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October 2024
Yom Kippur Meditation: Time Out, Time In
Please join us for the nourishing deep rest and reset of meditation. Reflect, recharge, and transmute the tumult of these traumatic times, with light guidance. Refresh your body and mind, replenish your spirit, and make space for greater peace, hope, and equanimity. Meditation is a timeless and time-sensitive practice for anyone who can sit quietly. Led by long-time meditation teachers & AC members, Sheila and Sheldon Lewis
Find out more »Boker Tov Tots in the Sukkah
Babies, tots, preschool kids and their families are invited to join us for breakfast before the Mishpacha service. We’ll provide the food. Kids can eat and play, and parents will have time to schmooze and get to know one another. Kids can come in their jammies, and stuffies welcome too!
Find out more »Family Sundaes and Ushpizin in the Sukkah
On Sukkot, it’s a tradition to welcome new people into the Sukkah each day. So, bring a friend to AC and join us on the rooftop Sukkah. We’ll make ice cream sundaes and sukkah decorations inspired by the tradition of welcoming ushpizin (guests) into our sukkah. We look forward to welcoming you and your ushpizin! This event is free! Registration encouraged, walk ins welcome.
Find out more »Lunch and Learn: Why is That in the Bible?
Working remotely? Retired? Stay-at-home parents? Taking a day off? Please join Rabbi Kalmanofsky for a monthly lunch-and-learn program to study some of the stranger passages in the Hebrew Bible. You'll meet giants and sea monsters, psychedelic visionaries and stone-cold killers. We'll retell the Torah's dirty jokes, sexy poems and gruesome horror stories. Some of this material will raise important religious or moral questions. Most will be fun and funny. Bring your lunch, according to the AC Kashrut policy, and we…
Find out more »Shemini Atzeret Early Morning Shacharit
For those who cannot attend our later morning service, Jerry Raik will lead an early morning Shacharit, including Yizkor.
Find out more »Sanctuary Shemini Atzeret Service
Join the Ansche Chesed community for our Shemini Atzeret services in the Sanctuary or virtually.
Find out more »Heading to the Polls: American Jewish Civics in a Post-October 7 World
The second session, Good for the Jews, Good for America?, will be taught by Elana Stein Hain and held at Ansche Chesed. Enlightened self-interest is the ethical concept that serving oneself can serve others and vice versa. Given the challenges confronting both Israel and American democracy today, and the very real emerging partisanship around Israel in U.S. politics, what might an American-Jewish version of enlightened self-interest look like? How do solidarity with and advocacy on behalf of Israel align with…
Find out more »November 2024
Three Great Hebrew Poets, with Rachel Korazim
Join us for a series exploring Hebrew poetry with the great poetry teacher Rachel Korazim, who will join us for three Zoom sessions from Tel Aviv. Our next session will focus on Leah Goldberg. Born and raised in Eastern Europe, educated mainly in Germany, Leah Goldberg (1911-1970) emigrated to pre-state Israel in 1935, composing beautiful, musical poems bridging the distance between her European childhood and her new homeland. Scarred by World War I and the unfolding Shoah, she wrote lyrics…
Find out more »The First Jew In Canada: A Trans Tale in NYC, with S. Bear Bergman
The First Jew in Canada is a storytelling event mapping the life of Jacques LaFargue, a trans Jewish 18th century historical figure whose existence challenges current perceptions of transgender history and identity. Through the lens of nine verifiable facts, this show weaves the historical records of Jacques LaFargue with the personal narrative of narrator S. Bear Bergman, a Jewish transgender man whose life mirrors Jacques’s in profound ways. From daring adventure to startling truth, each fact becomes a gateway to exploring…
Find out more »Jewish Values vs. Jewish Interests: Preventing America from Becoming Merely “Diaspora”
With the elections over, where are American Judaism and the American Jewish community heading? Long-developing polarization and hyper-partisanship, amplified by local discourse around October 7 and the Israel-Hamas war, have led many to wonder if liberalism, American Jewish values, and Zionism are truly compatible, and if the Jewish community can survive as a collective enterprise. Join Shalom Hartman Institute president Yehuda Kurtzer as he reflects on the post-election moment and offers a new framework for how American Judaism might continue…
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