From the Bima Blog

Dear members,

A warm welcome to our High Holy Days. While we are in the midst of a new type of high holiday season, we are so fortunate that we can still come together as a community to celebrate the New Year.

We are blessed by dedicated clergy who have worked tirelessly throughout this pandemic to support our congregation. We are just as fortunate to have such a committed and caring community. Many of you have been lifted by attending digital Friday night services, Saturday morning minyan, Torah study, and classes, or reached out to Rabbi Abrasley, Rabbi Berry, and Cantor Shafritz for care and conversation.  Many of you have helped us reach out to and connect with every single member and family in our temple community.  We have become stronger even as we have been physically separated.

We would like to especially thank the Temple Shalom members who have participated in our High Holy Days Advisory Group. They have spent the last few months working in partnership with the clergy team to discuss and plan a service experience that would respond to our need for meaningful ritual when we cannot physically be together in our sanctuary. We appreciate the efforts of this hard-working committee—Michael Freed, Susie Gudema, Liz Newstadt, Jo-Ann Suna, Jay Schwartz, and Sarah Ruderman Wilensky—who provided guidance and direction for our holiday observance. We know that the High Holy Days will be different for all of us and we hope that you approach this new year with an open heart.

More than anything else, we have learned through this long pandemic that Temple Shalom is a community well beyond the walls of our building. We welcome you back for this new year with deep appreciation for your membership, for our clergy, for our staff, and for our volunteers who have worked so hard to make this holiday season, and the coming year, the best it can be. At a time when we need each other most, let's remember that our clergy and staff need us too. Please join us in reaching out to each other, and to our clergy and staff, and sharing our gratitude as we begin this truly unprecedented new year.  

L’Shana Tova,

Temple Shalom Executive Committee
Carol Berlin, Scott Birnbaum, Alyssa Brown, Shelah Feiss, Fred Kraus, Judy Levin-Charns, Andrew Molinsky, Eric Sprung, Sarah Ruderman Wilensky

Temple Shalom Board of Trustees
Michelle Alkon, Ofer Ben-Gai, Mark Blecher, Edmund Case, Aaron Davis, Joshua Gundersheimer, Sharon Herrick, Seth Jaffe, Lovelynn Jensen, Will Korn, Elizabeth Newstadt, Valerie Pirri, Alissa Saginaw, Laura Scharf, Rebecca Schulman Havemeyer, Howard Sholkin, James Shulman, Jo-Ann Suna, Robyn Winik, Mona Yagoda-Ross, Abigael Yelensky