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TEMPLE SINAI
ADULT ENGAGEMENT 2021-2022/5782
After what has been a very difficult and dark time, the Adult Engagement Committee has put together a diverse range of programs that we hope will engage, enlighten, and inspire you throughout this program year. We kicked off the program year with Adam Stern, MD, who grew up at Temple Sinai. He talked about his new, highly touted book, Committed: Dispatches from a Psychiatrist in Training. We will also have author visits from Meryl Ain, who will speak about her book The Takeaway Men, as well as from Jewish Book Council authors Leah Garrett and Laura Leibman. Fall will also bring a visit from Pat Young, Special Professor of Immigration Law at Hofstra University; a program on how to create a festive Thanksgiving menu and table; a two-part series on Judaica in America; and a screening of the film Who Will Write Our History, followed by a Zoom talk with Roberta Grossman, the film’s director. We will also continue our meaningful Adult/Teen Conversations, now called Building Bridges, throughout the year, and new classes with our incomparable clergy will begin in the fall. Later in the program year, we will hear from Nancy Traeger, who will delight us with her art history lectures, and once again, we will enjoy Light Classical Concerts. We eagerly await long-anticipated visits from poet/liturgist Alden Solovy, who will spend a weekend at Temple Sinai in March, and in late April, Christian Picciolini, the reformed violent extremist turned peace advocate, who was supposed to have spoken at Temple Sinai in March 2020, mere days after lockdown began. Additional programs are still being added, so watch this space! I can’t wait to learn and grow together with you!
Adrianne Rubin Director of Membership and Engagement
For Zoom information or other program details, check your Temple Sinai emails, or contact me at arubin@mysinai.org or 526.621.6800.
Learning 3
Great Talmudic Discussions
with Rabbi Michael White
Offered both in-person and via Zoom Rabbi White’s dear friend, Professor Aaron Panken of blessed memory, had a series of favorite passages from the Talmud, Judaism’s most authoritative legal code. Each class will delve into one of these passages. Every one is a fascinating look into how Jewish ethical and legal issues are debated. The conversation promises to be lively. No previous experience is necessary. Two series of three classes each: Mondays 7:00-8:00pm or Tuesdays 9:30-10:30am. SERIES ONE: October 11 or 12, November 15 or 16, December 13 or 14 SERIES TWO: March 14 or 15, April 11 or 12, May 16 or 17 4
From the comfort of your home, go on a Jewish journey that is sure to inspire! Each month, Rabbi White will discuss a different topic from a Jewish perspective. Pour your favorite cocktail, iced tea, coffee, or other drink of choice and join the conversation.
THURSDAYS AT 5:30PM OCTOBER 7 • NOVEMBER 4 • DECEMBER 2 JANUARY 6 • FEBRUARY 3 • MARCH 3 APRIL 7 • MAY 5 5
Adult Education with Rabbi Ilana Schachter
PRAY. EAT. LOVE. Saturday Mornings - 9:00-11:00am led by Rabbi Ilana Schachter and special guests
Coming Soon! Check your email for details
Shabbat is a time for reflection, gratitude, and enrichment. All are welcome on Saturday mornings as we blend ancient practice and modern interpretation and immerse ourselves in meaningful opportunities for reflection, worship, and engaging learning. No previous knowledge of Hebrew, liturgy, or text required – join us as we learn from our tradition and from one another!
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wine, women&wisdom
led by Cantor-Educator Elena Schwartz
Now in its seventh year, this popular series, presented by Friend of a Friend/Chaverot, features Cantor-Educator Elena Schwartz leading interactive discussions on the wisdom of Jewish teachings. The sessions give women the opportunity to learn, laugh, and connect over a glass of wine while gaining insights into sacred texts. Wednesdays at 7:00pm October 6, 2021 December 8, 2021 April 27, 2022
SCoTCH and SACRED TEXT with Rabbi Michael White
sip, schmooze, and study Hosted by Brotherhood, this award-winning program takes place four times a year. We know you’ll find both the stimulating discussion on Torah and the camaraderie to be most worthwhile.
