We would love to connect more with those members of our community who are unable to make it to events in-person, and are looking for a few people to help in this effort by attending and recording and/or zooming events. If this might be you, or you know someone who would be able to serve in this way (volunteer or possibly paid), please email us.
Do you generally drive to events at Beth Israel? Do you have room for a passenger(s)? There are a few lovely folks who would like to attend events at Beth Israel but don’t always have a ride. If you’d like to offer – or ask for a ride, and haven’t already, kindly email Chad
**Join Us for a Shabbat Morning Service (w/Bar Mitzvah!), Kiddush &/or Afternoon Program May 24th**
Members and friends are invited to join us as Beth Israel welcomes Guest Leader Laura Wolfson on Saturday, May 24 for a Shabbat Morning Service at Beth Israel (and via Zoom – email us for the link), beginning at 10 a.m. and including Benji Beavis being called to the Torah as Bar Mitzvah, Kiddush, sponsored by the Beavis family. These are all-ages, family-friendly events. Click here for details and to RSVP for the Kiddush (required).
RSVP Required – Click here.
From 1 – 3:30 p.m. Laura will facilitate a Mosaic-making Project for the community. This will be a continued exploration of the contemporary themes evoked in the weekly Torah portion, through a process of collaborative design. Inspired by an interactive Torah study session (this will include a musical and poetry component, discussion, and might even include a scavenger hunt), we will create a beautiful glass tile mosaic, which will then become a treasured piece of art for our community. This project can be worked on together by adults of all ages, and children as young as preschoolers. Laura will facilitate the design process and teach everyone how to work with the mosaic materials. She will bring all the required materials for the project.
NOTE: please bring an apron to protect your clothes, or clothes that can get messy/dirty for the afternoon program. RSVP Required. Click here.
Laura Wolfson is a part-time Cantorial Soloist at Shaarei Beth El Congregation in Oakville, ON. She has also been a professional Jewish Educator with a Masters Degree in Jewish Education from Hebrew Union College for 30+ years. Most summers she spends time at URJ Camp George as a member of the Faculty, and she has facilitated Jewish learning activities at too many Jewish family programs and retreats to count! Her specialty area is developing and facilitating collaborative intergenerational educational community projects using a variety of media including music, visual arts, drama and storytelling.
Join us Friday, April 25 and Saturday, April 26 for a Shabbaton with Rabbi Aaron Rotenberg (Jewish Renewal – Annex shul, Toronto). We will welcome Shabbat together on Friday, April 25 beginning at 5 pm with schmoozing and songs, brachot (blessings) at 6pm followed by a potluck dinner. RSVPs required; please click here.
Rabbi Rotenberg will lead a shabbat morning Avodat Lev service Saturday, April 26 beginning at 10am (to around 11:30 a.m.) This will include some gentle morning singing and chanting. “Avodat Lev” means “service of the heart”, and our time together will be in service of opening our hearts to the peaceful and restful energy of Shabbat. Loosely based on the Shabbat morning service, we will sing our way into and through some prayers and chants, with plenty of space to breathe, as we move through the kabbalistic four-worlds of body, heart, mind and spirit.
There will be some guided meditation, time for silence and connecting with our hearts, and then an optional mindful text study on a section from the week’s Torah portion. This is an all-ages, family-friendly event.
Following morning services, the Vanek-McGregor family (Jackie, Brayden and family) are pleased to sponsor a kiddush (light lunch) in honour of Evie Robyn McGregor’s baby naming. RSVP required. RSVPs required; please click here.
The Shabbaton continues with a workshop: Earth-Based Torah for Healing a Fractured World, from 1-3pm at Beth Israel, where Rabbi Rotenberg will lead us in an exploration of core Earth-Based Judaism concepts based on Rabbi Natan Margalit’s book The Pearl and the Flame: A Journey into Jewish Wisdom and Ecological Thinking. We will look at some texts together and have an interactive discussion about how we integrate modern ecological and systems concepts with Jewish wisdom including Minyan/Emergence, Mikdash/Nestedness and Mitzvah/Tipping Points.
In our world where the sense of community with other humans and with the more-than-human world is deeply fragmented, these “3 ‘M’s/Mems” show us how to reconnect and see how diversity creates a holiness greater than the sum of its parts.
There is no cost to attend, but donations are gratefully accepted.
To register for the workshop / any part of the shabbaton (required) please click here.
