MAY 2018 IYYAR / SIVAN 5778 www.habonim.net Friends, Mystical ...

MAY 2018 IYYAR / SIVAN 5778 103 West End Ave / New York, NY 10023 ph 212-787-5347 / fax 212-595-3542

www.habonim.net

Friends, Mystical tradition teaches that the heavens open at midnight on Shavuot to receive the hopes, dreams, learning and prayers of those who remain awake to the receipt of Torah. Shavuot, known as z'man matan torateinu - the time of the giving of our Torah is an invitation to take note of how and where we are. We step forward as free people at Passover. For 7 weeks we count each day and each week until we arrive at Shavuot. 49 days are the blink of an eye or an eternity depending on the pace of our development. Shavuot offers the opportunity to check in and open ourselves to Torah - the Torah of learning and community, story and narrative, and spiritual and physical nourishment (if you consider indulging in dairy foods and treats - a custom of Shavuot physical nourishment!) On Saturday night, May 19, at 10:00 pm, I'll be teaching at the Paul Feig z"l Tikkun Leil Shavuot at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Avenue @ 76th Street. Join me for Come As You Are: Living A Life of Reciprocity with the Divine or study, learn and experience with one of the many other teachers who will be present throughout the night at the JCC Manhattan. As we continue to count the omer, and move through the reflective, honest and nuanced month that is Iyar, let us pay attention to the ways in which we have become free and mindful of what we need to arrive at the Hebrew month of Sivan, ready for the gift of Torah. b'vracha, Rabbi Lisa Gelber

Celebrate Shavuot at the Paul Feig z'l Tikkun Leil Shavuot at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan Join Congregation Habonim at 8:15 pm on Saturday, May 19, 2018 at the JCC, 334 Amsterdam Avenue @ 76th Street for an Interactive Study Session for our community members with Rabbi Gelber, Rina Cohen Schwarz and Sara Beth Berman. Watch the e-blasts for more information! The doors open at 9:30 pm for the ALL NIGHT EXPERIENCE that is the Paul Feig z'l Tikkun Leil Shavuot. Sessions begin at 10:00 pm. THIS YEAR, we'll co-sponsor, along with the JCC, a special program for teens at 10:00 pm. Our Celebration continues with Shavuot morning services on Sunday, May 20 beginning at 9:30 am at Congregation Habonim, 103 West End Avenue @ 64th Street. New this year, we'll offer a special blessing at the Torah for families with babies born in the past year. On Monday, May 21, we'll return for the morning service at 9:30 am and include the Yizkor Service in our prayers, an opportunity to recall those whose memories we carry with us.

From Our President Dear Friends: This will probably be my last Bulletin message, as President of Congregation Habonim. At our next annual meeting, I will have completed my maximum term and we will have a new President. I look forward to supporting him, as you have supported me, and would ask you to do likewise. In looking back, I note a number of changes that I believe bode well for our community’s future. Following Rabbi Katzan’s leaving, we were fortunate to find a truly wonderful interim Rabbi, Rabbi Barry Kenter, and then, a new, inspiring permanent Rabbi, Rabbi Lisa Gelber. I hope she will be with us for many years. Necessitated by Richard Kargauer’s decision to step down as Executive Director, to enjoy retirement and to be a full-time member again, we were fortunate to find a new, highly skilled Executive Director, Laura Lewis. Laura has already had impact on systems. Happily, when we needed to replace our Religious School Director, we were fortunate to have our own Rina Cohen Schwarz available to us. And, our membership appears to have started to increase again and, hopefully, that trend will continue. At this juncture in time, I find myself looking ahead as much as I find myself looking back. As a result, I am heartened about the future of this community that I love and which means so much to me. With that in mind, it seems most appropriate, as my term of office ends, to express my perspectives, hopes and wishes for our future. I see a community in which, much like a Kibbutz, the children of the community are loved by all, as if they are everyone’s children. The seeds of that experience have already been planted. If you attend services, you will regularly see how the children look out for each other and how parents of one child keep loving watchful eyes out for the children of other members of the community. I see a time when having a minyan and more for every Friday night service, and for every service on the eve of a holiday is a given. There is something elevating about praying with members of your own community, and the more, the merrier. I see a day when we will regularly have Sunday morning minyans, not just twice a month, but when it will be weekly and regularly attended by not only adults but by pre- and post-B’nai Mitzvah members of our community.

