B'nai Israel Congregation

The Men’s Club softball season begins! We are always looking for new players; please contact Jonathan Salant (jds15@aol.com).

$36 for members; $50 for nonmembers Learn the art and logic of chanting Haftarah! This is a practical skills-focused class that will culminate with an opportunity to chant Haftarah at shul on a Shabbat morning. Open to students at all levels.

Help us provide lunch for the residents of the Interfaith Works Women’s Shelter in Rockville. Items can be purchased or prepared in your home. Cosponsored by Men’s Club and Sisterhood.

For many years, our Lunch and Learn group has explored the text of the Torah verse-by verse, chapter-by-chapter, book-by-book. We “unpack” not only the more obvious meaning of the words and ideas but how they interface with contemporary issues and our own personal concerns and challenges. This season will be especially meaningful as we complete our study of the Book of Deuteronomy, the last section of the Torah. We will then continue with excerpts from the Book of Joshua, the next text in the biblical sequence. Comments Elie Wiesel: “(Joshua) is the narrative of a stunning adventure, the echoes of which reverberate in our consciousness—and in our newspapers—to this day: a nation still exuberant and young, still homeless, is about to take possession of a territory, still inhabited by other tribes and other entities, in the name of an ancient promise, on the authority of a higher inscrutable will.” As the “regulars” will attest, our conversations are lively, and we are not a “closed club.” Newcomers are always warmly welcomed, as together we discover anew the power of the Bible.

For many years, our Lunch and Learn group has explored the text of the Torah verse-by verse, chapter-by-chapter, book-by-book. We “unpack” not only the more obvious meaning of the words and ideas but how they interface with contemporary issues and our own personal concerns and challenges. This season will be especially meaningful as we complete our study of the Book of Deuteronomy, the last section of the Torah. We will then continue with excerpts from the Book of Joshua, the next text in the biblical sequence. Comments Elie Wiesel: “(Joshua) is the narrative of a stunning adventure, the echoes of which reverberate in our consciousness—and in our newspapers—to this day: a nation still exuberant and young, still homeless, is about to take possession of a territory, still inhabited by other tribes and other entities, in the name of an ancient promise, on the authority of a higher inscrutable will.” As the “regulars” will attest, our conversations are lively, and we are not a “closed club.” Newcomers are always warmly welcomed, as together we discover anew the power of the Bible.

Susan Evans, Ed.D., Document Retrieval Specialist at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Survivors and Victims Resource Center, will present an overview of the Museum’s Research Services, including examples of digitalized documentation and how individual inquiries are processed. Cosponsored with Men’s Club.

A new year and a new tractate of Talmud! Join us to study Tractate Berakhot which includes a comprehensive discussion of the Shema and Amidah, the essential components of the prayer service. Newcomers are more than welcome to join us. No prior knowledge is necessary.

Questions, such as, “Are there things that can’t be forgiven?”; “Do Jews believe in an afterlife?”; “Is democracy a Jewish idea?”; and “Can Robots be Jewish?” are answered by rabbis who span the spectrum of Jewish thought—from Humanist and Reform to Orthodox and beyond—in a new book based on Moment Magazine’s popular Ask the Rabbis feature.

Every year at the seder we celebrate our liberation from Egypt. Surprisingly, however, the seder contains very little information about what our enslavement in Egypt was like or how we managed to survive our time there. Join us as we study rabbinic texts about what the Jewish people endured in Egypt and the strategies they used to survive and even flourish under Egyptian rule. Along the way we'll ask ourselves: what are the tools that enable human beings to endure oppression? What do human beings need, in times of trauma, to create meaning and even joy? What does it look like to insist on one's own humanity in a world that seeks to deny it--and what might this teach us about what it means to be human in the first place? This is a special offering for Pesah 2022 and registration for this course includes two lectures that will take place on Zoom.

Now offered almost every week, Family Minyan includes spirited prayer, an engaging Torah reading, and lively conversation about the weekly Torah portion. This service is organized by our shlicha, Netta Asner-Minster, who leads it alongside Rabbi Mitchell Berkowitz, and Moshe Ben-Lev, Educational Director.