The November 2009 Shmoozeletter is available here.
Come Light the Menorah with Temple or Olam!
A Hanukkah singalong in four languages (Hebrew, Ladino, Yiddish and even a little English), Israeli dancing, a skit from our very own Religious School Olamniks, ceremonious candle lighting and a beautiful havdalah ceremony are on the docket for this year’s Hanukkah celebration at Temple Or Olam. Mark the date and please join us for an afternoon of celebration, song, and joy!
Let’s spread the light: We encourage everyone to bring their own menorahs and Hanukkah candles.
Event: Temple Or Olam’s annual Hanukkah Party Date: December 19, 2009 Location: McGill Baptist Church, 5300 Poplar Tent Road, Concord Time: 3:00 – 5:30 p.m.Charge:
Members and college students are free.
Guests: non-members are asked to contribute $18 for individuals and $36 for families to help defray food and rental costs. Payment can be made at the door.
RSVP (Temple Or Olam members and guests!) to 704.720.7577 by December 12.
Note from the membership committee
Greetings all Temple Or Olam Members!
The membership committe is implementing a new program called “Temple Buddies”. We are going to be setting up new families with existing families to teach them the ropes.
When we get our next new family we are going to start at the top of the directory and continue working our way down with each new family. We are only asking that you call the family, make them feel welcome and if they are going to services, perhaps sit with them for a little while and introduce them to other families. This will help us come closer to our goal of becoming more of a community.
Thank you for helping us out!
Any questions, please feel free to contact Jill Partridge
Reb Barbara participating in DavidsonReads event Thursday, 10/22
DavidsonReads is a community wide reading event that our own Lisa Jewel was instrumental in putting together. The book being read and discussed is “The Color of Water” by James McBride.
On Thursday, Reb Barbara is participating in one of the events:
Everything You Wanted to Know about Blacks & Jews
Davidson Town Hall
October 22, 7:00 p.m.
Join Rabbi Barbara Thiede and the Rev. Brenda Tapia for a frank and open
discussion about cultural differences. In The Color of Water James McBride
describes his encounters with misunderstandings about race and religion. Come
learn what you might not know about your neighbors and what would they like you to know. There will be opportunities to ask questions and to engage in serious conversations.
Friday night, October 23rd, Shabbat Service
From Reb Barbara:
I’d like to remind everyone that we are reading Noach this Friday (Noah) and that everyone who wants to wear a rainbow should!
From Jody:
The religious school studied Noah last year and it was one of the students’ favorite Torah stories…maybe because of the visit from Noah, who answered many of their questions. So this would be a great service to bring the kids to, even though it’s not a family service. Also, in the last couple weeks of religious school, the students have been constructing their own pictorial Torah, and we will be sharing it at this service. So please do come and bring the kids.
Even a small hate crime should spark a big outrage
[This article appeared in the Charlotte Observer Friday, October 16th. ]
I wish I had looked out the window.
But I was busy teaching my students – students who had been studying the long and terrible history of anti-Semitism all semester.
Had the blinds been pulled up, had we looked out our windows, we would have seen that this history has not ended. We are living with it still.
Just outside the windows of my classroom, the succah belonging to UNC Charlotte’s Hillel, our campus Jewish Student organization, tottered on its poles as if it had been battered and struck.
Which, in fact, it had.
Over fall break, some person or persons had stolen the succah’s bamboo coverings. The same malevolent souls had deliberately bent and ruined the frame of the succah beyond repair.
The large sign decorated with a Star of David and with Hillel’s name was defaced with a small, but legible comment: “F.U.”
The campus police have determined that the succah was damaged purposefully and have declared it a hate crime, in part because other Hillel signage on campus has been defaced.
For two years I functioned as UNC Charlotte Hillel’s director. I know first hand how hard these students work with little in the way of resources. Their hope? To cultivate and nurture Jewish life and to offer educational programs so that all students can learn about the heritage, traditions, customs and rich diversity of Jewish life.
These students are working in the trenches. UNCC has no Hillel House. Students do not attend UNCC because of all it offers the Jewish community – they go to UNC Chapel Hill for such things. Although UNC boasts a Judaic Studies minor and a respected faculty that includes nationally known Judaic scholar John Reeves, our efforts to encourage Jewish learning, Jewish culture and Jewish community go largely unnoticed by those eager to support those same things at other universities in this state.
These students are doing lonely work with great heart and great courage.
I wish I had looked out the window that day to point out to my own students how much work has yet to be done to make Jews – in fact to make any minority – safe from hate crimes. No one deserves to have the emblems of their heritage destroyed and defaced. No one in this country should fear attack for their religion, their skin color, their sexual orientation.
What do I now wish I could see at the heart of our campus, looking out from the window of my classroom?
Where the succah stood, another one – new and proud. Succot may be over; the symbol of that fragile booth which sheltered the Israelites can still stand as a reminder that everyone deserves protection from hate.
I wish that quadrangle, the one surrounding Belk’s tower, were filled with students protesting this terrible act of viciousness.
Can UNCC’s student organizations band together to demonstrate for tolerance and diversity?
Can Charlotte’s Jewish community take note of the resources at UNCC and resolve to support the Hillel students, as well as the study of Judaism and Jewish culture?
Don’t leave us to struggle without resources, without help. We need your support.
