Link of the Week: Sha'ar Zahav member, Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, retires again this week after leading Covid-19 testing and vaccination programs during the pandemic. Read more about Marty's contributions to Bay Area public health, here.

Led by Jonathan Funk and Tiela Chalmers. D'rash by Mark Pressler. Register Here. Meeting ID: 452 290 988.

Join the Zoom Meeting. Meeting ID: 365 434 855 and Passcode: 068575.

To join by phone for either service, dial +1 669 900 9128 or find your local number.

What is the concept of resilience within Jewish culture? We have innate wisdom developed over generations about what sustains and nurtures life. Our traditions contain a variety of resilience building practices and tools. With guest teacher Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg, join together to learn about, practice, and walk away with Jewish resilience building practices and tools.

In session one, we built shared frameworks of resilience aligned with our anti-oppression values. We also explored what Jewish tradition has to offer our understandings and embodied experiences of resilience. In session two, we will collectively support each other to develop or deepen Jewish practices that support our resilience.

Register Here to Attend.

If you are not able to attend this event, or are interested in learning more, please fill out this form.

Register Here to Attend.

Reparations: What Are Reparations, and How Do Jewish Values Call Us to Address this question? 

Join us as we continue our anti-racism work at Sha'ar Zahav, learning, asking, discussing, reflecting, and considering actions that will lead to greater equity and justice. This event is sponsored by Sha’ar Zahav’s Racial Equity Group.

Join the Meeting: Zoom link

Are you concerned about environmental degradation? Want to work with other Sha’ar Zahavniks against climate change? Come share your ideas, get support, and have fun while we work together on some of the most pressing issues facing the planet. Contact Deborah Levy with any questions.

Join the Meeting: Zoom link

Interested in working toward racial justice in and outside Sha’ar Zahav? Come to our meeting and let's talk! We have a lot to discuss and work towards together. Questions? You may contact Larry Best.

Join the Meeting: Zoom link

New meeting date next month

On fair elections, welcoming the stranger, secure housing and food, ending gun violence, and more! The Social Action Committee is currently working on advancing the “Equality Act” (federal LGBT rights) and the “For the People Act” (assuring national fair elections). Want to join us? Come to our next meeting or contact Nancy Wecker or Geri Kahn.

Join the Meeting: Zoom link

Study the weekly Torah portion with Rabbi Copeland and lay leaders. For the first half hour, we’ll talk, learn and share thoughts about the portion. In the second half, we will practice our Hebrew reading skills in a compassionate environment! Join for either or both parts of the study.

Join the Zoom Meeting: Zoom link

Mussar is a very practical and flexible spiritual discipline to help you balance soul-traits (Middah/Middot) such as Humility, Loving-Kindness, Generosity, and Silence. Drop-ins are always welcome! For more information, contact Mark Pressler.

Join the Zoom Meeting: Zoom link

Are you intrigued by Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah? This summer, join Rabbi Copeland for an informal reading group of the Zohar, the central work of Kabbalah. Newcomers to Kabbalah or experienced readers are all welcome.

Please obtain Daniel Chanan Matt’s book, Zohar: Annotated & Explained. It’s easy to find online and there are places to borrow it as well - just ask Rabbi Copeland. All texts will be in translation. You don’t need to attend every session, but registration is necessary.

Free to Members & $36 Fee for Non-members. Register Here to Attend.

We will be meeting in-person at Precita Park, in San Francisco. Please review our Sacred Values for reopening and sign our Brit/Covenant before you come. To get on the Baby Havurah listserve contact Sue Bojdak. 

Are you missing meeting new people? And feeling disconnection with people over zoom? Do you feel seen and heard? Join Sha'ar Zahav member Carey Averbook for a connection circle!

Come with lunch or dinner. This will be a time for us to come together and get to know each other as a group and in 1:1 breakouts without the discomfort or awkwardness that Zoom brings up for many of us. Bring your whole self, broken hearted or full hearted, but come open and ready to receive and share authentic connection. Questions? Contact Carey Averbook.

RSVP Here.

Drop in for a joyful hour of free art-making and connection. Everyone is welcome! The group meets every Thursday. For more information, contact Paisha Rochlin, Barbara Cymrot or AJ Turpen Fried.

Join the Zoom Meeting: Zoom link

Come listen and share experience, strength, and hope with other members of the Sha’ar Zahav community! Starting on Sunday, June 13th, CSZ will be hosting a weekly 12-step gathering for those members of our community who identify as part of any 12-step community (AA, NA, CMA, Alanon, SA, etc.).

