Get ready for another amazing year of Jewish Culture School! This year we’re doing a deep dive into holidays and life cycles. The fun starts on August 27th, so mark your calendars and tell your friends! JCS is geared towards Kindergarten through Brit Mitzvah (5-14). Meetings will be mostly indoors with good ventilation and air filtration. Located in Pleasanton. TVCJ is an accepting, welcoming, diverse community of Cultural Jews and their families, affiliated with CSJO. Call or email us at (925) 399-8029 or culturaljews@gmail.com for an Evite or for more information about our community.

www.trivalleyculturaljews.org

It was a beautiful night to gather around the fire pit. Reproductive freedom is a Jewish value and a basic human right. We’ll continue to destigmatize abortion until access to this medical procedure is restored.

We learned about Persian Jews and made some Purim-inspired mosaics. Our Persian Jeweled Rice was a hit!

The sun came out for our Tu B’Shvat celebration! Thanks to everyone who joined us to sing in the Birthday of the Trees.

What a beautiful day to gather under the Sukkah! We built a beautiful one this year decorated with lanterns, pinecones and branches. We made an Ushpizin paper chain with all the people we want to invite under the Sukkah with us. Many thanks to Jesse, Minta and their family for being such wonderful hosts, to Sarah and Mark for the gorgeous Suminagashi activity, to Jazz for bringing fruit and organizing the lantern activity, Judy for bringing supplies, and to everyone who came and made our Sukkah beautiful!

It was a beautiful night to gather outside for poetry, introspection and music to honor our Yom Kippur traditions. Many thanks to everyone who joined, either in person or via zoom, and to Sophia for blowing the shofar, Judy for creating another amazing program, our readers: Jeff, Jesse, Solomon and Jazz, music by Judy and Jazz, and to Derek and Amy Greenberg for adding their moving song of remembrance.

We gathered together to celebrate the new year in community with a reverse Taschlich (we picked up trash to heal the world), readings, songs, and many blasts from the shofar. Wishing everyone a sweet new year!

So many people helped make the gathering so lovely. Readers: Jazz, Jeff and Mary Frances Colvin, Solomon, Rachel, Bret. Zoom access: Bret for setting it up and Kelly for hosting the zoom. Setup: Elsa, Ira, Sophia. Shofar blower: Sofia. Leading tashlikh: Jamie. Bakers and song leaders: Judy and Jazz. Organizer Supreme: Jazz. Master program author: Judy. And everyone who attended for 2 clean-ups – the tashlikh trash clean-up and the schlepping of chairs back into the building.

Our Rosh Hashanah open house was a lot of fun! We made delicious challah and scrumptious Indian apple halwa (pudding). We made Rosh Hashanah cards and planted pollinator seeds in plantable containers, to ensure we’ll continue to have fruit and honey in future years. And we spelled out the traditional Rosh Hashanah greeting l’shanah tovah with our bodies!

We now have a PayPal page where you can quickly and easily donate to Tri-Valley Cultural Jews. Simply scan the QR code or visit: https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/2326042