning Gemara in the 21st Century”
Secular Campus Jewish Life Panel Discussion at Congregation Bnai Yeshurun
Congregation Bnai Yeshurun will host a panel discussion at Seudah Shlishit, June 13, on Orthodox life on the secular campus. Presented by The Orthodox Union’s Seif Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus (OU-JLIC), the panel will be moderated by Dr. Shimmy Tennenbaum. The panel includes Rabbi Ilan Haber, OU JLIC National Director; Rabbi Yaakov and Racheli Taubes, OU JLIC Educators UPENN and Rabbi Adam and Sara Frieberg, OU JLIC Educators Rutgers University.
The OU in partnership with Hillel created the OU-JLIC, a program that helps Orthodox students navigate the college environment, and balance their Jewish commitments with their desire to engage the secular world. Now on 21 campuses in North America, OU-JLIC also provides avenues for spiritual development and exploration for Jewish students from varied backgrounds; OU-JLIC presents a positive, sophisticated and welcoming face for Orthodox Judaism on campus. OU-JLIC places Orthodox Rabbinic couples to serve as Torah educators within the Hillels on local college campuses.
This is of particular interest to parents and juniors or seniors in high school.
A Day of Literacy and Entertainment at Darchei Noam
On June 14 from 10:30 a.m.–4:45 p.m., Congregation Darchei Noam is hosting a Used Book & Literary Fair.
The fair will feature Author Ruchama King Feuerman, a National Jewish Book Award Finalist. There will be a puppet workshop based on characters from Anna Olswanger’s Shlemiel Crooks. Rabbi Dr. Abraham Kuperberg will read from his book, Memoirs of a Holocaust Survivor: Icek Kuperberg. There will also be a children’s story hour. People can also share stories and poems as part of an Open Mic Reading.
Of course, there will be hundreds of books to buy at great prices. For more information about volunteering, attending or donating books, call 201-773-4080 or email [email protected].
Rabbi Joseph Karasick, Honorary President of OU, Will Be the Scholar in Residence at Cong. Shomrei Emunah, Englewood, June 5–6
Rabbi Joseph Karasick, Honorary President of the Orthodox Union (OU) and former Chairman of the Board, will be the scholar in residence June 5–6 at Congregation Shomrei Emunah, 89 Hugenot Avenue, Englewood. Rabbi Karasick has been a driving force in the Orthodox world as a scholar, Rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in Montreal, Canada, and head of the Orthodox Union. He will share stories about the great men and women he has known, spanning the 20th and 21st centuries.
Rabbi Karasick will talk about his grandfather, Rabbi Gershon Katzman, a great talmid chacham who came to San Francisco from Belorussia for medical treatment and never left; his relationship with Harav Joseph Ber Soloveitchik zt” l, who gave him semicha in 1945, and his years as president and chairman of the board of the Orthodox Union.
Shabbos morning, Rabbi Karasick will speak on “Insights from Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik zt”l on the Parsha, With Some Personal Anecdotes About the Rav” at approximately 10:30 a.m. At a reservations-only luncheon he will speak on “Jewry in the Second Half of the 20th Century.” During Seuda Shlishis, which follows Rabbi Menachem Genack’s Gemara Shiur at 7:15 p.m. and Mincha at 8 p.m., he will speak on “The Strange Genealogy of the Mashiach.”
Thurnauer School Chorus to Perform at Kaplen JCC on the Palisades
On June 18 at 6:30 PM, the Thurnauer School Chorus is going to perform the Holocaust-Era children’s opera, Brundibar, at the Sandra O. Gold Founder’s Day Concert at Kaplen JCC on the Palisades
The opera has been called a beautiful children’s story as well as playful and “frolicsome.” It follows the hardships and eventual triumph of a destitute brother and sister who must help nurse their ill mother back to health, despite the presence of a cruel and evil organ grinder. The libretto was originally written by Adolf Hoffmeister, to music composed by Czech-Jewish composer Hans Krasa.
The opera was performed only once in public in Prague in 1942 before Czech Jews were transported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Later in the war, the Nazis realized that the opera could serve as propaganda for their cause and arranged a special staging of it for the film, “Theresienstadt: A Documentary Film from the Jewish Settlement Area, as a propaganda ploy. Shortly after the last of the 55 performances in the Theresienstadt camp, in 1944, the performers were transported to Terezin, Auschwitz and other camps, where most were killed.
Tickets are $8 for JCC members and $10 for non-JCC members. For more information, call the JCC Thurnauer School of Music at 201-408-1465.