The meeting will be run in the usual 12-step format but will also feature some thoughts and reflections from members who are working to bring their Jewish selves and Jewish traditions to their 12-step practice. The meetings will be on Zoom until further notice. Contact Erika Katske with any questions.

For Sha'ar Zahav Members Only. Register Here to Attend.

Songs and prayers to set our hearts and minds! This service takes place every Tuesday morning, and is led by community lay leaders and Cantor Bernstein. For more information, contact Cantor Bernstein.

Join the Zoom Meeting: Zoom link

Hitch a ride on the wayback wagon for a trip down memory lane. Let’s reminisce about the 40’s thru the 70’s together! Different topics each month. We will gather on the first Wednesday of every month. Everyone is welcome! Questions? Please email Marv Lehrman.

Join the Zoom Meeting: Zoom link

Sha'ar Zahav's Book Group Discusses: On Division

What happens when your whole life suddenly turns upside down? That’s something many of us have experienced! In Goldie Goldbloom’s novel, On Division, this happens to Surie, a Chasidic woman living on Division Avenue in a warm and embracing Orthodox community in Brooklyn. Surie, who already has ten children, unexpectedly becomes pregnant with twins in her mid-50s. As if that weren’t enough, her adult gay son has vanished. All this and more leads to divisions and dilemmas within Surie's own life, her community, her relationship with her loving husband, and the choices she must make. What will she choose? What will she give up? Who will she become?

Read On Division, then come discuss it with other Sha’ar Zahav members. The San Francisco Jewish Community Library has free extra copies of the book and is now open for patrons (Sun., 12-4 and Mon. & Thurs., 11-4). Contact Ami Zusman for more information on the meeting.

Join the Meeting: Zoom link

This group provides a place for family caregivers to get support and hear from other caregivers. It is moderated by a Licensed Clinical Social Worker from the Family Caregiver Alliance and is open to caregivers who are caring for older adults or adults with disabilities. Brought to you by the Hineni Caring Community.

Limited spots. For Sha’ar Zahav members. Fee: $125, but no one will be turned away. Please email Rabbi Copeland to apply for a scholarship or if you are interested and you’re not a member. This is not a drop-in group, so we ask that you are able to commit to all the sessions.

For Sha'ar Zahav Members Only. Register Here to Attend.

The Bay Area Jewish Healing Center needs your DIY/craft help! Since 2009, our “Holidays in an Envelope for Jewish Hospital Patients” program has delivered hundreds of High Holy Day, Passover and Chanukah Envelopes to 27 hospitals. Filled with liturgy, essays and other ritual and festive items, the Envelopes provide spiritual and emotional support to the patient. This is especially important this year when patients not only cannot be in their favorite seats at synagogue but they still may also have limited, if any, access to their friends and family visitors.

For details, click here.

This free event is presented by Corte Madera Library, a branch of Marin County Free Library, and generously sponsored by the Friends of the Corte Madera Library. Click here for more information.

Season three of Shtisel, the Israeli television drama set in the Geula, a Haredi neighborhood in Jerusalem, finds its characters—all members of the Shtisel family—struggling once again with love, loss, and conflicting commitments to themselves and each other. Familial and romantic relationships are forged, broken, and mended, and complications of mental and physical health, family planning, and culture clashes take center stage.

If you have watched the third season of the program, you are invited to join this virtual discussion facilitated by Andrea Brott. All three seasons are available to watch on Netflix (a subscription is required).

Register Here to Attend.

Prognosis, notes on living at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

In Prognosis—notes on living, maverick Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Debra Chasnoff is diagnosed with stage-4 breast cancer and faces down injustice as always, with her camera. With the help of her wife Nancy and their LGBTQ+ family, she traces a journey through the twists and turns of living with cancer. What emerges is a raw, intimate portrait of shifting relationships and identities—a story about holding onto people we love, as we prepare to let them go. Watch the trailer here.

This Sunday, July 25 at noon at the Castro Theater will be the first in-person screening of Prognosis--notes on living. Screening followed by a Q&A with the filmmaking team. The virtual ticket option allows folks to stream the film any time during the festival: July 22 - August 1. 

For additional screening & ticket info, click here.

Led by Danny Stellini and Karen Schiller. D'rash by Arthur Slepian. Register Here. Meeting ID: 452 290 988.

Join the Zoom Meeting. Meeting ID: 365 434 855 and Passcode: 068575.

To join by phone for either service, dial +1 669 900 9128 or find your local number.

Contact sharonh@shaarzahav.org to sponsor a Shabbat

Programs at Sha’ar Zahav are supported by the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund, the Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus Initiative for Immigrant and Refugee Justice of the Religious Action Center, San Francisco Humanities, and the National Center to Encourage Judaism.

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