News - Aug 30 & Sept 6, 2022

WEEKLY NEWS

DOUBLE EDITION

Aug. 30 / Sept. 6, 2022

JEWS & THE LABOR MOVEMENT

Friday Night Services

In-Person and on YouTube

✦ September 2: No Service

Labor Day Break

✦ Sept. 9, 7PM

RABBI FALICK WILL SPEAK

WHO ARE TODAY'S ORTHODOX JEWS?

Humanistic Jews and Orthodox Jews may seem worlds apart, but what we have in common is a strong commitment to our belief systems. Some of us - our own rabbi included - even have beloved Orthodox family members. Rabbi Falick will explain the various groups that come under the umbrella of Jewish Orthodoxy. The first in an occasional series dedicated to a better appreciation of the wider Jewish community.

Sept. 9 service is in person and online at YouTube.

Click HERE or on the graphic to watch.

✦ Sept. 16, 7PM

RABBI FALICK WILL SPEAK

ISRAEL UPDATE

By request, Rabbi Falick will take us inside recent events in Israel, including the upcoming general election.

👉 Please note that Friday night services are on hiatus during the High Holiday period, Sept. 23 - Oct. 7. Following that, the next Friday night gathering will be our Sukkot Program, sponsored by the Social Justice Committee, on Friday, Oct. 14, 7pm.

COVID SAFETY UPDATE:

Please note that the current CDC transmission level for Oakland County is YELLOW / ORANGE so masks are now REQUIRED in all public spaces. Weather permitting, the Oneg Shabbats will be held outside so that those eating may more comfortably remove them. For more information, including the current CDC transmission by county, please visit THIS LINK at our website. This guidance is subject to change after each Thursday's CDC update.

Rosh Hashanah begins on Sunday Evening, Sept. 25!

ATTEND OUR PROGRAM COMMITTEE MEETING!

THIS Wednesday, Aug. 31, 7PM

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89331251405

Requires the regular CHJ password. Contact [email protected] if you need it.

All CHJ members are invited to our next committee meeting when we will review CHJ program plans for the coming year.

Our committee's goal is to present programs that meet the needs of our members for learning, fun, personal self-care, and interpersonal engagement.

For more information please contact committee co-chair Bruce Hillenberg: [email protected]

PLEASE CONSIDER ATTENDING ...

AND BRING YOUR IDEAS!

THERE'S NO CONTINUING OBLIGATION!

UPCOMING PROGRAMS:

LUNCH BUNCH GATHERINGS

4th Wednesday of each month,

Next session:

Wed., Sept. 28, 12:30PM

GETTING GOOD AT GETTING OLDER

Next session:

Wed., Sept. 28, 1:15PM

"Cooking Up New Rituals" with Suzanne Paul, Humanist Leader.

No outing in September ...

L'shanah Tovah! Happy New Year!

For more information contact CHJ Board Member / Daytimers Coordinator Suzanne Paul: [email protected].

No experience necessary. We weed, pick up trash, rake, and more.

People with power tools are needed to cut scrub around parking circle and parking lots.

For more information, please contact Cathy Radner, radner210 @gmail.com.

NEXT COMMITTEE MEETING:

Saturday, Sept. 10, 11:30AM

On Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83724601038

AGENDA WILL INCLUDE:

Sukkot / Social Justice Shabbat to take place on Oct. 14
Support for CARES of Farmington Hills
First Day Kits for people transitioning from houselessness to new homes
Sept. 18 "Walk Against Hate"

SAVE THE DATE!

Sukkot Social Justice Celebration

Friday, Oct. 14, 7PM

Planning is underway for our annual Sukkot program featuring a visit by W. Bloomfield Township Clerk Debbie Binder. Good will donations will support the Social Justice Committee's work. If you would like to contribute a menu item (homemade or purchased) healthy for people and the planet, please contact Audrey: [email protected].

ADL "WALK AGAINST HATE" - SEPT. 18

THE SOCIAL JUSTICE CMTE. IS SEEKING TO PUT TOGETHER A GROUP TO PARTICIPATE!

JOIN OUR CHJ GROUP ON SEPT. 18 AT THE SOUTHFIELD CITY CENTRE

CONTACT AUDREY PLEASANT FOR INFORMATION: [email protected].

It's not just a walk - it's an opportunity to move as an individual, family or community toward a future without antisemitism, racism and all forms of bigotry.

However you move, register for ADL's Walk Against Hate today! Engage friends, family, neighbors, coworkers and set a fundraising goal to make a difference in your community.

Let's get moving, Michigan!

Click HERE for Detailed Information

JEWS & THE LABOR MOVEMENT

Happy Labor Day!

A few weeks ago I received an irate call from someone who berated me for being a Communist. Let me start out by saying that I’m not a Communist. My usual jokey retort is that I don’t know enough about economics to be a Communist. (I’m not even sure whether I’m supposed to capitalize it!)

Today words like socialist and communist are hurled without context or historical accuracy at anyone who supports Black lives (that particular caller’s complaint) or immigrant rights or a slew of other social justice causes. And while I cannot properly critique these economic systems, I know enough Jewish history to say that socialism (and communism for that matter) were at one time very popular ideologies among Jewish laborers. I also know that there were – in America and Europe – a great many Jewish laborers.

