Kol Nefesh (“Every Soul”) Visit our Full Temple Calendar at:
April 2015 http://www.centralreformtemple.org/events/calendar-‐at-‐a-‐glance/ Saturday, April 4th, 6:00 PM – Annual Congregational Seder Please join us for our annual congregational Seder on the second night of Passover. In our participatory celebration, with singing, discussion and a catered dinner, we’ll be using the popular The New Union Haggadah, Revised Edition, edited by Rabbi Howard Berman. Adult members: $45. Children: $15. Adult guests: $50. RSVP today by contacting [email protected] Seat for Elijah: Temple members also have the opportunity to share in a traditional mitzvah of this season. By donating an additional $45, you may sponsor a fellow member or guest who would otherwise be unable to participate in the Seder.
Shabbat Services
Friday, March 17th, 6:30 PM – Sabbath Eve Service A Special Service of Memory and Tribute Commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Death of Abraham Lincoln This Sabbath marks the 150th Yahrzeit of our revered 16th President, who was assassinated on April 15, 1865. Tonight’s Service will recall the Memorial Ceremonies that were held in synagogues throughout the country on the following Sabbath. Rabbi Berman will reflect on the Great Emancipator’s relationship with the Jewish community, as well as his enduring spiritual legacy for all Americans. Our worship will include special music from that period in American Jewish history. Please note that due to the scheduling of our Congregational Seder on April 4th, this will be the only regular Sabbath Service for the month of April. All Yahrzeits for the month will be observed at this time. Choir practice will begin at 5:45 PM. Our Oneg Shabbat Social Hour will follow the Service.
Temple Events Temple Open Meetings: April 21st at 6:30pm or May 11th at 7:00pm Please plan on joining us for one of two open meetings to learn about what the Temple leadership has been hard at work so far during our tenth year anniversary. Join us on either Tuesday, April 21st at 6:30pm or Monday, May 11th at 7:00pm. 10th Year Celebration Gala Planning Meeting: May 5th at 6:00pm As mentioned in the prior Kol Nefesh editions our 10th Year Celebration Gala will take place on Saturday, September 26th. Many of you have volunteered to be on the planning committee. Anyone interested in helping with this is invited to join us on Tuesday, May 5th at 6:00pm for our planning meeting.
A Message from our President, Todd Katzman: Spring is here and I want to wish everyone a Happy Pesach. I hope to see many of you at our annual temple Seder, which has become one of my favorite events. March brought us many joyous gatherings, including our monthly movie night, The Jewish Cardinal, which if you haven’t seen I would suggest checking it out, and an inspiring weekend in Provincetown as part of our Picking from Our Garden series. If you missed any of our “This I Believe” speakers or want to read what they spoke, they are all now posted on our website. On the right hand side of the homepage, click on “thisIbelieve.” They are all truly inspiring!
A Message from Your Garden Coordinator, Joan Talarico Brodsky After a busy winter with a great variety of Pickings offerings, April is quiet. We’ve enjoyed activities as varied as a wine tasting, a dance lesson, a trip to the opera and a weekend of art. Picking From Our Garden has truly proved a powerful means of bringing Temple members together in more personal and intimate settings. If you have any interests, hobbies or passions that you'd like to share with us, please contact me ([email protected]) with your idea and we can work through all the details. Make sure to check in to the May Kol Nefesh for events scheduled for May, June and July.
Photos from our weekend in Provincetown in March
Wednesday, April 1st – Dinner and the Opera in Cambridge Jacob Scharfman, who has recently joined Lucy and Paula as our resident baritone soloist, is performing in Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades. Jacob will be performing the role of Prince Yeletsky in this passionate tale of gambling and grand delusion. Jacob is quickly making a name for himself in the Boston music scene. The Boston Musical Intelligencer praised his sound as “well rounded and rich, maintaining clarity and precision throughout.” In true “Pickings” fashion, Temple gatherings like this bring us together to deepen bonds and friendships. At dinner, we’ll discuss our most memorable opera experience. It could be a funny story like the time that you fell asleep during Wagner or that attending this event with the Temple is your most memorable experience and why! Anything that reveals your personal connection with opera will be perfect.
6:00 PM: Dinner at Harvest Restaurant, 44 Brattle Street 8:30 PM: Queen Of Spades, Harvard’s Lowell Theater
To purchase tickets online, go to http://lowellhouseopera.com/
Monday, April 27th, 8:00 PM – Defiant Requiem (rescheduled) Symphony Hall Many of you may have purchased tickets for the January 27th performance that got snowed out. The new date is April 27th. There may still be some tickets available at Symphony Hall. Call or check on line. For anyone who might be interested, we will meet for dinner at Ginger Exchange at 6:15 pm (across from Symphony Hall). Please let me know if you are coming to dinner so we can have a table(s) reserved for us. ([email protected]). Hope you can join us. The Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín tells the story of courageous Jewish prisoners in the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp during World War II who formed a chorus under the leadership of fellow prisoner Rafael Schächter, and performed Verdi’s Requiem 16 times, as an act of defiance and resistance to their Nazi captors. The performances allowed the prisoners to “sing to the Nazis what they could not say to them.” The concert/drama features a full performance of the Verdi with video testimony from surviving members of the original prisoner choir, actors embedded in the orchestra, and original Nazi propaganda film footage made at Theresienstadt. The performance is powerful, dramatic and inspirational with a contemporary message of hope. This will be the 27th worldwide performance of Defiant Requiem. The Orchestra of Terezín Remembrance along with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus (John Oliver, conductor) will perform.
