July 2, 2026 / 17 Tammuz 5786

July Newsletter

Included in This Newsletter

Membership Drive Continues

Rabbi's Corner

D'var Torah from Rabbi David

Photos from Beach Shabbat

Zoom Tisha b'Av - 7/23

High Holy Days 5787 Information

New Pre-High Holy Days Class

We Hold These Truths

In a hot Philadelphia boarding house, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence that still reverberates 250 years later: "We hold these truths to be self-evident...." 

​If truths were self-evident in 1776, then we can expect to find them long before, including in Jewish wisdom many centuries earlier. Read more...

Weekly D'var Torah

Parashat Pinhas (2026)

This week marks 10 weeks until Rosh Hashanah. Torah, always uncannily on time, reminds us this week about Rosh Hashanah and the shofar.

For a practice so symbolic, so core, so cellular in resonance and impact, it's odd that Torah does not tell us why we connect Rosh Hashanah with shofar. And Torah also left it to tradition, 2,000 years ago, to not blow shofar on Shabbat.

Why? The answers have to do with alarms. Read more...

"WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS:

SPIRITUAL IMAGERY OF THE HIGH HOLY DAYS"

Join Rabbi David and R. Rachel Barenblat (Congregation Beth Israel of the Berkshires) for our third annual joint runway series leading to the High Holy Days, preparing heart and soul for our annual journey of inner transformation.

This year we’ll immerse in the spiritual imagery of the High Holy Day liturgy – depictions of humanity, divinity, morality and transcendence that liturgy’s prayerful words seek to rouse in us. Together we'll unpack key holiday texts using visual, musical and poetic renderings to deepen our personal experience of prayer and the call of teshuvah (repentance, return). Topics will include core liturgies such as Avinu Malkeinu, Kol Nidre, Unetaneh Tokef, Psalm 27, Avodah (Purification) and Neilah.

Free to members of Shir Ami or CBI; $120 for non-members.

Seven Tuesdays online starting July 28, 7:00pm 

 SAVE THE DATE: Book Club for October

June Issue of

Greenwich Jewish News

Please click here to read the digital version.

July - August Issue of

New Jewish Voice

Please click here to read the latest digital version.

Blessings for a Happy Birthday to our members with July birthdays:

Sherrill Cropper - 7/10

Wendy Grodenchik - 7/10

Joan Green - 7/18

Howard Ross - 7/19

Lydia Rouzeau - 7/22

Linda Kramer - 7/26

In our weekly Blessing and Simchas, we invite members to offer congratulations on a special event in someone’s life, blessings for healing, or to remember a loved one.

If you choose to make a donation, you may do so by visiting our website's donation page or by mailing a check to Congregation Shir Ami, 1273 East Putnam Avenue, P.O. Box 312, Riverside, CT 06870-9998. 

If you're only receiving the newsletter monthly and would like to receive it weekly, please click the link above to edit your email preference.