Tuesdays at 7:30pm October 12 • December 7 • February 15 • April 12 Locations to be announced 7
Events
Author’s Talk
SEP
COMMITTED: Dispatches from a Psychiatrist in Training with Adam Stern, MD
Thursday, September 30
7:30pm
30
via ZOOM
Adam Stern, MD, a graduate of (what was then) Temple Sinai Nursery School, is now a psychiatrist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. His new book, Committed: Dispatches from a Psychiatrist in Training, is about learning to become a psychiatrist, overcoming impostor syndrome, and the value of human connection. He has also written extensively about his experience as a physician and patient living with cancer including in The New York Times, the Boston Globe, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and the American Journal of Psychiatry. He lives with his wife and two sons in Newton, Massachusetts. 9
OCT
14
THE STATE OF IMMIGRATION ON Orchestra of Exileswith attorney Patrick Young, Esq. LONG ISLAND Thursday, October 14
7:30pm
via ZOOM
Patrick Young is the Downstate Advocacy Director for the New York Immigration Coalition, the largest state-wide immigration coalition in the United States. An attorney, he is Special Professor of Immigration Law at Hofstra Law School and the co-founder of the school’s Immigration Law Clinic. He also headed the Legal Services programs at the Central American Refugee Center and the Westchester Hispanic Coalition. As an attorney he has represented thousands of refugees and has helped more than 10,000 become United States citizens.
10
OCT
For Teens in Grades 8-12 Starts Tuesday, October 19
7:00pm
19 MAR
1
APR
via ZOOM
Adults and teens come together to discuss various topics and exchange personal perspectives with one another.
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This year’s three sessions will be focused on storytelling and learning from and about each other.
Class Topics: What parts of your life have influenced you the most? What makes each of us unique? Who are your heroes? 11
OCT
Author’s Talk
21 The TAKEAWAY MEN author Meryl Ain Thursday, October 21
7:30pm
via ZOOM
With the cloud of the Holocaust still looming over them, twin sisters Bronka and Johanna Lubinski and their parents arrive in the US from a Displaced Persons Camp. Years later, the discovery of a former Nazi hiding in their community brings the Holocaust out of the shadows. As the girls get older, they start to wonder about their parents’ pasts, and they begin to demand answers. But it soon becomes clear that those memories will be more difficult and painful to uncover than they could have anticipated. Poignant and haunting, The Takeaway Men explores the impact of immigration, identity, prejudice, secrets, and lies on parents and children in mid-twentieth-century America.
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Dr. Meryl Ain is a writer, author, and career educator. Her debut novel, published in August 2020, is the result of her life-long quest to learn more about the Holocaust. Both the American Fiction Awards and the Best Book Awards named The Takeaway Men winner in the category of Historical Fiction.
KRISTALLNACHT
NOV
7
the night of broken glass
Sunday, November 7
4:00pm
via ZOOM
with Rachel Malmed Epstein
a survivor of Nazi-controlled France whose parents were killed in Auschwitz
In June, 1942, in a city just north of Paris, Srul and Chana Malmed were removed from their apartment under the orders of the Germans in charge.They were sent to Auschwitz and never returned. 10-year-old Rachel and her five-year-old brother, Leon, were taken in by their gentile neighbors, Henri and Suzanne Riboleau. Despite great risk to their lives - and the lives of their two teenaged sons - the Riboleaus cared for the children for the remainder of the war and beyond. Join us as Rachel shares her story through film and personal memories. 13
NOV
9
Tuesday, November 9
1:00pm
via ZOOM
Cantors Sergei and Elena will be joined by Barry Tucker, son of the late Richard Tucker, who was unquestionably America’s greatest tenor. Barry serves as president of the Richard Tucker Foundation, a non-profit cultural organization dedicated to perpetuating the artistic legacy of the American tenor through the support and advancement of the careers of talented American opera singers by bringing opera into the community. 14
NOV
with Alicia Gitlitz & Rachel Graham Wednesday, November 10
11:00am
10
via ZOOM
This year we have so much to be grateful for. Let’s celebrate gratitude and the fall harvest as we learn how to create the perfect Thanksgiving gathering for our loved ones. Alicia & Rachel are back to help us stay on track for a healthy, happy, and festive Thanksgiving. Join us for recipes, table decor ideas, health and wellness tips, and more.
