Workshop - "Raising Respectful, Responsible and Resilient Children in a Privileged World"

Karen Jacobson and Lauren Bondy presented this fun, interactive workshop providing practical, creative tips on how to navigate the challenge of parenting in today's privileged world. The program including ideas on how to avoid raising over-indulged children, communicating values, deepening connections among family members, encouraging responsibility and meaningful family activities and enjoying being a parent.

Karen has her master's degree in Counseling Psychology and is a licensed marriage and family therapist and licensed clinical professional counselor with over 15 years counseling experience. Lauren received her master's degree in Clinical Social Work and has extensive experience in school social work and child welfare. She helped implement a comprehensive bully prevention program in the schools.

"Jews and Muslims in the Arab World"

Dr. Jacob Lassner spoke about the book he recently co-authored, Jews and Muslims in the Arab World: Haunted by Pasts Real and Imagined. The book, which has received praised from scholars nationwide, looks at the effects of historical memory on the Arab-Israeli conflict. It shows how Jews and Arabs use stories of distant pasts to create their identities and shape their politics. Whether real or imagined, the past filtered through their collective memories continues to exert enormous influence on how Jews and Arabs perceive themselves and each other.

Dr. Lassner is Professor of Jewish Civilization at Northwestern University and the author of seven previous books, most recently The Middle East Remembered.

Adult Retreat - "Prayer and Reform Judaism: Oxymoron or Theological Pillar?"

Rabbi Cohen explored the nature of our relationship to prayer using Mishkan T'filah, the Reform Movement's new prayer book, as our study guide. The retreat took place at scenic Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.

Participants looked at the evolution of the prayer book, from its earliest text to its latest version, and questioned whether this is a spiritual snapshot of our community or the latest attempt to reshape a more traditional Reform Movement.

Rabbi's Reading Table

North Shore Kallah

"The Book of Psalms"

Dr. Benjamin Sommer, Director of the Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies and an Associate Professor of Religion at Northwestern University, gave an introductory lecture on the Book of Psalms, covering its origins, its use in ancient Israelite worship in Biblical times and its literary forms.

Dr. Sommer teaches about the Hebrew Bible, ancient Judaism and religions of the Near East. He has been a visiting faculty member at various institutions including the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His first book, A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40-66, received the Salo Baron Prize by the American Academy of Jewish Research. Dr. Sommer is currently working on several books, including Artifact or Scripture? The Jewish Bible between History and Theology, which will examine whether the Bible as an ancient Near Eastern document is revelevant for modern Jewish thought.

Film - "Close to Home"

Temple Jeremiah and the Dawn Schuman Institute presentd this film chronicling the day-to-day lives of two young Israeli women soldiers, Smadar and Mirit, who are forced to overcome their differences when a tragic event occurs.

The story follows these women of differing values as they face overwhelming duties as Border Police in the Israeli Defense Force. Mirit and Smadar are assigned to make their presence known on the street, registering any Arabs they encounter, watching for suspicious activity, and conducting end-of-day searches of Arab women going back across the border. Tensions are high not only between the soldiers and the Palestinian civilians but between the Israeli soldiers themselves over how to deal with the impossible conflict. Dr. Liora Sion led a discussion following the film.

Pulse of Our World: A Mideast Update

Guest speaker was Micah Halpern, host of the weekly talk radio feature "A Safer World," a terrorism analyst commentator on USA Radio Network and CBS Network and a frequent guest speaker on CBS, FOX and MSNBC as well as documentaries on PBS, The Learning Channel, The History Channel, Discovery and the Food Network. Mr. Halpern is the author of What You Need to Know About Terror and, most recently, THUGS: How History’s Most Notorious Despots Transformed the World Through Terror, Tyranny and Mass Murder.

A syndicated columnist, Mr. Halpern is also a well-known social and political commentator, educator and historian. In 1997 he was appointed Israeli columnist for American Online and continues to this day to write a weekly column on foreign affairs, the Middle East and terror. For fun, Mr. Halpern writes a column on Kosher wines and is the only exclusively Kosher wine reviewer in the world.

Discussion: The Book Thief

Congregant Ruth Adler led a discussion of the award-winning bestseller, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Death himself narrates this World War II-era story of a young German woman, Liesel Meminger, from the time she is taken as a young child to live with a foster family in a tough, working class neighborhood after stealing her first book. Over the years Liesel steals more books as events in her life become inextricably tied to the events of World War II and she watches her family and friends succumb to Death.

Ecology and the Torah

Temple Jeremiah and the Dawn Schuman Institute presented this program concerning what Judaism says about our responsibility to the environment, recycling and global warming. Rabbi Joseph Ozarowski explored Jewish attitudes toward ecological issues through discussion of Jewish texts throughout our history.