In This Issue:
- MAY MEMBERSHIP MEETING ON HILLEL818 – SUN MAY 5
- MOTAS/TBH SEDER THANK YOUS
- HELP SUPPORT MOTAS: ANNUAL APPEAL TIME
- YELLOW CANDLES: TELLING OUR STORIES
- IN CLOSING
1. MAY MEMBERSHIP MEETING ON HILLEL818 – SUN MAY 5
Our May meeting will be a speaker meeting. The topic is Working with Hillel 818. As our speaker wrote, “Today, while many of our students live at home, they are still searching for meaningful communities and they are eager to find their place on campus. At Hillel 818, we are creating a not-so-far-“home away from home” for students on all three of our valley campuses! From Pierce in Woodland Hills, to CSUN in Northridge, and finally, to Valley College in North Hollywood, we are finding meaningful ways to create communities and strengthen our students connections to their Jewish identities.” Our speaker is Gary Cohn, Senior Vice President, Israel and Global Philanthropy, for The Jewish Agency for Israel.
Gary began a fifteen year career in banking in 1977 and worked in several banks including Manufacturers Bank, Los Angeles, Bank Leumi, Union Bank and served on the Northern California Advisory board for City National Bank. From 1991 until 2007, Gary was the Executive Director of Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco, a 2,500 member congregation. In 2008 he joined American Technion leading the Pacific Northwest Region for Technion University in Haifa. He joined the Jewish Agency in 2018 where he heads major gift development primarily in California. Gary serves on board of Hillel 818 and previously on the boards of the Union for Reform Judaism, Wilshire Blvd. Temple Camps, The San Francisco Food Bank, Bentley School, and the National Association for Temple Administration. Gary graduated from Cal State University at Long Beach in Business and was awarded the 2009 Distinguished Alumni in the College of Business.
2. MOTAS/TBH SEDER THANK YOUS
A big thank you to everyone who help with the MoTAS/TBH Men’s Seder. From those who shopped, to those who picked up the food, to those who helped set up, and to those who cleaned up afterwards — we could not have done this event without your help. To those who came and participated, thank you as well. You made the event what it was.
This is a living event, and our joint haggadah is a living and evolving document. This was our first year using it, and it clearly had some rough edges. Your humble Weekly editor apologizes for those edges, and we’ll work with Mark Singer at Temple Beth Hillel to evolve and improve it next year. We have our ideas, but if you have specific suggestions for improvement, please pass them along. You can download this year’s version from the bottom of our page for the event.
Passover is in less than two weeks, and (presumptuously speaking on behalf of the leadership of MoTAS), we wish you the happiest of Passovers. May your Seder table be a place of joy and storytelling, may the symbols you see on the table help shape the story you want to tell. May your Passover remind you of the freedom we are all blessed to have.
3. HELP SUPPORT MOTAS: ANNUAL APPEAL TIME
In 2012, the Men of TAS eliminated the dues requirement for membership. We moved to an inclusive model where every man in TAS is part of the Men of Temple Ahavat Shalom. Since we don’t have dues, we don’t have steady revenue. So, every year Men of TAS asks you to support our work financially. We do an annual appeal that starts around the time of the MoTAS Shabbat, and continues until the end of May. We depend upon you, our members, to keep this group going. We may disagree at times, but we look past those disagreements in the spirit of friendship and brotherhood, and working together to further the congregation.
By now, you should have received our Annual Appeal letter. You can also find the message on our support page at http://support.tasnorthridge-motas.org/. On that page, you can find a printable donation form that you can mail in, as well as a link to contribute online. It is through your contributions that MoTAS is able to do that work that we do for the congregation. Please think about how much MoTAS means to the congregation, and how much the relationships you have with MoTAS mean to you. Then add 20%, and make a donation :-). Seriously, the MoTAS leadership works hard to make MoTAS valuable to you and the congregation. This is your chance to let us know what we mean to you.
See your friends and fellow congregants that have really stepped up to support us on our website’s Wall of Honor at http://wallofhonor.tasnorthridge-motas.org/. Join the Wall of Honor yourself by donating $100 or more. Your generous gift will provide fun events for all Temple members, kids to adults, teachers and staff. Continue to repair and improve our facilities. Most importantly, it will help us continue teaching and living the Jewish values that guide and enrich all our lives.
4. YELLOW CANDLES: TELLING OUR STORIES
New in 2019: the FJMC Yom HaShoah Yellow CandleTM program requests your participation in a new project to shed light on what the Holocaust means to us. Lighting Yellow Candles honors the Six Million Jews who perished in the Holocaust through home and community observance. Telling our stories is important, as each of our stories is unique and taken together all of these stories provide a powerful lesson to coming generations. Zachor! Never Again!
By now, you should have received your Yom HaShoah Yellow Candles in support of the observance of Yom HaShoah 2019/5779. MoTAS mails the Yom HaShoah candles to all members of the congregation; we depend on your support — either by a Yellow Candle donation or donating to our Annual Appeal, to cover our costs in doing so. The Yom HaShoah candle program is an effort of the Federation of Jewish Men’s Club (the Conservative Men’s Club organization), working with the Men of Reform Judaism.
To honor the Holocaust and teach about it, we are asking you to tell your story: write, or make, or share videos about what the Holocaust means to you. If your family immigrated before the Holocaust but had family members who did not and were murdered in Europe, please contribute your thoughts as well. Pictures of family members including second generation (2Gs); third generation (3Gs) the grandchildren of survivors; and now we have the fourth generation great-grandchildren (4Gs) and family heirlooms can be included as well.
Post on the Shoah Yellow Candle Facebook Page, on your own social media feeds accompanied by the hashtags #yellowcandle #neveragain and #fjmc_hq, and/or send them to FJCM via e-mail at info@yellowcandles.org and we can post for you, all leading up to Yom HaShoah, May 2, 2019.
IN CLOSING
As always, remember that the Men of Temple Ahavat Shalom is *your* organization. Keep up to date on our activities at http://www.tasnorthridge-motas.org/ and participate. Sign up for our action alert list at http://tinyurl.com/motas-action-alert. We want to serve all the men of Temple Ahavat Shalom and welcome new participants from the TAS membership. Join our Facebook group and “follow” our website. Come be part of the Men of Temple Ahavat Shalom!
Men of Temple Ahavat Shalom 