ARZA Canada Appeal
December 1, 2015
ARZA Canada Week
Highlights 
With ARZA Canada at Federation in Toronto

Rabbi Nir Barkin at Temple Anshe Sholom in Hamilton

Holy Blossom Temple with Rabbi Gilad Kariv in Toronto


Anat Hoffman 
TempleSholom
Vancouver

Anat Hoffman
and   ARZA Canada Board Member Rhea Lazar


Anat Hoffman with
 Rabbi Dan Moscovitz



Program starts at 23:59 
 
 
Riding4Reform 2016

Hop on for the ride! 
February 28th
March  3rd
 Join us as we sojourn from the flourishing Western Negev at the height of its bloom to the Jerusalem hills.  

Come meet fellow progressive Israelis, visit Reform communities and enjoy the beautiful scenery that Israel has to offer.

Coming to the CCAR conference? There's a special option just for you!

For more information and to register, go to the
See you in February!

Upcoming events
ISRAELI CULTURE CLUB: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1 @ 7:30 PM

 

Please join us for our 2nd Israel Culture Club with the Temple Har Zion Shinshinim Neta and Dan.
 
Temple Har Zion  
7360 Bayview Ave,
Markham, Ontario
   
 


Holy Blossom Temple
Tuesday, December 8 and 15, 2015    7:30 p.m.

After his arrest, Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a founder of Hamas, becomes an informant for the Israeli secret service. The Green Prince is a documentary of his experience in the critical months of Israel's history during the Second Intifada.

ARZA Canada  Appeal

Please support the work that our partners in Israel are doing by making a year end donation now to help Reform Judaism in Israel thrive.Click here and select IMPJ (Israel Movement for Reform Judaism) 
 
We are thrilled with the success of our ARZA Canada Week, Nov 9-15, 2015, when we welcomed top Israeli Reform leaders to Canada. They were here to raise awareness of the Reform movement in Israel and tell us how we can help. At the same time they helped us strengthen our Reform congregations' Israel connections and helped us increase awareness of and membership in ARZA Canada.
 
For those of you who heard the inspiring words from the outstanding Israeli Reform leaders who visited many of our Reform congregations across Canada  
  • Rabbi Gilad Kariv, Executive Director and CEO of the Israel Movement for Progressive and Reform Judaism (IMPJ), 
  • Rabbi Nir Barkin, Director of Israel Diaspora relations for IMPJ, and 
  • Anat Hoffman, Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Centre (IRAC)... 
Please help support their work in Israel, by making a donation now.Click here and select IMPJ (Israel Movement for Reform Judaism)
 
For those of you who were not able to meet our guests, please read on to understand the amazing story that is Reform Judaism in Israel today.
   
The Israel Reform Movement (IMPJ) seeks to strengthen Jewish identity in Israel, and to bring Israelis closer to the values of pluralism, equality and humanism. IMPJ grows progressive, Reform communities and supports vital projects that are making an impact on Israeli society today.
 
How does the Israel Reform Movement (IMPJ) do that?
 
-IMPJ incubates new Reform congregations in Israeli cities where there is currently no progressive egalitarian congregation available
 
-IMPJ seeds new Reform communities by opening Reform pre-schools (ganim), a strategy that has proven highly successful
 
-IMPJ promotes a shared society of co-existence between Israeli Arabs and Jews through their Meeting Neighbours programs
 
-IMPJ outreach runs a wide range of programs and activities in the communal and public spheres
 
-IMPJ creates meaningful relationships between Israelis and Diaspora Jews by building partnerships with Reform and Liberal communities
 
-IMPJ run programs on a shoestring budget and Reform rabbis receive a relatively small salary since they receive no government subsidy, unlike Orthodox rabbis who are fully government paid.
 
I now ask you to join me in showing our Israeli partners how much we care. They are depending on our support. With their limited budget, their success depends directly on Diaspora support. Your donation will be critical especially in the aftermath of these very tense times.
 
