Shir Hadash Weekly Newsletter, April 4, 2013

To view this blog in its entirety, go to our website.  For daily event updates, visit our calendar.  

What’s Happening at a Glance

Membership News and Upcoming Events

• Late Breaking News: Home at Last!
• New Building News: Design for the Ark
• Passover in the Matzah Aisle
• Community Seder
• Business Mastermind Group, April 7
• April Book Club: Everything is Illuminated, April 25
• Shir Hadash Annual Meeting, May 5

Education Update  

• Havayah News
• Upcoming school schedule

Teen News  

• Madrichim meeting, April 28
• JUF Teen Engagement Fair, May 5
• High school event with JRC, May 11

Creative Worship & Ritual  

• Pausing in the Wilderness Service, April 5

Adult Education

• More Jewish Thinkers: Martin Buber, April 7
• When Slaves in Egypt Had Slaves in Virginia, April 7

The Rabbi’s Corner: Making the Most of Life  
Community News  

• Parent & Family Connection for LGBTQ Jews in Chicagoland
• JUF Israel Solidarity Day, April 28 

Membership and Upcoming Events

Late Breaking News: Home at Last!
Today, Thursday, April 4, Shir Hadash signed the contracts and closed on our new building at 200 W. Dundee Road in Wheeling. The long-awaited dream of 18 years is finally a reality. We are awaiting bids from several contractors and are poised to pack up and move all of our operations into the new building once construction is complete. We could use a hand with coordinating the move; e-mail Jeffrey Wallk at president@shir-hadash.org if you'd like to volunteer. Visit our website to view photos of the building, build-out plans, the ark design, what the new building will offer our members, and much more.  
Check Out Our New Ark Design!

Thanks to everyone who attended the March 15 service at our new building and weighed in on the artists' renderings of potential ark designs. After careful review of the feedback and other considerations, we are moving forward with a design. Click here to see the artists' rendering on our website, along with a description of the design and materials.

Passover in the Matzah Aisle  
Volunteers from Shir Hadash spread the word about our new building, offered samples of Passover food, and made some new friends during a fun Passover outreach event, “Passover in the Matzah Aisle,” at Dominick's Foods in Buffalo Grove on March 17 and March 24.  
Led by Rabbi Eitan and wearing aprons emblazoned with the colorful Shir Hadash logo, our members reached out to shoppers with “gourmet Passover fruit salad” (also known as charoset), matzah, and literature about our new building. We also had raffle drawings for two food baskets, which were won by Wheeling residents Sergey Vladmirskiy and Bea Higginbotham.  
The “Passover in the Matzah Aisle” program was created by the Jewish Outreach Institute in New York. It provided a great opportunity for us a way for Jewish organizations such as Shir Hadash to get out into our new community, and to meet unaffiliated Jewish families. Many thanks to all our volunteers who represented our congregation with friendliness and enthusiasm!  

Community Seder  
Our Community Seder on March 26 was a joyous success.  Our Lady of the Brook invited us to hold it there, giving their congregation the opportunity to experience a seder. They were very gracious hosts to us, and Father Tom Doran and Deacon Peery Duderstadt presented us with a gift for our new home: a beautiful lithograph by Israeli artist Raphael Abecassis.  

We planned for 80 people to come. We breezed past that number and wound up with 132! Rabbi Eitan led a rousing seder.  He and his son Ayal made a dynamic duo playing their guitars and singing the songs together. Our Shir Hadash cooks continued to outdo themselves. Our buffet stretched out over four tables, and we still couldn’t fit everything on it!  

Thanks to everyone whose hard work made it an evening to remember. Mark your calendars for next year – Tuesday, April 15, 2014.

Business Mastermind Group  The Business Mastermind Group will be meeting on the first Sunday of each month while religious school is in session, from 10:30 a.m. to noon. The mission is to build mutually beneficial relationships with Shir Hadash small business owners by providing value to other group members. Each meeting will feature a topic of interest that everyone agrees is important. We will focus on that topic for the whole meeting with everyone providing examples of their experiences related to the topic. At the first meeting, the group will pick a list of topics. Each meeting will start with brief introductions of everyone in the group. In this way, new people are always invited and will feel comfortable attending. For more information, contact Dan Wellisch atdanw@wellsoftware.com.  

