With services unavoidably cancelled, the Ritual Committee is working hard to find ways we can support each other as a community when we can’t be together in person. It’s very distressing to be unable to say Kaddish for a loved one, or to contemplate not sharing a Seder meal with friends and family. We’d like to share with you some plans we have for filling these gaps in our lives.

Please join us for Kabbalat Shabbat services via Zoom.  As long as at least 10 adults log in, we’ll be able to say Kaddish, so please consider attending, even if you’re not a Friday night regular.

You can join the service by going to Our Virtual Community here, then scroll down and click on the blue Kabbalat Shabbat Service button.

If you’d like to borrow a siddur for use at home while services are cancelled, we’ll be happy to lend you one!  Please contact the office for details.

Join us for Shabbat morning services in-person or via Zoom every Saturday morning at 9:30am.

Join the Zoom service by going to Our Virtual Community page here, then scroll down and click on the blue Saturday Morning Service button.

Just as healthy foods nourish us through the blood stream, so Jewish meditation nourishes our “soul stream.” Meditation can be transformative, taking us from the intellectual awareness of ourselves to a deeper spiritual practice that links us to Judaism in the most profound way. Each mitzvah, holy day and cycle of life has its own rhythm, nuance, taste and character. Jewish meditation is a practice of infusing their essence into our daily spiritual lives.

Ready to give it a try? Join us via Zoom (every Sunday from 2:30pm – 4pm. No previous meditation experience necessary.  This opportunity is free and open to all. Please contact Linda Wolf at linda@networktype.com for the online meeting information.

Our study group will not meet on July 23 or July 30 

Last week we completed our discussion of Jodi Magness’s Masada with a consideration of Chapter 9, which covered ”Yigael Yadin, the Mass Suicide, and the Masada Myth.”  We began by addressing the question of who occupied Masada from 66-73 CE and what happened to those occupants?  Needless to say, our responses were mixed.  Were the occupants 1) refugees from Roman oppression? 2) heroic freedom-fighting rebels standing up against Roman rule? 3) Zealots aiming towards a world Jewish theocracy who not only fought against the Romans but also terrorized other Jews who did not conform to the Zealots’ standards?

In our discussion, we considered comparisons that might be drawn between those who participated in what Magness called ”The Rebel Occupation of Masada” and those American colonists who opposed British rule in the 18th century, members of the Confedrate States in the 19th century, and those who identify as Al Qaida, Hamas, or the Taliban in our own century.  As to what happened to these occupants, we were not unanimous in accepting Josephus’s account of Mass Suicide, or of Yadin’s archeological corroboration of that account.  Josephus’s history was not based on first-hand observation; it may have been more of a literary work than an objective hiustorical document; it may have been written to placate those who patronized its author.  Alternate explanations exist for some of the assumptions made by Yadin.  Ceramic fragments may have contained names of those participating in a lottery relating to how occupants took their own lives, or they could have been labels for differentiating ownership of various food stores.

Our major takeaways from our recent study of Masada, were that 1) history and archaeology are not definitive, we should read them with a certain amount of skepticism, and 2) that both history and archaeology can be used in the service of mythmaking, serving the needs of their authors and audiences.  In the case of Masada, we cannot definitively rule out the accounts given by Josephus or Yadin, but we should consider how those accounts served to placate Josephus’s Jewish peers and Roman patrons or Yadin’s efforts to construct a new identity for Israeli Jews following the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel.

 We will resume on Friday, August 6, with a new topic,

Hasia Diner’s biography of Julius Rosenwald, CEO of Sears, Roebuck and noted Jewish philanthropist who helped to establish over 5,000 schools for African-American children throughout the American South.  Diner’s book, Julius Rosenwald: Repairing the World, Yale University Press, 2017, is available on a number of internet outlets.  Check this website in a few weeks for more details.

Our informal discussion group meets online via Zoom every Friday from 12 – 1.  All are welcome to join us, regardless of their level of expertise.  If you have questions, please contact Jay Jacoby at jbjacoby@uncc.edu.  

Join us for Shabbat morning services in-person or via Zoom every Saturday morning at 9:30am.

Join the Zoom service by going to Our Virtual Community page here, then scroll down and click on the blue Saturday Morning Service button.

Our study group will not meet on July 23 or July 30 

Last week we completed our discussion of Jodi Magness’s Masada with a consideration of Chapter 9, which covered ”Yigael Yadin, the Mass Suicide, and the Masada Myth.”  We began by addressing the question of who occupied Masada from 66-73 CE and what happened to those occupants?  Needless to say, our responses were mixed.  Were the occupants 1) refugees from Roman oppression? 2) heroic freedom-fighting rebels standing up against Roman rule? 3) Zealots aiming towards a world Jewish theocracy who not only fought against the Romans but also terrorized other Jews who did not conform to the Zealots’ standards?

In our discussion, we considered comparisons that might be drawn between those who participated in what Magness called ”The Rebel Occupation of Masada” and those American colonists who opposed British rule in the 18th century, members of the Confedrate States in the 19th century, and those who identify as Al Qaida, Hamas, or the Taliban in our own century.  As to what happened to these occupants, we were not unanimous in accepting Josephus’s account of Mass Suicide, or of Yadin’s archeological corroboration of that account.  Josephus’s history was not based on first-hand observation; it may have been more of a literary work than an objective hiustorical document; it may have been written to placate those who patronized its author.  Alternate explanations exist for some of the assumptions made by Yadin.  Ceramic fragments may have contained names of those participating in a lottery relating to how occupants took their own lives, or they could have been labels for differentiating ownership of various food stores.

Our major takeaways from our recent study of Masada, were that 1) history and archaeology are not definitive, we should read them with a certain amount of skepticism, and 2) that both history and archaeology can be used in the service of mythmaking, serving the needs of their authors and audiences.  In the case of Masada, we cannot definitively rule out the accounts given by Josephus or Yadin, but we should consider how those accounts served to placate Josephus’s Jewish peers and Roman patrons or Yadin’s efforts to construct a new identity for Israeli Jews following the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel.

 We will resume on Friday, August 6, with a new topic,

Hasia Diner’s biography of Julius Rosenwald, CEO of Sears, Roebuck and noted Jewish philanthropist who helped to establish over 5,000 schools for African-American children throughout the American South.  Diner’s book, Julius Rosenwald: Repairing the World, Yale University Press, 2017, is available on a number of internet outlets.  Check this website in a few weeks for more details.

Our informal discussion group meets online via Zoom every Friday from 12 – 1.  All are welcome to join us, regardless of their level of expertise.  If you have questions, please contact Jay Jacoby at jbjacoby@uncc.edu.