eMessages Archive 2023
eMessages Archive 2022
eLetters Sent
Sent Sunday, October 9th, 2022
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Posted Thursday, October 6th, 2022
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Good evening fellow congregants. It is hard to believe how quickly the days are flying by. In less than two weeks, we’ll be observing the High Holy Days together in person for the first time in three years. We have slowly been attending to all the many tasks that are required to ensure these first Chaggim services in our building are everything they should be.
You already know that our part-time rabbi, Moshe Meirovich, will not be with us as originally planned. You will be pleased to know that he has made steady progress and is scheduled to return home on September 22nd. However, we cannot know yet just how close he will be to full strength when that happens so, in his stead, his twin brother Harvey will once again grace our pulpit. All those details are already in place.
We will begin mapping out just what services will look like and when they will start and end later this week and will let you know as soon as those details are decided upon. Our reentry committee has been discussing and negotiating just what we will to do collectively and singly to guarantee everyone’s health and safety. You will see at the end of this message what we have determined as the status for the High Holy Day and Chaggim period. As you review them, please bear in mind that we want to guarantee that EVERYONE will feel comfortable and able to participate in person. Not everyone is keen to return to complete normalcy and yet we want them to feel safe from infection. As well, we want you to understand that we live in very unstable and sometimes very hostile times. We cannot take for granted our personal safety the way we used to. So the items below represent our best efforts to meet both the health and physical challenges facing us this fall.
All that having been said, we wish each and every one of you and your extended families a happy and a healthy and a sweet new year and we look forward to worshipping and feasting with you as we have in the past.
On behalf of your entire board, I am,
Dr. Howard Slepkov, President and Board Chairman.
PROTOCOLS FOR THE HIGH HOLIDAYS AT C. B. I.
EFFECTIVE FROM SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25TH THROUGH TUESDAY, OCOTBER 11TH
A: MASKING WILL BE MANDATORY IN THE SANCTUARY
B: PROOF OF VACCINATION WILL NO LONGER BE REQUIRED.
BUT VACCINATIONS ARE STRONGLY RECOMMENDED FOR EVERYONE ATTENDING
C: FOR SECURITY PURPOSES, ALL MEMBERS AND GUESTS MUST PRE-REGISTER FOR EACH OF THE SERVICES THEY WILL ATTEND.
- 1. REGISTRATION FOR FIRST DAY OF ROSH HASHANAH
- 2. REGISTRATION FOR SECOND DAY OF ROSH HASHANA
- 3. REGISTRATION FOR KOL NIDRE
- 4. REGISTRATION FOR YOM KIPPUR DAY
- 5. REGISTRATION FOR YOM KIPPUR BREAK-FAST
Posted September 2nd, 2022
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Dear Fellow Congregants
The Yamim Noraim or Aseret Yeme Teshuva are now only five weeks away. We are thrilled to be able to announce that it is full steam ahead for the offering of services in our beautiful sanctuary once again. We include in this planning, opportunities on both the first and second days of Rosh Hashanah for congregational light kiddushes, as well as a full break the fast after Neilah at the end of Yom Kippur. We are waiting and watching to see how Niagara Public Health views the status of Covid- 19 infections the first week in September. Only then will we finalize policies around masking, social distancing and so forth, but we are hopeful. However, desire does not always bring the result hoped for. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed as we all want to enjoy the High Holy Days together and in person.
Our High Holy Days team, led by Rabbi Moshe Meirovich and, we know, ably assisted by Fanny Dolansky, Serge Chriqui, and others are proceeding with the plans required to provide the community with a meaningful observance of the Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
The High Holy Days Yizkor Companion Book of Remembrance, which was produced in years past, is once again being updated and will be distributed to the community in the time-honoured way, the morning of Yom Kippur. We thank the committee led by Marlene Slepkov for their efforts, and the community members who have stepped forward with financial contributions to help cover the costs. If you have not done so, please contact the office and inform Serge of your intentions.
We thank the members of Congregation B’nai Israel who have stepped up and already met their financial commitment to the synagogue for the current year. If you have not yet made arrangements for payment, please contact the office to do so. Prompt payment provides us with the financial stability to continue to offer the programming, both in real time and virtual, that the community desires and has come to expect from C. B. I.. As you know, your commitment can be met by credit card, cheque, cash, or the novel idea of stock transfer. In these troubled times, filled with expressions of hate and intolerance in so many places, our synagogue remains our strongest defence and a voice of reason against these dangerous tides. We must stand against these dangerous tides. We must stand strong and united.
We wish everyone a peaceful, and healthy, and sweet 5783.
Dr. Howard Slepkov and your Board of Governors
Posted July 13, 2022
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Posted June 29th, 2020
Dear Friends & Fellow Congregants –
It is hard to believe that it is the end of June already. We have had an interesting but mostly successful end to our isolation from one another and the return to much of what we were used to in March of 2020. We have returned to in person services and the serving, for now, of light refreshments. We’ve welcomed our first group of visitors with a visit to the sanctuary. We have even, although regretfully, returned to unrestricted funerals and shiva visitations. All these have been undertaken thoughtfully and carefully, always mindful of your health and well-being.
