We Celebrate—We Learn—We Teach We Sing—We Dance—We Mourn FHJC Kol Nidre Campaign 5779 Forest Hills Jewish Center Is Our Second Home
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
September-October 2018 המרכז היהודי ד'פורסט הילס Elul-Tishrei-Cheshvan 5779 Vol. LXXIV No. 1 THE FOREST HILLS JEWISH CENTER We celebrate—We learn—We teach We sing—We dance—We mourn FHJC Kol Nidre Campaign 5779 Forest Hills Jewish Center is our second home. Join us to help decorate It is where we come to pray, to celebrate, to learn, to teach our children what it is to be a Jew, to sing and dance, to be comforted. It is where we meet our life-long the FHJC Sukkah friends and where our lives are enriched. Saturday evening, September 22, 8pm We have the good fortune to reap what those before us sowed; now it falls to us to plant for the next generation. Please support the 5779 Kol Nidre campaign with Sunday morning, September 23, 9am your first gift or your most generous gift ever. All ages welcome! Let’s break the fast together. To show our appreciation to the supporters of the Kol Nidre Appeal for their generosity, we invite everyone who makes a minimum dona- tion of $60 single/ $120 couple/ $150 family to join us for the Break-Fast meal at the close of Yom Kippur. Join us for Tashlikh September 10 The Kol Nidre Appeal Committee would like to wish all our members and friends a See page 3 healthy and happy 5779 and thank you in advance for your generous pledge. Shana Tova U’Metukah. for details. Carl Koerner, Rae Theise Kerzner and Steven Goffner Kol Nidre Appeal Co-Chairs Everyone is encouraged to participate with our band at this vibrant Kabbalat Shabbat Service. Tambourines and shakers will be provided. (Instruments will be put away before we sing Mizmor Shir, the prayer welcoming Shabbat.) For Information Please Contact: Deborah Ball Witlin at [email protected] and Felicia Leeman at [email protected] FROM THE RABBI’S STUDY Rabbi Gerald C. Skolnik Starting Over, Again... I lay sitting in Mumbai or Nebraska, discourse. In Israel, the steady come at a better time. It’s time no is reboot. It’s really a miracu- escalation of violence on the for a reboot. It’s time to claim lously effective procedure, and Gaza border, which threatens cleanse ourselves and our sys- to being any kind of technology incredibly simple to accom- Israel greatly, has been cou- tems of the impurities of the expert. I have learned, though, plish. pled with moves by Israel’s past year, and start over again. through the years, one simple government that, not unlike We need to find a way to re- I would like to suggest to you truth. Regardless of what par- America, have moved the claim the high ground here in that Rosh Hashanah and Yom ticular kind of technology I’m country far to the right, and set this country, and also in our Kippur could not have come at trying to repair, or what prob- it on a morally precarious relationship to Israel. We dare a better time. It’s time for a lem I’m trying to solve, simply course. Coupled with the inex- not give up on either; to do reboot. turning it off for a minute or cusable harassment against that would be to betray this two and then turning it back on Many of us find ourselves en- our Conservative/Masorti rab- special moment in Jewish his- will, as often as not, help im- tering into New Year 5779 in bis and their followers, we tory. But we do, indeed, need measurably. some state of high anxiety have been left to wonder how to reboot—to find a way to and/or spiritual disrepair. Here to move forward with our rela- begin, again, to make our lives, The technical term for this em- in America, large numbers of tionship with Israel. Clearly, and the countries that we love, barrassingly simple technique people, myself very much in- that connection cannot be al- better… is “rebooting.” In essence, cluded, have been profoundly lowed to fray to the point of you’re giving the device you’re To all of you, I wish a K’tivah troubled by the policies of the tearing apart. But lately, Israel struggling with the chance to Va’Chatima Tovah! May we all current administration. Our has not been helping… start over from scratch, rebuild be inscribed, and sealed, in the political process, which was its internal systems, and lose If you add the overlay of our Book of Life for a year of good already polarized and in crisis whatever problems it may own, individual anxieties and health, happiness, and peace! before President Trump took have generated or encoun- challenges having nothing to office, has yielded to the unre- tered along the way. I promise do with America or Israel, it’s lenting stoking of nativist fears you that, if your cable is on the not such a pretty picture. and, far too often, thinly-veiled fritz, or your computer is balk- racist tropes, not to mention Again—I would like to suggest ing, and you call customer ser- the utter debasing of the na- to you that Rosh Hashanah and vice, the first thing they’ll ad- Rabbi Gerald C. Skolnik ture and quality of political Yom Kippur could not have vise you to do, whether they’re The Message USPS 340-300 The Forest Hills Jewish Center, 106-06 Queens Boulevard, Forest Hills, NY 11375-4248. 