Can area congregations step forward? My congregation, Temple Or Olam, is raising money to help the Hillel association replace the succah. Will you join us in showing these young people that we care?
Can the people of our region stand together and say, “Not in our town” – “Not at our university” – “Not in our home”?
Please. Look out the window.
Hate crime at UNCC
Sometime over fall break, the UNC-Charlotte Hillel succah was destroyed.
The bamboo coverings were stolen and the frame for the succah was deliberately bent and ruined beyond repair. The large sign decorated with a Star of David and with Hillel’s name (as well as contact emails for interested students) was defaced with a small, but legible comment: “F.U.”
The campus police have determined that the succah was damaged purposefully, and have declared this a hate crime.
Hillel students at UNC-Charlotte are cultivating and nurturing Jewish life with heart and courage. They deserve our support. To that end, as UNCC’s on-call rabbi, I will be meeting with students who need counseling over the next few days. Our congregation will continue to offer those students a congregational home.
Temple Or Olam is also mounting a fundraiser to replace UNCC Hillel’s succah. If you would like to contribute, please contact us at info@or-olam.org.
We must respond to acts of malevolence and hate by remaining an open, vibrant, and public presence for Judaism and Jewish community in our area. That, in fact, is our purpose. May we be strengthened in it.
Pray for peace,
Reb Barbara
Talk and book signing by Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein 10/23 and 10/24
Rabbi, author and martial artist Niles Elliot Goldstein will speak about his new book “The Challenge of the Soul: A Guide for the Spiritual Warrior” at two area Jewish congregations Oct. 23-24. The presentations are part of the Southern States Jewish Literary Series coordinated by the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson, Mississippi.
On Friday, Oct. 23, Rabbi Goldstein will speak during Temple Beth El’s 8 p.m. Sabbath service at the Sandra and Leon Levine Jewish Community Center,
5007 Providence Rd., Charlotte. On Saturday, Oct. 24, he’ll speak after Lake Norman Jewish Congregation’s 7 p.m. Havdalah Service at Fair View United Methodist Church, 1430 Mecklenburg Hwy., Mount Mourne. Both events are free and open to the public.
Rabbi Goldstein is founder and rabbi emeritus of The New Shul, an innovative congregation in New York City. He lectures widely on religion and spirituality and has taught at New York University and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He is national Jewish chaplain of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. The rabbi counseled law enforcement officers at Ground Zero, has traveled to remote and inhospitable places to learn and teach, and has sought out difficult experiences to test himself and his faith.
In “The Challenge of the Soul,” his ninth book, the rabbi draws lessons from his own hard-won insights as a rabbi and practitioner of the martial arts, interweaving them with the teachings of sages, biblical figures and thinkers of all stripes to help readers go beyond their own perceived limitations and face life’s challenges with fortitude. “Rabbi Goldstein shows us, through examples from his own spiritual journey, how to harmonize the fine-tuned disciplines of the martial arts with a profound and transformative Judaism grounded in its mystical teachings,” writes Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, a leading American rabbi. Rabbi Goldstein’s previous book, “Gonzo Judaism: A Bold Path for Renewing an Ancient Faith,” was praised as one of the top five religious books of 2006 by Publishers Weekly and NBC.
Rabbi Goldstein’s visit is co-sponsored by the two congregations, Temple Beth El and the Lake Norman Jewish Congregation.
The Southern States Jewish Literary Series presents talks and book signings by distinguished authors. The series is coordinated by the ISJL, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing educational and rabbinic services to isolated Jewish communities, documenting and preserving the rich history of the Southern Jewish Experience, and promoting a Jewish cultural presence throughout a 13-state region.
Signed books will be available at each lecture. For more information or to order “The Challenge of the Soul: A Guide for the Spiritual Warrior,” call Temple Beth El, (704) 366-1948, or Lake Norman Jewish Congregation, (704) 252-7038; or contact ISJL Director of Programming Andy Muchin, (601)
362-6357 or amuchin@isjl.org.
Program for men November 1st
LEARN ABOUT DOMESTIC ABUSE IN OUR JEWISH COMMUNITY ON SUNDAY, NOV 1ST WITH RABBI H. DAVID ROSE OF JEWISH WOMEN INTERNATIONAL: Evening Program: “Learn – Help – Protect: It’s Not Kosher To Do Nothing.” 7:00 PM in Sam Lerner Center for Cultural Arts, Shalom Park, 5007 Providence Rd., Charlotte, 28226. Explore the Jewish response to domestic abuse and how we can help and protect our friends, our teens and ourselves. Free to the entire Jewish community thanks to funding by the Jewish Federation of Greater Charlotte and Temple Beth El. Babysitting provided. Reception to follow. Co-hosted by Shalom Bayit-NC and Jewish Family Services. For information contact Shalom Bayit-NC at 704-756-9209.
Special added Morning program now being offered FOR MEN ONLY: 10AM to noon in Sam Lerner Cultural Center. “The Paradox of Jewish Men” and why only men can prevent domestic abuse. Open to all men associated with the Jewish community. $10 per person includes breakfast. Hosted by the Brotherhood of Temple Beth El. Please RSVP to Robert Abramowitz at 704-618-0798.
Funny and Fierce, Intense and Intentional: Our Rabbi’s Blog is at Adrenalinedrash.org!