I see a day when Congregation Habonim is known for its embodiment of Chesed, Tzedekah and Learning, and when each member of our community takes pride in our role in each of those areas and more. I see a community in which our membership is increasing and that the members old and new are more involved in all aspects of our community’s life. In summary, we have a truly remarkable community. My hope and vision for it is that it remains as it is, but only more so. Interestingly, for us to accomplish that, we need to be open to some changes, because as a wise man once said “for things to remain the same, people have to be prepared to make changes”. Let us together make the changes necessary to enable us to go from strength to strength, and to be who we are, but only more so. Finally, thank you all for giving me the opportunity to serve you these last three years. It has been an honor. Sincerely,

Neil S. Goldstein

COMING UP AT HABONIM Kabbalat Shabbat Services Fridays, 6:30 pm: 5/4, 5/11, 5/18, 5/25 *5/11, following Kabbalat Shabbat – Shabbat Shehechiyanu FESTIVE ONEG SHABBAT, celebrating the successes of this past school year and honoring our students and teachers. All invited. Sign up for Oneg Shabbat at goo.gl/14BpUC. Shabbat Morning Services Saturdays, 9:30 am: 5/5, 5/12, 5/19, 5/26 Torah Tots (age 5 and under with parent/caregiver) Saturdays, 11:00 am – 12:00 noon: 5/5, 5/12, 5/19, 5/26 Tot Shabbat (age 5 and under) Friday, 5/4, 5:15 – 5:45 pm, honoring the Nursery School’s Purple Room this month. Friday, 6/1, 5:15 – 5:45 pm Sunday Morning Minyan Sundays, 9:30 am: 5/6, 6/10, 6/24 Monday Evening Minyan Monday, 5/7, 7:25 pm

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Queens Community Fridays, 5/4 & 6/1, 8:15 pm: Kabbalat Shabbat service Contact Inge Ballin at [email protected] for information about Queens activities.

SHAVUOT AT HABONIM Saturday, 5/19  8:15 pm, at the JCC, 334 Amsterdam Avenue @ 76th Street. Interactive Study Session for our community members with Rabbi Gelber, Rina Cohen Schwarz and Sara Beth Berman.  9:30 pm, doors open for the ALL NIGHT EXPERIENCE that is the Paul Feig z'l Tikkun Leil Shavuot. Sessions begin at 10:00 pm.  10:00 pm, special program for teens, cosponsored by Habonim and the JCC. Sunday, 5/20 

Parasha Study with Rabbi Gelber Tuesdays, 11:00 am Habonim Teens Lomdim (Grades 8 – 12) Tuesdays, 6:15 – 7:45 pm: 5/1 B’nai Mitzvah (at 150 W. 83rd Street) Saturday, 5/5, Owen Shipley Dean Saturday, 6/16, Avery Meer Religious School Parents Cocktail Party Thursday, May 3, 8:00 pm. Off-site. Contact [email protected].

Sisterhood; all invited; contact [email protected]  Sunday, 5/6 – Baseball game at Citifield. NY Mets vs. Colorado Rockies.  Thursday, 5/10, 6:00 pm, Women’s League Torah Fund Dinner, honoring Susan Grant.

9:30 am, Shavuot morning service at Congregation Habonim, 103 West End Avenue @ 64th Street. New this year, we'll offer a special blessing at the Torah for families with babies born in the past year.

Monday, 5/21 

9:30 am, Shavuot morning service at Habonim, including Yizkor. CONTRIBUTE TO HABONIM

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Congregational Meetings Wednesday, 5/9, 7:00 pm – The Real Estate Committee invites the congregation to attend a meeting to discuss specific elements of the sanctuary and outdoor space of our new synagogue. Please join us to continue the conversation about our exciting new home! Tuesday, 6/5, 6:30 pm – Annual Congregational Meeting

Saturday, 6/2, 9:30 am, Sisterhood Shabbat. Thursday, 6/7, 7:00 pm, book group, The History of Love by Nicole Krauss.

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Yahrzeit/Memorial Plaques Tree of Life Leaves – to acknowledge a special occasion or remember a loved one Prayer Books – book plate dedications for all occasions Kiddush Sponsorships CEMETERY PLOTS

Plots are available at Cedar Park Cemetery, Paramus, NJ, in the Habonim section. Contact Adina Rifkin at 212-7875347 x.100, [email protected]

Habonim Bulletin Coordinator and Editor – Kenny Altman

Bar Mitzvah Owen Shipley Dean May 5, at 150 W. 83rd Street Owen is a 7th grader at Hunter College High School. He loves sports, especially soccer, skiing, and biking, and is an eager traveler. During the summer, Owen attends Camp Nor’wester on Johns Island in Washington State, where he is looking forward to this year’s fourday camping expedition. Owen’s Torah portion is Emor, which includes God’s instructions to Moses and the Israelites on when and how to observe holidays. MAZEL TOV  

To Benjamin Dean & Ann Shipley on the Bar Mitzvah of their son, Owen, on May 5. To John & Deborah Meer on the Bar Mitzvah of their son, Avery, on June 16.

