News from Kol Ami

ARTICLES, FLYERS, EVENT INFORMATION AND EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

Read about current events, articles on happenings around the congregation. To submit your article, please e-mail admin@kolami.ca

on Wednesday, 04 May 2016.

The Egypt Times

DOORPOSTS OF JEWISH HOMES COVERED WITH LAMB BLOOD!   IS THE WORST YET TO COME?

Strange things have been happening to the people of Egypt, but not the Jews.  Recently, Egyptian reporters found out about lamb blood on the doorposts of Jews.  Are the Jews plotting against the Egyptians?  Could this be another plague?  Horrible things have been happening to us recently.  The stupid Jews believe that their “god” is saving them but it’s all nonsense.  “I think the Jews are behind it, so I’m thinking of sending them away”. Says Lord Pharoah.  Let’s hear Moses’ story about this subject. 

“The other day I was walking to Starbucks when I saw a burning bush.  It was God telling me about the slaves in Egypt and how God wanted me to lead them out, but Pharoah didn’t let us go, so God unleashed 9 plagues.  Next God will send an angel of death killing all first born Egyptian children.  I think that this is the last plague because everything in Judaism is “10”.  I can’t wait to buy a nice Frappuccino after the interview.  Can I go now?”   

Guess we’ll figure out this mystery as it unfolds. 

EXTRA WORK MAKES ISRAELITES DOUBTFUL OF BEING FREED FROM SLAVERY

200 BCE: There are currently millions of Israelites forced to do hard labour. With all the extra work, the Israelites are starting to doubt that there is a chance of escaping. They feel as if it’s the end of the road for them; that they will be slaves forever. 
RIBBITING RIPS THROUGH EGYPT! FROGS EVERYWHERE!

One morning Pharoah woke up and found froggies in his bed.  He got out of his bed and ran downstairs.  He asked his wife, “Why on earth are there froggies in my beard?”  He ran outside and saw that there were froggies raining down from the sky.  Then, he started singing “It’s raining frogs!  Halleluyah!”  Then as he was finishing the song, a frog hit him in the eye and he blacked out. 

ISRAELITES ORDERED TO WORK DOUBLE!NO STRAW TO MAKE BRICKS!

Pharoah was mad at the Israelites because he just chose to be mad at them for no reason.  So, he made the Israelite slaves work double.  They were not allowed to use straw to make bricks.  They suffered day and night.  They had no choice but to work or else they would get slapped and killed by the guards.

on Sunday, 24 April 2016.

On April 4th, Robin Fowler, from the Offord Group, presented her summary report and recommendations to the Board and to our Committee Chairs. Smaller groups will now be working to finalize our plans and have them presented and approved by the Board next month. As we have worked our way through this process, I am really pleased with how our activities have been charged with a lot of warmth and great conversation. As we continue to identify our strengths and build on them, I am really excited that our focused work over the next year will lead to tangible results for Kol Ami. I am sure many members are interested in this work and in that regard I would like to invite all members to attend our Annual General Meeting in June where we will present more information.
I would also like to take this opportunity to extend a warm Chag Sameach to all of our members and their families. I hope that this holiday is filled with joy in the celebration of our freedom, with happiness in the gathering of families and not too much stress for those preparing the food.

L’Shalom,
Mark

on Monday, 22 February 2016.

Adult Education Committee

Over the first part of 2016, the Adult Education Committee presented a number of diverse and entertaining events. On January 9, Rabbi Noa Sattath, Director of the Israel Action Centre of Reform Judaism, led our Torah Study discussion by Skype from Israel. Starting January 18, for three consecutive Mondays, Rabbi Streiffer presented a lecture series on Sex in the Texts. On January 31, we had a hands-on lesson on the traditions of making challah and the mitzvah of taking challah, and on February 10, Dr Kalman Weiser from York University educated us on the similarities between Yiddish and Ebonics, a language invented by Black Americans.

Chesed Committee

During difficult times, Kol Ami is a supportive community for those confronting illness, loss, and other life trials. We strive to surround those in need with comfort and strength. Members of our Chesed committee are quietly enlisted to provide extra helping hands in times of need.  We rarely meet as a committee, but instead connect through email and phone calls to organize activities such as

• Leading Shiva Services
• Meal Preparation
• Driving to Appointments
• Hospital Visits

We are in need of people who are interested in helping other members of Kol Ami.  We often work in groups of two or more, to ensure that members of the committee also feel supported.  If you are interested in becoming involved with the Chesed Committee, please contact Miriam Amon miriamamon@rogers.com or call the temple office.
 

