INSIDE THIS ISSUE Adar/Purim .................................................. 2 President’s Message .................................. 3 Youth/Young Family Engagement/ B’nai Mitzvah ........................................... 4 Purim Fun .................................................... 5 Religious School ......................................... 6 Mishloach Manot Purim Baskets............ 7 CBS U/ Adult Education/Programming ............ 8 Celebrate 18/Rabbi Melman ................... 9 Sisterhood .......................................... 10-11 Men’s Club ......................................... 11-13 Social Action ............................................ 14 Keruv Korner .......................................... 15 Shabbat Mornings ............................. 16-17 Calendar ............................................. 18-19 Milestones ................................................ 20 Donations ........................................... 21-23 Birthdays and Anniversaries ................ 24 Yahrzeits ................................................... 25 Ads ....................................................... 26-27 Candle Lighting and Service Times .... 28
Rabbi .................................................... Aaron Melman Senior Cantor ..................................... Steven Stoehr Assistant Rabbi ............................. Warner Ferratier Rabbi Emeritus....................................... Carl Wolkin Executive Director .......................... Susan Karlinsky Director of Jewish Life and Learning .............................................. Leann Blue Director of Education .......................... Stacy Ybarra Director of Youth and Young Family Engagement……..Eric Golberg President ............................................Tanya Solomon Sisterhood President ................... Robyn Rosengard Men’s Club President .......................... Steven Elisco USY President .................................. Ryan Eisenstadt Shalom Designer/Editor...............Deanne Friedman
SHALOM INFO Shalom is published monthly by Congregation Beth Shalom, 3433 Walters, Northbrook, Illinois 60062-3298 for the exclusive use of its members and staff. All material contained herein is the property of Congregation Beth Shalom.
FEBRUARY 2021• VOLUME 88 ISSUE 58
SHEVAT/ADAR 5781| FEBRUARY 2021| VOLUME 88 ISSUE 58
RABBI FERRATIER’S FINDINGS Over the course of these last months, our sense of time has gotten much skewed. A week might seem like a day, and a month like a year. Everything that happened before the pandemic feels like both a lifetime ago, and just yesterday. Thus, the trip I was privileged to take with our Congregation to visit major Civil Rights historical sights in the South seems like both a lifetime ago, and just yesterday. As a high school teacher, I taught a course in African American history, so very little of the information I learned was new. However, visiting the places where history happened always has an emotional impact that no book or documentary can provide. There are two images that remain seared into my memory from the trip. The first is the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which commemorates the men and women who lost their lives due to lynching across the United States. Each county is represented by a concrete block suspended from the ceiling, and on each block is a list of the lynching victims for that county. Each name represents a person who was killed outside the legal system, and whose killers rarely, if ever, had to answer for their crimes. Every single one of our 50 states is represented, reminding us that racial violence is not unique to the South. In much the same way that the pile of shoes at the Rabbi Ferratier
National Holocaust Memorial Museum tells a visceral story of pain and horror, so does the sheer magnitude of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.
The other image that remains seared in my memory is a photograph from the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike in 1968. Under the watchful eyes of armed National Guard, a seemingly endless line of African-American men wear sandwich boards which read simply “I am a man.” Today, that sign would say “I am a person.” The National Memorial for Peace and Justice forcibly reminds visitors of the price paid by those who are not perceived as people. It explains why the sanitation workers wore signs declaring their personhood. It should not require an act of courage to be able to make the simple statement “I am a person.” Unfortunately, I think it would be pretty easy to make the argument that most conflict in modern history can be reduced to the struggle between groups of people about who actually gets to be a person.
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