Hi Everyone! Thank you

for the warm welcome

from the entire Edmonton

community—it is so nice to

be back and as your Youth

Director!

Our year has already been

very busy: we had our

Youth Kickoff at The

Dragon’s Tale Mini Golf,

followed by lunch on the

Marina! It was so great to

meet so many new faces.

Then we jumped right into

Rosh Hashana and Yom

Kippur: With competitive

games, prizes and lots of

food, a fun time was had!

A few of my favorite mo-

ments were watching Lev

Allen make sure he won

the “Match the Mitzvah

Straw Race” and get

every. single. apple

cheerio across the floor!

(Not an easy task!) Having

the grades 6&7 finish

their scavenger hunt on

YK, then wanting to do the

hardest level scavenger

hunt! (Which they com-

pleted!) A big Yasher

Koach to our leaders: Mil-

lie Friedman, Shira

Tankel, Gabriella Tankel,

Jakob Allen, Ryan Gabriel,

Shira Gabriel, Josh Pok-

roy, Julien Katzenmaier,

Shoshy Bernstein, and

Sarah Lallouz. With their

leadership and excitement

the kids had a meaningful

and fun High Holiday ex-

perience!

We’ve run through Sukkos

and jumped right into our

regular weekly after

school and Shabbos Morn-

ing pro-

grams.

Check out

our Beth

Israel

Youth Page

on Face-

book for

all pic-

tures!

cses-

In preparation for Sukkos

we had our “Sukkah Deco-

rating” in the shul. Thank

you all who came out to help

make the Shul Sukkah look

so beautiful with your art!

Special shout out to Mika

and Ruthie Allen, Gabby

Kaplan, Josh Pokroy, Roey

Wine, and Millie Friedman

who assisted our younger

artists!

Thankfully we were lucky

with the weather this year

and scheduled our Sukkah

Hop PRECISELY on the nic-

est day! As a community we ‘hopped’ from Asbell’s

sukkah all the way to Segal’s Sukkah and enjoyed

candy and treats along the way. Thank you so much to

the Asbells, Scheckters, Bushewskys, and Segal’s for

welcoming the whole community into your sukkahs!

Sukkos and other shenanigans!

Letter from Hadassa

October 29, 2015

Volume 1, Issue 1

B.I Youth Bulletin Beth Israel

Congregation

Inside this issue:

Letter from Hadassa

Sukkos and other Shenani-

gans!

MaTan

Our month in pictures

Youth Programs

NCSY Shabbatons

NCSY

Q & A with Hadassa

Page 2

B.I Youth Bulletin

MaTan

Our Month in Pictures

We had our first session of MaTan with

Robin and Rabbanit Batya! Learning about

Rivka Imeinu’s enthusiasm to do good for

others and how quickly she rushed to get

water for Eliezer’s camels, mothers and

daughters had fun competing who could

water the thirsty camels faster! Combined

with text based learning, this fun, mother

and daughter learning program allows Bat

Mitzvah aged girls to learn about what it

means to be a Jewish woman and also to

bond with their mothers through a joint

learning initiative.

See you next month!

#wekeptit #TheShabbosProject We made a model Tomb of Rachel (Kever Rochel)

to commemorate her Yartzeit

Page 3 B.I Youth Bulletin

How awesome do our Rainbows in a Jar look?!

Finished our Kever Rochel models!

Mondays Latte N’ Learn

6pm @ Callingwood Second

Cup

Tuesdays Grades K-4

Pizza N’ Parsha

3:45-4:45 @ The Family Shul

Junior NCSY Grade 8

7pm @ Callingwood Second Cup

Wednesdays Grades 5-7

Pizza N’ Parsha

4:45-5:45 @ The Family Shul

Thursdays

Mishnah Club w/ Rabbi Segal @

Talmud Torah

NCSY Girls

Learning and Chill

5pm @ Hadassa’s house

COMING SOON:

JSU @ Shep

We started off our year with a

BBQ in the park, organized by

Shayna Segal—thank you

Shayna!

Latte n’ Learn has been going

strong with many regular faces

and some new ones! Thank you

Oriya Barness who was our guest

speaker in September!

Over the past month we had our

Sushi in the Sukkah/ Elections.