Finance Committee

The Kol Ami Finance committee is made up of a team of financial professionals – anyone financially inclined is welcome to join! The committee is responsible for recommending spending and investment policies to the board, preparing financial reports, helping the Treasurer both prepare the budget for the coming year and communicate our financial results to members at the AGM.  Over the past month, the committee has been providing training to our office manager Joanne, on our bookkeeping system and conducting a review of other bookkeeping systems that would make her job easier and TKA members’ financial interactions with the synagogue easier and electronic.

High Holy Days Committee

In the last month, we have discussed the possibility of changing our High Holy Days machzor.  We have spoken to a few members to hear their opinion.  The next step is for Rabbi Streiffer to present it to the board.

Interfaith Committee

Interfaith family engagement has profound impact on the future of our community and our Jewish people. We are establishing an Interfaith Committee at Kol Ami to identify and act on the experience of interfaith families and members of our congregation and to link those experiences to actions that will optimize congregational engagement. We wish to increase our understanding of lived experience of interfaith families of Kol Ami, increase education of the community regarding interfaith issues, explore policy issues and halachic issues with learned and innovative solutions related to the Kol Ami community and the broader Reform Jewish community. If you are interested in participating in this committee, please contact the co-chairs, Anita Small asmall@mac.com and Norman Rosenblum,normrosenblum@mac.com. We will constitute the committee to represent the diversity of our Kol Ami Community. We welcome your input!

Co-Chairs, Anita Small and Norman Rosenblum

Ritual Committee

Our Ritual Committee is an important working committee that, with the help of our Rabbi, chooses lay leaders when required for Friday and Shabbat morning services, Torah Readers for Shabbat, and distributes honours for those services. We also perform some functions at High Holy Days and are consulted on any prayer book changes for the congregation. In addition, we are asked for our opinion on the effectiveness of High Holy Days services every year.

Social Action Committee

When a desire to see social action burns in your heart you see the world in a different perspective. There are many definitive interpretations of what social action actually means:

• Giving back
• Commitment to social reform
• Dedication to doing good
• Saving, repairing, healing our broken world
• Feeding the hungry, caring for the homeless
• Saving tragic third world country orphans
• Caring what happens beyond our own comfortable front doors…it’s all this and much much more.….

Kol Ami’s Social Action Committee is now in its 11th consecutive year of collecting food each week from the Thornhill Farmer’s market and delivering it to the Yellow Brick House, a shelter for battered women and their children. It entertains lonely seniors and sick children and reaches out to the homeless, disadvantaged children, elderly veterans and reaches out to help those who cannot help themselves.

GIFT OF SIGHT

Please help adults and children in the most impoverished part of Zimbabwe see better by donating your used prescription and non-prescription (reading) and sun glasses. Glasses will join a container going to Karanda Mission Hospital this summer. Ask your optician if they have any glasses to donate to this very worthy cause. Just imagine if we did not have our prescription glasses, how difficult our lives would be. Now imagine those who have virtually nothing with added tzorris of blurred and distorted vision.

Next Social Action meeting will be on Tuesday, March 1 at 7.30 p.m. Please come and help us plan and execute Blood Donor Clinics, plan for other humanitarian initiatives and work together for a dynamic Kol Ami Mitzvah Day. We would love to hear your views and ideas and have you be part of our growing and caring group of fellow humanitarians. We have a vibrant year ahead of us. Please lend a hand and help us make our world a little better.

For additional information regarding the committee and meeting, please contact Marleine Kay at marleine@rogers.com or 905-763-1136.

Ani v’ata neshaneh et haolam - you and I can change the world

Torah Mantle Committee

The Torah Mantle Committee, tasked with designing new Torah covers, has completed its work begun in 2014! Kol Ami and Leo Baeck have worked together to select our Torah cover theme, design, colour and fabric. After selecting artist Jeanette Kevin Oren, from among many, we have worked closely with her for the past five months to create Torah covers that are elegant and meaningful for both communities. A dedication will take place at Shabbat morning services on Saturday, April 16th to celebrate our restored Torahs with their beautiful new covers as a joint Kol Ami Leo Baeck community. Save the date! B’shalom.
Torah Mantle Committee (Anita Small and Reesa Koskie, Committee Co-Chairs; Hedy Moses, Leo Baeck Representative; Heather Baker and Shelley Yampolsky, Kol Ami Members) 

The Adult B’nai Mitzvah class of 2016 (photo credit: Eli Amon)

on Sunday, 24 January 2016.

Kol Ami…..

Helping to repair the world

…..one Mitzvah at a time

TODAH RABAH (Thank You)

   KOL AMI – YOU ROCK!

 By Marleine Kay

In 2015 YOU reached out with generosity and love and helped to make a difference in our community. You brought OHR (light) into dark places and you big-heartedly spread G’MILUT CHASSIDIM (acts of loving kindness). You made everyone proud to be a part of Kol Ami.

In 2015 YOU

• helped the homeless
• reached out to help a stranger in need
• brightened the lives of forgotten seniors in nursing homes
• enriched the lives of battered women and abused children
• changed lives forever by helping 4 children get their cleft palates and lips repaired through Operation Smile
• assisted elderly and disabled veterans
• helped the Bake and Book fundraiser for Syrian refugees make over $600.00
• cooked a meal for the homeless
• donated at the High Holy Day Appeal $2,950.00 to considerably enhance and further develop the Out of The Cold Program
• consoled the bereaved and made sure they always had a strong minyan
• visited the sick
• filled food bins for the less fortunate in our community
• prepared a thank you Christmas lunch for brave firefighters
• made Mitzvah Day amazing by decorating cards and writing inspiring messages to Israeli soldiers; baked to raise money for the Nepal disaster Fund; designed stunning hamsas for nursing home resident and decorated place mats with inspirational messages for guests at the OOTC program.

WOW! Your hearts are as big as football fields.

In 2016 YOUcan continue your wonderful heartwarming mitzvot and

• help save lives by being a Kol Ami blood donor (more info to follow)
• participate in a food drive (more info to follow)
• spare time to help abused women and children
• donate your old prescription and reading glasses to a third world eye clinic
• share ideas for social justice with us
• be active in this spring’s fantastic annual Mitzvah Day
• help to raise money for those in the greatest need (more to follow)

Join the Social Action Committee and together we can really make a difference.
For more information, please contact Marleine Kay at marleine@rogers.com or 905 763 1136.

on Sunday, 22 November 2015.

Dear Kol Ami members,
We are writing to update you on a project to beautify our Torahs. The Torah Restoration Project included funds to create four Torah covers. Three Torahs belong to Kol Ami and one Torah belongs to Leo Baeck. The Torahs all reside together in the main sanctuary just like our two communities do. This project has been long in coming. A Torah mantle committee was established in 2014. We met for several months, put a call out for artists to work with, received approximately 20 expressions of interests from artists in Canada, the US and Israel and narrowed it down to three artists. After a hiatus of 6 months while we were in different parts of the world, we reconvened in the spring of 2015 and narrowed our selection to one Judaic artist, Jeanette Kuvin Oren. You can see her Torah cover designs on her website at http://www.kuvinoren.com/

Kol Ami and Leo Baeck have worked together with the artist for five months to create our own design that will be elegant and meaningful for both communities. We have now completed the design phase and Jeanette begins her work creating the four Torah covers. We believe they will be quite stunning. It has been a most wonderful process working together. Our committee, comprised of a Leo Baeck representative and Kol Ami members, has an incredible feeling from this process that is a reflection of our community - hearing all voices, learning, developing a harmonious “rhythm” together and with a spiritual sense that is reflected in the Torah covers. The Torah covers are expected to be completed and arrive by the spring. At that time we will have a dedication to celebrate their arrival as a community. Stay tuned for details of the Torah covers’ arrival and dedication date. We can't wait for you to see them. Please feel free to contact us with any questions.

B’shalom.

Torah Mantle Committee
Anita Small and Reesa Wasser, Committee Co-Chairs
Hedy Moses, Leo Baeck Representative
Heather Baker and Shelley Yampolsky, Kol Ami Members

Rabbi Micah Streiffer, Kol Ami Rabbi
Eric Petersiel, Leo Baeck Headmaster
Mark Wolpert, Kol Ami President