The Jackson Kol
The Jackson Hole Jewish Community
Monthly Newsletter
May 1,
2017
5 Lyyar
5777
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Bet Sefer Shabbat
Led by Bet Sefer students and chazzan Judd Grossman
Friday, May 12
This year's theme: Keep calm and Shabbat Shalom!
6:30 p.m. at the JHJC
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MAY SISTERHOOD!
MAY 19
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| Yom HaShoah Speaker: Enthusiastic JH Middle School Sixth Graders greet JHJC member, Bert Romberg (center, right), after his talk at the school. |
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Get involved in
Jackson Hole's Oldest Jewish Congregation.
Support the JHJC
things we do!
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May Events
May 10 - Mitzvah Day Highway Clean-up
May 12 - Bet Sefer Shabbat
May 19 - Sisterhood Clothing Swap
Upcoming Summer Shabbats - Save the Dates!
June 3 - Adrienne Sugarman Bat Mitzvah
June 16 - Shabbat Dinner @ the JHJC
July 7 - Shabbat Services, location TBA
July 21 - Annual BBQ Shabbat, location TBA
August 4 - Swingin' Sabbath, location TBA
August 18 - Pre-Eclips Shabbat, location TBA
Wednesday, May 10
Mitzvah Day
Adopt-a-Highway Cleanup
5:30 p.m
Meet at the north side of the Lake Creek Bridge on the Teton Village Rd. and we'll begin with a very brief safety meeting. Our portion of highway is on Teton Village Road, just north of the Aspens. Orange vests, trash bags and gloves will be provided. You might want to bring warm gloves as well. We'll pick up litter from mile post 4 to mile post 5, both sides of the road. Children must be accompanied by adults.
Friday, May 12
Bet Sefer Shabbat
Keep Calm and
Shabbat Shalom
Come down and support our Bet Sefer students as they complete a year of Jewish learning. This one promises to be soothing and relaxing. Oneg to follow sponsored by Bet Sefer parents..
6:30 p.m. @ the JHJC in the Centennial Bldg
Friday, May 19
May Sisterhood Clothing Swa
p & Margaritas
Ladies, spring is here! It's time to swap out your closet from down coats to flip flops. Start your spring cleaning by getting rid of the clothes you never wear, and bring them to our Sisterhood Clothing Swap. Please invite a friend to join us as well. We will have margaritas to sip as we browse and try on items. Don't miss out on a great opportunity to freshen up your wardrobe and have a fun evening with the sisterhood. Can't make it. Not to worry. We will gladly take any clothes you want to share with the group and save you a trip to Browse'N Buy. Contact Andrea Mazer if you have any questions or want to drop off a bag of clothes because you can't make it to the event.
Where: Home of Laurie Thal, please EMAIL for directions
When: Friday, May 19 at 5 pm
What: Bring clothes to swap and bring a friend
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Spirit of the Mountains Summer Camp 
Registration Open
Spirit of the Mountains Day Camp is scheduled for the last two weeks of July 2017 (July 17-21 and July 24-28) and will be led by our camp director, Kalen Kleyman. Although the schedule and activities change each year, campers often enjoy exploring outdoors, swimming, singing, playing games such as 4-square, an overnight experience (older kids), and Jewish inspired cooking and art projects. Campers will extend their connection to the year-long Bet Sefer theme of Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) and engage in service learning. Camp is held Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Old Wilson School Community Center. We welcome campers entering Kindergarten through 6th grade. Open to any child, non-Jewish campers welcome.
DOWNLOAD REGISTRATION MATERIALS HERE.
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Jackson Hole Passover Seder,
an Austrian Connection
by JHJC member, Oliver B. Pollak
We attended four extraordinary Seders in 2017. Karen and I lived in Nebraska for 42 years and recently moved to Richmond, California. For the last 8 years we visited Jackson Hole to enjoy Seder with our friends Beryl and Joyce. My wife Karen knew Beryl in high school, and he was my mid-1960s college roommate. Beryl volunteered in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. He and Joyce actively oppose BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanction), anti-Semitism and anti-Israel activities, and promote Stand With Us, a movement Supporting Israel Around The World.
We were nine people around the table at the JHJC Annual Second Night Passover Seder: Rose and Ron Novak, Beryl Weiner, Joyce Craig, John and Josh Zendler, Deborah Clemens, and Karen and Oliver Pollak, amidst about 115 Jews congregated at the Episcopal Church.
Beryl asked me to read about Mark Twain from the 2017 Stand With Us Haggadah. As a retired teacher and lawyer who relishes the podium, lectern and pulpit, I googled Twain for a Wyoming context. Twain had been to Wyoming in 1871 and wrote
Roughing It.
He wrote
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court which involved a solar eclipse. Daiyenu.
Joyce, Deborah and I had Austrian families who fled Austria after Kristallnacht in November 9, 1938. Some of our family members went to Theresienstadt, some to Auschwitz. We lost family, some survived. Our grandparents had been enslaved and killed in the country of their birth. Some made an Exodus, about a 3500-mile sea voyage to New York, and safety. They carried the burden of history and loss.
