Congregation Or Shalom for February 2024

Join Us For Weekly Services

Morning Minyan

• Sunday 9:00 AM – In person and Zoom’d
• Monday 8:30 AM – Zoom’d
• Thursday 8:30 AM – Zoom’d

Shabbat Services

• Friday 7:30 PM – In person and Zoom’d
• Saturday 9:30 AM – In person and Zoom’d

Please call the synagogue office at 203-799-2341 or email coshalom@sbcglobal.net for more information).

Congregation Or Shalom Book Discussion

Thursday February 15th at 7:00 pm

“The World To Come” by Dara Horn

Discussion led by Sarah Darer

Entertainment Weekly Editor’s Choice Winner of the 2006 National Jewish Book Award for Fiction.  A million-dollar painting by Marc Chagall is stolen from a museum during a singles’ cocktail hour.  The unlikely thief is Benjamin Ziskind, a lonely former child prodigy who writes questions for quiz shows and who is sure the painting used to hang on a wall of his parents’ living room.  As Ben tries to evade the police, he and his twin sister, Sara, seek out the truth of how the painting got to the museum.  Eighty years prior, in the 1920s in Soviet Russia, Marc Chagall taught art to orphaned Jewish boys.  There Chagall befriended the great Yiddish novelist known by the pseudonym “Der Nister,” The Hidden One.  And there, with the lives of these real artists, the story of the painting begins, carrying with it not only a hidden fable by the Hidden One but also the story of the Ziskind family — from Russia to New Jersey and Vietnam.  Prize-winning author Dara Horn interweaves mystery, romance, folklore, theology, history, and scripture into a spellbinding modern tale.  She brings us on a breathtaking collision course of past, present, and future revealing both the ordinariness and the beauty of “the world to come.  All are welcome.

YAHAD HEBREW SCHOOL

Yahad is a community Hebrew school, a joint project of Congregations Or Shalom and B'nai Jacob in Woodbridge.  At Yahad, meaning "together," students form their Jewish identities through amazing experiential programming, while building foundational skills in prayer, Hebrew, Bible and much more.  Together, as students, parents, teachers, and as a community, we will create our Jewish future!  Please call Rachel @ Or Shalom if you are interested 203.799.2341.

Pull Tabs

Our Social Action Committee collects pull tabs from soda cans for the Ronald McDonald House in New Haven.  The house hosts families of children who are being cared for at Yale New Haven Hospital and allows families to stay close to their children during hospitalization.  The pull tabs can come from cans of soda, beer, cat or dog food, sardines, soup, beans, fruit, etc. - any size tabs, any color, any metal.  You can drop them at the Synagogue Monday-Thursday from 10-4 and Friday 10-3.  Collect them from family and friends, too!

Mitzvah of the Month

We are collecting Socks and Mittens this month.  Please call the office at 203.799.2341 to schedule drop off.

Coffee and Learn

Our weekly program with Rabbi Wainhaus meets every Wednesday 11-noon.  We explore the ancient texts of our tradition and the light they shed on the issues of our day.  You may attend in person or via zoom - either the entire series or specific topics.  Call the office for details.  203.799.2341(no class on February 21).

Mahjong

Do you play mahjong or want to learn?  Join us Thursdays at 1:30pm.  Please call the office to rsvp.  203.799.2341.