Book Club  The next Book Club will be held on Thursday, April 25 at 7:30pm, at the home of Stacy Laner, 1047 Shambliss Court, Buffalo Grove. The book will be Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer.This is the story of a young American Jew who flies to the Ukraine to search for the woman who saved his grandfather's life during the Nazi invasion. For more information, contact Meryl Abensohn at abenkras@aol.com.  

Mazal Tov Best wishes to our Sunday School Administrator, Gloria Kaplan, who has recently been blessed with the birth of her first great-grandchildren, twins Jack and Nora. They are also the nephew and niece of Sunday school teacher, Jennifer Schmidt. We wish the whole family a hearty mazal tov.

Education Update

Havayah News
Monday night marked the official return from Spring Break for our Havayah (8th-12th) class. Monday being either the last or second-to-last night (depending on which tradition one follows) to keep kosher for Passover, Rabbi Eitan and Emily decided to forgo our traditional pizza dinner and have the class create a dinner out of matzah brei, salad, clementines, and ice cream.  We had a great time.  The students (other than Adam, Alek and David who always do so) even helped clean up.   
Upcoming Events at School  Sunday, April 7th-- 11:50-12:25 Yom Hashoah Service presented with help from the 7th grade class  Sunday, April 14th-- Sunday school  Monday, April 15th-- Havayah  Sunday, April 21st-- Yom Tikkun Olam  Sunday, April 28th-- Sunday School, Prospective Member Open House  Monday, April 29th--Havayah BBQ at David's House  Sunday, May 5th-- Last day of Sunday school  

Teen News
Madrichim Our last meeting of the school year will be April 28. Please be sure to attend.  

Teen Engagement Fair
Here’s a great event for 7^th and 8^th graders and their families: JUF will sponsor a Teen Engagement Fair at the Chicagoland Jewish High School on May 5 from 1:00 to 4:00. The day will show you how Jewish life really begins AFTER your b’nai mitzvah, with travel opportunities, organizations, programs and more. Plus they’ll have raffles, kosher hot dog eating contests, and lots of other activities. To learn more and RSVP, visit http://juf.org/teen.  
Save the Date: Saturday evening, May 11th- High School event with JRC.  Details to follow... stay tuned!  

Creative Worship & Ritual

Pausing in the Wilderness Service, April 5 We hope that you will join us for a very special Pausing in the Wilderness service this Friday, April 5 (7:30 at LCHS).  As you know, our annual Pausing service is always about the Jews’ journey through the wilderness.  Well, we’re coming to the end of our own initial (18-year) journey, and getting ready to start a whole new journey in our own building. So the April 5 service will be all about remembering the journey, and celebrating the last 18 years in song, dance, stories, and much more!  

We’ll need your help to make this a night to remember -- and you can help in any number of ways.  For example, if you play an instrument, you can join the Mighty Shir Hadash Klezmorim for the night!  We’re playing Hava Nagila and Hevenu Shalom during our famous Hora dance set.  The music is pretty simple, and if you can sightread just a little, we’d like you to join us - just come a little early to practice, and it’ll be fun!  

For those who don’t play instruments, we have another way for you to help in the celebration: we need you to come and share your stories about some of the funny, exciting, moving things that have happened to us as a group over the last 18 years. Maybe you were at the first Shir Hadash service.  Or that service, the first year, with the puppet lady.  Or the Purim service a few years later with the guy in the loincloth. (Seriously. He didn’t tell anyone beforehand.)   Or you were at our concert with Debbie Friedman. Or you were one of the first adults to celebrate their bar or bat mitzvah with us. Or maybe you want to tell about how Shir Hadash people showed up at your parent’s shiva. Or you want to share how Shir Hadash helped your child to celebrate an incredible bar or bat mitzvah. Maybe you don’t have a story, but you want to hear all of these other stories.  (Including the ones about the puppet lady and the guy in the loincloth.)  You get the picture - come and share!  

So, don’t miss this - it’ll only happen once!  Of course, please bring something for the oneg.  And it shouldn’t be 18 years old...  

