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" Where Everyone is Family"

President's Message

Dec 2023                                                                                 Letter from the President

     Hannukah is over, the secular New Year is around the corner, and I have been President for 2 years now. It is an honor and a pleasure to serve you.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           At Congregation Beth Shalom we continue to try and bring everyone into the family and to raise awareness of social injustices so that every member of our family can find one or more ways to contribute to Tikun Olam, improving the world. Thank you to Susan Solarz and the social action committee for continuing to bring excellent speakers about important topics to our social action Shabbats.

Of course, we have religious activities and fun gatherings too. What a great Hannukah dinner (Thank you Matt Kurtz!) and service (Thank you Rabbi Nancy!) we just had, and the Purim Spiel is just around the corner (please reach out to Sheree Meyer if you want to participate).

Our Board is strong and doing lots of great things. We are particularly pleased that we have added youth representatives (Thank you Nez Huckleby and Amelia Porter!), as well as young adult representation (Thank you Matt Broad!). A newly created fund-raising committee has lots of exciting activities planned, including our second poker night, a fancy in-home dinner (Thank you Dave Lewis!), a comedy night at the Old Sacramento Improv (Thank you David Lugo!), a Neshama fund-raiser honoring the memory of Maggie Varano (Thank you Ester!), and our second annual Raise-The-Roof fundraiser (Thank you Mike Polis!), which will also honor Jean Rubin whose large legacy gift is supporting CBS in so many ways including helping to fund security and our education programs.

If all this sounds great to you – please also support CBS through Terumah (“Giving from the Heart”) and encourage your friends and family to do the same. Without your Terumah contributions we cannot keep the lights on, pay our staff salaries, or continue to provide amazing programs such as the upcoming Season #2 classic music series program with an upcoming performance on January 7th, 2024, featuring the Folsom Lake Symphony Woodwind Quintet (Thank you Michael Neumann!).

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention the war in Ukraine and now the war in Israel, both of which bear heavy on our souls. Is there not enough suffering in this world from natural disasters, poverty, and hunger? Do we need to add the emotional and physical cost of more unnecessary violence? I keep thinking about the John Lennon song, “Imagine” which, contrary to the belief of many, was not a plea for Communism or Atheism despite the lyrics to imagine a world without religion or borders and materialistic wealth. Instead “Imagine” was a call to people to seek peace, love, and equality – to imagine a world where people would come together despite their political or religious ideology, and work together for a better future. This too is my hope and dream for 2024.

As always, if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions feel free to reach out to me. My e-mail is President@CBShalom.org.

Roy Schutzengel, President.

 

 

 

Mon, March 18 2024 8 Adar II 5784