Av/Elul 5776

Call 206-567-9414 for event details or see our online calendar here.

September

• 22 CROP Walk Restaurant Day – Spice Route
• 25 CROP Hunger Walk
• 26 Super Supper

October

• 2 Erev Rosh Hashanah
• 3 Rosh Hashanah
• 11 Kol Nidre
• 12 Yom Kippur, Yizkor, Neilah, Break-the-Fast

MAZEL TOV

Best Wishes and Yesher Koach to Rachel Brown, Ellie Cowan, and Mira Rosenkotz who are all heading in new directions this fall.  Rachel, who graduated from UW this spring, is going to New York City where she will be interning for a Jewish nonprofit which does social justice work. Both Ellie and Mira graduated from Bainbridge High School in June – Ellie will be headed down to the Pomona Colleges in California and Mira back east to Mt. Holyoke in Massachusetts.  All of them have been vital participants in our chavurah and given much to our community.  We are so grateful to these young women who we know will continue to bring us and their families great joy and nachis.

A special Mazel Tov to Dee Axelrod and Sarah van Gelder on the joyous occasion of their wedding on August 27th.

HIGH HOLIDAYS 5777

This year the High Holidays begin in October – please look for our annual High Holiday mailing in September which will describe each service, times, locations, etc.
Erev Rosh Hashanah:  Sunday, October 2
Rosh Hashanah Day Services:  Monday, October 3
Kol Nidre:  Tuesday, October 11
Yom Kippur, Yizkor, Neilah, Break-the-Fast:  Wednesday, October 12

TIKKUN OLAM – CROP HUNGER WALK

Walk.   Give.   Change the world.
It’s that time of year! Please note that our BI/NK Cropwalk Committee hasn taken a different approach with Restaurant Day. Read & access the restaurant page frequently before walk day.  Save the date for Spice Route, Thursday, September 22! From 5 to 9 pm, Spice Route in the Bainbridge Pavilion is donating 25% of all dine in and take out sales to Crop Hunger Walk 2016!

Watch for the weekly auction of local gift certificates on our restaurant page!

Denise Brown is looking for walkers interested in raising funds  to join her on Sunday, September 25th for our annual Bainbridge Island CROP Hunger Walk, sponsored by Church World Service (CWS)! With its inception in 1969, CROP Hunger Walks are viewed by many as the granddaddy of charity walks. The walk’s legacy is deeply entrenched even in our own community; since 1996, the Bainbridge Island community has raised over $756,000 through 35+ local groups. We walk to protest resource injustices, to protect and provide for our vulnerable, to build community, and to show solidarity in a time of divisiveness.

The Bainbridge Island CROP Hunger Walk is one of 1,000+ across the nation, symbolizing the walk many around the world must make for basic resources such as food, water, shelter and protection. In a world where there is enough food for all, we are moved to action by the fact that one out of every nine people goes to bed hungry each night. With our combined national efforts, we raise around $10 million annually towards the shared mission of ending this worldwide inequity. Money raised supports food programs in emergency response, as well as longer-term solutions like enhancing food security and providing sustainable safe water supplies. Through our combined efforts, 75 percent of funds the global food projects of Church World Service. The remaining 25 percent stays in the community to bolster the local hunger-fighting efforts here. The 2016 local recipients are Helpline House and Fishline Food Bank.

If you are unable to partake but wish to contribute, please contact Denise Brown at 780-0931

CEMETERY

Announcing our Chavurat Shir Hayam Cemetery as part of Seabold Cemetery on BI

One of the most wonderful aspects of Judaism, to me, is the recognition of the significance of the different stages of human life – birth, coming of age, marriage, and death – with attendant ceremony, music, prayer, surrounding rituals, and even silence.  We have celebrated all these in our chavurah, but we have never had our own cemetery, which has given a number of us a feeling of incompleteness. We have wanted to provide that sense of security, knowing there was a place where we would finally rest with our families, friends, and Jewish community nearby.  This yearning is not just an impulse but
a truly ancient tradition.  In Prague, the Jewish community which administers all the synagogues and cemetery in the Jewish quarter took us first to the building for the Chevra Kaddisha (Burial Society) next to the Jewish cemetery that dates back to the 15th century.  In fact, it is an ancient Jewish tradition to purchase a gravesite during one’s lifetime, just as Abraham did for Sarah, and Jacob did for Joseph in the city of Shechem in the Bible.

