Category: Events

Celebrate with us!

Hebrew College and Temple Reyim invite you to join us online on Sunday, December 5, 2021 from 3-4 p.m. to celebrate breaking ground for Hebrew College’s new home on a new shared campus in Newton, MA.

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Groundbreaking Ceremony: 3-4 p.m. (Livestreamed)

Hebrew College and Temple Reyim are excited to collaborate with several organizational partners and neighbors on a new shared campus, creating a vibrant hub for Jewish learning and life in the Auburndale neighborhood of Newton. Hebrew College will relocate to our new home in December 2022.

The vision for the collaborative builds on the strength of existing relationships with organizations that are currently located at Temple Reyim’s campus, including Mayyim Hayyim Living Waters Community Mikveh and Education Center, Kesher Newton, and Zamir Chorale of Boston. Hebrew College will bring several other dynamic pluralistic Boston-based Jewish organizations to the shared campus, including Jewish Arts Collaborative (JArts), the Jewish Women’s Archive, Keshet, and the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis, to create an interdisciplinary hub of Jewish learning, spirituality, and innovation.

Due to COVID restrictions, we will have a small in-person gathering. We are excited to livestream the event to share with our community far and wide. Please RSVP to let us know you will join us!

How to Watch the Livestream

We will be livestreaming the Groundbreaking on YouTube on Dec. 5 at 3 p.m. Please use the link below.

>> LIVESTREAM LINK

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Hanukkah Experience:
4:15-5:00 p.m. (In person)

Following the Groundbreaking Ceremony, please join us outside Temple Reyim, 1860 Washington St. in Newton, to experience the Jewish Arts Collaborative (JArts) 2021 mobile art installation, “Brighter Revealed”. We are excited to celebrate our new campus, our shared campus partnerships (including JArts), and to deepen our partnership with JArts with this Hanukkah community experience.

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Tour Mayyim Hayyim Community Mikveh  (4:30 p.m.)

Tours of new campus partner Mayyim Hayyim Living Waters Community Mikveh and Education Center will be available to see the mikveh, education center and art gallery; learn how and why people immerse to celebrate moments of joy, heal after times of sorry or illness, or to commemorate transitions and changes. Vaccination verification and masks required.

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RSVP  

Please RSVP to receive the link for the Groundbreaking livestream.

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Parking for Hanukkah Experience and Mayyim Hayyim Tours

The outdoor Hanukkah “Brighter Revealed” experience will take place outside Temple Reyim, 1860 Washington St. in Newton, MA.

• There is limited parking in the Temple Reyim parking lot.
• There is parking available on nearby side streets, including Day Street and Aspen Avenue, within a 5-7 minute walk of Temple Reyim.
• There is parking available in the Newton-Wellesley Hospital Garage,  a 5- minute walk.
• There is parking available for $3 at the Woodland T Station, .3 miles (a 5-minute walk).
• There also will be limited accessible parking in front of the building.
• View Google directions

Join us for a morning with guest speaker Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom, who will teach about the Ethiopian Jewish Holiday of Sigd and his experience immigrating from Ethiopia to Israel. The event will include discussion, learning activities, and the music of Sigd.

The Metrowest CultureFest co-sponsors include Hebrew College, Congregation Or Atid, Temple Beth Sholom, Temple Beth Am, and 2Life Communities.

About the Speaker

Rabbi Dr. Sharon Zaude Shalom immigrated alone to Israel from Ethiopia in 1982. A graduate visiting scholar from Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University, PhD in Jewish philosophy from Bar-llan University. Head of the International Center for Study of  Ethiopian Jewry Jewish Studies Lecturer Faculty of Humanities Ono  Academic College. He serves as well as a rabbi of the “Kedoshei Yisrael” community in Kiryat Gat, a community of Holocaust survivors.