As 2015 winds down, I hope you'll consider making a gift of $36, $180, $360, $500 or more, and committing to the Israel we are working for.Click here and select IMPJ (Israel Movement for Reform Judaism)
 
On behalf of ARZA Canada and the Israel Reform Movement, I thank you for your support
 
L'Shalom

Miriam
ARZA Canada, President  
 
 
IMPJ "Ganim" - Pre-schools

Guided by the proverb "Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Proverbs, 22; 6), the IMPJ continues to place the education of the young generation as one of its top priorities. As such, today there are close to 50 IMPJ pre-schools and kindergartens spread across the country, teaching Israel's young generation values of pluralism, democracy, social justice and Tikkun Olam.

Highlights:

Gan Nitzanim: One of the IMPJ ganim is that which is located at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem and is meant especially for children of refugees and asylum seekers. "Gan Nitzanim," serves 21 children each year. An additional 20 children every year are spread among the various other IMPJ schools in the city. These preschoolers are children to parents who have come to Israel mainly from Eritrea, Ethiopia and the Philippines, many of whom were caught in harms-way along their journey. The preschool provides them with a safe space to grow and learn with a caring and supportive staff. This preschool is a unique initiative by the Reform Movement, tailored especially for children living in Jerusalem.

 
Gan Tarbut Ivrit in Holon: Two years ago, following back-and-forth negotiations with the local municipality, Rabbi Galit Cohen-Kedem, rabbi of Kehillat Kodesh v'Hol in Holon, helped establish the first Reform preschool in the city of Holon, a city known for its more traditional community which necessarily objects to Reform activity. Immediately following the opening of the "gan," a great number of local parents turned to Galit, expressing interest in signing up their child. Two years later, Gan Tarbut Ivrit is one of the more highly regarding pre-schools in the city with very high demand. This unprecedented success has led to the opening of a second gan, to meet the high demand and need for quality pluralistic Jewish education in the city. The second gan is beginning operation this year (September 2015).

The success of the IMPJ ganim is evident all across the country as their growing number serves as a clear testament. We invite you to be our partners in providing quality, pluralistic Jewish education to Israeli children born in the 21st century. The annual cost of running a gan is $40,000.

"Meeting Neighbors" - Promoting a Jewish-Arab Shared Society in Israel

Political and social tensions in Israeli society create a complex situation when it comes to relations between Jewish and Arab Israelis. In the current Israeli context, in most cases relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel culminate at the work place and in service provision. Interactions on the street are tenuous at best and violent at worse.

Guided by the commandment of "loving thy neighbor," and in light of the recent escalation in tensions within Israeli society, over the past year, the IMPJ has enhanced its programing in promoting a shared society between Jews and Arabs in Israel.
Today, the IMPJ focuses on two main areas of activity in this field, namely community programing, with the "Meeting Neighbors" project and education, with the development and implementation of the new curriculum "Adabrah- na Shalom" - And I Shall Speak the Word of Peace. As part of the "Meeting
Neighbors" project, families from IMPJ congregations take part in a six month, seven session program where they meet, dialogue and form meaningful relationships with Arab families from nearby towns and villages. Through professional facilitation, participants in the program get to know one another on a deeper level and work to find commonalities rather than things which draw them apart. A pilot program which took place three years ago proved very successful, as participants established meaningful, long- term relationship that have continued to grow after the official, facilitated program had come to an end. The cost of running one "Meeting Neighbors" group is $10,000, which includes program management, facilitation, content development, as well as other programmatic costs (travel, food etc.).

 
The "Adabrah-na Shalom" curriculum was developed for the 9th and 10th grades. It uses Jewish text and liturgy to introduce the students to traditional and modern Jewish attitudes towards the treatment of the "other." As more and more rabbis and Jewish leaders in Israeli society are coming out with written justifications based on Jewish texts for ill treatment of those who are not Jewish, the "Adabrah-na Shalom" curriculum serves as a direct counter to these phenomena. The cost of developing a curriculum program is $13,000, which includes writing, editing, printing and distribution costs.

For more information, please contact David Bernstein, director of development and overseas relations at [email protected]
or.  972-54-779-1101
 
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