We are in the process of securing programming for the end of August and into September. Watch for announcements for the first meeting of the Yiddish club, a guest speaker, Yaron Darom, the Israeli representing The Jewish Agency in Canada, a welcome back to the veteran and a welcome to the new members of our congregation and community, and more to come. That’s just for the end of summer and prior to the High Holy Days.
We look forward to seeing more of you back in our facilities and greeting those of you who have never been in those same facilities. Have a wonderful and healthy summer and stay well.
Howard Slepkov on behalf of the officers and board of C. B. I.
Posted June 8th, 2022.
Dear Friends & Fellow Congregants
It seemed so easy at the time. Just close the doors and stop all activities. It was like pulling on the emergency brake in a train. You would think that starting up again would be almost as easy. WRONG! Each step back into our building has been unnerving and required so much forethought and preparation. But we ARE getting there.
Last Shabbat we had a very successful Shavuot – themed Kiddush in the upstairs social hall with about 35 souls in all. We had delicious cheesecakes, fruits, challah, wine and a good bottle of scotch. We are tempting the fates again this week not once but twice. We are offering up coffee and cheesecake, some frozen hamantaschen baked for Purim and fruit tomorrow morning after our regular Thursday minyan. On Shabbat, with many thanks to the Steinman family, we will participate in the synagogue version of Mark grandson’s, Isaiah Steinman Gould’s bar mitzvah two years after the Zoom version and will celebrate the event with pastries, fruit, coffee and all the other regular Shabbat essentials afterwards. I guess we can fly the banner…….WE’RE BACK!
Hopefully, you’ll be back with us. See you in synagogue, I hope.
Howard
Posted May 31st, 2022
This is just a reminder that Shavuot begins at sundown this Saturday, June 4th.
Shavuot is the third of the three harvest festivals. Succot and Pesach are the other two. Since we no longer observe the festival at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, modern Jewry has adopted a new tradition, the eating of dairy products and foodstuffs, just like in the graphic. Of course, that is in addition to the mitzvah of hearing the Ten Commandments read in the synagogue and participating in the Yizkor service on the second day of the festival.
Please remember to join us after Shabbat services on this Saturday, June 4th for a light kiddish of, of course, wine and challah and then…..cheesecake, coffee and tea AND FELLOWSHIP. We’ll make it very socially distanced since we’ll set out foods in the auditorium, with a few tables and ONLY A FEW CHAIRS for our seniors. We hope you will join us. Then also remember to sign up for Yizkor service on Monday morning on Zoom with Rabbi Moshe Meirovich.
Watch for the invitation to register for both events later this week and don’t forget to register when prompted in the eMessage at the end of the week.
We are looking so forward to seeing many of you come out of isolation, wearing your masks, observing Shabbat together and then celebrating our community. SEE YOU ON SHABBAT.
Posted May 18th, 2022
Dear Fellow Congregants & Friends:
On our last day in Tel-Aviv, last week, Marlene and I took the train to the Tel-Aviv University train stop and walked up to the brow overlooking the fascinating city, spread out before our eyes. Our destination was the Museum of the Jewish People located on the campus. This fascinating, recently renewed and reimagined museum seeks to tell the story of the evolution of the Jewish people and our religious identification over 25 centuries or more.
The point of departure for one’s visit is a series of over-sized screens which show brief videos of contemporary members of our people but each is from another of the many diverse locations that our people have landed, so to speak, in the modern world. One screen shows a very traditional, orthodox man and another an enthusiastic entirely modern reformed, female rabbi and yet another one a young couple, partnered but cohabiting and seeking to raise a family. The videos, some 20 in all, are meant to present the visitor with pictures representing the diversity of practice of the Jewish people, world wide. Each of the profiled individuals walks up to the camera, introduces themselves, then explains just what being Jewish means to them.
The one thing all the voices have in common is their complete identification with the Jewish people and its collective destiny. Each seeks to define their Jewishness in various ways but they all stake out a claim to be a member of our very large extended family, the Jewish people. They all also represent different communities of practice but one and only one people. Am Yisrael.
Our people have survived over two millennia because each generation saw itself in a long line of succession, and each called themselves Jews, albeit of one kind or another. These videos are very powerful because they express one essential idea – it is good to declare one’s membership in the nation of Israel and we are stronger because we insist on the essence of our Jewishness, no matter what community we find ourselves in.
One way we can make our own contribution to the continuity of our people is by participating in the community. That’s why it is important we strive to keep our Thursday and Shabbat morning minyanim alive – not for ourselves but for the community as a whole. Please consider attending services this Thursday or this Shabbat OR both and make it a weekly or monthly time you set aside to support one another in the expression of our Jewishness. All those individuals I referred to above reflected hope and joy and a sense of identity.
PLEASE SIGN UP FOR SERVICES WHEN YOU ARE ABLE AND ENSURE OUR CONTINUITY IN A VERY REAL WAY, BUT FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL OF US. MAKE SURE YOU SIGN UP WHEN YOU GET THE INFORMATION FROM SERGE.
See you in shul.
Howard
P. S. Don’t forget we have in-person Services tomorrow and every other Thursday and every Shabbat morning throughout the summer. Make it a habit to attend. We welcome your attendance always.