Our spring-like winter weather made Stephen and Chio Bloom’s home a metaphorically apt setting for our February Havdala gathering. And what a gathering! A perfect representation of what these monthly programs mean to CHJ.

It was intimate, only 15 people.

It was family-centered, with children from three clans, including current Sunday School students and high-school graduates of our B’nai Mitzva program, and even an out-of-town relative.

It was diverse, representing several generations, recent CHJ members and those who remember when the living room and kitchen were the only spaces where CHJ ever met.

It was uplifting. At the conclusion of the service, two of our youngest Sunday School “haverim” sang the final chorus of “Shalom Haverim” in unison without any adult accompaniment. We loved it! (And I think they did, too.)

See you next month!

Rob

Our students will be joined by students from I.L. Peretz and the Midtown Schula from New York City on a simulated trip to the shtetl.  At the start, the students will be introduced to Yiddish and will be issued a “passport”.  They then will be divided, based on interest, into four groups: klezmer band, skit, art and food.  All will reconvene to showcase what they’ve done.

A social action component in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King will be incorporated into the event, which will end with students enjoying the food they made or that was brought by their families.  The event, which will take place at the Rutgers Preparatory at 1345 Easton Avenue between 9:30 AM and 12:30 PM on February 26, will occur in lieu of the regular Sunday School session at the Hebrew Academy.

We hope you can participate in this fun and educational “trip”.

Stephanie Zenna & Blaine Riddle
Sunday School Co-Chairs

IS THE TORAH RELEVANT TO HUMANISTIC JEWS?
FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Author and educator Bennett Muraskin will make the case that much of Jewish folklore, from the Talmud to Hasidic sources and beyond, reflects our values as secular Humanistic Jews and demonstrates that our roots run deeper into the literature of our people than generally understood. Most religious Jews cite the Torah and perhaps the rest of the Jewish Bible as their foundational literature. Others cite the laws and rabbinic interpretations of the Talmud. But what about secular Humanistic Jews? Do we have a claim on these sources, or are they too theistic, authoritarian and ethnocentric? Muraskin’s talk will be based on his book, Humanist Readings in Jewish Folklore, published in 2001 by the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism. He also wrote Let Justice Well Up Like Water: Progressive Jews from Hillel to Hillen Suzman (2004) and co-authored Celebrating Jewish Holidays: An Introduction for Secular Jewish Families and Their Communities (2002). Muraskin is an author, columnist and adult education director at the Jewish Cultural School and Society in West Orange, NJ.  He has been a speaker at CHJMC over the past several years.

THE DREYFUS AFFAIR
MARCH 4, 2012

In 1894, a French military court convicted Alfred Dreyfus, a young Jewish artillery officer, of treason. Although an investigation proved his innocence, he remained in captivity on Devil’s Island until he was pardoned by the French president in 1899. His exoneration and reinstatement in the army did come until 1906.  This case, one of the greatest political scandals in history, divided France into warring camps, with the military, the Church and other anti-Semites pitted against the defenders of democracy and civil rights. What does this “affair” tell us about modern anti-Semitism and the search for “national identity” today? Join Abbie Gorin, former Jewish Cultural School and Society teacher, for a stimulating presentation. Gorin is an attorney for Essex Newark Legal Services, where he advocates for tenant and homeowner rights.

ERNESTINE ROSE
APRIL 29, 2012

Dr. Paula Doress-Worters, the founder and director of The Ernestine Rose Society, will speak about the atheist feminist. Doress-Worters also is a scholar in the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University.  Additionally, she is a co-author of Our Bodies, Ourselves.

YIDDISH FILMS AND MUSICALS
MAY 6, 2012

The 1930s and early 40s were the golden age of Yiddish theater and motion pictures. (Did you know that many of the Yiddish movies set in Poland were filmed around Newton, NJ?) Many of the songs from those productions even found their way into American popular culture. The names associated with Yiddish theater and motion pictures are legendary, including Jacob and Stella Adler, Luther Adler, Molly Picon, Herschel Bernardi, Boris Tomashevsky, Moyshe Oysher, Zero Mostel and many younger ones who went on to careers in the Broadway theater. These musical theater pieces and motion pictures will be presented with film clips and songs. Dr. David Eddleman, a well-known composer of choral and other music, will speak about these Yiddish works of art. Come for a real simcha of Yiddish culture!

Dr. Eddleman’s own 600+ works have been performed on every continent except Antarctica.  He is currently on the faculty of the Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, NY, and lectures at the Education Center in Longboat Key, FL.  More information on Eddleman can be found at  www.eddlemancomposer.com/the-composer/.

It is hard to believe this congregational year is nearly half over. To help assure that you receive the best membership experience, I wanted to let you know that we have scheduled our mid-term congregation meeting for 9:30 to 11:30 AM, Sunday, January 29, at the Hebrew Academy in Randolph. It is of the utmost importance that all our members attend.

At this important meeting, we will talk about the highlights of the year to date, new members, the financial report and our new website. More important, this mid-term meeting is intended to provide you the opportunity to speak up and help determine how our congregation moves forward.

