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I. L. Peretz
Community Jewish School

--The Secular Alternative--
in Central New Jersey

 

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2009-2010 Calendar

School starts promptly at 9:30 AM.
All programs are open to both school and community members.

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September

 

11

Friday Evening

Adult Community Program: “Hot Topics” – A discussion among friends - Come to an informal discussion over burning issues over coffee, tea and dessert – 8 PM at NEW LOCATION -The Reformed Church of Highland Park

 

3

Sunday

 

Open House, 11:00 AM 12:30 PM, Rutgers Prep (Call 732-545-9691 for directions and further information.)

 

19

Saturday

Rosh Hashana Ceremony - 11:00 AM - Rutgers Prep.

 

27

Sunday

(Class 1)

Opening Ceremony/Parent Orientation

 

28

Monday

Yom Kippur Ceremony - 11:00 AM - Rutgers Prep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

October

 

2-4

Friday-Sunday

Weekend retreat at Stokes State Forest – no school

 

11

Sunday

(Class 2)

Sukkot Celebration - 11:00 AM - Rutgers Prep.

 

18

Sunday

(Class 3)

Adult Yiddish Class: First meeting to discuss framework for the year – 9:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.

 

Adult Community Program:  Some brainstorming to gather ideas for the year's Sunday morning programs.  10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.

 

23

Friday Evening

Adult Community Program: A Presentation by Medea Benjamin, the Founding Director of Global Exchange. For over twenty years, Medea has supported human rights and social justice struggles around the world.  She is also the co-founder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace, a women's group that has been organizing creative actions against the war in Iraq.  CODEPINK is pushing for a reorientation of budget priorities in the US to focus on heath care, education and housing, not war. Code Pink now has over 250 chapters throughout the United States.  7:00 PM at the Reformed Church of Highland Park, 19-21 S. 2nd Ave., Highland Park.

 

25

Sunday

(Class 4)

Adult Community Program: A Presentation by Warren I. Schaeffer, Ph.D.: "Everything we know about Influenza 1915 to Present" – This presentation will include the history of influenza in the U.S.; what the "H" and "N" mean, why we need to vaccinate seasonally, and what is about H1N1 that made it so scary originally?  10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

November

 

1

Sunday

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday afternoon

(Class 5)

Adult Community Program: A Presentation by Joel Cantor, Sc.D.  “The Healthcare Reform Debate:  Impacts for real people."  Joel Cantor is the Director of the Center for State Health Policy and Professor of Public Policy at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Dr. Cantor’s research focuses on issues of health care regulation, financing, and delivery.  9:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.

 

Adult Community Program: Movie and Dinner at the Rutgers New Jersey Jewish Film Festival - "The Little Traitor” " at 3:30 PM at the Regal Theater in North Brunswick.  Based on a novel by Amos Oz and set in the final months of the British Mandate of Palestine, The Little Traitor is the lyrical story of an unlikely friendship between an English sergeant and a twelve-year-old boy who longs for Israel’s statehood.  Caught between his hatred of the British and his affection for Sergeant Dunlop, Proffy soon discovers that the course of his young life has been changed forever.  The show will likely sell out, so get your tickets in advance here.  After the film, we will travel just north on Route 1 to the Omega Diner to have dinner together and discuss the film.

 

8

Sunday

(Class 6)

Adult Community Program: Peretz Introductions – Family Roots -  Everyone will have 5 minutes to share their family background with the group or alternatively to introduce themselves however they choose - careers, hobbies, interests. 10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.

 

15

Sunday

(Class 7)

Adult Community Program: "Odessa - The Jewish Soul of a Cosmopolitan City” – A presentation by Valery Bazarov, Director of HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) Family History and Location Services.  He will speak about Odessa's past, growing up in Odessa, living as a refusnik, and the future of Jewish life in Odessa. 10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep."

 

22

Sunday

(Class 8)

Classroom Visitation

 

29

Sunday

 

Thanksgiving weekend — no school

 

 

December

 

4

Friday Evening

Adult Community Program: “Justice, Tough Love, and Politics in the Hebrew Bible”  – A presentation by Gordon Schochet, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers.  Professor Schochet is the founding editor of Hebraic Political Studies, a journal devoted to the recovery of the uses of Biblical and rabbinic Hebrew writings in the history of political thought.  8 PM at The Reformed Church of Highland Park, 19-21 S. 2nd Ave., Highland Park.

 

6

Sunday

(Class 9)

Children - Latke Making

Adult Community Program: Avi Hoffman's "Too Jewish - A Mensch & His Musical" A video of Avi Hoffman presenting the theater, comedy and Yiddish songs that were part of his Jewish upbringing.  10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.

Everyone – Annual Coat Drive

 

13

Sunday

(Class 10)

Chanukah Celebration - 11 AM at Rutgers Prep.

 

Our annual Chanukah Mitzvah Day will take place after school from 12:30 to 3:30 PM.  Following pizza in the mult-purpose room, we will make a "car caravan" to the Stein Assisted Living Residence on DeMott Lane.  Join in the fun as the children lead a Chanukah music sing-along with the residents followed by dreidel playing.  This is a mitzvah and a community outreach activity that makes everyone feel good!

