Shir Chadash Newsletter

February 16 - February 22, 2023

25 Shevat - 1 Adar 5783

Please note that our office will be closed Monday and Tuesday, February 20-21, for Lundi and Mardi Gras Days.

Have a very happy Mardi Gras season and stay safe!

Thursday, February 16th

5 pm, YAS Does Muses - at the corner of Napoleon & Prytania- RSVP HERE

Friday, February 17th

6:15 pm, Shabbat Evening Services

Saturday, February 18th

9:30 am, Shabbat Morning Services, followed by Kiddush lunch

Sunday, February 19th

NO SHUL SCHOOL - MARDI GRAS BREAK

9:15 am, Minyan with Men's Club, followed by breakfast

Wednesday, February 22nd

10 am, Sisterhood Class: The Book of Legends

Thursday, February 23rd

8 am, Morning Minyan on Zoom

7 pm, Great Jewish Books (of the Last Decade)

email rabbiscott@shirchadash.org to RSVP

Friday, February 24th

6:15 pm, Shabbat Evening Services

Saturday, February 25th

9:30 am, Shabbat Morning Services, followed by Kiddush lunch

10 am, Shul School Shabbat

10 am, Babysitting

Sunday, February 26th

NO REGULARLY SCHEDULED SHUL SCHOOL

9:15 am, Minyan with Men's Club, followed by breakfast

Tuesday, February 28th

11 am, Lunch & Learn

Wednesday, March 1st

10 am, Sisterhood Class: The Book of Legends

Thursday, March 2nd

8 am, Morning Minyan on Zoom

Our Health Committee update as of December 7, 2022 is as follows:



'Tis the season for respiratory viruses . . . A "tridemic" of COVID, influenza, and RSV is currently upon us. As a result, we strongly encourage you to stay up to date with your COVID and flu vaccines. Bivalent COVID boosters are available for those ages 5 years and older. Flu vaccine is available for those ages 6 months and older.  Please visit vaccines.gov to find a location near you.  We also encourage frequent handwashing and wearing a mask in crowded indoor spaces. And if you are feeling sick, please stay home to help reduce the transmission of virus to others. Zay gezunt! Be well!

Please click HERE to read our guidelines in full.

Young Adults at Shir Chadash presents...

SAVE THE DATE!

Stay tuned for more information!

Everyone can be part of the campaign to replace 19 of our worn Torah covers. Giving opportunities from $36 to $2000+ (including inscription, 17 still available). From now almost until Passover (April 1, 2023) your donation to the Fred Bronfin Torah Preservation Fund will be a part of this campaign. Give in honor of any occasion: birthday, anniversary, thank you, or just because. The goal is to have the new covers on display for Rosh Hashanah 5784.  

To make your donation, contact the shul office or click the button below.

CLASSES WITH RABBI HOFFMAN

MSJE and Chabad of Louisiana are teaming up to host a family hamentaschen-making workshop at MSJE on Sunday, February 26 at 3:00pm. You’ll make the dough and choose your perfect down-home filling, with everything from pecan praline to apricot jam available, then leave the mess behind and take your hamentaschen home to bake – just in time for Purim. There will also be crafts and snacks for the kiddos. All ingredients and snacks are kosher. Perfect for families with children of all ages!

SAVE THE DATE!

LIMMUDFEST 2023 GOES LIVE! 

The lineup of local, regional, and national presenters and information on their sessions is now available! This year's sessions will cover a wide variety of issues and topics, such as:

• Arts and Culture
• Contemporary Jewish Life and Identity
• Family
• Food
• Hands-on
• History
• Israel

• Music
• Social Justice
• Southern Jewish Life
• Spirituality
• Text & Thought
• Teen Limmud
• Young Limmud

Each week we will be featuring two of their amazing presenters!

Mikhl Yashinsky (he/him) is an actor-singer, director, playwright, and Yiddishist who was born in Detroit, educated at Harvard, and who now lives in Manhattan. With the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, he performed in the Yiddish-language Fiddler on the Roof (dir. Joel Grey), and in The Sorceress, for which the New York Times hailed him for bringing a “keen, if malevolent, psychology” to the title role. He is the coauthor of In eynem: The New Yiddish Textbook. As a 2023 LABA Fellow, he is writing a klezmer opera with the band Mamaliga. In 2019, he was named to the Forward 50, the newspaper’s annual list of “influential, intriguing, and inspiring” American Jews. Instagram/Twitter: @mikhldarling

Limmud 2023 sessions: Laughter, Tears, Curtain: A Yiddish Theatre Workshop Reporting Live from Yiddishland

Merissa Nathan Gerson is the author of Forget Prayers, Bring Cake: A Single Woman’s Guide to Grieving (Mandala Publishing / Simon & Schuster, August 2021). She was the intergenerational trauma consultant to Amazon's hit show Transparent and has had writing featured in the New York Times, Playboy Magazine, Atlantic, Elle.com, Tablet Magazine, Lilith Magazine, and beyond. After releasing a 2018 ELI Talk on consent and Talmud, she founded www.KenMeansYes.org to address the need for consent education in Jewish spaces. Merissa is Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication at Tulane University.

Limmud 2023 sessions: Grief and Joy: On Mourning in 2023

Visit www.limmudnola.org to see the full line-up of sessions and to register for LimmudFest 2023.

The Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience is excited to announce the opening of its newest Special Exhibit! Titled “God, Goats and Pickup Trucks: Maurice Schmidt’s Visions of Texas,” the exhibition features 23 artworks celebrating the deep connection between the land and the divine that has come to characterize life in the Bible Belt. The collection ranges over the diverse Texas landscape through subjects both pastoral and holy.

Come see the exhibit, on display at MSJE until May 31, and mention that Shir Chadash is your congregation for a discounted ticket!

CHESED OPPORTUNITIES

Some of our congregants have some difficulty driving at night, but still wish to attend evening services and programming. Shir Chadash wishes to be as inclusive as possible and hopefully provide assistance to those who may need it.

If you need assistance in getting to shul in the evening OR are able and willing to provide a ride to those in need, please fill out the survey below.

Assistance Requested

Beloved member of the New Orleans Jewish community, Nita-Joan Sams, is seeking a full-time, live-in mature female companion who can also assist with transportation. Free room and board plus payment for services. Respondents must have a current driver's license and computer skills. If interested, please call 504.831.8475 x7245 (ask for Kiolga) or email kiolga@jfsneworleans.org.

Vanessa Cohen is an early childhood educator at the New Orleans JCC. This will be her sixth year teaching there. Vanessa was recently diagnosed with advanced colorectal cancer. She is taking at least the first semester off from teaching to undergo aggressive cancer treatment which includes radiation and chemotherapy. If you know Vanessa, then you know she is one of the most caring and loving humans on this planet. She takes an interest in every single student. Teaching young and curious minds is Vanessa's greatest love, so for her to have to take extended time off of work must have been an especially challenging decision for her. As a teacher at the JCC, Vanessa has always supported her students and their families with so much enthusiasm and warmth. 

Even with health insurance, Vanessa will have many medical bills and extra expenses as a part of her treatment. FMLA will not be enough to support Vanessa with all of her routine and extra expenses. Now is our time to give back and show our support for Vanessa. Please donate if you can and please feel free to pass this on to anyone who may be willing to help.