Thank you Millie for helping pre-

pare the Sushi. Welcome Ryan

Gabriel as NCSY Edmonton

President and Daniel Kaplan as

Vice President!

We then had NCSY Sukkah

hop—hopping from Friedman to

Segal to Lehrers and ending at

the Glatt’s.

We stuffed our faces with

candy, ice cream, and more

candy. What’s a Sukkah hop

without loads of candy?

NCSY made it’s mark on The

Shabbos Project with a Friday

night dinner in Shul. It was

really special to have 23

NCSYers together for this in-

credible event, uniting Jewish

people around the world.

Thanks to the NCSYers who

helped out with the ruach

(spirit) during singing in shul:

Ryan, Noah, Millie, Shoshy, Shira

G., Shira T, Sarah, and Gabs.

Shabbatons are right around the

corner! Save the date for Vancou-

ver: Dec 4-6 and Yarchei Kallah

Dec 22-28!

Month in pictures….

Q & A with Hadassa Welcome to Edmonton, Hadassa! We’re very excited to have you as our new youth

director! Could you tell us a little about yourself? Do you have hobbies? Favourite

books, movies, music?

Thank you for having me! I’m thrilled to be here. My hobbies are cooking, enter-taining, decorating, reading, anything active and outdoors! My favorite books are the Harry Potter series. My favourite movies are Lord of The rings and anything Marvel and my favourite bands are Yaakov Shwekey, Gad Elbaz, Matisyahu, Mum-ford and Sons and Idan Raichel.

What made you decide to come back to Edmonton?

When I got the call from Rabbanit Friedman asking me to come back out, I really had to pinch myself that Hashem had given me this opportunity.

I volunteered with youth in North America and I had never seen the passion and excitement that the kids in Edmonton have for Judaism. With a much smaller com-munity I would have imagined the kids to know less, care less and put minimal inter-est into any Jewish subjects.

The conversations I had with the BI youth/NCSY teens over the past year inspired and showcased how deeply the families in Edmonton plant the foundation for Juda-ism in their children, and how much of an emphasis the shul puts on giving the youth the tools they need to truly understand their Jewish roots and faith.

It amazed me that these kids would come out multiple times a week to go to after school learning programs, instead of watching tv or hanging out with their friends.

The topics that were of interest were more “Why does Hashem make good things happen to bad people?” and “Why does Hashem really need me to keep Shabbat?” and less “When are we eating” or “Have you seen that new Taylor Swift music video” which would be normal for teens!

I wouldn’t have passed this opportunity up and I feel honored and humbled to be returning as Youth Director for BI.

How many siblings do you have?

I have five siblings: four brothers and one sister. My older brother is married with a baby boy.

What do you love about being a Jewish Canadian?

Being in Canada, we are so lucky to be able to live freely as Jews. Nowadays, this is not something to take for granted as we see many Jewish communities around the world having to flee their homes and find a safer country who will protect them against anti Semitism. Not only do we live in a free country with a strong Jewish presence but we also live in a country that has been Israel’s strongest ally. As a Jew, there is no safer country, aside from Israel, that I could be living in.

Volume 1, Issue 1 Page 10

Beth Israel Congregation

131 Wolf Willow Road

T5T 7T7

Edmonton, Alberta

Phone: 780-488-2840

Fax: 780-482-2470

E-mail: Hadassa@familyshul.org

The Beth Israel Youth Department is a busy place.

We run weekly programming for Kindergarten all the

way up to Grade 12 and we have a wide variety of pro-

gramming with ‘something for everyone.’ Take a look at

the weekly newsletter and subscribe to our email list:

Hadassa@familyshul.org

Like us on Facebook! Beth

Israel Youth Department

131 Wolf Willow Road

T5T 7T7

Edmonton, Alberta

Beth Israel Congregation

Phone: 780-488-2840

Fax: 780-482-2470

E-mail: Hadassa@familyshul.org

Like us on Facebook! Beth

Israel Youth Department

The Beth Israel Youth Department is a busy place.

We run weekly programming for Kindergarten all the

way up to Grade 12 and we have a wide variety of pro-

gramming with ‘something for everyone.’ Take a look at

the weekly newsletter and subscribe to our email list:

Hadassa@familyshul.org