< Previous Newsletter || Next Newsletter >
Back to the Current Newsletter >
September 2006
We’re just a few days away now. Arrangements are in full swing. Meals, plans and clothes are all in hand. Calls to family members, friends and acquaintances are happening. And before you know it, you’ll be in services.
As usual, we’ll be gathering at Eastminster United Church, 310 Danforth Avenue (north side, between Broadview and Chester next to the Carrot Common).
Our schedule for this year is as follows:
| Friday, September 22 | Erev Rosh Hashana | 7:00 p.m. |
| Saturday, September 23 | First Day of Rosh Hoshana | 9:30 a.m. |
| Rosh Hashana children’s service | 10:30 a.m. | |
| Sunday, September 24 | Second day Rosh Hashana | 10:00 a.m. |
| Sunday, October 1 | Kol Nidre | 7:00 p.m. |
| Monday, October 2 | Yom Kippur | 9:30 a.m. |
| Yom Kippur young adults’ service | 10:30 a.m. | |
| Concluding service (Ne-ilah) | 6:00 p.m. |
Volunteers are still needed Friday night and Saturday morning before services. If you can help cut apples, set up or take on other tasks, please contact Kathy as soon as possible at info@djctoronto.com.
Additionally, readers are still very much in demand for the Rosh Hashana children’s service (which is taking place, this year, on the main level in auditorium). It’s a very friendly, informal way for the young person in your life to take part in this mitzvah&mdand to have a good time doing it. Contact Diane Wise at wisetill@rogers.com if you’d like to offer a name, or need more information.
And don’t forget—if you’re looking for lovely Judaica to give your hosts (or to treat yourself)—to check out www.judaicamaven.ca. Identify yourself as a DJC member when you buy, and 10 per cent of your purchase price goes back to the DJC. It’s a good way to support your community and a smart way to shop.
Danforth Jewish Circle 5767 Listening Campaign
By Rabbi Eli Kukla
We can learn a lot about a community and its members by deciphering both what did happen to them and how they choose to interpret and communicate what happened, to themselves and to others through stories—MyJewishLearning.com
What is your story and how does it connect you to other people? Do you feel like no one at the DJC knows your story, or are you tired of always talking about yourself in the same way? Are there people in your community you would like to get to know better? Are you looking for deeper ways to engage in social justice within this congregation, your neighborhood or in the world?
Beginning in October we are launching a Listening Campaign at the DJC. It is our goal that over the course of the year each of you will have an opportunity to sit down, one to one, with another DJC member for a “relational conversation” to let us know what you care about, what makes you passionate, sad or angry, and what kind of community you would like to be building.
Relational Conversations are face-to-face meetings that are intended to surface people’s stories and build relationships. They are about 45 minutes long and usually take place over coffee or in your home. Listening Campaigns are a Congregation Based Community Organizing (CBCO) technique that has empowered countless congregations like this one across North America, to take action to impact both their own congregations internally and the outer world. Community organizing is based on the principle that the power for change exists in relationships between people and that by learning each other’s stories we also uncover the passion and energy each of us has to shape our world.
This campaign will help us hear where we are as the DJC community. What do we need most? Do we want more education, celebration or prayer? Do we need a cemetery, a comprehensive b’nai mitzvah program, a conversion class? Do we feel invisible at the DJC because of our religion, sexuality or family status or do we feel at home? How can we best build our power to engage in the world? How can we connect to other congregations and faith groups in our neighborhood to impact our area positively? What forms of injustice impact us the most? Do we have the energy to work for peace in the Middle East or economic justice right here on the Danforth?
We will be holding an introductory information session on the Listening Campaign, the evening of October 3, the day after Yom Kippur, at the Riverdale Presbyterian, 662 Pape Avenue, between 7 and 9 pm. I invite each of you to get involved whether or not you have taken an active role in the DJC in the past. It does not take special skills to listen to one another; it just takes curiosity and caring.
(Editor’s note: If you’d like to participate in our Listening Campaign, please fill out the form available at www.djctoronto.com/rabbisstudy/listening_campaign-5767.php)
Our Jewish School
On Thursday afternoons from 4:15pm to 6:15 pm our children will be making new Jewish friends. They will be learning about their Jewish community. Our children will do crafts, read stories and play games with Jewish themes. They’ll eat Jewish food and have lots of fun doing it all.