Adult Education

Still More Jewish Thinkers: "I, Thou and Martin Buber"
On Sunday, April 7 (9:30 at Hellenic), we continue our discussion of modern Jewish thinkers with perhaps the best-known one: Martin Buber.  Buber became very popular in the 1960s for his "I and Thou" concept of how we each encounter God in a personal way.  But what room does that concept leave for tradition, religion, observance?  And how does it fit in with Buber's very strong Zionism?  All good questions, and important issues that we'll talk about. Click here for is a very brief summary of Buber's ideas.  We'll delve into these topics on Sunday morning - see you then!

“When Slaves in Egypt Owned Slaves in Virginia”Did you know that some blacks from the South have the surname Levine? Do you want to know how Jews in the South differed from their Northern cousins? Did you see the play "The Whipping Man " recently at the Northlight Theater? Come join a discussion at the Hellenic Center on Sunday April 7 at 10:30 am led by Meryl Abensohn  For more info, contact Meryl at abenkras@aol.com

The Rabbi’s Corner

April 5-6, 2013 / 26 Nisan 5773Shabbat SheminiTorah: Leviticus 9:1 - 11:47 / Haftarah: II Samuel 6:1 - 7:17
“Making the Most of Life”
Dear Friends,
Did Nadav and Avihu deserve to die?  The two sons of Aaron, essentially priests in training, were just fooling around with the sacrificial altar.  I am sure they thought that no one would find out what they were doing and that it would be a lot of fun to offer ‘strange fire’ on the altar in the Tabernacle tent.  After all, they were favored princes of Israel.  They were sons of Aaron and amongst the elite, with everything going for them and everything available to them.  Yet, they chose to act in an irresponsible manner that brought them down from their favored position of leadership.  Whatever they were doing ended in tragedy as fire leapt out from the altar and killed them.  Their action was unbecoming of their status and disrespectful of all that the Children of Israel and even God had invested in them….

To read the rest of The Rabbi’s Corner, click here to visit our website.

Community News

Israel Solidarity Day JUF is hosting its annual Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration at the 2013 Israel Solidarity Day, which will be held on Sunday, April 28th at Ravinia Festival in Highland Park.  Event highlights will include the Walk with Israel, fabulous all-day entertainment in Ravinia’s Pavilion featuring the King David Drummers, The Maccabeats and Matisyahu - acoustic, food for purchase and festivities for all ages.The day’s agenda is as follows:
10:00 a.m. Teen J-Serve Project* (on site)11:00 a.m. Registration opens11:30 a.m. King David Drummers12:15 p.m. The Maccabeats1:00 p.m. Israel Solidarity Day Kickoff Rally1:15 p.m. Three-Mile Walk with Israel & One-Mile Family Walk2:30 p.m. King David Drummers3:00 p.m. Matisyahu - acoustic4:00 p.m. Program concludes
* 8th to 12th graders are invited to participate in a city-wide service project.
For detailed information and registration, visit the JUF website.

Film Recommendation: REFUGE: Stories of the Self-Help Home In honor of Yom HaShoash, WTTW Channel 11 is broadcasting the award-winning documentary, 'REFUGE: Stories of the Self-Help Home" created by filmmaker Ethan Bensinger. This moving documentary reaches back more than 70 years to tell the stories of Chicago’s final generation of Holocaust survivors, and explores a local community that has given shelter to more than 1000 victims of Nazi persecution from Central Europe. (The film also features a score composed by Steve Zoloto, the son of Shir Hadash’s own Lillian Zoloto!) Channel 11 will show REFUGE  at 9 p.m. on Thursday, April 4, with rebroadcasts at 3pm on April 5 and 7.

Parent & Family Connection for LGBTQ Jews Is your child gay, lesbian, transgender, queer, or questioning? Do you want to talk to other Jewish families with LGBTQ children? If so, join the monthly discussions with Parent & Family Connection for LGBTQ Jews in Chicagoland. Upcoming meetings will be held on April 22 and May 20. Upcoming topics will include: transgender youth; passing--who knows, who doesn’t know; navigating a hetero-sexist world; healthy relationships and violence in the GLBTQ community; and conversation about creating inclusive communities.

With support from Keshet, Response provides group support for those dealing with any stage of the coming out process. Response helps adolescents in the Jewish and general community develop skills in communication, decision-making and leadership necessary to deal with life’s challenges. Response is a program of JCFS, a partner in serving our community, supported by the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation.