May 2008

Nisan/IYAR 5768

SHIR HAYAM EVENTS

See member’s calendar
or call 206-855-7924 for event details.

If you do not remember how to log in to the members only area use the following instructions:
• Click the member area link upper right corner
• When asked you to enter your Username and Password, click “Forgotten your password?” link
• Fill in your email address (the one you used when you originally signed up)
• Click submit button
• Go to your email inbox and you will have received a “New Password Requested” email from Shir Hayam Community Forums Mailer
• Open email
• Click on link in the email and follow the instructions EXACTLY

If you need any help, please call or email Paul Travis or Rachel Kerbrat for help.

MISHEBARACH

Our blessings and wishes for continued healing to Sheryl McCloud

Best Wishes to Leo Fried for a quick and complete recovery.

Update on Aaron Levine
Aaron is now out of the hospital and recovering at home from his hand surgery following a shop accident. His friends Nate Thomas and Julie Kriegh are organizing some meal support for Aaron, Judy and the kids with evening meals several times a week. They are keeping a calendar with a record of who has signed up for which days and will send out reminders. The suggestion is to prepare dinners for the Levine family on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, with an occasional Sunday.

There are no stated preferences for food but an entrée with a vegetable or salad is suggested – maybe cooking a double of whatever you are fixing for your own family. Beverages do not need to be included. A desert would be nice but not a must.

If you sign up you should plan to deliver the meal by 6:00 to Aaron and Judy’s home. Please contact Nate, Julie or me if you need directions. If you can help out please reply to Nate Thomas (nate@archthom.com) or Julie Kriegh (Julie@jkriegharchitects.com) with several options for days that work for you. Nate and Julie will sort through the responses and make assignments.

ADOPT-A-ROAD
Shir Hayam has decided to continue our participation with the Kitsap County Adopt-A-Road program. It is such a good opportunity to give back to the community and it’s always so great to drive onto the Island and see that “Chavurat Shir Hayam” sign. We will be doing the trash pickup 3 times per year. Try to work one of those sessions into your schedule. The more folks we have the less work it is!

We will meet at the Rotary Welcome Park at Seabold Road and Komedal (the north end of Komedal) at 10:00 am on June 1. Please put it on your calendars now. We can park there, don our vests, grab some bags and split up into teams. DON’T FORGET YOUR GLOVES. If you have any questions, please call Denise – See you there!

HEALTH CARE STUDY CIRCLE REPORT
Circle #2: 4/22/08
Health Care Circle report:

On Tuesday, April 22, the health care circle had its second meeting. We looked at the health care issues of ten individuals in different circumstances (a retiree, a single mother, an auto worker, a doctor, a student too old to be covered by his parents’ insurance, et. al.), discussed the problems inherent in each situation, and then compiled a list of the six biggest problems facing health care in the US today. These are:

1. the fact that health insurance is linked to employment, which means that for many people (even employed people) adequate health care is unaffordable
2. high and rising costs make health care unaffordable for both consumers and employers
3. the profit motive built into the health care system takes precedence over quality care for all
4. preexisting conditions disqualify people from coverage
5. lack of geographic access makes needed and/or quality care unavailable to many people
6. Financial strains on providers (including the need to maximize profit and repay medical school loans) limit their ability to treat un- or underinsured patients and make it hard or impossible for them to give adequate time and attention to patients.

Our next meeting is Tuesday, May 13 at 7:00. Contact Robin Simons if you would like to come so you can get the readings ahead of time.

ADULT BOOK GROUP
See member’s calendar
or call 206-855-7924 for event details.

BAT MITZVAH
The congregation is invited to join Sallie Marx for her Bat Mitzvah, Saturday May 17th. See member’s calendar
or call 206-855-7924 for event details. Kiddush lunch following.

Please RSVP April 18th at smarx704@q.com or (206) 780-1699, if you would like to attend the service. Also if you would like to donate to Sallie’s mitzvah project where she is running in the race for the cure, please visit and search for her name in the “find a participant link.” She has raised nearly $5,000 for breast cancer.

TIKKUN OLAM CORNER
If you have a favorite charity that you would like to profile here – please let me know.

SERENITY HOUSE IS CLOSING
Serenity House is home to 12 adults with developmental disabilities and 4 frail elderly in need of full-time care. It has served our most vulnerable Bainbridge Island residents for almost 40 years. Some residents have lived at the Serenity for decades. Now it is closing.

The house itself cannot be saved. Serenity’s owner, Kitsap County Consolidated Housing Authority (KCCHA,) announced a few months ago it was losing money and would have to pull out.

The KCCHA, which owns the three-acre property, is now working to put in place smaller high quality neighborhood adult family group homes, but they are unable to provide enough supportive housing to match the need right here in our community.

Serenity residents are already beginning the process of finding new housing. Sadly, many of them will move off-island; far away from security, community, trustworthy caregivers and familiar connections here on Bainbridge. Hope House, a smaller group home for developmentally disabled adults on Bainbridge, would like to grow and expand to provide the high level of accepted best practices based housing support right here on Bainbridge Island.

This is where you come in. We need money. Lots of it, and soon. Right this minute, Serenity House residents need help with moving, transport and housing expenses to ensure a smooth transition. Also, we must ensure that this will not happen again on our island. If we can pool our enormous resources we can open at least four new houses on Bainbridge, and be sure that we will at least maintain the current 16 places in supportive housing. We can buy houses or land. We can pay quality staff to support the residents.

Hope House founders and staff believe the vibrant and integrated living environment that now exists can and should be replicated so more Bainbridge Island residents can continue to live, work and fully participate in their home town. They can help us to quickly staff and open supportive housing as fast as it is acquired. Even if your resources are limited, you will see yellow cans around town in which you can donate your small change, and buttons that you can buy for a dollar. You can help move and maybe, if we are lucky, help build.

Many Island residents own houses or land as investment property. What better investment could there be than providing for our most vulnerable citizens? Sometimes, it takes a village. Sometimes a village is all it takes. Contact Donna Dahlquist at Helpline House, cap@helplinehouse.org.

RELAY FOR LIFE
The Eitz Or and Shir Hayam teens are teaming up again to participate in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life at Greenlake on May 31-June 1, 2008. It was a fun and very powerful way for us to help out in our community, and we’re looking forward to your support and making it an even greater success this year! More details will be forthcoming, as the event gets closer. If you would like to make a donation now, here is the link: http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RelayForLifeGreatWestDivision?team_id=200463&pg=team&fr_id=5725_.

INVITATION FROM KOL SHALOM
Israeli Dancing at Congregation Kol Shalom
Sunday, May 4 3-5 PM
Come join us for some free instruction and good exercise! Beginners and experts welcome, please dress comfortably and bring water to keep yourself hydrated.

INTERESTING ARTICLE From the NY Times
April 25, 2008
U.S. Jews Create New Lobby to Temper Israel Policy
By NEIL A. LEWIS

WASHINGTON — Several prominent American Jews have formed a new pro-Israel lobby as an alternative to traditional organizations that, they assert, often impede progress in the Middle East because of their generally reflexive support of Israel.

Officials of the new group, called J Street, say they believe the best way to bring security and peace to Israel is to help political candidates who support that country but will occasionally question some of its policies like maintaining or expanding settlements in disputed territories. For many who follow the intense and complex world of lobbying on Middle East issues in Washington, there is little doubt as to the role J Street hopes to play in American politics — upsetting or at least diluting the influence of groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, the formidable lobby that has long been the dominant voice of American Jewry with regard to United States policy in the Middle East. “They’re trying to be the un-Aipac,” said Shmuel Rosner, who follows the issue closely as the chief United States correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The executive director of the new venture, Jeremy Ben-Ami, said in an interview that “a large number of American Jews and their friends have dropped out of the discussion about how to bring peace to Israel and its neighbors because they don’t have a home politically.” He argued that there was a need for an alternative to the traditional groups who say, “to oppose any Israeli policy is to be anti-Israel.” The new group’s name is a multiple play on words. Not only does the letter “J” suggest a Jewish cause, but “K Street” has come to be shorthand for the Washington lobby industry because many lobbyists’ offices are there. Although downtown Washington’s streets are named for letters in the alphabet, it is also a quirk that there is no J Street to be found between I and K. The group’s founders say they will provide something else that does not exist: financial support from American Jews for political candidates whose views are not in line with Aipac’s. J Street has established its own political action committee to donate to candidates on the basis of their views about Middle East policy. So far, according to the most recent quarterly statement filed at the Federal Election Commission, the group has brought in only a handful of contributions, ranging from $250 to $5,000. Aipac does not have a political action committee and does not donate to candidates but exercises significant influence in other ways. Its prominent members donate heavily as individuals to candidates, and it mobilizes influential supporters in lawmakers’ home districts. Mr. Ben-Ami, a former domestic policy adviser in the Clinton administration, said his group intended to select a handful of Congressional candidates to support this fall with donations of about $50,000 each. He said they would choose candidates in June who are willing, for example, to express forcefully their support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine issue and for aid to the Palestinian Authority. One race that has the potential to provide such a demonstration is the Senate campaign in Minnesota, in which Norm Coleman, the incumbent Republican who is a staunch Israel supporter, is likely to be opposed by Al Franken, a Democrat who might take some positions more in line with those of J Street. Underlying the formation of the group is a fundamental question that has long vexed the American Jewish community: What is the most effective way to support Israel? Many people involved in Aipac have long argued that American Jews have limited standing to criticize Israel’s policies because they are not themselves facing difficult questions of safety and survival. Aipac would not comment on the formation of J Street. But some people involved in Aipac noted with satisfaction the vast difference in the size of the two groups: J Street is planning for an operating budget of about $1.5 million, compared with Aipac’s $100 million endowment, membership of more than 100,000 and annual lobbying expenditures of about $1 million. Victor A. Kovner, a prominent New York lawyer and former corporation counsel for the city who is one of the principal fund-raisers for J Street, said the group’s aim was to undo the notion that “Aipac speaks for American Jews on issues affecting Israel and Middle East.” He said candidates would also be able to use the group’s endorsements as a shield against accusations that they were anti-Israel. The group’s principal fund-raisers are Mr. Kovner, who supports Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign, and Alan Solomont, who supports Senator Barack Obama’s candidacy. A principal theorist behind the group, J Street officials said, is Daniel Levy, the son of Lord Levy of Britain, who was the Labor Party’s main fund-raiser under Prime Minister Tony Blair. So far, J Street has raised about $750,000 for its lobbying arm. It is organized as a nonprofit and is not obliged to detail its donations, although Mr Ben-Ami said that a few people, whom he would not name, had each given gifts of $100,000.

HAPPENING IN SEATTLE

NEXTBOOK Series May Event
Susan Stamberg
MAY 20 2008, 07:30 PM NORDSTROM RECITAL HALL AT BENAROYA HALL
Jewish Mothers – “She was so deeply imbedded in my consciousness,” says Alexander Portnoy in Philip Roth’s 1969 novel, “that for the first year of school I seem to have believed that each of my teachers was my mother in disguise.” Overbearing, overprotective, and meddlesome (when not being a martyr), the stereotypical Jewish mother gives love with one hand and takes it away with the other. Yet in the works of writers like Kim Chernin, Tillie Olsen, Anne Roiphe, Paul Rudnick, and others, the Jewish mother proves to be anything but predictable. NPR’s Susan Stamberg hosts an evening of comic and dramatic readings, directed by Shana Bestock, with music by the Kosher Red Hots.

Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies
“BIBLICAL POLITICS” with lecturer Michael Walzer from the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton University Sunday, May 11: The Meaning of Kingship, followed by reception following the lecture
Tuesday, May 13: Prophecy and Social Criticism
Thursday, May 15: where Were the Elders?
All lectures at 7:30 pm, 220 Kane Hall, UW Seattle Campus
“Michael Walzer’s book “Exodus and Revolution” (1985) showed how the Biblical narrative of liberation and redemption has shaped struggles for freedom worldwide. His four volume edited collection “The Jewish Political Tradition” has been called “one of the most ambitious Jewish intellectual efforts of recent years…on a grand scale.” His “Just and Unjust Wars” (4th edition, 2006), “On Toleration” (1997), and writings on what it means to be an American, on civil liberties, and in defense of Israel have made him one of the foremost public intellectuals of our time. Walzer is Professor Emeritus of political philosophy at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), editor of “Dissent,” contributing editor of “The New Republic,” and member of the Board of Governors of hebrew University, Michael Walzer will “read the biblical texts as a political theorist. What did the biblical writers think about politics? How important was it in their eyes? What was the best regime? Who were the recognized political actors and what were they supposed to do” In the Stroum Lectures, Professor Walzer will biew Biblical politics through the lens of modern political theory.” – Jewish Studies Program, UW
For in about this series, call 206.543.0138, for parking, call 685.1553.

JEWISH SUMMER CAMP
Is your child a 6th to 8th grader?
Has s/he never gone to an overnight Jewish camp for 3 weeks or longer?
Is your child NOT attending a Jewish Day School?
If your child is between 6th and 8th grades, doesn’t attend Jewish Day School, and has never been to a Jewish sleep-away camp for more than 3 weeks, s/he may be eligible for $1800 towards a Jewish camp’s tuition. The Foundation for Jewish Camping is sponsoring these scholarships. They are available for any Jewish camp in the US, and there is also a list of Jewish camping possibilities on the West Coast. If you are interested in more info about these scholarships for your child or children now or in the future, you can access their website at www.onehappycamper.ORG.

SCHOLARSHIP
Do you know or are you a Jewish student in financial need who is attending or planning to attend the UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON? If so, applications for the BEROL-SHINDELL SCHOLARSHIP are available from Hillel at the University of Washington or at your counselor’s office. The deadline for this scholarship’s application is May 3, 2008. Hillel Foundation for jewish Life at the university of Washington 206.527.1997
www.hilleluw.org

FROM THE IFC:
Sunday, May 18, 2008: 6th Annual IFC Music and Choir Festival, 3pm at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (8677 Madison Ave NE, BI). Admission is free. Join us as we celebrate our spiritual music as the choirs and soloists of our IFC-member congregations perform for us. At the very end all of the musicians gather together as one combined, unified choir, this year under the direction of Grace Episcopal’s Ann Strickland, to perform two final pieces: “Love In My Soul,” a prayer adapted by Kathie McCarthy, with music composed by local composer Caroline Clucas; and “MLK,” words and music by U2. Every year this is a wonderful concert!

May 1, 08:31 PM