 

18

Friday Evening

10th Annual Chanukah Party for the adult members of the entire Peretz Community

 

20

Sunday

(Class 11)

Adult Community Program: "Bar and Bat Mitzvah in a Secular-Humanistic Community" - a presentation by Ira Mintz, I. L Peretz President.  The program will address the many options one has in celebrating this rite of passage into young adulthood.  A Bar or Bat Mitzvah can be a very special opportunity to explore how to make our Jewishness relevant to ourselves and our children. 10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.  Postponed to January 3 because of snow.

 

27

Sunday

Winter Break - no school

 

 

 

 

 

 

January

 

3

Sunday

(Class 12)

Adult Community Program: "Bar and Bat Mitzvah in a Secular-Humanistic Community" - a presentation by Ira Mintz, I. L Peretz President.  The program will address the many options one has in celebrating this rite of passage into young adulthood.  A Bar or Bat Mitzvah can be a very special opportunity to explore how to make our Jewishness relevant to ourselves and our children. 10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.

 

10

Sunday

(Class 13)

Adult Community Program: "Stem Cell Research - Fact, Fiction, and Ethics" -Peretz member Rick Cohen will discuss the basic elements of human stem cell research and then go on to discuss moral and ethical implications for our society whether or not we are in a more restrictive or permissive Federal/State environment. 10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.

 

17

Sunday

(Class 14)

Martin Luther King Ceremony

 

Adult Community Program: "Mayn rue-plats - My resting place” - a presentation by Nikolai Borodulin - Assistant Director, Center for Jewish Cultural Life of the Workmen’s Circle.  There is an honor row of great Yiddish literary figures and activists at the Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring section of Mt. Carmel Cemetery."  Nikolai will talk about the amazing legacy of Yiddish culture and activism reflected on the tombstones.  10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.

 

22

Friday Evening

Adult Community Program: “Speaking Truth to Power: Jewish Freethinkers / Apikorsim from Abraham to Sherwin Wine” – A presentation by Bennett Muraskin.  If following the 613 commandments, praying and religious ritual are not relevant to our Jewish identity as secular Jews, then what is? 

 

What is unique to Jewish tradition is questioning authority.  Beginning with Abraham, Bennett Muraskin will illuminate the history of Jewish free thought, as expressed in the Torah, other books of the Jewish Bible, the Talmud, Midrash and Hasidic folklore.  He will also discuss some well-known and lesser known Jewish heretics throughout the ages from Roman Judea to medieval Afghanistan, Renaissance Italy, 17th century Spain and 20th century Poland, culminating with Rabbi Sherwin Wine, the leading contemporary voice of secular humanistic Judaism, who died in 2007.

 

Join the Peretz Community on this journey through the history of this neglected but still vital tradition in Jewish life.  8:00 PM at The Reformed Church of Highland Park, 19-21 S. 2nd Ave., Highland Park.

 

24

Sunday

(Class 15)

Adult Community Program: "Introduction to [Jewish] Genealogy (Family tree research)" - Peretz member Ron Herrmann will share his personal knowledge about family tree research using available tools. 10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.

 

31

Sunday

(Class 16)

Tu B'Shevat Celebration

 

 

 February

7

Sunday

(Class 17)

Adult Community Program: “Sunday Morning Cartoons” – An assortment of modern adult animated feature films and shorts curated by Peretz community member Mike Weiss.  Teens are welcome and encouraged to attend.  10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep..

14

Sunday

(Class 18)

Adult Community Program: A Presentation by Peretz Attorney Lynn Miller on Secular and Jewish Environmental Law.  10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.

19

Friday Evening

Adult Community Program: “A Twentieth Century Odyssey - Jewish Poultry Farmers in the Garden State” - From the 1920s to the 1960s, in communities from Vineland in the south to Freehold in the north,  three generations of Jewish farmers established the state's important poultry and egg industry and saw it prosper and then fail as economic and social conditions changed. Mostly first-generation immigrants from the cities, and later refugees from Nazi Germany, they came from an urban culture but quickly mastered and introduced modern farming techniques.  As farmers, they established strong social and community ties that endure in the hearts of their descendants.  Excerpts from a 1993 film by former Princeton resident Gertrude Dubrovsky (who grew up on a farm in Farmingdale) about these experiences will be shown, followed by presentations by Marion Munk and Allen Kassof, who grew up on farms in Toms River in mid-century.  8:00 PM at The Reformed Church of Highland Park, 19-21 S. 2nd Ave., Highland Park.

21

Sunday

(Class 19)

Adult Community Program: “Equipping Progressive Citizens of the Jewish World: Jewish Languages, Jewish Practices, and Secular Jewish Spirituality”.

 

As the Workmen’s Circle starts up a new education vision, it is holding a series of discussions with shule (school) families.  In this interactive session, Adrienne Cooper, External Affairs Officer of the Workmen’s Circle, will preview the education vision and crack open the intimate role languages play in Jewish cultural literacy, as well as how secular people can express spirituality.

