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Shalom. You are cordially invited to spend the High Holidays at Temple Beth Israel of Highland Park and Eagle Rock.
Our rabbi in 2007 was the personable and erudite Rabbi Louis J. Feldman who conducted services with Cantor Ken Rothstein.
Rabbi Louis J. Feldman was for many years the chaplain at the the Grancell Campus of the Jewish Home for the Aging in Reseda, California. Rabbi Feldman is an expert on ethics from the Jewish perspective, having received his PhD in Social Ethics from the joint program of USC and Hebrew Union College and having written in the field of medical ethics. He's a very outgoing person and will be a source of information, inspiration, and enjoyment for us this Holiday season.
Cantor Ken Rothstein, a graduate of the Cantors Institute in New York, has been part of our temple family since 1988. Once again we were inspired by hearing Cantor Rothstein chant the Kol Nidrei prayer.
Children: Children are welcome at all of our services. There is a social hall adjacent to the sanctuary where children can read and play quietly, but parents are responsible for their children.
Special Family Services: Our special interactive Young Families High Holiday Services, with an emphasis on young children, were a great success. This is an outgrowth of our religious education activities, led by Ed Leibowitz. Rosh Hashanah family services were led by Mark Strunin who also leads our religious education activities. This service included the interesting and moving tashlich ceremony in preparation for the new year.
On Yom Kippur our Young Families service was led by members of the congregation and focused on the Story of Jonah and the Whale with an original play and song. The Young Families attendees joined our regular service attendees for a havdalah service at sundown and a potluck break-the-fast. This eventuated in quite a party that went on till 10 p.m.
These family-friendly, kid-friendly activites are a perfect way to introduce your children to Jewish life. Interfaith couples are specifically invited.
Admission to the family services is free to temple members, college students, and those who have paid for the regular services. For other families the cost is $50.00 per family, which covers both services. If this fee presents a hardship, please call the temple at (323) 255-5416 and we will make arrangements to accommodate your needs. You can pay by check sent to P.O. Box 421186, Los Angeles, CA 90041, or bring the check to the door, or pay by PayPal at the Money page.
The festival of Sukkot is part of the High Holiday season. Mark Strunin will lead a special Young Families Sukkot celebration on Sunday morning, September 30 from 10:30 a.m. to about noon. He will explain the Sukkot holiday in a way that is accessible for young children, and will perform the ceremony with the lulav (palm frond) and etrog (citron). This service is free. Please contact Ed at (323) 578-9719 for reservations.
We also have a Friday night Tot Shabbat once a month, focused on families with young children, and a bimonthly Sunday school class. For details on these exciting additions to our temple offerings, call Ed at (323) 578-9719.
Fees: Since it is against Jewish tradition to transact business on the Sabbath and the High Holidays, we can't pass the hat to support our activities. Jewish tradition is to collect money in advance by way of membership or admission fees. Admission to our regular High Holiday services is $50 per adult (children under 18, college students, and temple members are admitted free). Admission to our special family and children High Holiday services are $50 per family (temple members and "regular" service attendees free). If these fees present a hardship, please call the temple at (323) 255-5416 and we can work out arrangements.
Reservations and information: For reservations or more information, call (323) 255-5416 or write tbi@tbila.org.
SOVA: Again this year, we will be collecting canned and packaged foods for the SOVA food pantry of the Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles, which feeds 3,900 needy people a month at three locations. Please buy a few extra cans the next time you go shopping, and bring them with you to High Holy Day services. SOVA requests dry items such as pasta and rice, canned goods such as canned fish and beans, and personal items such as soap and toothpaste.
Sukkot: The Sukkot holiday follows on the heels of the High Holidays. You are invited to celebrate Sukkot with us in our Sukkah during Shabbat services on Saturday, September 29. We will have a lulav (palm frond) and etrog (citron) to show you, although we can't perform the ceremony associated with these ritual objects because this ceremony is not performed on Shabbat. Mark Strunin will lead a special family Sukkot celebration on Sunday morning, September 30 from 10:30 a.m. to about noon. He will explain the Sukkot holiday in a way that is accessible for young children, and will perform the ceremony with the lulav (palm frond) and etrog (citron). If you're not sure how this
Machzor: As you know, the High Holiday services are conducted using a special prayer book known as the machzor. For many years Temple Beth Israel used a machzor that was published in 1938. Needless to say, many critical events in Jewish history have happened since then. Thanks to a generous gift from Brent Sweer in honor of the Sweer family, it has become possible for us to get new machzorim, which we will use for the first time this year. We have selected the Mahzor Hadash (literally, the New Machzor), edited by Rabbi Sidney Greenberg and Rabbi Jonathan D. Levine. The newest edition of this machzor was published in 2005 and includes the traditional service plus many meaningful English readings with reverence for Jewish tradition, concern with contemporary Jewish aspirations, acceptance of diversity in Jewish life and thought, and an emphasis on participation and egalitarianism.
Dedication of Machzorim: We want to give everyone in our temple family a chance to participate in this joyous event. You can dedicate a machzor with a special bookplate inserted inside the front cover for twice chai. (Chai means life in Hebrew, and its numeric value is 18, so we request $36.00 for each bookplate.) These dedications will be seen by all and are especially appropriate to honor the memory of a loved one who has passed on, in the spirit of the Yizkor service we conduct on Yom Kippur. It will also be wonderful for the temple to have machzorim dedicated to honoring joyous occasions such as a birth or graduation.
Some suggestions:
Use the button below to purchase dedications. Type your name and the wording for the dedication in the fields provided, then click the Buy Now button. You will then have the opportunity to speicfy the number of bookplates you want with that dedication. If you want additional dedications, please come back to this page and fill out the fields again. Please note that your secure credit card transaction is handled by PayPal, not by Temple Beth Israel.
You can also send a check and the wording for the dedication to Temple Beth Israel, P.O. Box 421186, Los Angeles, CA 90041.
Your donation is tax-deductible; Temple Beth Israel of Highland Park and Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, California is a California charitable corporation, incorporated in 1923.
Thanks.