5:30 p.m. Monday, May 13, 2024
Celebrate Israel’s Independence Day, Yom Ha’atzmaut, at Congregation Beth Israel! We’ll enjoy a falafel dinner, followed by a joyful and inspiring film, “On the Map” — about the 1977 Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team’s European Cup win. Narrated by Hall of Famer Bill Walton, and suitable for all ages. All are welcome; rsvp requested (not required) to make sure we order enough food!
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Visual Arts Exhibit
Prints and drawings by CBI member Sarah Bauman will be on display in the CBI foyer and social hall from February 23 through August 2024.
Included in the CBI exhibition are works in several media — pastel, charcoal, graphite, ceramics, and intaglio printmaking, including drypoint, aquatint, mezzotint, etching, and engraving. Sarah’s work has been shown in solo exhibitions and prestigious invitational and juried art shows in galleries across the United States, as well as in synagogues.
Read about Sarah Bauman and her art on Page 4 in the January/February 2024 Shul Shofar
240 HEARTS Project
New Adult Ed Classes
- Biblical Text Study with Mark Packer *
- Jewish Literature with Mark Packer
- Biblical Hebrew with Andrea Shupack
- A Jewish Look at Jesus with Stu Berman
- The Hebrew Prophets with Rabbi Samuels
- Beginning Torah Trope with Andrea Shupack
Click on the document below for full descriptions and how to register.
Feb_Mar 24 Adult Ed _1_Code of Ethics
The URJ is committed to ensuring that our environments are safe, equitable, and inclusive. As part of its ongoing work to create a culture that prioritizes safety and accountability, the URJ encourages every congregation to craft and adopt a congregational ethics code. In 2022, the CBI board approved a Code of Ethics and a Grievance Policy, which have served as models for other congregations in the URJ and beyond. The URJ is recognizing congregations that have completed ethics codes by listing them on the URJ website and providing this special logo for their own websites.
Passover 2024 Greetings
April 21, 2024
Dear CBI Family,
Four years ago we experienced a Passover festival as we had never experienced before. With lockdowns in place, we were confined to our own homes. Those big seders some of us look forward to each year just could not happen. Luckily many of us found a way to be together through Zoom.
We have been faced many times in our long history with even more challenging circumstances as Passover approached. The question was never: “Are we going to observe the festival?” but, rather: “How are we going to observe?” There are countless stories about Jewish families and communities figuring out how to celebrate during the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust, and more recently, during the era of the Soviet Union. We are currently living through another such time that poses new questions:
How can we celebrate our freedom when our Jewish and Israeli siblings are still held in captivity in Gaza?
How are we to make sense of Moses’ words to Pharaoh, ‘Let my people go!’?
How do we sing praises of thanksgiving when families have been decimated?
How are we to wrap our heads around the text of the haggadah that speaks to the heartbreaking, yet necessary, suffering of the Egyptians as we witness the destruction in Gaza?
Additionally, being outwardly Jewish in today’s world—most notably for our college-aged children and friends on campus—brings new challenges that many of us have never had to deal with before.
All of this points to a potentially deflated Passover. Yet, we must refuse to give in to this sadness. We owe it to those who are unable to celebrate Passover with their families this year. My dear friend and colleague, Rabbi Joel Simonds recently posted the following:
“It’s ok to smile at the seder table!! Amidst the challenges of anti-Semitism and the war in Israel, Passover reminds us to celebrate resilience and hope. As we prepare to gather with loved ones, we affirm our commitment to joy despite adversity.
“Our children who have endured much this year, deserve to experience the warmth of tradition and the promise of a better tomorrow. Our children have witnessed our tears, they have watched the news, they have passed through multiple armed guards just to pray in shul. They deserve a night of joy.
“So let us gather this year with unwavering faith in a brighter future.”
This is exactly my prayer for our Beth Israel community and for our extended Jewish family abroad. As the Psalmist wrote, “Those who sow in tears will reap in joy.”
May you and your loved ones have a meaningful and happy Passover seder. May we all go from strength to strength!
A zissen pesach,
Rabbi Joshua Samuels
Passover 2024
Spring is right around the corner, and that means it’s time to start thinking about Passover. Register for the Congregation Beth Israel 2nd Night Seder here:
Anti-Racist Pledge
Congregation Beth Israel, centered in Bellingham, Washington, stands with Jews all over the world in affirming the principles of equal justice and equal respect underlying the declaration that Black Lives Matter. Believing in the dignity of every individual, we deplore the structural racism that has denied people of color the rights and opportunities enjoyed by their fellow citizens. We strongly support the Constitutional right to peaceful assembly and condemn all forms of violence against peaceful protestors.
Our Bible and our sages, our liturgy and our vision of a just society, teach us the value of every human being. The centuries of defamation and oppression Jews have suffered help us understand the suffering people of color have endured in the United States from the founding of our country to the present day.
Those of us who are white Americans may have wittingly or unwittingly contributed to that suffering. We will work to eradicate any traces of racism in our lives as a congregation and as individuals, and will take any steps within our power to promote the equality our founding documents proclaim as the right of all people.
— Approved by CBI Board of Directors, Nov. 10, 2020