A very special mazel tov goes out to Hortense Lewin, who turned 100 on April 7!

Sisterhood Torah Fund Pins Please send a check for $180, payable to "Torah Fund" to Janet Schwartz c/o Habonim, 103 West End Avenue, NYC 10023. Torah Fund supports the institutions that educate Conservative rabbis, cantors and educators. For more information, please contact [email protected].

In celebration of Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel Independence Day, the children transformed their classrooms into various locales in Israel. The Orange Room was The Dead Sea. They set up a painting station using salt and blue and white paint. They also set up a sinking and floating station. The Blue Room became the Kotel, the Western Wall. The students made jewelry and built the wall with “brick blocks” and inserted notes in the spaces bearing messages of prayer or requests. The Purple Room became the Shuk Carmel in Tel Aviv. The Purple Roomers made and ate a special Israeli salad. The Red Room was Kibbutz Ein Gev. They decorated pots and planted seeds in them. All of the children made special passports and marched in a parade to celebrate. The children decorated blue and white cupcakes, cookies etc., reflecting the colors of the Israeli flag. It was truly a magical day. Throughout the school year, we have been enjoying Rock Shabbat on Friday mornings and Tot Shabbat on Friday afternoons here at Habonim with Rabbi Gelber and Cantor Halev. This continues to be a wonderful opportunity for our children to share this meaningful time together. Mark your calendars for Grandparents and Special Friends Day Friday morning, May 11. Our students will spend the morning with the very special people in their lives. They will also share Rock Shabbat together! Please join us on May 24 at 6:00 pm to welcome our new families, whose children will be entering the Nursery School this fall. This will be a wonderful opportunity to share our warmth and friendship with them. Our June School Program will begin on Thursday, June 7. It is a two-week camp immediately following the end of the regular school year. Many families have already registered and plan to participate. We are looking forward to it! Along with our dedicated teachers who made our new classrooms a lovely learning environment for our children, I also wish to reiterate my gratitude to our creative and hardworking parents who have given so generously of their time through their involvement in our Parents Association and on the Nursery School Committee. We could not do all of the things that we do in the Nursery School without their amazing participation. Ann and I want to extend our special thanks to all of them, with particular mention to the

leadership of Missy Kvitko and Lauryn Cohen, our PA CoChairs, and to Marc Mehl, Elisa Winokur and Maya Levy our Nursery School Committee Co-Chairs. Special thanks to Neil Goldstein, Board President, for supporting the Nursery School throughout the year. The Sisterhood also made the year extra special for our Red and Blue Roomers. They made special candles for Hanukkah and Matzah covers for Passover. It was a delight for all! The next time that you are at Habonim, please take a moment to look at the creative work that the Nursery School children have done, examples of which you can see on the bulletin boards outside of the classrooms. We have much to look forward to in school and the weeks ahead. Tina Lobel, Nursery School Director

Parashat HaShavuah: Weekly Torah Study with Rabbi Gelber Tuesdays at 11:00 am All welcome, no charge, no RSVP needed. The Sisterhood Cookbook, Timeless traditions, tasty additions, is a GREAT idea for year-round gift giving! $36, including shipping & handling. Purchase online at https://goo.gl/EkD9Nn or send a check for $36, payable to Sisterhood, to Congregation Habonim at 103 West End Avenue, New York, NY 10023

Religious School As the month of May brings these physical changes of: warmer weather (finally – our winter has been VERY long), beautiful flowers, and early morning birdsong, we also see the spiritual transition within the counting of the Omer as we finish up the month of Iyar and head into Sivan within our Jewish calendar. On the 18th of Iyar (May 3), we celebrate Lag Ba’omer, which is the 33rd day of the Omer. Traditionally it is a day of celebration, with outdoor festivities, which in Israel brings picnics, rejoicing and the ubiquitous bonfires with the requisite dancing and kumzitz. This year, our Religious School parents will celebrate Lag Ba’omer together at the Religious School/Youth & Family Programs cocktail party, which is being hosted by the most gracious Wendy and Alan Halperin. Many thanks to Wendy and Alan for hosting this fun evening of sushi and celebration of our Habonim parents. The month of May marks a great transition for the Religious School students of Congregation Habonim. We will celebrate Shabbat Shehecheyanu with our community on Friday, May 11, when we will formally mark the end of the academic year and move up our students to their next grade of learning within the Religious School. We will also include a special blessing for our graduating High School students. Our students will help lead parts of the service that evening, and it will be a true celebration for our entire Habonim community. All of our students in Gan – Zayin (Kindergarten through 7th grade) officially move up to their next grade of Jewish learning, a Shehecheyanu moment – during which we will recite the blessing for reaching this time with joy and gladness and gratitude to God. The words of the Shehecheyanu blessing are: Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech haolam, shehecheyanu, v'kiy'manu, v'higianu laz'man hazeh. Blessed are You, Eternal our God, Sovereign of all: for giving us life, sustaining us, and enabling us to reach this season. Our Zayin (7th grade) students have heard all year that their Jewish education is most definitely not over, and beginning in 8th grade, there is a shift for them into our Habonim Teens Lomdim #Lomdim, a more flexible program of socializing, learning and participation within the synagogue at large. There are a myriad of ways that

