The First Narayever's Adult Education Committee organizes programs on issues of interest and relevance to our congregation throughout the year. As we see it, offering opportunities to learn in many ways is one of the key benefits our synagogue provides.
This year our theme is Let There Be Music. We’re using that theme to learn about everything from psalms to trop to klezmer. Stay tuned for concerts, seminar series and song circles exploring Sephardic, Ashkenazic and classical music traditions – where you’ll learn what’s Jewish about Jewish music.
At 7:30 on Wednesday November 4th, as part of Holocaust Education Week, the Narayever will host a presentation by the Roma Community Centre in Toronto. In order to teach about the Roma (Gypsy) experience during the Shoah - called by them "Porraimos" or "devouring" - the presenters will use part of the video Porraimos: Europe's Gypsies in the Holocaust. This is the first American documentary to expose how the pseudo-science of eugenics was used to persecute not only Jews, but also the Roma and others. A discussion accompanying the screening with Ronald Lee and Bill Bila will provide further understanding of Roma history and bring to light the striking parallels between the situation leading to WWII and the danger faced by the Roma today.
Dr. Lee, a Romani Canadian, is an author and journalist. He leads the Romani Diaspora in Canada seminar at New College, University of Toronto, as part of the Equity Studies Program in the Department of Humanities. He is a founding member of the Roma Community Center in Toronto and continues to be deeply involved with it.
Mr. Bila was raised in Canada, born to Romani Slovakian parents who fled the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Following work in Prague and Munich, he settled in Toronto and in 2008 helped coordinate OCASI's community display at the Toronto City Hall rotunda for Refugee Rights Week.
In keeping with the theme of music, Rabbi Elkin will teach a four part mini-course on the biblical book most associated with music and singing: Sefer Tehilim, or the Book of Psalms.
The course will take place over four Wednesday nights: Nov.11, Nov.18, Dec.2 and Dec.9, from 7:30-9 pm at the shul.
In this course we will be exploring issues ranging from the history and authorship of the Psalms, the connection between Psalm recitation in the biblical period and the sacrificial system, the extraordinary impact the Psalms had on the development of Jewish liturgy, and the similarities and differences between the way in which Psalms are used in Jewish and Christian religious devotion.
Above all, there will be an emphasis on the musical origins of the Psalms, and the important connection between Psalms and music in contemporary Jewish life: the Ashrei, to Hallel, to the pesuke dezimra section of the morning service, to many of the contemporary singers like Shlomo Carlebach and Matisyahu, Debbie Friedman and Don McLean who have set Psalms to musical genres appropriate for our own time.
To register, please contact the shul office – admin@narayever.ca, 416.927.0546. $5 fee for photocopying.
All our Shabbat programs follow Kiddush lunch and have a drop-in format - come any Shabbat you can. Programs run from about 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. All are welcome!
On Shabbat Nov.7, we will hosting Rabbi Arik Ascherman, executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights. His topic will be: "'Will you sweep away the innocent along with the guilty?’: Balancing Between Human Rights and Security in Israel."
Saturday night, October 24 In concert: Batsheva.
Un poco de Ladino, a bisele Yiddish, k’tzat Ivrit, and a little kibbitzing...in English. Join us this Saturday, October 24, at 8:00 pm for a memorable evening of Jewish music by international concert artist Batsheva.
Batsheva has toured Canada extensively giving solo concerts before enthusiastic audiences in every corner of the country. She has also appeared in concerts throughout the United States. Her latest CD was launched to a standing room only crowd at Ashkenaz 2008.
We’ll begin the evening with a beautiful Havdalah service led by our own Marcia Beck and conclude with refreshments. This is a great opportunity to welcome friends and family to a shul-wide event. The concert is sponsored by Adult Education as the launch of our music-themed programs for the year, but we ask that you bring a non-perishable item for the food bank as your price of admission.
On Monday November 23, at 7:30 pm, Rabbi David Forman will discuss the question - Can a Jewish State be a Democratic State? Israel is the only self-defined and self-contained Jewish community in the world that is responsible for its social, political, religious, economic and military decisions. Every one of these decisions has a moral impact on the nature of the Jewish state. As Israelis call upon the Jewish value heritage to create a society that is based on the prophetic vision of social justice and equality for all its citizens - Jew and non-Jew - they must find a way to balance the precepts of Judaism with the concept of democracy?
As the former director of the Israel office of the Union for Reform Judaism and the founder of Israeli Rabbis for Human Rights, Rabbi David Forman is in a unique position to address the need to guarantee the Jewish and democratic nature of the state of Israel. A frequent scholar-in-residence, R. Forman has authored four books including: Jewish Schizophrenia in the Land of Israel (2000) and Over My Dead Body - Some Grave Questions for God*s (2005).
Unless otherwise stated, all our programs take place at the shul.
If you have suggestions for further programming, or would like to become a working member of the committee, please contact us at education@narayever.ca
See also the Winter 2009 Adult Education schedule (for previous seminars, etc.)