He received his ordination at  Har Etzion and serves as a member of  Beit Hillel and TZOHAR, an Orthodox Rabbinic organization. His M.A. thesis was on “Circumcision in the Beta Yisrael Community” and his Ph.D. thesis was on “Judaism of Fate? A Case Study on Theology of  the Ethiopian Jewish Community,” both completed at Bar-llan University. He has lectured  widely in many contexts on the following subjects: philosophy of halakha, Ethiopian Jewry, and the immigrant experience. He has published books, From Sinai To Ethiopia: The Halakhic and Conceptual World of Ethiopian Jewry including Shulchan Ha­ Orit (The Table of Light): a halachic guide for the Beta Israel Community. He also published the  book Conversation about Love and  Fear the Dialogue between the Rabbi’s Daughter and the Kes’s Son. At Brandeis University, he has worked to create a curriculum on Ethiopian Jewry, halakha, heritage and history, in collaboration with the “Village Way” of Yemin Orde, Professor Sharon Feiman Nemser, and Prof. Yehudah Mirsky. He currently resides in Kiryat Gat with his wife Avita and five children.

The Heidi Urich Annual Lecture on Jewish Genealogy

Join us for this year’s Heidi Urich Annual Lecture on Jewish Genealogy entitled  “Time Capsules Under the Rubble: The Ringelblum Archive in the Warsaw Ghetto” with Samuel Kassow. The lecture is co-sponsored by the jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston and Hebrew College.

About the program

During World War II, Jews resisted not only with guns but also with pen and paper. Even in the face of death they left “time capsules” full of documents they buried under the rubble of ghettos and death camps. They were determined that posterity would remember them on the basis of Jewish and not German sources. The Ringelblum archive in the Warsaw Ghetto buried thousands of documents. Of the 60 people who worked on this national mission, only three survived. Professor Kassow will describe life in the Warsaw Ghetto and how this brave group of Jews worked to defend Jewish honor and to show future generations that history actually matters.

About the speaker

Samuel Kassow, Charles Northam Professor of History at Trinity College, is a leading scholar of the Holocaust and has authored many studies on Russian and Jewish history. His ground-breaking book, Who Will Write Our History: Rediscovering a Hidden Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto, inspired the documentary film of the same name.  Professor Kassow was part of the scholarly team that planned the acclaimed POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. He is currently engaged in a project organized by Yad Vashem to write a history of the Holocaust in Poland. Kassow holds a Ph.D from Princeton and has been a visiting professor at many universities including Harvard, Toronto and Dartmouth.

 

The Hebrew College chamber choir, Kol Arev, will perform a winter concert in Berenson Hall on December 13 from 1-2 p.m.

The concert will include selections from the upcoming February 11, 2022 “Building Bridges” concert in which Kol Arev will perform with the Zamir Chorale of Boston and Nashirah, the Jewish Chorale of Greater Philadelphia as part of a lecture & concert event of the American Choral Directors Association, the national organization for choral directors and choruses. Works will include songs of love from around the world in Hebrew, Arabic, Yiddish, Ladino.

Kol Arev, which includes  cantorial, rav-hazzan, as well as some rabbinical students, staff, and community members, performs at Hebrew College and in the Greater Boston and Providence communities throughout the academic year.

Hebrew College is excited to be celebrating our Centennial Year with special events throughout 2021-2022, including this virtual Prozdor reunion on December 2, 2021.

Join the Prozdor alumni community for an evening of (re)connecting with friends and fellow alumni by decade, honoring beloved Prozdor teacher Mr. Norman Finkelstein, Proz ‘57 (right) for his 38 years of teaching (1982-2021), a blessing from Prozdor alumna and former director, Margie Berkowitz, and learning from guest teacher and alumnus, Dr. Jonathan Golden.

We are also excited to share the launch of the Norman Finkelstein Fund for Teen Learning at Hebrew College! Please join us in celebrating Norm’s legacy at Hebrew College and sustaining excellent Jewish education that is accessible to future generations of Boston area teens by making your gift here by December 1, 2021. **Please note “IHO Norm” in the comments box**

We hope to *see* you there, and that you will help us spread the word to fellow Prozdor alumni, teachers, and friends!

Curious what Judaism has to say about the big issues of today? Ready to make real change in the world? Want to learn more Modern Hebrew with teens from across the region and dive into excellent courses on Jewish history, arts, social justice, God talk, Israeli culture, and so much more?

Join us for an informational session about Hebrew College’s Teen Learning programs, including Prozdor Teen Open Circle, Teen Beit Midrash, Jewish Teen Foundation of Greater Boston, and the Teen Hebrew Institute. Teens in 8th-12th grade and parents/guardians welcome.