Danya Belkin: An American Student in Israel (During Covid) CBB's own Danya Belkin is spending a gap year between high school and college in Israel. Today we are reposting an article she published as an intern at Isreal21c about her experience as an American Jewish student in Israel during the pandemic. -Ed. “Are you crazy?” [...]
Elizabeth Gaynes: A Thanksgiving Prayer Thanksgiving in any other year would bring its share of blessings and challenges. This year, thoughts such as what to prepare, who to spend time with, how to make this Thanksgiving meaningful, high and low feelings, missing loved ones, and just plain getting through the week are even bigger, somehow compounded, and can be [...]
Stacy Baron: A Spoonful of Sugar A tribute to Judy Meisel . . . The recent passing of Judy Meisel, such a remarkable woman, brought back meaningful memories for so many of us in Santa Barbara. Judy’s children and grandchildren spoke so eloquently at her recent memorial on Zoom just a few weeks ago. Her [...]
Daniel Sulzberg: Smile Now From a global pandemic, climate change, systemic racism, and other challenges there is no doubt that 2020 has been a stressful year filled with change. From a Jewish standpoint, I found myself asking why would God let these kinds of things happen? Maybe it’s the world’s way of saying that [...]
Diane Zipperstein: The Amazing Adult B'Mitzvah Journey This Saturday and next, 14 adults will chant from the Torah before the congregation for the first time. The B’nai Mitzvah will be the result of eleven months of study. Our class is made up of students young and not as young. We have a wide variety of [...]
Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld: A Prayer to the One Who Holds Us All This poem was originally published on the Hebrew College community blog last week. We are excited to share this poem with the CBB community. Of note, its author Rabbi Sharon is the sister of our own Rabbi Steve. -Ed. Offered on Election [...]
Julie & Sebastian Fishman: Greetings from the Fishmans! Greetings from the Fishmans, proud members of CBB since 2009 when we moved from Richmond VA (granted we’ve been all over the place). Julie and Sebastian had different perspectives on their experience dealing with COVID 19. From Sebastian: This has been no doubt a very weird year. [...]
Rabbi Steve Cohen: Two Abrahams Shabbat Shalom! This evening I am thinking of our two great Abrahams. First, Abraham the father of the Jewish people, who lived about 4,000 years ago and whom we meet once again in this week’s Torah portion. And also Abraham Lincoln, who 150 years ago led the United States through [...]