Dear Friends,
Shalom! According to Jewish Tradition, when the month of Av starts we are supposed to be less happy. I suppose we are a little less traditional, because we are looking forward to a wonderful week at the Or Hadash Lyons Center.
1. Tonight, Kabalat Shabbat "Masaei", we expect the visit of friends from all over the US, as follows:
Rabbi Dan Levin, David Beale, Robin Eisenberg and Carlos Romero from Temple Beth El of Boca Raton.
Bruce Cole, Kim Zeitlin Gold and Reba Simon from Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills
Debbie Bravo, Sheila Geller and Carole Sue Gallof from Temple Emanu-El, NJ.
Rabbi Jonathan Stein, Mindy Davids, Stan Edelman, Gladys Edelman, Laura Greene and Michael Laufer from Temple Shaaray Tefila, New York, NY.
Cantor Susan Bortnick and David Bortnick from Washington Hebrew Congregation
Rabbi Andrew Davids, Melissa Zalkin Stollman, Rabbi David Nelson and Rachel Jewelewicz-Nelson from ARZA.
Dr. Lisa Grant from HUC and Rabbi Reuven Greenvald of MAKOM .
Our guests are all participants in the Beit Knesset Yisrael Seminar organized by ARZA. We look forward to praying with them and hosting them all for dinner at Or Hadash.
2. Also joining us for Shabbat will be Steven Simon, his wife, Wendy Berland, and their three children, Benjamin, Devorah and Netanya, all members of our sister congregation, Temple Israel of Boston. Jeremy Simons, the Youth Educator at our sister congregation, Temple Shalom of Newton, MA is coming as well. We welcome you all!!
3. On Sunday, August 3, our good friends Joan and Peter Hoffman from our sister congregation, Shir Tikva in Wayland, MA will be visiting our congregation. Joan and Peter have been loyal friends of Or Hadash for a long time providing constant support to our Mothers of Victims of Terror therapy groups. It is our hope that they will also visit the Neil and Diane Exter Summer Camp and later will have dinner with young families of Or Hadash. We look forward to seeing them!
4. On Monday, August 4, we will have the good fortune of meeting with our good friend Rabbi Martin ("Buzzy") Beifield and his wife Ilana from our sister congregation, Congregation Beth Ahabah of Richmond, VA. Rabbi Beifield is visiting his newly expanded family in Israel. Mazal Tov!
5. Last week two end-of-the-year celebrations were held at our preschools with the theme "To Israel with love through song and dance", marking the 60th year of Israel's independence. Our preschool teachers worked very hard preparing the tots to recite the words, to sing and to dance. At the party the children marched along with the song "good people in the middle of the road" (a well known Israeli song) with blue and white pieces of paper wrapped around their bodies (see picture). At the end, they received their "graduation certificates" and of course the Or Hadash official "preschool graduate" t-shirt. The parents and grandparents are still talking about the "graduation".
6. The "older" children in our summer camp (ages 6 to 8) continue to enjoy themselves. On this 5th week they sang karaoke twice. The shyer children sang together with staff members while the "brave" ones could sing solo- either way they all had fun. They also made chocolate cakes and even a competition of commercials for unique pizza designs. And of course, by now we had four ice cream parties.
7. Our Temple Administrator, Ami Perelman and his wife Anat (our Sisterhood President) will leave on August 3rd to visit friends in the US, among them our benefactors Daniel and Bente Lyons, Margi and Neil Peskin, Abby and David Joseph Cohen, Jeff and Naomi Stonberg and Sandy and Don Perrin. They will also meet with Rabbis, Cantors and good friends from many of our sister congregations in Boston, New York, New Jersey, Washington DC and Philadelphia.
Wishing you all Shabbat Shalom and a cool month of August
From a hot and humid but exciting Haifa.
Edgar
