Our deepest condolences to Michele Lyons on the recent death of her beloved father – May his memory be a blessing to Michele and all who knew and loved him.  We also wish strength and courage to all her family in light of the grave illness of her young cousin.

Mazal Tov to Laurance, Cedar, Logan, Sage, and Lily Price on their wonderful new home, land, and orchards in Poulsbo. We know it will be a place of laughter, creativity, growth, adventure, hard work, and bounty.  It was a joy seeing this lovely old house with new life in it, and having the opportunity to meet Laurance’s brother and niece, visiting from England, at services, Sukkot, and home remodeling!

Our deepest thanks to Cay and her family for housing, organizing, and maintaining the chavurah’s fairly extensive library in their home for these many years, to all those who contributed to the collection, and, when its usefulness was no more, to Dee for moving the entire library to Poulsbo, organizing and setting out all in it for the book sale, and finally, schlepping those that remained as donations to the Bainbridge library book sale.

A big thank you to Denise Brown for representing Shir Hayam at the Bainbridge Island Crop Walk each year. 20% of the funds raised goes to Helpline House Food Bank and 5% goes to North Kitsap Fishline Food Bank. Denise reports that with the matching fund, this year’s CROP Walk will have raised approximately $22,000.

And speaking of Denise, Super Suppers are a crucial part of our chavurah’s Tikkun Olam efforts and we owe Denise a huge debt of gratitude for her participation and efforts every month on behalf of us all. Help is always needed at Super Supper – we provide the salads and desserts for 40+ folks in need of a meal on the last Monday of the each month. This is an Interfaith Council project we have been participating in since the 1990’s with our Super Supper Monday night partner, Seabold Methodist Church. If you would like to help with Super Supper, contact Denise and let her know.

As every year, we are again very grateful to all who worked so hard to prepare for and participate in High Holiday services.

First, to Rabbi Jen, who collaborated so well with all and led such heartfelt and thought-provoking services at a time when spiritual resilience resonated and is very much at the forefront of many of our days.  And to those of you who shared your thoughts, experiences, insights, and readings on this theme, we are also deeply grateful.

Once again, the beautiful voices of our three Kol Nidre chanters – Audrey Barbakoff, Carol Shakow and Dee Axelrod – carried us into Yom Kippur.  Many thanks also to the hard work of Dee and Terry Cowen who led the Kugelettes through many practice sessions and the services, to the Kugs themselves, and the wonderful instrumentalists playing along with them.

The contemplative meditation at the Golden’s home and time to mourn together at Yizkor during a year of such great loss are deeply appreciated.

We are also grateful to the Fil-Am Hall and Rolling Bay Presbyterian Church for their wonderful spaces, and to all those who set up, cleaned up, schlepped ark and supplies, and made these places our beautiful sanctuaries for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

All festivities concluded with Sukkot and Simchat Torah – many thanks to Lisa and Zann for organizing and leading these celebrations, and to the Prices and Weisses for hosting.  To all our community in times ahead – a L’Shana Tova and Yesher Koach!

A small but joyful Simchas Torah celebration took place on Sunday September 30 at the Weiss’s home. After Zann beautifully chanted the last paragraph of Deuteronomy, Paul Travis, Sam Weiss, Tom Schaffer and Randy Rotter (a.k.a The Holy Rollers) took turns rolling the Torah back to its beginning.

As we passed through each of the five books, one of us closed our eyes and randomly pointed at a word with the Yad. Once we reached the beginning, Zann chanted the first paragraph of Genesis.

We then dressed the Torah and danced it around the dining room table seven times to the Simchas Torah Song (randomly chosen by Alexa® when we asked for Klezmer music!).

Afterward, while eating delicious treats provided by everyone, we discussed how to combine our five Torah words into a poem or message. Here’s what we came up with:

In other words, it’s on each of us to join together to bring about change. Given our country’s current political mess, we agreed this message drawn from the Torah is very timely and appropriate.  ~ Lisa Weiss

VISIONING MEETING DATE CHANGE

Wednesday October 17 – To help, please contact Lisa Weiss or Zann Jacobrown.

On Wednesday October 17, Jewish Learning Center families will be cooking and providing a meal for approximately 125 people at the Suquamish Community Kitchen (SCK), an all volunteer organization located on the Port Madison Indian Reservation at the UUC Church on Division Ave. in Suquamish.

Every Wednesday, SCK volunteers prepare and serve a nutritious dinner to a diverse population of about 125 people of all ages, races, ethnic backgrounds, physical abilities, economic statuses, and religions. For health code reasons, all meal prep must be done in the UUC’s commercial kitchen. We will prepare a main meat dish, salad, vegetable/side, bread, dessert, milk, tea and coffee. The exact menu will depend on what we find on sale that week. Ways you can help:

• Provide a dessert cooked at your home. Desserts can be cooked at home. So if you’d like to bake/provide a dessert, please let Lisa or Zann know and please plan to deliver to either of them no later than Wednesday 10/17 at 11 am, or you can drop it off at the UUC church after 3 pm.
• Give a donation of money towards food shopping. The best way to do this is to make a check payable to Suquamish Community Kitchen. They are a 501c3 non-profit organization. We will pass it along to them. (SCK will reimburse us up to $225 regardless of any monetary donations made.)
• Donate gently used clothes. Prior to and during the meal, a donation table is set up with clothing for families to sift through. Clothing for all ages and sizes are needed.
• Help prepare, serve and clean up from 3 pm to 8 pm on Wednesday October 17.

Thanks everyone for your help! ~ Lisa, Zann and the JLC families

Please join Kol Shalom at CKS sanctuary for tefillah led by Rabbi Paul followed by our first ever Jewish Fair until 11:30. Representatives from Jewish Summer Camps, Jewish and Israel Programs and Jewish Learning Centers will be at Kol Shalom to answer all your and your children’s questions about the programs, eligibility, and scholarships. Coffee and snacks will be provided. There will not be childcare at this event. Both children and parents are encouraged to engage with the program representatives and build on our knowledge of opportunities for Jewish youth, teens and adults.