Co-sponsored by Friend of a Friend/Chaverot
15
NOV
17
Steven Chassman & the team from
LICADD present
Wednesday, November 17
16
7:30pm
Location to be announced
Author’s Talk
X TROOP
THE SECRET JEWISH COMMANDOS OF WORLD WAR II
Thursday, November 18
NOV
Leah GarretT
18
7:30pm Via ZOOM
In 1942, desperate to turn the tide of war, Winston Churchill created the X Troop, a top-secret commando unit made up of Holocaust survivors from Austria and Germany who came to the UK on Kindertransport. The men of X Troop, who had to take on fake British names and personas, were used both as commandos—killing the Nazis—and in counterintelligence—interrogating the enemy on the battlefield. To uncover this incredible story, author and historian Leah Garrett declassified top-secret files, interviewed living commandos and their families, and went through archives all over the world. Leah Garrett is the author of four books, including Young Lions: How Jewish Authors Reinvented the American War Novel, and winner of the Jordan Schnitzer Book Award for Modern Jewish History. She was shortlisted for the National Jewish Book Award and is the Director and Professor of Jewish Studies at Hunter College, CUNY. We are thrilled to be hosting Leah Garrett as part of the Sid Jacobson JCC’s Linda & Gerald Marsden’s Partners with the Community Program.
17
NOV
30 DEC
14
18
Steven Glassman & Ariel Paige Cohen returns to Templefrom Sinai for the team
Co-sponsored by Friend of a Friend/Chaverot
Judaica in America LICADD
Part I: Tuesday, November 30 7:30pm presents
via ZOOM
Part II: Tuesday, December 14
via ZOOM
7:30pm
This series will be conducted in two parts. Part I begins with the creation of the country’s first Jewish museum in Cincinnati in 1913. Ariel will discuss the Reform National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods (now the Women of Reform Judaism) and its role in founding the first collection of Judaica. In Part II, Ariel will trace the changes in 1930s and 40s America that made room for a new kind of Jewish consumer culture, including Jewish cookbooks, visual books on Jewish ritual, and more. That will lead into a disucssion on how these developments made room for Jewish museums to become mainstream in the later 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s - and how the Holocaust affected the history of Jewish museums in America. By the end of the series, you will understand how Jewish museums were the original culturally specific museums the ones that inspired and paved the way for Native American museums in DC and elsewhere, African American museums and cultural centers, and more.
WHO WILL WRITE Film Screening and Discussion OUR HISTORY with Director Roberta Grossman Sunday, December 12
DEC
12
3:00pm Via ZOOM
Who Will Write Our History is a 90-minute documentary film about the Oyneg Shabes Archive, an extraordinary achievement of self-study in the very depths of hell, documenting not only how the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto died, but how they lived. With 30,000 pages of writing, photographs, posters, advertisements, documents and more, the Oyneg Shabes Archive is the most important cache of in-the-moment, eyewitness accounts to survive the Holocaust.The film is based on the book of the same name by historian Samuel Kassow. Adrien Brody, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in The Pianist, has the voiceover role of Emanuel Ringelblum, the hero of the story. Three-time Academy Award nominee Joan Allen is the voice of Rachel Auerbach, the film’s narrator. An award-winning filmmaker with a passion for history and social justice, Roberta Grossman has written, directed, and produced more than 40 hours of film and television. What sets her films apart are high production values, beautiful cinematic craftsmanship and inspiring protagonists. 19
JAN
9
FEB
6
The Contribution of Jewish Photographers to the Arts with Nancy Traeger Part I: Sunday, January 9 Part II: Sunday, February 6
4:00pm 4:00pm
via ZOOM via ZOOM
Nancy Traeger returns to Temple Sinai with a two-part program featuring famous Jewish photographers. The first session will focus on the works of Richard Avedon. In Part II, Nancy will take us through the lens of a group of photographers who had different subjects, styles, methods, and missions.
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Light Classical Concert Sunday, January 23
4:00pm
JAN
SARAH ROSE
23
at Temple Sinai
Performer(s) to be annouced. Check your email or visit theTemple Sinai website (mysinai.org) for more details.
