Annual Report 2021-New

Congregation Ner Shalom Year in Review 2020-2021 Table of Contents Welcome to Ner Shalom . 3 From the President . 4 From Rabbi Irwin . 6 Pandemic Heroes . 8 In the Light of Peace . 12 Beit Midrash and Educator of the Year . 13 Nitzanim: Experiential Family Education . 16 Celebrations for Families with Special Needs . 20 Tzedek – Social Justice 21 Welcome New Members . 22 Fundraising Report . 23 Financial Report . 25 Building Report . 27 Technology Report . 28 Ner Shalom 2020-21 Scrapbook . 30 In Memoriam . 37 Get Involved . 38 Staff and Board . 39 Report Edited by Rabbi Irwin Keller The Year in Review – 2 Welcome to Ner Shalom It was a year! Despite the restrictions we all lived under, we, as a community, continued to flourish. We found new ways to do ritual. We gained new friends from around the country and beyond. Our community grew, with new members and friends joining us from around the country and beyond. We have offered more programs and classes than ever before, and we have supported each other through. So much to be proud of, Ner Shalom. So please read this report beginning to end. Know a little bit more about Ner Shalom and the people who help make it happen. The Year in Review – 3 From the President Amy Levinson Gray Whew! What a year. Along with the rest of the world, we at Ner Shalom have done the best we could within the constraints of the COVID pandemic. And many blessings appeared! Through Zoom, we gained the ability to touch people all over the country and the world with our deeply felt and musical services and our extensive educational offerings. As a result, we have new members and participants joining us from locations east, north, and south of Cotati. Another blessing: we met every Friday this year, which hasn’t happened in a very long time (perhaps not ever). With this weekly service, we were able to be there for our community in an ongoing and deeply engaging way, and our community grew in closeness. Because of the pandemic, Reb Irwin’s ordination was not an event centered in Boulder, Colorado. Instead, we were able to witness the beautiful ceremony where our Rebbe became a Rabbi. Congregants stepped up in deeply personal and generous ways. Individuals stepped up to lead and to support. Besides the folks profiled later in this Annual Report as “Pandemic Heroes,” I’d like to mention Rita Rowan, who created the role of procuring readers and participants in our Shabbat and holiday services, and our past president and tech guru Suzanne Shanbaum, who spent countless hours figuring out how to make our music sound good on a platform never intended for that purpose. In all of this, we did not forget our historic building. We did long-needed repairs on the exterior, repairing rot damage and finishing with a beautiful paint job. Despite all these achievements, the year was also hard. It was hard not to see each other in three dimensions and feel confined to tiny Zoom windows. It was sad to cancel our concert series. Our congregational trip to Israel and Palestine had to be postponed. We The Year in Review – 4 had to figure out new ways to raise money to keep the shul going. Our administration and Board had to pivot and then re-pivot as each new challenge arose from the reality of living with a deeply dysfunctional administration in Washington, DC. This was the year of George Floyd and deaths of other Black Americans by police. This was the year of Q- Anon, the January 6th assault on the Capitol, and the endless recounting of voters’ legitimate ballots. And most recently, we’ve been following the violence in Israel and Gaza. A hard year, made even harder by the overlay of COVID and the anxious questions it brought up – is it safe to go out? To gather with grandchildren and family? To take a walk with a friend? With the arrival of effective vaccines, we are now looking at restarting our lives, slowly and carefully. And for this I am very grateful. As we look ahead to the next fiscal year starting July 1, I am encouraged. If the lease signing goes well (and it should), we will soon have a wonderful preschool renting space in our building on weekdays, providing Ner Shalom with a steady stream of income and the laughter of small children. Jill Rose has spearheaded a Women’s Picnic, which will take place on July 10 – helping to create a loving, intimate and in-person space for the women of Ner Shalom. Nitzanim, our experiential family learning program, will leave the small screens behind and resume their adventures in the natural world. The Kinsey Sicks will soon be touring and hope to offer a musical evening in December. And so much more. It is time to take a deep breath, look back at the year, and move forward with a new and vigorous model of what Jewish community can be, both in person and virtually. As Reb Charles Dickens once said, “It was the best of times; it was the worse of times.” We made it through. We supported each other. We innovated, created, learned, and sang. Together we went through a very challenging year, filled with unexpected losses and gains. We’re on something that is beginning to feel like “the other side” and it’s looking sunny from where I sit. Thank you all -- our beloved Rabbi, the Board, the administration, and congregants both near and far. L’shalom, Amy Gray President The Year in Review – 5 the Spirit Lives on at Ner Shalom Reb Irwin Keller “Come, come, whoever you are,” began the song by Shimshai, with words from Rumi, with which our Good Shabbos Band and Ner Shalom Singers launched our first-ever online High Holy Day experience. “Come, come, whoever you are,” they sang. And you did. I don’t know fully how to look back at this year; it was so unusual in every possible respect. But I can see how we grew new lines of connection. How the boundaries of our community opened up to people in different parts of the country and the world. How despite the limitations imposed by the pandemic, there has been something really beautiful about opening the laptop on Friday night and having Shabbat – escorted by this holy community – breeze right into my own home. We have all learned so much this year. About ourselves, about the country we live in, about the Earth we depend on. We are beginning to emerge from this state of introspection and discovery; it is my hope that we will all bring the best of those learnings with us into whatever is emerging. At Ner Shalom we know that we will never again be an exclusively bricks-and-mortar (well, wood and sheet rock) synagogue. We will provide ample opportunities for locals to gather in physical space. But we will continue to tend to the rich web of connections we’ve made online. Opening the doors to all of you who have come from beyond Sonoma County. And to all of us in Sonoma County for whom online practice has made it possible to integrate Jewish – practice and learning – into our lives in a surprising and unprecedented way. This is something none of us wants to give up. Who would’ve thought? The personal highlight of my year was, as you might expect, my ordination, or smichah, as a rabbi in the Jewish Renewal lineage of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. It was a long wait, coming after 5 years of study, 12 years serving Ner Shalom, and many decades of hope and longing. I was grateful that so many of you were able to be present for the ceremony. I was grateful to be in our Ner Shalom sanctuary, surrounded by my family, and wrapped in the tallit of my childhood (and lifelong) rabbi, Mark S. Shapiro, who had died just four months earlier. I knew that entering the rabbinate was earth- shaking for me. But I was initially unaware of how significant it was for many of you. Now I see how it represents a milestone for all of us. And while I love the Chasidic-style affectionate title Reb, I have not failed to notice how many of you insist on calling me The Year in Review – 6 “Rabbi,” doing so with a tone of pride in your voice. I am grateful for your pride and your trust and I will do my best to continue to earn it. And then two weeks later, the over-the-top celebration of my smichah. I remain completely overwhelmed thinking about it. And grateful to the many who attended, who performed music or poetry, who recorded greetings, who donated funds to support the rabbinical position in coming years. It was wild and hilarious and humbling. Thank you. So yes, it has been a big year, as you will also see in the words and photos in this Annual Report. So please read through! I am (and I hope we all are) grateful for the hard work and flexibility of our Board of Directors. The tireless work of our Administrator, Vicki Allen. The eagerness and skill of all our spiritual leaders who have stepped to lead services when I’m away. The incredible and detailed work of all the people named below as “Pandemic Heroes.” It is a time full of change. I am sad that we have lost our dear Atzilah Solot to her hometown of Tucson, and grateful that the new platform in which we make ritual together allows her to remain present.

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