 

In preparation for the session you may want to think about the following topics from your own family’s experience:

1.          names of relatives – especially any Hebrew or Yiddish names

2.         affectionate terms used for family members – in any language

3.         an object that you think of as connected to/expressing your family’s spirituality (can be a ritual object, a keepsake, a book) –if possible bring it in with you to show.

4.         a word, joke, phrase or saying – again in a foreign language (Yiddish, Spanish, Russian, Hebrew, whatever) or in English that comes from what you think of as your family’s heritage

10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.

28

Sunday

(Class 20)

Purim Celebration: 10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.  Please bring canned food for our Food Drive

 

 

 

 

March

7

Sunday

(Class 21)

Adult Community Program: “The Last Exile” – A presentation by Jasha Levi, who will talk about his life on the run during World War II, including a description of the school his late wife and he established for the children of Yugoslav Jewish 'Civilian Internees of War' in Asolo, Italy.  Jasha Levi is the author of  “The Last Exile.”  10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.

14

Sunday

(Class 22)

Adult Community Program: “Listening to Moses” – A presentation by Stephen Eisdorfer.  We will listen to various classical compositions that have set the words and actions of Moses to music. (There are actually surprisingly few.)  We will then talk about the philosophical and theological points of view reflected in the words and music.  Although we will span about 200 years, we focus particularly on two pieces that were both written around 1930 that provide very different settings of the words and actions of Moses on coming down from Mt. Sinai and discovering the Golden Calf--one by Kurt Weill and the other by Arnold Schoenberg.  These are particularly interesting, not only because they treat the story very differently, but also because each composer was then in the process of groping his way back to Judaism and each was aware--and publicly disapproved--of the philosophical and artistic ideas of the other.  We follow along with the texts and discuss.  No special musical background is required except open ears.  10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.  Postponed due to flooding.

19

Friday Evening

Adult Community Program: Iran:  Social Movement(s) Revisited, Past, Present, and Future – A Presentation by Fakhri Haghani, Ph.D. 

 

Born and raised in Iran, Fakhri Haghani has advanced degrees in Art History (Facolta di Magistero, at University of Rome [Sapienza], Italy), Women’s Studies, and History (Georgia State University).  Her primary research focus is comparative cultural, intellectual, and social history of modern Middle East (Egypt and Iran).  Her scholarship combines interdisciplinary, transnational, and  comparative theoretical and methodological approaches including women’s and gender studies, media and performance studies, history of ideas, and cultural studies.  Her field research in Egypt and Iran has been funded by the American Research Center in Egypt and the Council of American Overseas Research Center.  During her graduate studies in Atlanta, she served as co-founder and co-chair of Human Rights Atlanta, a branch of Center for Human Rights Education.  She teaches Iranian Studies and comparative study of culture and history in the Middle East at Rutgers.  8:00 PM at The Reformed Church of Highland Park, 19-21 S. 2nd Ave., Highland Park.

21

Sunday

(Class 23)

Regular classes in the morning; Community Seder at 3 PM at Rutgers Prep. For reservations, see the form here.

28

Sunday

(Class 24)

Adult Community Program: “The Goldstone Report” - The UN Human Rights Council released a report on the recent fighting between Hamas and Israel in Gaza. While concluding that both Israel's military and Hamas likely committed war crimes during the fighting, the report was particularly harsh in its condemnation of Israel's actions, saying they were "a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate, and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability." A political firestorm ensued, and some of the criticism was aimed at the head of the investigative mission, Judge Richard Goldstone. Goldstone joined Bill Moyers on BILL MOYERS JOURNAL to discuss the report, his critics and why he believes international humanitarian law is an important part of the peace process.  Come view the interview and join a discussion.  10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep. 

 

 

 

 

April

4

Sunday

No school - Spring Break

11

Sunday

(Class 25)

Yom HaShoah Guest Speaker and Ceremony

18

Sunday

(Class 26)

Peretz Board Nominations – 10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.

24

Saturday evening

Peretz Fundraiser Concert: 7:30 PM at Rutgers Fiber Optics Auditorium, 101 Bevier Road, Piscataway Busch Campus at Rutgers.  Details Soon!

25

Sunday

(Class 27)

Adult Community Program:  "A Family's Flight from the Holocaust to Freedom – A Journey from Yugoslavia to Switzerland."  Esther Sampson tells her story of survival and how a young girl's defiance of her father's wishes saved a family.  10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.

 

 

 

 

May

2

Sunday

(Class 28)

Board Elections: 10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.

9

Sunday

(Class 29)

Adult Community Program:  “The Torah – Your Own Interpretation” – a presentation by Rabbi Melinda Zalma.  There are a lot of holes in the narrative of the Torah and throughout the ages, Jews have endeavored to fill them in through Midrash, stories and interpretations of the Bible, to create deeper meaning.  We will explore the story of Cain and Able, look at traditional interpretations and create our own.  10:30 AM at Rutgers Prep.

16

Sunday

(Class 30)

Graduation/Closing Ceremony

June

11-13

 

Weekend retreat at Stokes State Forest

July

 

 

 

 

 

For more information about the I. L. Peretz Community Jewish School or the I. L. Peretz Secular Jewish Community, call us at 732-545-9691 or email to mailto:info@ilperetz.org

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