21
JAN
Author’s Talk
Co-sponsored by Friend of a Friend/Chaverot
25 The Art of the Jewish Family Laura Arnold Leibman Tuesday, January 25
1:00pm Via ZOOM
Between 1750 and 1850, New York went from being one of many small Jewish communities on the Atlantic seaboard to the largest Jewish community in the Americas, a community whose size rivaled or surpassed many of the historic Western European Jewish centers. In The Art of the Jewish Family, Dr. Laura Arnold Leibman examines five objects owned by a diverse group of Jewish women who lived in New York during this time period. Each chapter creates a biography of a single woman through an object, offering a new methodology that looks past texts alone to material culture in order to further understand early Jewish American women’s lives and restore their agency as creators of Jewish identity. The Art of the Jewish Family was the winner of three 2020 National Jewish Book Awards Dr. Leibman is a Professor of English and Humanities at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. She is currently the Vice President of Publications for the Association of Jewish Studies of Jewish Material Culture at Bard Graduate Center.
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We are thrilled to be hosting Dr. Leibman as part of the Sid Jacobson JCC’s Linda & Gerald Marsden’s Partners with the Community Program.
A LDE N S O LO V Y Poet and Liturgist in Residence Friday, March 11 - Sunday, March 13 Alden Solovy, the world-renowned liturgist, author, journalist, and educator, comes to Temple Sinai for a weekend-long series of activities, including readings, adult workshops, youth programs, and worship.
MAR
11 MAR
12 MAR
13
Solovy has written more than 700 pieces of new liturgy, offering a fresh new Jewish voice, challenging the boundaries between poetry, meditation, personal growth, and prayer. His writing was transformed by multiple tragedies, marked in 2009 by the sudden death of his wife. Solovy’s teaching spans from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem to Limmud and Leo Baeck College in the UK, and synagogues throughout North America. Solovy is a three-time winner of the Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism. He made aliyah to Israel in 2012, where he hikes, writes, teaches, and learns.
23
MAR
23
Steven Chassman & the team from
present their
PANDEMIC EMOTIONAL TEMPERATURE CHECK Let’s check in with each other and see how we are doing two years after the start of the pandemic. The team from LICADD will lead the discussion and offer suggestions on managing our mental health and wellbeing as we continue to navigate this difficult time.
Wednesday, March 23 24
7:30pm
Location to be announced
RE FR SCHE O M DU 20 LED 20
BREAKING HATE: A Former Extremist’s Journey
APR
28
CHRISTIAN PICCIOLINI Counter-Extremism Specialist presented free of charge in conjunction with our local partners
Thursday, April 28
7:30pm
at Temple Sinai
Christian Picciolini is an award-winning television producer, a public speaker, author, peace advocate, and a reformed violent extremist. His life’s work bears witness to an ongoing and profound need to atone for a grisly past and an urgency to make something of his time on this planet by contributing to the greater good. Picciolini has spoken all over the world, sharing his unique and extensive knowledge, teaching all who are willing to learn about building greater peace through empathy and compassion. His involvement in the early American skinhead movement is chronicled in his memoir WHITE AMERICAN YOUTH: My Descent into America’s Most Violent Hate Movement—and How I Got Out. After leaving the white supremacist skinhead movement he helped build in America during the 1980s and 90s, Christian Picciolini earned a degree in international relations from DePaul University. He launched Goldmill Group, a global media and counter-extremism consulting firm. In 2016, he won an Emmy Award for his role in producing an anti-hate advertising campaign aimed at helping people disengage from violent extremist groups. He now leads the Free Radicals Project, a global extremism prevention and disengagement network, and has helped hundreds of individuals leave hate behind.
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Love to read? great books...great insights...great fun
Upcoming Dates Mondays at 7:30pm October 25 • December 20 • February 28
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Adult Engagement Committee Barbara Klein and Lynn Fishkind Co-Chairs Amy Braunstein Temple Sinai President Adrianne Rubin, Ph.D. Director of Membership & Engagement Barbara Blatte Charlotte Hollander Andy Karmin Ann Karmin Karen Lowenthal Ronna Niederman Joan Waldman Barbara Wallach Leslie Wollin Temple Sinai of Roslyn 425 Roslyn Road, Roslyn Heights, NY 11577 516.621.6800 mysinai.org Affiliated with the Union for Reform Judaism