718-263-7000, Fax: 718-520-4369. Website: http://www.fhjc.org. Affiliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. Published bi-monthly September-June. Subscription: $25 per year (included in membership dues.) Periodicals postage paid at the Post Office in Flushing, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Forest Hills Jewish Cen- ter. 106-06 Queens Boulevard, Forest Hills, NY 11375-4248. Editorial FHJC Sukkot Luncheon on Board: Karen L. Stein (Editor), Gerald C. Skolnik (Rabbi), Henry Rosen- blum (Hazzan), Deborah Gregor (Executive Director), Jessica Bragin- Monday, September 24 sky (Director of Education and Engagement), Iris Chomsky and Lynn Fisher (Co-Directors, Early Childhood Education), Laurie Worthman Please join us for lunch in the sukkah immediate- (Office Manager). Officers: Ilana Altman (President), Deborah Ball ly following services and kiddush. RSVP as soon Witlin (Vice President), Randi Zwick-Marks (Vice President), David as possible, as seating is limited. Zipkowitz (Vice President), Bill Regen (Treasurer), Helaine Fox (Secretary). Arms: Men’s Club, Warren Wankoff (President), Minyan Adults $39/ Children 5-11 $20 (4 and under free). Club, Betty Korb (President), Sisterhood, Debra Weil and Marcia Belgorod (Co-Presidents). Opinions expressed in The Message are the Event Co-Chairs Teri Goffner 718 275 6615 and authors’ and do not necessarily represent those of the Forest Hills Bonnie Dassa 718 896 4982 Jewish Center, its officers and Board, or the Editorial Board. 2 NOTES FROM THE HAZZAN UPCOMING EVENTS Hazzan Henry R. Rosenblum September 9 Erev Rosh Hashanah One of the fresh food, which might otherwise time-hallowed feed the hungry). Regardless of the September 10 Tashlikh rituals of Rosh manner of its performance, the clear Hashanah is purpose of Tashlikh is to serve as a September 16 Opening Day Religious School the Tashlikh symbolic removal of sin from oneself. United Parents Breakfast service. Near a Nursery School Picnic Of course, throwing stale bread into a body of flow- body doesn't bring forgiveness for September 18 Erev Yom Kippur/ Kol Nidre ing water, we cast off the burden of wrongdoing! At its best, Tashlikh sym- our sins by tossing pieces of bread into bolizes the need to remove wrongdo- the water and reciting a few brief pen- September 22- 23 Sukkah Decorating ing from our lives; the actual process itential prayers. of change, however, requires effort September 23 Erev Sukkot Tashlikh (literally, "You shall cast") is and ongoing commitment to becom- derived from a biblical verse, "You ing better human beings. This im- September 24 Sukkah Luncheon shall cast all their sins into the depths portant lesson is worth sharing and of the sea" (Micah 7:19). discussing in an age-appropriate way September 26 Religious School Dinner in the with our children throughout the High It is traditionally conducted beside a Sukkah Holy Days. body of moving water in which fish September 27 Men’s Club BBQ in the Sukkah may be found. Some explanations of In our community, Tashlikh is ob- the practice include: served at Flushing Meadows Park, September 26-27 Nursery Breakfast in the Sukkah right off Jewel Avenue, in the late • As a river's current washes away afternoon after services on the first debris on its surface, so may our October 5 Instrumental Kabbalat Shabbat day of Rosh Hashanah, Monday, Sep- resolve to do better carry our sins tember 10. out of sight. Please join us at 5:30pm as we gather • Lacking eyelids, fish never close together and share in this symbolic their eyes. Tashlikh reminds us that cleansing. You, your children, your God observes our actions even grandchildren and even your dogs are when we are otherwise alone. Room for One More? all welcome to join me and Rabbi If you have room at your table over the Skolnik. • As the fate of fish is uncertain, so High Holy Days for a fellow member, the fate of human beings. Looking forward to seeing you in shul email Lenny Picker at [email protected]. There are various customs regarding and by the water! Let him know what meal(s) you can host— the actual performance of Tashlikh. L’Shanah Tovah Tikatevu Some shake out their empty pockets Dinner, Sunday 9/9; by the water's edge; others toss bits of Hazzan Henry R.