The Seventh Annual Celebrating our Caring Community luncheon honoring the work of Jewish Family & Child Service will be held 10 am to noon, May 19, at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center. Lunch is complimentary, but guests are asked to make “a meaningful donation” to JFCS.
The event begins at 10 am with a silent art auction to raise funds for TASK/Tikvah. The silent auction includes art ranging from paintings and drawings to textiles and jewelry. Funds raised will support the TASK/Tikvah disabilities services for children and adults. During the auction, music by Tom Grant and a sponsored Mimosa Bar will be in the MJCC lobby.
Incoming JFCS President Larry Holzman will serve as master of ceremonies. Brunch begins at 10:30. This year’s brunch will introduce “The Wise Aging Program,” which JFCS will launch in June. Developed for the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, the Wise Aging program provides a guided path designed to for those who want to discover new resources for living their later years with spirit, resilience and wisdom.
Guest speaker will be Linda Thal, a Jewish educator and spiritual director whose work focuses on adult spiritual development. Linda is co-author of Wise Aging: Living with Joy, Resilience, and Spirit. She facilitates on-going Wise Aging groups in Los Angeles and New York, and also designed and conducts the national Wise Aging facilitator training program for the Institute of Jewish Spirituality.
The brunch will also feature Some “Words of Wisdom” by Guest of Honor Rabbi Joshua Stampfer. Now 97, the well-known scholar and innovator continues to teach several classes each week and participate in many of the institutions he has founded in his 60 plus years in Portland.
Space is limited. The brunch is complimentary, but RSVP is required: jfcs-portland.org/giving/2019-brunch/, 503-226-7079.
Explore the basics of breathing coordination and learn to breathe and speak with more ease and greater power. Taught by Eve Bernfeld, Certified teacher of the Alexander Technique.
PSU History professor David A. Horowitz presents literary and narrative selections from Two on the Aisle: A Judaic American Tale of Romance and Creative Dreams, his recently published biography of his parents, accompanied by PowerPoint and Gershwin musical excerpts.
Two on the Aisle: A Judaic American Tale of Romance and Creative Dreams, is a hybrid cultural history and family chronicle that traces the aspirations, experiences, and creative works of the author’s parents, Nathan and Dorothy Horowitz, in an account encompassing many of the central themes and contradictions of twentieth-century American and Jewish history and identity. The story describes how two offspring of Eastern European immigrants combined a struggle for material security with literary efforts that blended Yiddish-flavored humor, social compassion, religious devotion, and secular concerns with piercing meditations on life’s disappointments and fragility. While sampling fragments of the couple’s three-act play that enjoyed a brief run off-Broadway in the 1950s and excerpts from published poetry, short stories, sketches, and essays, Two on the Aisle draws on an archive of correspondence, journal entries, and unpublished work to provide a fully human dimension to this remarkable story.
Mark Twain said it best when he said, “no one has an uninteresting life!” This workshop is an opportunity to explore your life and write your stories. Dorothy Dworkin, an experienced author, columnist and writing coach, will offer prompts and suggestions to get you started on writing your stories. She will help you organize your memoir with noncritical feedback from your fellow writers and from her years of experience facilitating the writing process. No experience necessary, only a desire to share your experiences with family, friends and fellow “memoirists.” Class size is limited to 12.
Thursdays
May 2 – 30
11:00 am – 12:30 pm, CG306
Cost: $50.
Register at oregonjcc.org/registration
Seniors and young families enjoy an inter-generational celebration of stories and songs each Thursday.
Join Kim Schneiderman for this weekly inter-generational story hour for young families with music, PJ Library books, and the residents of Cedar Sinai Park.
Come study and discuss the Bible with Rabbi Isaak at Neveh Shalom.
Welcome Shabbat with Congregation Neveh Shalom’s Rabbi Eve Posen with music and stories. Potluck dinner to follow. Contact Rabbi Eve Posen for location: eposen@nevehshalom.org
Co-sponsored by PJ Library.
Mah Jongg for Beginners
Learn to play this ancient game. It will give your mind a workout!
Tuesday mornings
May 28 – June 25
10:30 am – 12:30 pm, CG303
Cost: $100. Members: $85.
Register: oregonjcc.org/registration
Mah Jongg for Intermediate Players
Take your game to the next level!
Tuesday afternoons
May 28 – June 25
1:30 – 3:30 pm, CG304
Cost: $100. Members: $85.
Register: oregonjcc.org/registration
Magevet – Yale University’s Jewish A Capella Singing Group – Performing LIVE at the MJCC!
Tuesday, May 28, 7:00 pm
Cost: $15 per adult, $10 per youth (ages 18 and under). Tickets: www.oregonjcc.org/concert
Founded in 1993, Magevet is one of the nation’s premiere Jewish a cappella singing groups. A coed ensemble comprised of undergraduate students at Yale University, Magevet is known for its sweet blend of voices, unique arrangements, and lighthearted sense of humor.
The group’s diverse repertoire spans modern Israeli pop and Renaissance choral pieces to Yiddish folk tunes and Zionist classics. The members of Magevet are equally diverse: engineers and historians, Jews and Gentiles, New Yorkers and Californians, all united by camaraderie and a love of singing.
Magevet is devoted to spreading Jewish music to the far corners of the globe, and embarks on two major tours each year, in addition to regular performances throughout the Northeast. In the past few years, their tours have brought them all over the United States and Canada, as well as to Europe, Africa, South America, and Israel.
Magevet is, incidentally, the Hebrew word for “towel.” The founding members of the group are in near-complete disagreement about what inspired them to choose such an unusual name for an a cappella group, though many of their accounts involve a sauna.
For more information on Magevet, click HERE!
Supported by the Kostiner Cultural Education Fund.