Message from
President Harriet Stein
Dear Mishkan Ha'am family and friends,
I am delighted and honored to be your new president as we
look forward to an exciting year together. We are all very
pleased that our congregation has become so stable and strong. We
are fortunate to be entering our third year with our Rabbi, Benjamin
Weiner, who with his wit, intellect, and sensitivity, has proven to be
a terrific match and an inspiration for our congregation. We
appreciate the welcoming, stable home we have found with the First
Reformed Church. And our committees are flourishing because of
all the many involved, hard-working, creative members of our community.
Last year, we experienced a particularly rich and varied
array of activities. We studied and explored the theme of Jewish
identity. Our Havdallah topics ranged from the environment and
Jewish values, to two moving Holocaust commemorations, to a
storytelling party. We were involved in many Tikkun Olam
activities. We shared potluck dinners, Tot Shabbats, teen
services, adult education programs, and alternative services. We
also, for the first time, held our own Simchat Torah service, enlivened
by our terrific teen band, the Yiddish Groove Machine. And less
happily, but equally important, we supported each other during sickness
and misfortune.
We look forward to continuing this pace of activities next
year, to continued growth, and towards all the pleasures and
satisfactions of searching together to bring meaningful spirituality
into our lives. We will again focus our programs around a theme, this
year around an exploration of kedushah, or sacredness. In
addition, we will be restructuring our after-school youth education
program. Its name, She’arim/Gateways, reflects the multiple
gateways through which our students, and all our congregants, can find
their way into a meaningful relationship with Judaism.
I feel so blessed to be part of this inspiring, creative, searching, caring community.
Link to Preceding Newsletter
Please Note:
All services/programs, including Hebrew School, are held at the Reformed Church of Hastings, 18 Farragut Avenue, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, unless otherwise specified. Click for directions.
All services/programs, including Hebrew School, are held at the Reformed Church of Hastings, 18 Farragut Avenue, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, unless otherwise specified. Click for directions.