This meeting will enable you to express your likes, dislikes and ideas for Sunday Schoool, Adult education programs and holiday celebrations and to discuss any other topic you wish to address.

Please remember, we are a co-op, and your input is important and needed to keep our congregation alive, flourishing and moving in the right direction for all of us.

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone on January 29. Happy New Year to all!!

Thanks,
Steve Sussman
CHJMC President

Debbie Arntzen is having a great time with the K-2 class. She is sharing the holiday and Our Community curriculum with the students as they learn about the importance of culture and Humanism in all of our lives.  Beth Brilliant has returned as our teacher for the 3^rd-4^th grade class, and she is doing a terrific job with our Jewish History curriculum.

We are happy to have Lynn Berman return to our Sunday school teaching staff as our teacher for the 5^th-6^th graders. She is teaching her students about the History of Humanistic Judaism and Ethics.

We have seven students in our B’nai Mitzvah program, which is led by Lisa and Michael Littman. They are working towards achieving their Humanistic Judaism competencies through research, discussion and social action. We extend our congratulations to the B’Nai Mitzvah students who have recently graduated: Andrew Schlusberg, Jacob Steinberg, Gabrielle Mund & Peri Levine. We hope to see them back for adult education and congregation events!

After celebrating Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with our congregation, the Levine family hosted a wonderful Sukkot celebration. We learned about the meaning of autumn and the importance of the harvest while sharing a special day together!

We are looking forward to our Hanukah party on December 18 when our classes will perform for us. We will have fun activities, arts and crafts, games and good food for the whole congregation to enjoy.

We are continuing to plan educational and entertaining activities for Sunday School.  We are encouraging all parents to participate in our Sunday School program to enrich the experience for the whole family. We look forward to any feedback, comments or suggestions from our Sunday School community.

Alzheimer’s Association

I am raising money to fight Alzheimer’s Disease. It is a heartbreaking disease that affects a lot of families. I was the team captain for Team Dennis at the Alzheimer’s Association Walk to End Alzheimer’s on Sunday, October 23, 2011, at Van Saun Park in Paramus, New Jersey. I started Team Dennis in honor of my cousin, Dennis N. Giordano, who died this past May at age 66 of early onset Alzheimer’s. He was a teacher and also president of the New Jersey Education Association, the teacher’s union. More information can be found at www.alz.org/nj/.

Pitch In for Baseball

My Bar Mitzvah Social Action Project is going great. I have been collecting new or gently used baseball and softball equipment to donate to an organization called “Pitch In For Baseball.” PIFB is a non-profit organization whose mission is to improve the lives of children around the world through the life skills and self-esteem that playing baseball can help provide. Many children all over the world have benefited from more than 125,000 pieces of equipment distributed by PIFB. I chose this organization for my social action project because I want to help children who love the game of baseball as much as I do.

So far, I have collected many baseball and softball mitts, bats and bags and I hope to continue collecting equipment up until my Bar Mitzvah in June 2012.  In addition or in the alternative, I can also accept money donations to forward to PIFB. I have my own personal Pitch In For Baseball fundraising page that you can log onto for online donations. Please see www.active.com/donate/pifb/srz for more information.

I look forward to receiving your donations so that, together, we can help improve the baseball experience for children around the world.

Eyes for the Needy

My Bat Mitzvah Social Action is coming along!  I have been collecting used eyeglasses for Eyes for the Needy for several months now.  I would like to take this chance to remind anyone who has an old pair of glasses sitting around collecting dust to bring them to the Hanukkah party so I can donate them along with the other dozen I have collected.  I am hoping to reach three dozen pairs of glasses by the end of summer.

Thank you so much.

The season of autumn is upon us.  In our everyday lives, we often refer to autumn as “fall,” simply because the leaves are “falling.”  This autumn, I would like us to look at autumn as a “rising.”

We all have personal obstacles to overcome. Some may seem more challenging than others. Each of us deals with those personal obstacles in our own way. The common thread is the ability to look within ourselves, to reach deep into our hearts and souls and find the drive to face our obstacles and work to overcome them. It is this drive, in part, that makes us human. What turns this human drive into being a “humanistic” drive is our common desire to help our fellow man.

This autumn has brought along many obstacles.  We endured a hurricane that brought intense flooding, loss of power and major damage to many in our community.  We endured an intense October snowstorm dumping over a foot and a half of snow and knocking out power to many for a week or longer.

Throughout these autumn obstacles, we as a congregation, and as a community, reached within ourselves to overcome our own obstacles, while put ting some of our own problems aside to lend a helping hand to our communities and friends.  It is this innate ability that not only makes us human but also makes us humanistic.

As autumn nears its end and winter looms in front of us, I encourage all of us to continue to rise and not fall in the face of adversity. I encourage everyone to continue to be humanistic and not let our friends, our neighbors and our communities fall but to help them rise in any way we can.

This time of year also brings with it a time of giving thanks. Be thankful for what you have, be thankful for what you can give and be thankful for the ability to “rise.”

Humbly yours,