Music touches us in ways that words alone cannot. At our latest Jewish Cultural School we explored how the Jewish Labor Movement used music to help workers feel unified and empowered to fight for change, and then wrote our own songs, like the catchy “Wear a Mask You Fools” to the tune of Happy Birthday. We made our own pickles, a popular Jewish street food, and learned the Israeli Labor song Kadima Hapoel, Forward the Worker!

How sweet it was to gather together again! We had an epic Hamilton-inspired Purimspiel, games, crafts and schmoozing. Hamantaschen goodie bags are the best!

We joined our friends at the Eden Area Interfaith Council in February to contribute to the American Red Cross blood drive they hosted. Our team registered 37 total donors, collected 36 pints of blood, and recruited 9 first-time donors. Our efforts have helped boost the community blood supply and ensure hospital patients have the lifesaving blood they need.

We cWe covered so much ground in JCS! We talked about the migration of Jews from Eastern Europe to the U.S. and what it was like to go through Ellis Island. The Jews leaving Eastern Europe were looking for a safe place to live. We tied that into our upcoming celebration of Purim—our yearly holiday reminding us that tyrants have always existed and that there is always a need to speak truth to power. We made food that immigrants might have enjoyed—soft pretzels with optional yellow mustard (yum!)–and played some games their kids probably knew: hopscotch and Shimon Zogt (Simmon Says in Yiddish). 

Our Jewish Culture School students wanted to share this blurb from their 2/13/22 class:

Jews might have fought on both sides of the Civil War, but one thing remained the same: hardtack is pretty terrible! While most Jews did not support the South, we talked about how some Jews were able to justify slavery (hint: just because people did it in the Torah, doesn’t make it a good idea), baked some hardtack that really lived up to its name, and sang some freedom songs.

Two weeks ago, TVCJ held a Reproductive Rights Shabbat. We thought you might be interested in seeing this infographic, which shows how participating in Repro Shabbat was part of a larger conversation happening across the US.

Our Tu B’Shvat event at the Sulphur Creek Nature Center was so much fun. The Nature Center is located in a beautiful area of Hayward, sheltered by trees. Christine was a wonderful host who introduced us to a few very special friends: a rosy boa, a banded dove, a bantam hen and a chinchilla. We were able to crack plum seeds and pot them to take home. Happy Tu B’Shvat Everyone!

As the news of Omicron spreads, even alone in my house, I can hear the head-banging and the groans from all over the world.  Not again!  I thought we were done with this!  I can’t do this any more!  It has to stop! No no no no nonononooooooo!

Well, it’s yes yes yes.  It is happening again, the same thing, yet one more time.

Kinda like being Jewish.  We know all about doing the same thing over and over again.  Our holidays with their standard readings and songs.  Our seder – the same every year, down to the menu.  Our Rosh Hashanah resolutions and our Yom Kippur regrets.  

And don’t forget that in religious congregations, the Torah is read over and over, every year, with the same Haftarah readings attached, all in the same melody.  

The challenge is to find something different every year, to make the holiday or the reading say something about our present times, to learn something new, to find another way of looking at something we see over and over again.

That’s the challenge we find now.  We have to accept that COVID has come for us yet again and we have to use this as an opportunity re-examine our responses.  What did we learn during the Alpha and  Delta surges that we can use this time?  What’s different about this wave?  How are we different this time?  How are the people around us different?  What choices can we look at anew?  What techniques can we use against the tendency to despair?  In short, how can we make this Jewish?