Rabbi Rotenberg’s biography
I was born and raised in Thornhill, Ontario, the suburbs of Toronto, where I went through the Jewish Day School system. It was only in stepping out of the system and attending public school in grade 12 that I sought out and found Jewish life and community that spoke to my soul.
I graduated from the Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia University where I studied Bible, Psychology and Creative Writing. It was there, living in JTS dorms with people of different religious backgrounds, finding their way together and learning about the academic study of Judaism that I felt the expanded possibilities of ways that Judaism could be meaningful to my own life.
I then moved to Israel for 2.5 years, studying at Midreshet Ein Prat, Tel Aviv University and learning about the political situation by spending time with Palestinians in the West Bank. In Jerusalem, I was exposed to mindfulness practice in a Jewish frame and the close knit neighborhood community in Nachlaot, amidst other seekers, with frequent living room davening, collective support and supportive spiritual and political exploration.
I returned to Toronto, to pursue an MFA in film production and be close to family. Back in Toronto, I sought to be part of building a community that had the inspiring elements of Jewish community I had found in my travels.
I co-founded The Orchard, an independent, intentional Jewish home that was the site of community events, home life and many havdallahs.
I also got involved with international interfaith work through the International Conference of Christians and Jews, organizing yearly conferences and local interfaith efforts.
I stepped more fully into Jewish Leadership as the Spiritual Leader of Annex Shul, a downtown-based community mainly serving folks in their 20s and 30s. Being at Annex Shul, I sought further support and guidance as I began leading community and started rabbinical training at the ALEPH Ordination Program.
In the summers since 2014 I have worked as an educator with Heart to Heart, a camp program that brings together Jewish and Palestinian teenagers together for a month of shared society-building and encounter in Canada.
I continue to be involved in various positions of leadership since receiving rabbinic ordination, working with B Mitzvah students, couples and families in lifecycle moments. I was part of the Earth-Based Judaism Cohort at ALEPH, which helped me find nourishment in the connections between Jewish practice and the earth. I enjoy leading occasional photography workshops.
Recently, I have been part of starting Renewal Shabbat services in Toronto, to bring learning from my studies to people in Toronto eager for renewed and engaged spiritual life.
I live in a shared home with friends and family including my spouse, Jenny.
Tickets Now Available
Join us for a Passover Seder, Sunday, April 13th. Tickets (absolutely required) are $40 per adult for members of Beth Israel Congregation; $45 for adults who are not BIC Members, $15 per child/youth (5-13 years old. Children 4 and under are free) plus EventBrite ticketing fees. Individuals in need of financial assistance please email us. For more information and a link to purchase tickets, please email us. Sales close Monday, April 7th.
Please join us as the Beth Israel Book Club hosts Toronto author Aviva Rubin, who will discuss her book, White (no, you don’t have to have read it), and its relevance in our world today. Aviva is an engaging and entertaining speaker and all are welcome to attend. Come and show your support for a local Jewish author. For more information on Aviva, her book, and its relevance today, click here. Organizers request everyone kindly RSVP here so we have numbers for food and drink.
Details about Aviva Rubin and her new book, WHITE, can be found here: https://jccpeterborough.com/bookclub-aviva/
To RSVP for Book Club, please email us.
And save the date: Thursday, July 10th, 6:30 p.m. for a discussion of The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden.
All events are at Beth Israel, unless otherwise noted
Second Night of Passover Seder, Sunday, April 13, Dan and Len will lead. This is a ticketed event. More details to follow.
Yom HaShoah / Holocaust Remembrance Day, Wednesday, April 23.
Guest Leader, Friday, April 25 – Saturday, April 26. Rabbi Aaron Rotenberg (Jewish Renewal, Toronto) will join us to welcome Shabbat Friday night, lead a Saturday morning Torah service and afternoon workshop on Earth Based Judaism.
Lag B’omer Celebrations, Friday, May 17 at the Houpt farm.
Guest Leader, Saturday, May 24. Laura Wolfson will join us to lead a Saturday morning Torah service and an afternoon community Mosaic-making workshop.
For times and more details please contact: contact@jccpeterborough.com
Friday March 28, beginning at 6 p.m., led by Dr. Dan Houpt.
Join us Friday, March 21st to welcome Shabbat together. Doors open at 5 pm; kiddush at 5:30; potluck dinner 5:30-6:30, followed by Birkat HaMazon, songs and games. This is an all-ages, family-friendly evening, and all are welcome to bring a challah and their own candles/candlesticks if they have. RSVP here (new options!).