While the first waves of Jewish immigration to the United States brought mainly traders and merchants, the third wave did not. Many in the third wave—the ones who came from eastern Europe from the 1880s to the 1920s—were laborers, both skilled and unskilled. In a wonderful history of American Jews and Labor Day, Eva Brune, who serves as New York’s Eldridge Street Museum’s Vice President for Institutional Advancement, wrote this about the famous Tailors' Strike:

Many Jewish immigrants arrived in this country with experience ... as labor organizers. Even before they arrived in America, Jewish weavers orchestrated a strike in Bialystok, Poland in 1887. Today that strike is considered the beginning of the organized Jewish labor movement in the Pale of Settlement. They brought that legacy with them to New York. There were several large strikes of Jewish tailors in 1886. … Newspapers like the Jewish Daily Forward recorded these activities, and the large Jewish socialist community of the Lower East Side actively campaigned to improve worker conditions.

The first of the strikes she’s referring to was largely organized by Jewish men who were tired of working ridiculous hours for low pay. Today their demands sound overly modest. They wanted a ten-hour workday (!), a weekly minimum wage, and a weekly pay-day.

Depending upon our ages and our own families’ paths in this country, those of us with Jewish ancestry may or may not have had contact with anyone from those generations. But all of us should be aware of the Jewish history of supporting labor. We should know the stories of the sweatshops and of the tragic 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that killed 123 women and girls and 23 men, most of them immigrants, most of them Jewish.

Though my own grandparents owned their own businesses, their parents and grandparents were hourly-wage immigrants. One of my great-grandfathers regaled me with tales of campaigning for Eugene V. Debs who famously ran for president five times on the Socialist Party ticket, one of those times from a Georgia jail. In that 1920 election, there are solid estimates that close to 40% of American Jewish citizens gave him their vote.

That generation of Jews is gone. Today most of the Jews I know who are involved in the labor movement are attorneys and politicians. But remnants of our connections survive. Detroit—one of the most important cities in the movement’s history—still boasts a Workmen’s Circle chapter (now called the Workers’ Circle). Though it left socialism behind eons ago—today functioning as a group committed to Jewish culture and social justice—its name is a reminder of its more radical labor origins.

Like Memorial Day, Labor Day is one of those holidays that’s lost its significance for many Americans. For most of us it marks the end of summer vacation and little else. But at a time when American Jews are increasingly concerned about fairness and equity, Labor Day presents an opportunity to re-discover our own family connections to the struggle for fair wages and safe working conditions. We can honor them by supporting today’s workers.

Happy Labor Day from your rabbi who is definitely not a communist!

* CONGREGATIONAL NEWS

HELP A YOUNG CHJ MEMBER FUND A GAP YEAR IN ISRAEL!

Hello! My name is Sasha Wade and I grew up at our congregation.

My dream is to make it to Israel through the Habonim Dror Gap Year Program known as Workshop. It is a program filled with fun - a joy for Israel and Judaism. It is a year spent exploring - what it means to be Jewish and how we connect to the land. And it is a year full of learning and growth - confronting the responsibilities we hold as Jews.

I reach out to you as a living part of the Jewish people. Any help towards reaching this goal would be greatly appreciated. I am a young Zionist with a vision of what I want to see in the world, and a hope for what I want Israel to be.

Thank you!

Please, feel free to reach out to me at [email protected].

The best way to help me with my dream of reaching Israel is BY spreading the word and donating to my GoFundMe campaign, which can be found here at https://gofund.me/d3414857 and is called Workshop Habonim Dror Year in Israel

For even more information about the Workshop program and Habonim Dror as a movement, resources are linked here: https://www.hdnaisrael.org/workshop

*IMPORTANT LINKS - TRIBUTES & YAHRZEITS

Click here to see recent Tribute Gifts.

Click here to see upcoming Yahrzeit Memorials.

*REFUAH SHLEMA (SPEEDY RECOVERY)

Best Wishes for a Speedy Recovery to:

Joe Gadon, RuthE. Goldman, Max Lark, Debra Luria, Rabbi Peter Schweitzer

Please inform us if you know that someone is ill or in need.

CURRENT COVID-19 SAFETY POLICY

VACCINATION & MASK REQUIREMENTS

All visitors to our building who are eligible for inoculation must be fully vaccinated. Members may provide verbal confirmation of this. Guests who are not members may be asked to show proof of vaccination. When CDC transmission levels are GREEN, masks are recommended but not required for everyone in public areas. When CDC transmission levels are at YELLOW or ORANGE, masks are required in public areas. (At congregational events where a meal is served, when seated at a table participants may eat and drink without masks.) For current Oakland Co., Michigan transmission levels, go to THIS LINK.

For more details on safety and mitigation efforts, please click here.

(Those who are unable to be vaccinated - due solely to medical reasons - may contact the office to make advance arrangements for socially distanced participation at certain public gatherings; email [email protected] or call 248.477.1410.)