Letter Of The Jewish Community Center

The rabbi began the service fairly casually, greeting the congregation in English. After the English greeting came a more traditional greeting in Hebrew, and then a song to greet the Sabbath, or Shabbat, which is the word that was used at the synagogue. The Hebrew might have been strange to me, but there were English translations for just about everything in the prayer book, along with the prayers and songs written out in Hebrew. My personal favorite part of the service was the singing. There were two singers, one male and one female. All of the songs were beautiful, and caused me to consider the fact that many religions use songs and music in order to convey their messages. I believe that this is a good practice, because music is a common language, one that everybody can understand regardless of whether they speak Hebrew, or any other tongue. Although I’m

When looking at Judaism, one has to go far back to biblical times to fully understand its origins. It started with the Hebrew people in the country of Israel. The bloodline of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob is what constitutes people as being Jewish. Being classified as a Jew, or a Jewish citizen has more to do with family ties, then what you believe in. The standard for being considered Jewish is that you have to be born to a Jewish mother. Some sects of Judaism like to include being born to a Jewish father as part of being Jewish. It can be looked at as more of a nationality or an ethnicity than a

My finance and I attended a Friday night Shabbat service. Shabbat is the Jewish Sabbath day; their day of rest. It begins on Friday and concludes Saturday evening. Shabbat allows time for members to focus on what it is important and that is: worshiping, reflecting on the week, and growing together. Depending on the day (Friday or Saturday) and week (1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th), the service may vary including the content of worship, it’s timing and style. The Shabbat service we attend took place on the second Friday of the month; it involved music, prayer and a sermon. As we entered Shir Takvih, we felt very welcomed; everyone was polite and answered any questions we had. After we received a copy of their translated prayer book (machzorim) we were directed to the designated place, where we were told that we could sit anywhere we like. The white painted room which was surrounded by big round windows had several roles of wooden fold up chairs. Not wanting to be a disturbance we sat in the back row. At the front of the room there was a bimah with an assortment of musical instruments on one side and a podium

Throughout history, Jews have remained firmly stuck to Jewish tradition. Despite this, since the start of the Judaism Reformation, it has been found that Jewish people cannot coexist effectively with those who live in modern times. The reformations that were made included services no longer being conducted solely in Hebrew, but in a mixture of Hebrew and English and recognising the fact that for most Jews the vernacular was the main language of communication. As well as this, sections of the liturgy were omitted if they no longer corresponded to what Jews believed. The most dramatic of all has been the complete equality accorded to women. In Orthodox synagogues women are seated separately from men and do not lead any part of the service when men are present. In Reformed synagogues they sit together with men, participate actively in public worship and can now also be rabbis.

Throughout the history of America, there has always been a influx of Jews from Europe. Even though Emma Lazarus wrote her poem after the massive immigration of German Jews to America, her poem can be used to describe the Jewish Immigrants. Many German Jews arrived in New York " tired ... poor... [and] yearning to breathe free." While New York City was still a hub for German Jewish immigrants, some had also moved to Atlanta and more Western states. Several of the German Jewish families who immigrated to America will forever have their names etched into her history, through their central role as entrepreneurs in America's expanding clothing industry. They began from humble careers and worked their way up the proverbial food chain. Once

On Sunday, November 13, 2016, I visited the Kennedy Road Tabernacle church on 141 Kennedy Rd N, Brampton, ON L6V 1X9 at 8:00 am. This denomination was Christian and I had no experience or background knowledge about Christianity, other than what I have learned in school. I decided to go on a Sunday because I knew many people go on Sundays and it would be a good experience. From my knowledge, Christianity is a monastic religion, that is the belief in one god, and he made things rule over history (Esposito, & Lewis). They also believe that God is higher than everyone, and should not be placed after someone else. They believed that Jesus was born Nazareth in the northern Galilee region on December 25, also the same day as Christmas. Jesus was crucified

The Tucson Jewish Community Center (JCC) is a hub for both Jewish and non-Jewish members of the Tucson community to interact through a number of different activities such as sports, art classes, and summer camps. The primary industry for the JCC is the Civic and Youth Organizations industry which has a NAICS code of 81341. Currently, the industry is in the decline stage of its life cycle with an expected annual decline of 1%. The JCC faces macro-competition through the AAU Junior Olympics and International Youth Olympics, and faces micro competition through the Tucson Soccer Shootout and NYS Tucson (For more details see Appendix A and B). The JCC faces macro-competition through the AAU Junior

According to the broadest definition, there are approximately 9 million Jewish adults in America. Of those, 5.3 million are Jewish because they practice the Jewish religion or who have a Jewish parent and consider themselves Jewish. Non-hispanic blacks make up 2% of that population. (A Portrait of Jewish Americans) Blacks constitute such a small percentage of the Jewish population that they are often considered to be obviously “not Jewish”. This was the experience of Rabbi Shlomo ben Levy.In an article entitled, “Who are we? Where did we come from? How many of us are there?”, Rabbi Levy describes his feelings of marginalization triggered by an advertisement for Levy’s Jewish Rye. The advertisement features a black boy eating a sandwich and

