B’nai Amoona

Mindee Fredman created a truly innovative project which combined learning and doing for the children at the early childhood center. In a partnership with Manischewitz (R.A.B. foodgroup), huge posters of kosher canned foods were created. With the assistance of Michaela Bogner, Mindee cut the posters into puzzle pieces and gave them to each class. Each Friday the children placed a hand sticker on their puzzle piece when they brought in canned food for donation to the Harvey Kornblum Jewish Food Pantry. After two months, all the children united to watch as the puzzle pieces were reconnected, again making the picture whole — enhanced by the hundreds of hands that decorated each piece. The image revealed to the children what can be accomplished when one person, one class, one school, one corporation unite in an effort hand-in-hand.

CRC >

The annual women’s retreat was recently held at Toddhall located on 45 acres in the bluffs overlooking Columbia, Illinois. The people and wildlife sanctuary offered the perfect location to spend the weekend talking about Jewish ethics with Rabbi Susan Talve and Maggie Duwe.

Chabad of Chesterfield

The Jewish Women’s Chai Circle hosted a musical event entitled The Sound of Joy: An Evening of Magical Moments at the home of Olga Gorodetzky. The for-women-only interactive musical event featured world renowned singer and musician Rivkah Krinsky in concert. A native of Australia, Rivkah’s repertoire includes a wide range of Jewish music, including contemporary and classical, and she accompanies herself on the guitar.

Epstein Hebrew and Torah MiTzion Kollel

It was a powerful presentation of The Wave, under the direction of Uria Teperberg, at the New Jewish Theatre at the JCC in an evening dedicated to the genocide occurring in Darfur. The play is based on the true story of a teacher who cannot answer the questions of his high school students about the Holocaust. Therefore, he starts an experiment with his students to show what it may have felt like living in Nazi Germany.

Intercongregational Softball League

In the third week of competition Traditional Family Values squeaked out a victory over the Traditional Tikkunim. Marc Singer’s first inning grand slam gave the Tikkunim a 4-3 lead. After losing an appeal to end the game after the first inning, the Tikkunim lost the lead to their congregational rivals. Brian Weingart led Traditional Family Values to victory by hitting two home runs and eight RBIs. Zumi Brody also contributed by hitting for the cycle. The CRC Super Heroes in Training played a great game against B’nai Amoona. Ken Goldman kept pitching strong throughout the entire game. CRC Super Heroes kept the lead of their division with a 25 – 5 win, putting them at 3 – 0 for the season. CRC jumped out to an 11 – 0 lead over Shaare Zedek after two innings and was led by the power hitting of Ben White (two home runs, a triple and a single) and Barry Tonopolsky (one home run, and a triple). Jeremy Shook hit two home runs, and David Weinstein and David Jones also went yard, helping Temple Israel power its way past United Hebrew (Poscover). It was a close game throughout, as the Ball-A-Bustas answered every Tribe rally with one of their own. Trailing by two runs in the bottom of the 7th inning, UH had a runner on first with nobody out. But TI’s defense clamped down and put away the heart of the order to secure the victory. Tribe hurler Brian Fadem pitched his way out of several jams, and first baseman Michael Weiss went three-for-three with a double and a triple.

NHBZ

More than 90 people enjoyed the congregation’s first-ever Shavuos dinner created and chaired by Jackie Berkin. Francine Attoun, Sally Needle, Phyllis Silverman and Alan Zarkowsky also pitched in to help. The early-bird learning was conducted by Rabbi Ze’ev Smason and Dovid Kramer.

Brodsky Library

The recent lunchtime booktalk offered a chance to say hi to a former St. Louisan and enjoy a lively book dialogue when Pearl Borow recently visited from Israel. She led participants in a discussion of three novels of Biblical woman, the Canaan Trilogy by Marek Halter — Sarah; Zipporah, Wife of Moses and Lilah: A Forbidden Love, a People’s Destiny.

SMDS-RJA

More than 50 parents, grandparents, and other community volunteers gathered for breakfast to be recognized by the school for their countless hours of volunteerism. “Our volunteers plant and nurture with their time, energy, creativity, insightfulness and love for all the children,” event chair Alana Shapiro said. The five person committee, which included Karen Smoller, Patty Bloom, Shana Singer and Terri Jacobson, treated their volunteers to gardening gloves that features the school’s logo and packets of flower seeds, symbolically representing the planting, nurturing and growing of Judaism in the school’s 85 students, who range from kindergarten through 5th grade.

Shaare Emeth

The recent Senior University attracted a record breaking crowd of 150 students. Cantor Seth Warner presented the keynote address: “Songs of our People.” After two breakout sessions and lunch, Don Wolff, host of KMOX’s Saturday Night Jazz Show, spoke about the history and contributions of Jewish musicians and patrons in the world of jazz. Instructors and students all agreed that they learned a lot and enjoyed the day immensely.

St. Louis Hillel

The agency has named Debbie Igielnik to the position of interim executive director, effective immediately. Miriam Rogers Singer, president of the board of trustees, recently announced that the board’s executive committee unanimously agreed to the appointment. Igielnik had served as treasurer of the board and co-chaired the transition committee with Gary Wasserman, M.D. She has resigned from the board and officially began her duties on June 4. Sue Fischlowitz, a past president of the board who also stepped in as executive director a few years ago, will serve as a consultant to Igielnik during the interim period.

Young Israel

Attendees at the synagogue’s dinner celebrating its 70th Anniversary were surprised and pleased when Rabbi Moshe Shulman provided the keynote address — his first speech to the congregation in his role as new rabbi beginning in August. The theme of the evening was to honor the past and look forward to the future, and Rabbi Shulman did just that. He honored the great rabbis that came before him such as Rabbi S. Krause and Rabbi J. Bienenfeld, and discussed the importance of Torah as the anchor the congregation will use as it moves towards new horizons. Rabbi Shulman’s wife, Baila was also an honored guest for the evening.