A Letter From Rabbi Kleinbaum, Ilene, and Steve
CBST News: Pride Services, Congregational Trip to Israel, High Holiday Services, Search for a Permanent Home, Board Elections.
Dear CBST Members,
With summer fast approaching, we thought it would be a good time to share with you some exciting news about plans for our upcoming Pride services and our next congregational trip to Israel, as well as to update you on a variety of recent events at CBST.
Pride Services
We are thrilled to announce that our speaker at this year's Pride Shabbat on June 25 will be Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) . Senator Gillibrand has quickly become one of the Senate's leading voices for LGBT rights, serving as a co-sponsor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and an advocate for the immediate repeal of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, which she has called "wrong for our national security and inconsistent with the moral foundation upon which our country was founded." We owe special thanks to longtime member and newly elected Board Member Jonathan Sheffer, who personally extended the invitation to Senator Gillibrand on CBST's behalf and worked closely with her staff to make her visit possible. Senator Gillibrand joins a long list of important political figures who have addressed CBST's membership over the years, including most recently, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who spoke at our Friends and Family service last year.
Our speaker at this year's Friends and Family Shabbat on June 18 will be Rickke Mananzala, Executive Director of FIERCE , a New York-based organization dedicated to building the leadership and power of LGBTQ youth of color. FIERCE, which stands for Fabulous Independent Educated Radicals for Community Empowerment, has focused particular attention on the epidemic of homelessness among LGBTQ youth. Founded in 2000, the organization has been led for the last two years by Mananzala, a former New Voices Fellow at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project who worked to develop methods to increase support for organizing efforts in transgender communities.
We are delighted to celebrate Pride with these two distinguished guests.
Congregational Trip to Israel
We are pleased to announce that we have finalized plans for our next congregational trip to Israel. We will leave New York on the evening of Wednesday, December 22, 2010, and return on the morning of Sunday, January 2, 2011. This is not your average synagogue trip to Israel! The trip will focus on social justice issues, and we will learn about the heroes who are working every day to make Israel the pluralistic democracy we love. We will spend three days in Tel Aviv, three days in the Negev Desert and the remaining time in Jerusalem. We will meet with Jewish and Palestinian LGBT activists, West Bank settlers and Palestinians whose homes have been demolished. We will walk on the walls surrounding Jerusalem, hike in the desert, visit a Bedouin women's weaving collective, and take a bicycle ride with an environmental group. We will celebrate Shabbat and appreciate the beauty and the holiness of the land.
For more information please click here .
High Holiday Services
As some of you may know, the State of New York is planning an extensive renovation and expansion of the Javits Convention Center, including the River Pavilion, where CBST has held its Yom Kippur services since 1992. The good news is that the work is expected to address chronic problems, such as a perpetually leaky roof, in this iconic I.M. Pei-designed building. The bad news is that it will prevent us from holding High Holiday services in the Crystal Palace for at least the coming year. We have considered moving to another space for the holidays, but after an extensive search -- and much consideration of the pros and cons -- we have decided to stay at Javits during the construction, using the building's theater space. Although not as dramatic as the Crystal Palace, the theater will still allow us to welcome the nearly 4,000 people who join us each year at the holidays, a factor that was paramount in our decision. While we will certainly miss the view of the setting sun over the Hudson on Neilah, the theater has an intimate feel and will provide us with a warm home for the holidays.
Search for a Permanent Home
As we announced at this year's annual meeting, our long-running search for a permanent home has been extremely active over the past several months. In recent weeks, our site selection committee has been focused on two sites, both of which would accommodate a 250-person sanctuary, celebration space, offices, and classrooms. Although the CBST Board has approved further discussions with the owners of both sites, no decisions have been reached and we are continuing to explore other sites as they become available.
Board Elections
We are delighted to welcome three new members to the CBST Board of Directors, who were elected at this year's annual meeting:
Lisa Kartzman , a past President of the synagogue, has more recently been one of the co-chairs of our very active Membership Committee. A director of marketing and public relations for a leading food importation and distribution company, Lisa currently serves on the Board of Women Chefs and Restaurateurs, an organization dedicated to promoting the education, advancement and connection of women in the culinary industry.
Rosalba Messina , a management consultant specializing in nonprofit organizations, joins our Board as Treasurer. The former Chief Operating Officer of the LGBT Community Center, Rosalba has served on several boards and brings an extensive background in strategic and financial planning. She has been active in our Koleinu Social Justice project and the CBST Community Chorus.
Jonathan Sheffer , a longtime CBST member, brings an extensive background in Board service, having served on the boards of Lincoln Center, The New York City Opera and VHI Save the Music Foundation. A professional composer and conductor who has founded two orchestras, Jonathan has been an active member of our Site Selection Committee and a principal benefactor of CBST's music program.
Stepping off our Board after many years of service to the community are Neal Hoffman, Aari Ludvigsen and Eric Rosenbaum, who served as CBST's immediate past president. Neal, Aari and Eric have worked tirelessly on CBST's behalf in a variety of different capacities, and we are deeply grateful to them for their service. We also look forward to their continued involvement in CBST's lay leadership in the years ahead.
Re-elected for new terms are Karen Benezra, Brian Blitzer, Stephen Frank, Bill Hibsher, Laurie Siegel and David Wine. Current Board member Marsha Melnick has joined CBST's Executive Committee along with Rosalba Messina.
As we look forward to celebrating Pride together in June, we wish you all a wonderful and restful summer! Remember that we will be bidding farewell to Rabbi Cohen and celebrating her decade at CBST on July 29th. We hope to see you then!
As always, please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum , Senior Rabbi
Ilene Sameth, Executive Director
Stephen E. Frank, Board President