Twain showered praise on the Jews. If written by a Jew it would be filiopietism, by a gentile, a Judeophile, its philo-semitism. Twain recognized the remarkable endurance, longevity and intellectual achievement of a stateless people in the face of oppression. Twain seemed to anticipate the Nobel Prizes created in 1901, 22% of which have been awarded to Jews.
Twain lived in Austria during 1896. In 1898 he published "Stirring times in Austria" in
Harper's Magazine.
The 2017
Passover Haggadah
reprinted the last paragraph of Twain's "Concerning the Jews," which appeared in September 1899. He wrote,
"
To Conclude
-If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one quarter of one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly, the Jews ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contribution to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine and abstruse learning are also very out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world in all ages; an has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself and be excused for it. The Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Persians rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greeks and Romans followed and made a vast noise, and they were gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, and have vanished. The Jew saw them all, survived them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert but aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jews; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?"
Seders are opportunities to ask questions. The four children, are a fixture in the liturgy. Answers vary and lead to new questions. The ritual pauses and we eat. Karen and most of the table went to where the food was being served. I sat back with John and shared the fruits about Twain. John said his wife Deborah had kept her maiden name, Clemens, she was a great great niece of Samuel Clemens, Mark Twain.
Coincidence, serendipity, kismet, fate, bashert. Our mutual Austrian family experiences,
fleeing oppression, continuing threats to Jewish existence, and appreciation of America's greatest 19
th
century writer, converging at our Seder table, revealed again the remarkableness of our people and the company we keep, as though Elijah came through the doors and visited our Seder. Daiyenu.
*Oliver B. Pollak is a retired history professor and attorney who spends Passover in Jackson Hole.
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Scenes From April 2017
Check out more of our photos and videos from all the cool events we do on our Facebook page
"Jackson Hole Jews"
Film Screening and Q & A with Filmmaker
JH Community School Jazz Band screens "Rock in the Red Zone"
and Skype Q&A with filmmaker
Passover Seder
Bet Sefer shenanigans
April Sisterhood Happy Hour
Holocaust Remembrance Day Speaker
Bert Romberg
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Bert at the JH Middle School.
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Bert speaks to a full house at his public talk at St. John's Church.
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Acknowledgements
Many Thanks
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Shannon and Larry Thal, Laurie Thal, Al Zuckerman, Beryl Weiner and Joyce Craig, Carol and Oliver Pollak for helping set up our Passover seder.
- Carl Levenson and Judd Grossman for leading our Passover seder.
- Susie Blasko and Barbara Aronowitz for making eggs and
Rose Novak, Deb Clemens, Joyce Craig, Shannon Thal, Laurie Thal, Andrea Mazer and Mike Scher for making charoset for our Passover seder.
- Mark Hill, Al Zuckerman, Judith Levenson, Laurie Thal and Dan Altwies, Janet and Bill Bellis, Jerry and Barbara Aronowitz for helping clean up our Passover seder.
- Mike Scher, Amy Aronowitz Baker, Christine Schuller and Josh Kleyman for helping organize our Holocaust speaker in the schools.
- Bert Romberg for dedicating his time to come to Jackson Hole and share his experiences with the Kindertransport to our community. We are very grateful. We also thank Bert's daughter, Leah Harrison for assisting him with his VERY rigorous speaking schedule.
- Andrea Mazer for organizing our April Sisterhood gathering at Figs restaurant.
Condolences
- To Josie Gray for the loss of her beloved grandmother, Evelyn Kamentesky.
Get Well Soon
- Keep David
Goldfarb in your thoughts.
Please send us your Mazel Tovs, Condolences, Kol HaKavods, Get Wells and photos of your
2016-17 Board of Directors
Josh Kleyman, Co-president
Mike Scher, Co-president
Janet Bellis
Kevin Krasnow
Rachel Stam, Treasurer
Laurie Thal
Steve Zelikovitz,
Vice President
Mary Grossman, Exec. Dir.
For more than 40 years, the Jackson Hole Jewish Community has welcomed people of all ages and backgrounds who share a love for Jackson Hole and Judaism. We are independent, unaffiliated and inclusive. All are welcome to Jackson Hole's oldest Jewish congregation, no matter his or her level of Jewish observance.
The Jackson Hole Jewish Community is committed to creating a diverse Jewish presence that unites us, celebrates our faith, and promotes tolerance in the greater Jackson Hole community. We strive to engage all families and individuals in spirituality, education, tzadakah, and the joys of Jewish life.
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5777 Membership to the JHJC
For more than 40 years, the Jackson Hole Jewish Community has
welcomed people of all ages and backgrounds who share a l
ove for Jackson Hole and Judaism. We are independent,
unaffiliated and inclusive. All are welcome to Jackson Hole's
oldest Jewish congregation, no matter his or her level of
Jewish observance.
The Jackson Hole Jewish Community is committed to creating a diverse Jewish presence that unites us, celebrates our faith, and promotes tolerance in the greater Jackson Hole community. We strive to engage all families and individuals in spirituality, education, tzadakah, and the joys of Jewish life.
No minimum payment required, pay what you can. Download application HERE
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עליכם השלום Jackson Hole Jewish Community
Physical Address: 610 W. Broadway in the Centennial Bldg, Jackson, WY 83002
Mailing Address: Box 10667, Jackson, WY 83002
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