Yep, our Jewish school starts up again on October 12. The program starts at SK and goes right up to and including Bar or Bat Mitzvah. Our full-time principal and the education committee have been working hard all summer interviewing and hiring our fully qualified and trained teachers. Curriculums have now been finalized. Rabbi Eli will be more involved throughout the year and this will only serve to further enrich the program.
If you have a child who is in SK to Grade 7, come join the school. We will be having an open house where you can come by and see us in action. This year’s open house is at 5 pm on October19. at Ms Miriam’s, 583A Danforth Ave., just west of Sun Valley Fine Foods [map], with a parent orientation at 5:45 pm. We’d love to see you there.
If you have any questions about the school feel free to call Kathy at 416-580-6303.
Attention all you DJC readers!
Once again the DJC is offering a season of great reading and expert commentary in its highly popular book group. In fact, so well-attended was last year’s book group that we are now offering a fifth session: five gatherings, from this October to next May, all in homey comfort generously provided by DJC members. Books such as Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock, and the controversial Maus I & II; star facilitators such as Natalie Zemon Davis, Professor of History Emerita at Princeton University; Andrea Most, the 2004 recipient of the Polanyi Prize for Literature; and Derek Penslar, the Nachson Visiting Professor of Israel Studies at Harvard University.
Great discussion, good company – this is an opportunity to socialize with DJC fellow members and catch up on your reading too. If interested, contact Kathy Miller at info@djctoronto.com, or, if a new member, call her at 416-580-6303. And don’t delay! Our first session is October 10, and seating will be limited!
Reminder: b’nai mitzvah classes for adults
Do you have a yearning to have the bar or bat mitzvah you never got to have? To enhance your sense of ownership of Judaism? To experience the enrichment of Torah study? To build the ritual skill level amongst our congregants for future DJC services? To learn to chant Torah (even if you can’t sing!)? This year the DJC is offering congregants the opportunity to be a part of an adult B’nai Mitzvah group that will study with Rabbi Eli in preparation for being called to the Torah on Sat., June 2, 2007. Participants will meet monthly, on Thursday evenings between 7 and 8:30 pm, from November 2006 until May 2007.
With books and tapes in hand, we will practice (where possible, in pairs) between sessions.
Our first meeting—to define the vision and provide feedback&mdwill be on Thursday, October 5 at 7 pm. It is essential that group members have some ability to read Hebrew (i.e. sound out letters but not necessarily comprehend). If you intend to come on October 5, or if you have any questions, please e-mail Temi at temi@judaicamaven.ca to ensure notification of where participants will meet.
Sing, and the whole world sings with you
Do you like to sing? The Toronto Jewish Folk Choir is looking for new singers for the fall season. We are Canada’s oldest Jewish Community Choir. Our music ranges from old Yiddish classics to premieres of new commissions. We welcome all singers willing to challenge themselves with hard work and have fun doing it. No experience required, but music reading ability would be helpful.
And you don’t even have to be Jewish!
First rehearsal for the fall season is on October 4. Meetings take place at 585 Cranbrooke Avenue, just east of Bathurst and two lights north of Lawrence. For more information, call 416-593-0750; send an e-mail to tjfolkchoir@sympatico.ca; or see the Toronto Jewish Folk choir’s web page at www.winchevskycentre.org/institutions/choir.html.
Book Drive for Needy Bedouin Schools in Israel
Nina Kolunovsky is collecting new and gently used English books for several Bedouin schools in the Negev region of Israel, as part of the Books for Israel project (www.booksforisrael.com). As the organizers of the project explain, “Those books are needed because funds that used to go to educating Israel’s children have had to be diverted to defense measures to keep them from being hurt or killed.”
These books will enable impoverished but enthusiastic Israeli students to widen their perspectives and knowledge, and to attain a better future. Books can range from elementary to young adult, and should be culturally appropriate.
To donate books or help cover mailing costs, please email Nina at nkwriter@yahoo.com.
Download a PDF file of the newsletter [218KB]
Download a WORD file of the newsletter [956KB]
< Previous Newsletter || Next Newsletter >
Back to the Current Newsletter >
© copyright 2003 - 2010
