Tamuz 5767 ~ June/July 2007 |
You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience. – Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)News from Community folks (happenings, questions, etc...)
It’s the month of Tammuz, a month of looking into ourselves; a month of reflecting upon our negative traits and deciding how we can improve them to move forward. As the moon has shed her skin to become new, so must we peel away the difficult layers of our past and move forward. Let us move forward into this summer with new insights, new energy, and new hope for the future. Shalom from Warsaw, ** The next newsletter will come from Boston as I’m moving back to the States. A bittersweet move. [ newsletter edited by Jordan Namerow ] Tammuz is the fourth month of the Jewish calendar, coinciding with the secular months June/July. The mazal (constellation) for Tammuz is Cancer, the Sartan (crab). Features Shiva Asar B'Tammuz (The 17th of Tammuz) is a minor fast day (fasting is required only from sunrise to sunset). Tradition ascribes to the 17th of Tammuz a number of tragedies from various epochs in Jewish history. The fast commemorates these catastrophes, the most notable of which are: - Moses' breaking of the first tablets of covenant upon finding the Israelites worshipping a golden calf; - The breaching of the walls of Jerusalem in the time of both the first and second temples; - According to legend, Noah sent out a dove on the 17th of Tammuz to see if the flood waters had calmed and if the mountaintops were visible. But the bird returned, signaling that there was no dry place to rest. The Three Weeks is a sustained period of mourning over the destructions of both temples. It begins on the 17th of Tammuz, the day of the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem, and ends on Tisha B'Av (the 9th of Av), the day of the destruction of the temples. It is customary to refrain from holding weddings or other celebrations during this period.
http://www.eurojews.org/event.html Registering to EuroJews trip to Brussels EuroJews trip to Brussels We are now ready to take bookings for the EuroJews weekend in Brussels, from Friday, the 31st of August to Monday, the 3rd of September, for which we suggest high-quality (up to 5*) hotel accommodation. The weekend will include restaurant/professionally-catered dinners, workshops and trips, all at great rates. We expect a gathering of at least 50 young people from across Europe to this event, which will be hosted jointly by Beth Hillel Synagogue (BHS) and the International Jewish Center (IJC), Brussels. This is a unique opportunity for socializing, as well as learning, for progressive young Jews in Europe. For full details, please see our website: www.eurojews.org and check out our cool new cartoon! -- http://www.eurojews.org/event.html Summer Party! If you would like to be a member of EuroJews, please send and e-mail to Beatrice Richman beatricerichman@hotmail.com * You will get this on-line newsletter, discounts on events, and other great things! Members' Forum (see the link from http://www.eurojews.org/members.html)...a virtual space for our community to gather - room for online discussion, fun, announcements, recipes, learning - something we have been hoping to create for a long time is now finally with us! Discussion forum for EuroJews. A virtual community for young-ish European-ish Progressive-ish Jew-ish people. www.EuroJews.org Google Groups Information David.Moskovic@gmail.com has invited you to join the EuroJews group with this message: You can accept this invitation by clicking Access to
the group on the web (this requires a Google Account). If you don't have a
Google Account set up yet, you'll first need to create an account before you
can access the group. You can create an account here [ where??
] News from Community Folks (happenings, questions, etc...) Dates to remember: --------- Tent events tent' in south London 1967 and all that: the 6 day war: 40 years on ' tent' theatre outing 'tent' at the ljs
'tent' in ipswich book now to avoid disappointment! would you like to organise a 'tent' social event? World Union of Progressive Judaism Theatre this summer My name is Josh Edelman – I'm a theatre director and writer based in Dublin, Ireland. This summer, I'm planning to come to Poland with my colleague Yohanan Lefebvre from Lyon, France, to make a new play about Jewish life in Poland today, about Polish-Jewish history, and about how all of this is changing with the EU and the new pull towards the West. We have backing from the Arts Council of Ireland and a few European Jewish cultural organizations, and we're trying to make a play that will add a vivid Jewish voice to the European theatre, one that can sometimes be a little lacking. We also want to try to understand what Europeanization is doing to national and personal identity on this continent. I think Poland is just the place to understand some of these things. It's important to us that we build this play out of the real stories of living Poles and Jews. To do this, we're planning on traveling around Poland this summer for a week or two to meet people and talk to everyone as much as we can. If you have a story to tell, we would like to meet you. We hope to have a translator with us, so if you don't speak English or French, that will not be a problem. If you would like to talk to us anonymously, that's fine. We will have a camera and tape recorder with us, but we promise not to use your name or voice or image if you don't want us to. We want you to feel safe to talk with us, to tell us what you really think and feel, and we'll give you all the privacy you want. We're looking for people with stories of what it's like to live as a Jew in modern Poland, particularly those who came to Judaism later in life or through strange and wonderful circumstances. We're looking for stories of what it's like to live as a Pole in the Europeanized modern world, and ideally, I'd love it if some of these came from the same people. We're also looking for people who can help us plan our road trip, and perhaps even join us for some or all of it. I've been to Poland twice, and I know that it takes a little bit of time and guidance to peel back the surface and appreciate its beauty. If anyone would like to show two curious Westerners with a camera around your beautiful country, we'd love it! If this sounds interesting to you, please send me an email or write me a letter. (Write in any language you'd like – I'll get it translated if I need to.) My email address is joshedelman@gmail.com. Or, if you'd rather, you're welcome to send me a letter at: Josh Edelman 120 Charlotte Quay Dock Dublin 4, Ireland |