teens can find their own roles at Habonim: volunteering with our younger grades during Religious School afternoons, helping at Shabbat morning youth services, signing up to help at various programs throughout the year, reading Torah or chanting Haftorah for the congregation on Shabbat and holidays, and more. Please reach out to help make the right connection for your child, who is now a young Jewish adult within the eyes of our tradition and can find their own place within our community. Shabbat Shehecheyanu will also give us an opportunity to say todah rabbah (thank you) to our Religious School teachers for providing thoughtful, meaningful, creative and valuable lessons for our students and their parents. Our Torah, traditions and rituals and ivrit, the language of the Jewish people, all come alive within the Religious School classrooms, and it is all thanks to our incredible teachers!

Mesibat Yisrael – Israel at 70 – Tuesday, April 24

Robert Schlaff, Ari Schlaff, Danielle Kaufman.

For all of our High School seniors, Shabbat Shehecheyanu is a chance to wish them a mazel tov as they graduate and transition to college or a Gap Year program. We will offer them a special blessing, and send them off with a gift to bring with them in their life journey from all of us at Congregation Habonim. I encourage all of our Religious School families to join us at this very special service on May 11, with a festive Oneg Shabbat following services. This is a free event, but we would appreciate it if you could sign up in advance at goo.gl/14BpUC so that we can adequately prepare.

Cantor Halev snaps pictures while everyone gets their "dance" on.

Rina Cohen Schwarz, Religious School, Youth & Family Programs Director

Noa Girtz, Jennifer Girtz, Ellie Merdinger

On March 27, Sisterhood and the Nursery School teachers joined the children in the Blue and Red Rooms to transform white cloth dinner napkins into spectacular, colorful matzah covers. The children drew snakes, airplanes, flowers, stars, and whatever their budding imaginations came up with. We are positive that the Red and Blue Room families will treasure these matzah covers for many Passovers to come!

More from Our Mesibat Yisrael – Israel at 70 – Tuesday, April 24

Many thanks to the volunteers who participated: Deena Ecker, Jason Horowitz, Evelyn Polk, Mindy Sickle, and Hanna Solomon! ---Vicki Brown

CONGREGATION HABONIM [email protected] / www.habonim.net / 212-787-5347 Rabbi Lisa B. Gelber Cantor Bruce Halev x. 107 x.109 Laura Lewis, Executive Rina Cohen Schwarz, Director, x.101 Religious School Director, x.105 Tina Lobel, Nursery Ann Obsatz, Associate School Director, x.108 Nursery School Director, x.123 OFFICE STAFF Kenny Altman, x.103 Roy Ramsey, x.106 Adina Rifkin, x.100 Louise Rode, x.102 MAINTENANCE STAFF Matvey Khazanov, Jesus Guttierez, x.122 x.122

Please send all donations and payments to: Congregation Habonim c/o Kesef Accounting Services POB 418, Montvale, NJ 07645 Please inform the Habonim office of all life cycle events in your family: births, deaths, anniversaries, awards, promotions & other significant events. Contact Adina at 212-787-5347 x.100, [email protected].

Rabbi Gelber, Karen Sacks and our excellent dancers!

BOARD OF TRUSTEES OFFICERS Neil Goldstein, President Stephen Berman, Treasurer David Feuerstein, Vice Susan Grant, Secretary President Michael Harwayne, Vice Richard Verner, Vice President President TRUSTEES Mindy Abramson Beth Bornstein Jonathan Chariton Deena Ecker Nita Gottesman Wendy Halperin Debra Karlstein Jennifer Kenter Michael Massen Marc Mehl Maya Levy-Merdinger Jeffrey Moelis Abigail Schlaff Howard Stoffer Elaine Witkoff HONORARY BOARD MEMBERS Arthur Falkenstein, z”l Herman Lichtenberg, z”l Peter Mayer, z”l Marga Walter, z”l EX-OFFICIO BOARD MEMBERS (non-voting) Rabbi Lisa B. Gelber Cantor Bruce Halev Laura Lewis Saul Sanders John Keller PAST PRESIDENTS Elaine Witkoff Saul Sanders Leo Asen John Keller Carol Kahn Strauss Ralph Stein, MD, z”l

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CONGREGATION HABONIM 103 West End Avenue New York, NY 10023