Ansche Chesed

Monday, January 20
Lincoln Square Synagogue, 180 Amsterdam Avenue 9am-10:30am
or
Washington Heights Y, 54 Nagel Avenue 10am-12pm
 

Assemble Welcome-Home Gifts for Newborns and Their Parents

What is my personal Jewish identity? What is our collective Jewish identity? AC high school students are invited to join Rabbi Kalmanofsky and Sam Blustin, Ansche Chesed’s Youth Director, for a bi-weekly class to discuss who we think we are and want to be, amid rising anti-Semitism and changing awareness of racism and privilege in our society. In the first class, we'll look at when apologies go right and wrong, and the "Jewish" way to apologize and take responsibility for our actions.

Inspired by the diversity of Jewish music around the globe, from liturgical settings, Israeli songs, Hassidic niggunim, and new compositions. Ability to carry a tune is important. Free for members; non-members $90 per semester or $180 per year. For more info, please email NHirschhorn@anschechesed.org.

This year we will study material from the first chapters of Bava Batra (in the Artscroll Talmud available at West Side Judaica or online) about the duties that neighbors have regarding each other's property. These sections will have interesting implications for economic competition, environmental safeguards and communal welfare in the modern age.

Inspired by the diversity of Jewish music around the globe, from liturgical settings, Israeli songs, Hassidic niggunim, and new compositions. Ability to carry a tune is important. Free for members; non-members $90 per semester or $180 per year. For more info, please email NHirschhorn@anschechesed.org.

This service delves into the structure and purpose of tefillot (prayers) and parshah (Torah portion). As they watch each other participate, children develop a feeling of community.

Babies and toddlers are exposed to the sights and sounds of Shabbat during this lively service. It is supplemented by fun and engaging songs, stories, and movement.

This service exposes children to a greater number of Shabbat tefillot (prayers) than are presented in the Mishpachah Service. Boys and girls are encouraged to help lead the prayers.

Beginning with a performance of an excerpt of the play, Etty, adapted from the diaries of Dutch writer, Etty Hillesum and a look together at excerpts from Hillesum's and other testimonies, we can begin to uncover what women experienced under German occupation. Join us to think about how gender, age and family context shaped women's lives in flight, ghettos, concentration and death camps and in hiding. Our conversation will include talking about the process of performing Etty before so many different audiences, including high security prisons, and people disconnected from Holocaust history. Ansche Chesed member, Susan Stein is an actor, playwright and teaching artist in NYC. Stein has spent the past eight years touring her original play, Etty, directed by Austin Pendleton, to theaters, universities, schools and prisons throughout the United States, UK, parts of Europe and Israel. Stein studied acting at NYU Graduate School and SUNY Purchase.

One of the highlights of Kitah Alef is the focus on the Saturday night Havdalah service - which ends Shabbat and moves us into the new week. Over the next few weeks, the students will create their own Havdalah sets and learn the accompanying Havdalah blessings. Families are invited to participate in a special Havdalah program to celebrate the students' learning. We will conclude our celebration with a light pizza dinner.