It is with great joy that we can finally say that we have accomplished the purchase of a cemetery for our Jewish chavurah! Our Cemetery Committee has searched the island for a suitable place for our chavurah’s cemetery once it became apparent that jointly using the Pt. Blakely Cemetery with Kol Shalom would not be possible.  Some did not have enough land available; available land at Pt. Blakely was a bog. On a lovely day, you should take a drive on the island up 305 nearly to the north end and turn right at the small marker for Seabold Cemetery (just past Seabold Rd.)  Follow the road up through the cemetery, park at the top, and walk into the farthest back glen.  Thirty spots have been marked off for our chavurah there, surrounded by tall trees.  This cemetery was established many, many years ago, diverse islanders’ gravesites are there, and Ralph Bickerton, his family, and relatives have cared for this cemetery lovingly over the years.  They have been wonderful and accommodating to work with, and understand the Jewish traditions that will prevail here.  The glen is a lovely place for contemplation, and while the sound from 305 sometimes reaches up here, so does the sound of the wind.  We would like to mark the entry to this section with two stone benches so people will be able to visit and sit with their loved ones nearby.

Our Cemetery Committee presented our purchase proposal to the Coordinating Committee and it was approved at the Annual Meeting and by the Board of the Seabold Cemetery.  Our arrangement calls for the outright purchase of fourteen plots by the chavurah, which has just happened, and the sale of the remaining 16 plots to individual chavurah members within a reasonable time period.  We are envisioning this as being within one year from now. Each plot costs $500 with burial costs charged additionally following a death.

In order to purchase a plot, please contact Denise or Sharon on the Cemetery Committee.  You will receive a Deed, we will keep a copy, and the third copy will go to the Seabold Cemetery.

We will be meeting to discuss how this purchase can work most smoothly, develop protocols that will work well for our chavurah, best reflect Jewish tradition and our chavurah’s character, and establish a structure for funerals that will meet tradition and the needs of our members in a sensitive, loving way.  We would greatly welcome your involvement and participation in this process. If you would like to help on the Cemetery Committee, please contact one of us below – Sharon Rutzick
The Cemetery Committee – Dee Axelrod, Denise Brown, Rachel Kerbrat, Sharon Rutzick

 

JLC

JLC, Shir Hayam’s Jewish Learning Chavurette, invites families and all who enjoy spending time with kids, to join us for a warm, meaningful, creative, and fun Jewish learning group. Usually we take turns hosting in our homes, share a meal and explore a theme for the day with a story, fun learning activities, blessings, and schmooze/ play time. We will prepare for holidays and celebrate Shabbes, as well as learn history and culture, and do some serious tikkun olam—healing the world.  Our Jewish history touch stones this year will be Talmudic Sages, Golden Ages of Spain & Europe, and the Chassidic storytellers.

We had a beautiful beachside High Holy Day prep gathering on Sept 24^th with Reb Arik Labowitz and JLC’s Lisa and Zann.  Stories, songs, beach combing and writing about t’shuvah (returning to our truest selves), a delicious potluck, lots of outdoor play time—what could be better?

After the High Holy Days, we’ll start up our regular JLC gatherings again.  We will meet twice a month on weekends, either Shabbes gatherings on Friday or Saturday nights, or Sunday morning brunches.  Please let us know if you are interested so we can include you as we doodle our calendars together.  Contact us – https://shirhayam.org/contact-us/

warmly- Zann, Lisa and Araya

SHIR HAYAM LIBRARY

The chavuart received a copy of  A Lawyer’s Journey, by Morris Dees  http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/929177.A_Lawyer_s_Journey from the Southern Poverty Law Center. We recently made a donation to the Center as part of our annual Tikkun Olam funds. If anyone is interested in reading it, it’s available. Please contact Denise.

MULTICULTURAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE

This past Spring, Steve Soltar joined the Bainbridge Island School District’s MultiCultural Advisory Committee. He will be serving as a community representative (other members are teachers, district staff, parents of current Bainbridge school students and additional community representatives.  The community advises the district on a variety of issues such as curriculum content, disparate treatment and outcomes for students and school climate. During the August meeting, the committee talked about the recurrence of anti-semitism in the schools and how it might be addressed in the coming year. Teachers made the point that by teaching about the Holocaust, students learn about what happened to Jews (and others), but not about who the Jewish people are.  While explaining the Holocaust remains important, it may be just as important to address Jewish identity so that, e.g., students and the community will know not only that Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippor are the most important Jewish holidays, but also what they are about and why they are important. Teachers talked about the concepts of respect and responsibility which are important to all cultures and religions. During the Days of Awe we look at our past behavior and ask forgiveness from those we have harmed. A few of the teachers at the meeting recognized this practice as an illustration of the respect and responsibility themes they want to pursue during the school year. As the holidays come a bit later this year, there is time to put something together that would reveal more about Jewish identity and could be finessed into a comparative religions framework.  I believe these teachers would welcome help in creating and/or presenting this kind of material at several different grade levels. If you would like to offer your help, please let Steve know.

As a community representative, he is also a liaison to the MultiCultural Advisory Committee on your behalf for any related issues. This year the school district will be reviewing the K-12 social studies curriculum presenting an important opportunity to make sure that what students learn includes the stories of multiple societies and that the ambience in school corridors welcomes and values diversity.

 

INTERESTING NEWS FROM ISRAEL

www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the-desalination-era-is-here