Temple News New Temple calendar on the website The Temple website (http://www.centralreformtemple.org/) now features a new calendar (http://www.centralreformtemple.org/events/calendar-‐at-‐a-‐glance/), which summarizes events, holidays, etc., by the month or week or agenda list. This is a public Google Calendar that everyone can view, with extra features for Google users. A link to the calendar page is at the top of Kol Nefesh and on the Temple home page. Dates that you send to Kol Nefesh will routinely appear in the calendar. If you know about future items that are not there, or corrections, please send an email to [email protected].
“This I Believe”
“This I Believe,” part of CRT’s 10th Anniversary, is a program in which Temple members share expressions of their core beliefs at each service to explain their spiritual values and connections to this community in a personal way. The model for this series is Edward R. Murrow’s 1950’s radio program, which encouraged both famous and not-‐so-‐famous people to write short five-‐minute essays about their own personal motivations in life and then read them on the air. Please consider sharing your core beliefs from the podium! To get your creative juices flowing on your own three-‐ to five-‐minute personal essay, check out the website www.ThisiBelieve.org, and please contact Marc LaCasse at [email protected] to volunteer! Social Action Tobin Community Market – April Dates This month, the Community Market will be on Thursday, April 9th and Thursday, April 23rd from 1:45pm to 4:15pm. Let me know if you can help out. It is a great mitzvah, and a wonderful group of parents and CRT volunteers. ([email protected]).
SAVE THE DATE The Tobin School Spring Clean-‐Up
Saturday, May 16th, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM Coffee Cooperative Partnership Central Reform Temple, under the leadership of Jennifer Coplon and Bob Frank, has created a partnership with the Delicious Peace (Mirembe Kawomera) Coffee Cooperative in Uganda. This coffee initiative is a union of over 1,000 Jewish, Christian, and Muslim coffee farmers founded in 2004 to build peace in their community. The Abayudaya Jews who live in rural Uganda saw this joint effort as a way to encourage farmers of the region to work together to invest in processing equipment and community programs. In order to guarantee market rates for the farmers and better quality coffee, Delicious Peace partnered with California-‐based Thanksgiving Coffee Company. This model serves as an example for other partnerships committed to sustainability and peace. In order to support this interfaith effort, please consider buying Mirembe Kawomera Dark or Light
Contact Marc LaCasse at [email protected] to volunteer, or visit
www.ThisiBelieve.org for more information
Roast coffee, which sells for $15.50 for a 12-‐ounce bag. If you buy $35 or more of the coffee, the $4.95 shipping charge is waived. Central Reform Temple receives 5% of the proceeds of coffee sold through the link below, and we return any amounts received to the Abayudaya community so that they can continue their noble initiative. So that Central Reform Temple is credited for your purchase, please go to the Home Page for our temple specifically:
http://store.thanksgivingcoffee.com/affiliates/default.aspx?Affiliate=10&Target=Home Also, the Abayudaya Jewish community in Uganda is facing a school crisis with severely reduced funding available for its elementary and high schools, where Jewish, Christian and Muslim students learn and play together peacefully. It is heartbreaking to think of students whose education might be disrupted or who live too far to go elsewhere, or who might now face the past harassment that the Abayudaya schools have erased. Can you help them? Kulanu Inc., an organization that serves minority Jews around the world, has received a $10,000 challenge grant from the Estelle Friedman Gervis Foundation. The foundation will add another $10,000 to the first $20,000 raised! Please consider a donation to www.kulanu.org/donate and earmark your gift for the Abayudaya community of Uganda so it will be matched by the Gervis Foundation.
“Pickings” Calendar Listings The “Pickings” Calendar Listings is new. It provides a way for Temple members to learn about activities around Boston that our very talented community is involved in. We can not only support fellow members but also have a more full exposure to the Boston educational and cultural scene. Please contact Joan Brodsky at [email protected] if you’re participating in a program or event that should get notice on our calendar. Friday, April 24th, 6:30-‐8:00 PM – Symphony Nova Old South Church in Copley Square Join Temple member and Music Director Larry Isaacson and his ensemble Symphony Nova, Boston’s only professional training orchestra, for their second spring performance. Symphony Nova provides post graduate musicians opportunities so that these aspiring artists develop into successful art professionals. Tickets can be purchased online at www.symphonynova.com Saturday, April 25th, 7:00 PM – New England Folk Festival Mansfield, Massachusetts Join our very own Lucy Joan Sollogub, who will be playing mountain and hammered duets in a duo, at the New England Folk Festival. Visit www.neffa.org for more information.
Our Temple Community
B’YACHAD is a way for Temple members to connect with and support fellow Temple members who are in need of support. If you need support or know a Temple member who is in need of a hot meal, or if would you like to volunteer, please contact [email protected] or call 617-‐262-‐1202.