One interesting concept that I learned was to stand the book straight up on the next available chair, instead of faced down or in any other position to accentuate the importance of the scriptures and prayers that the books consist of. The service started promptly at 9:00 pm in which the members of the Jewish Synagogue were already wearing a tallit, which is a prayer shawl that represents the six hundred and thirteen commandments, and silently prayer with a swaying motion incorporated. After asking the congregate that was aiding the observers throughout the service, he explained that Jews usually sway, rock, or shake because it is stated that the physical act is a way of connecting spiritually to God while praying along with other justifications within the Torah. My initial feelings regarding the acceptance of me as a visitor was kind of unsettling because I was the center of attention along with the two other observers. Some congregates would greet us warmly offering any help, while some others often discretely talked among their other fellow congregates about our attendance with some people staring for portions of the service. Besides, the interaction of the congregates to the clergy was very divided in the aspect of gender roles due to the fact that the table that two intricate cased Torahs were brought out on could only be seen by the men and recite by men only. As far as the division of roles, I found it interesting that some of the women explained to us that it was not a form of disrespect or act of degrading because they play their specialized role in the congregation, which is often misunderstood and in their perspective more liberating than most portray it to me. It was also explained to me that women are seen as separate but equal when stated throughput Jewish

At 10:00 on April 30th, I visited Temple Israel for the Shabbat service. It is a Jewish Synagogue in Canton, Ohio. The Shabbat service included praising God and honoring it as a day of rest for people and for God. Before I walked into the actual room of worship there was a table of Kappa’s. They are the little white hats you wear on the back of your head. I learned that it’s custom in Judaism to cover your head before going into the sanctuary as a sign of respect. There were also programs of information what’s going on in the synagogue. There’s also a rack of Tallit’s, Jewish adults wear these and before they put it on they say a prayer. In the actual sanctuary, there were pews, a Bimah which is the stage, an ark which faces Jerusalem where the Torah is held, and a light called Ter Namid which is an eternal light that is always on to represent God’s eternal watchfulness over his followers. In front of the pews there were Siddurs which is a Jewish prayer book. It contains daily and Shabbat prayers. They are in Hebrew and in English and since I am a non-Jew, I followed along in the English side that is printed alongside the Hebrew side. The Rabbi calls out what page they are on during the service in this book. This is similar to what priests do at church. There is also a Chumash which is what includes the five books and I learned that it is commonly the same book as the Torah. Out of a sign of respect, I had to stand whenever the Ark was opened or whenever the Torah was

“Certainly, the world without the Jews would have been a radically different place. Humanity might have eventually stumbled upon all the Jewish insights. But we cannot be sure. All the great conceptual discoveries of the human intellect seem obvious and inescapable once they had been revealed, but it requires a special genius to formulate them for the first time. The Jews had this gift. To them we owe the idea of equality before the law, both divine and human; of the sanctity of life and the dignity of human person; of the individual conscience and so a personal redemption; of collective conscience and so of social responsibility; of peace as an abstract ideal and love as the foundation of justice, and many other items which constitute the

Synagogue: Place where Jews gather for the study of the Torah-considered a form of worship. The synagogue can be any large room where the Torah scrolls are kept and read; it was also the site of communal social gatherings. One of the examples is The Crossing of the Red Sea Fig. 7-4 which is a detail of a wall painting from a house-synagogue.

For the Shabbat services worshippers clothed in business casual or business formal outfits to fit the occasion of prayer. Common only everyone was dressed business attire including rabbi who had an additional scarf around his neck. Before I attended service, I did some research on what worshippers would wear to a Shabbat service, and clothed up in clothing that I would normally wear to church, which happened to be a business causal in my Christian church. There were some women who had head coverings or a prayer shawl. These head covering were beautiful with gold fabric design in the stitching. According to Reform Judaism, The Reform movement is egalitarian, so both men and women can wear whatever ritual attire they please if they choose to do so. That said, you may also see people not wearing any ritual attire. Once service began, a prayer book was brought out called a siddur. The siddur contains traditional prayers in Hebrew, English phonetic transliterations, and literal translations. Through the service the rabbi announced the page numbers as the worshippers can follow along. The congregation of the San Francisco synagogue has worship where they gather together to sing. Later on in the service the rabbi then spoke scripture from the holy book. In addition, he would give interpretation of the scripture. Personally, Jewish churched had some of the characteristics of a regular modern day Christian church when comparing to preaching style. Gracefully the rabbi mentioned that Jesus is the son of God. However, I noticed that when the rabbi prayed he did not mentioned Jesus in the prayer. Although the Jewish customs were extremely foreign to me comparing to Christian traditions was

physically as a group (Schlesinger). According to Evelyn Kallen “the family provides the most appropriate symbolic-expressive focus for ethnic identity expressed in terms of the idiom of kinship at the micro-community level” (). In addition, Jewish families are open-minded people because they have an egalitarian marital ideology; however, there is a sexual division of labor between domestic and occupational spheres. For instance the men are in occupations while the women’s duties are more over the household. Also they always emphasize on the nuclear family as oppose to extended family, mainly because they live in cities. The Jewish community in Canada went through a formative, maintenance and the actualization stage. Each stage reflects the

There are many different cultures that surround us everyday; each one with its own unique customs and lifestyles. The Jewish culture contains some of the oldest traditions and customs that date back thousands of years. This culture has survived everything from exile to almost being diminished during the Holocaust. The Jewish culture has a unique culture, that has much to share with the world around them.