Shul News & Notes
Jewish Burial Ground
Rabbi Gadi Capela, president of the East End Jewish Community Council, has negotiated the sale of discounted burial plots in the designated Adrien Felder section of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism Cemetery in Calverton. Plots are available for purchase at $1,650.
For more information, call Rabbi Gadi at 631-477-0232, or email him at rabbigadi@gmail.com
Book Circle Studies Rival Dynasties That Opened Modern China
The next meeting of the Book Circle will be held on Wednesday, Jan. 13, at noon, on Zoom. The selection for the month is The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China by Jonathan Kaufman.
The writer tells the remarkable history of how two families participated in an economic boom that opened China to the world. The story stretches from Baghdad to Hong Kong to Shanghai to London, entering the lives of these ambitious men and women who engaged in opium smuggling, family rivalry, political intrigue and survival.
The Book Circle meets each month to explore books on Jewish themes and Jewish writers. For more information, call the shul at 631-477-0232 and leave a message for Susan Rosenstreich, coordinator of the group.
Random Reads: A Variety Of New Books With Jewish Content
- Lee and Me: An Intimate portrait of Lee Krasner, by Ruth Appelhof
Lee Krasner is one of the major woman artists of the 20th century. This memoir is full of firsthand material based on interviews with Krasner and with her friends, fellow artists, gallerists and curators. Often seen in her role as Pollock’s companion and then widow, Krasner made important contributions to the development of American abstract expressionism. The book arose from the author’s summer with the artist in 1974.
- Jewish Sports Legends: The International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, by Joseph Siegman
Following the 1972 Olympics, one sportswriter referred to Mark Spitz, winner of seven gold medals, as “the first great Jewish athlete.” He couldn’t have been more wrong. As this book shows, Jews have excelled at athletics for centuries.
- The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City, by Scott D. Seligman
On May 15, 1902, 3,000 Jewish women quietly took up positions on the streets of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Convinced by the latest jump in the price of kosher meat that they were being gouged, they assembled in squads of five, intent on shutting down every kosher butcher shop in New York’s Jewish quarter. —Compiled by Miriam Gabriel
A Big ‘Thank You’ To Our Lunch and Learn Presenters
The Lunch and Learn program extends a big “thank you” to all of our 2020 presenters, from our first program on Monday, April 20, with Ron Rothman, through December 31, with Rabbi Gadi. Applause, applause, applause to our presenters: Adrianne Greenberg, Marian Friedmann, Susan Rosenstreich, Deborah Pittorino, Cantor Melissa Berman, Ladan Shalom-Murray, Elizabeth Holtzman, Saul Rosenstreich, Nancy and Dan Torchio, Dr. Lewis Teperman, Ellen Jaffe, Francis Dubois, Roberta Garris, Dede Whitsit, Bill Packard, Cookie and Michael Slade, Miriam Gabriel, Sylvia Daly, Rachel Levin Murphy, Ellen Wiederlight, Jody Levin, Stephen Brumberg, Jack Weiskott, Kasa Bayisin, Josh Clauss, Sara Bloom and, of course, Rabbi Gadi who offered facets of Judaism every Thursday at noon.
Zoom at noon every Monday and Thursday in 2021. Bring lunch. Bring curiosity. Bring imagination. Bring an individual perspective and a willingness to connect to our shul and learn.
Oculus: Eye on Art
This month’s Oculus feature, titled “A Virtual Service,” is an imaginative and playful mixed-media work by Saul Rosenstreich, coordinator of the shul’s Judaism and Art group. To fully appreciate the artist’s vision, you can visit the source, which takes place every Friday evening at 7:30 p.m., on Zoom.
“In the warm light of our living room, sitting beside my wife in front of a laptop for Shabbat services on Zoom, I have often been struck with how the screen resembles a brightly lighted stage, and the keys like so many rows of seats below. I have imagined that the figures on the screen are in box seats to either side of the stage, and that the Rabbi is on the bimah in a different plane of space beyond the proscenium of the screen. The scale of the figures is obviously too small. But in spite of all these incongruities, I have imagined a spiritual space.
How to represent this feeling? Chagall’s floating figures came to mind, but not the fixed grid of figures from a screen shot and certainly not the laptop itself. The final result in collage and acrylic paint on canvas hints of the imagined space without a trace of the laptop.” —Photo by the artist
Get Social