PHOTO ABOVE: Lindsay and Todd Pellegrino with their younger son, Reece, at the BHY Consecration. Not pictured: older son Maxon. The Althea Stroum & Pat Glazer Memorial Family Camp Weekend is made possible by philanthropic support that offsets the cost of attendance for families with financial need. If you’d like to learn [...]
Monica Steiner Hooray!: Abraham the Woman Would Have Stayed Monica has served as a lay leader at CBB for 11 years and on our professional staff for the past 5+, most recently as Director of Donor Relations. This month, CBB wished Monica and her family farewell as they move across country so Monica can begin [...]
Holly Goldberg: Standing up for Judaism Current events have illuminated how our culture has become complacent with outdated, non-inclusive policies and practices that marginalize minorities. Unfortunately, as a result most of us have faced unintentional as well as explicit forms of antisemitism. Being Jewish requires a refined inner grace to know when to not take [...]
Rabbi Steve Cohen: Religious Experience and the Reality of the Unseen One hundred twenty years ago, the great American psychologist and philosopher William James was invited to deliver the prestigious Giffords Lectures in Natural Religion at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. The texts of his lectures were published in 1902 as The Varieties of [...]
Asha Wilkus-Stone: Mourning & The Shmita Year On Rosh Hashanah, we began the new year in the Jewish calendar, 5782. This year is a Shmita year. The Shmita year is often translated as ‘The Sabbatical Year,’ and is likened to Shabbat. Parshat Behar (Levititicus 25:1-26:2) begins with the mitzvah: “Six years you may sow your [...]
Cantor Mark Childs: Reflections on Reopening Just in time to end their school year, the students from our Netivot program came together yesterday morning en masse, in-person, masked, distanced and very happy (see photo below). I can’t overstate my feelings of joy, after a year plus of interacting via Zoom, over being physically together. My utmost wish [...]
My People, My Place, and My Purpose (Part 1) “Daddy, I have found my people, my place, and my purpose!” declared my eldest daughter Isabel (now Elisheva) over the phone from Israel. “I am not going to continue to Europe. I am staying.” I found my daughter’s declaration intriguing. What was it she meant? Israel has been in the news all my life, but [...]
Janet Malki: CBB Leadership Institute When I first was contacted by Jill Feldman and Ashley Goldstein to participate in the CBB Irving and Marlyn Berstein Leadership Institute (LI) via Zoom, I was hesitant for a variety of reasons. You know the excuses: time commitment, not being able to meet in person, concerns about future requests to [...]
CBB Voices blog highlighted at Shabbat services! We celebrated a special "blog post Shabbat" this past Friday, January 22. During the sermon portion of the service, Allan Morton, Judy Karin, and Phoebe Light (pictured here) read posts they've published on the CBB Voices blog. Editor Monica Steiner introduced the panel by describing this blog project [...]
Phoebe Light: Shabbat in the Time of Corona My relationship with Jewish life had always been, up until a couple of years ago, off-and-on. Jewish summer camp a couple of times. A Birthright trip. A year playing guitar at Hillel in college. Even a three-year stint living in Israel, not that I ever really explored [...]