Jewish Living Programs
Jewish LIFE
THE JCC IS PLEASED TO BE A FOUNDING PARTNER IN Jewish LIFE, Learning Is For Everyone, our community’s award-winning adult Jewish adult education series featuring nationally and internationally acclaimed speakers, authors, scholars, film series as well as classes taught by local rabbis and synagogue professional staff. The JCC is pleased to host many of the Jewish LIFE special events. Jewish LIFE is supported by the JCC, Jewish Federation of Somerset, Hunterdon & Warren Counties, Jewish Family Service of Somerset, Hunterdon & Warren Counties and 12 area synagogues.
Jewish LIFE Mission
JEWISH LIFE, A COLLABORATIVE, COMMUNITY SIDE JEWISH ADULT EDUCATION PROGRAM created by the JCC, Rabbis, lay leadership and Jewish agencies, strives to expand and enhance the Jewish educational opportunities offered to both affiliated and non-affiliated Jews in Somerset, Hunterdon and Warren Counties.
IT COULD HAPPEN HERE:
Why America is Tipping from Hate to the Unthinkable – And How We Can Stop It
A Book Talk with Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO Anti-Defamation League
- Thursday, September, 29, 2022
- 7:00 PM at Temple Beth-El Hillsborough or via Zoom. Followed by a group discussion with interfaith clergy.
For more information, Lauren Edelman of the Jewish Federation. ledelman@jfedshaw.org, 908-758-2003
As CEO of ADL (the Anti-Defamation League), Greenblatt has made it his personal mission to demonstrate how antisemitism, racism, and other insidious forms of intolerance can destroy a society. It Could Happen Here offers a bracing primer on how we—as individuals, as organizations, and as a society—can strike back against antisemitism and hate. Just because it could happen here, he shows, does not mean that the unthinkable is inevitable.
Irma Horowitz Film Series
THE AUTOMAT
Thursday, October 13
The film documents Horn and Hardart’s iconic Automat, one of America’s original and most popular restaurant chains in NYC and Philadelphia. The brainchild of partners Joseph Horn and Frank Hardart, the restaurant was inspired by a German restaurant that delivered pre-ordered meals to patrons via dumbwaiter.
The Director will be present to lead a Q&A after the movie presentation.
Master of the Game with Author, Martin Indyk
- November 17
- 7:00 PM
- In-person at the JCC
In an attempt to understand the arc of American diplomatic influence in the Middle East, Martin Indyk returns to the origins of America-led peace efforts and to the man who created the Middle East peace process – Henry Kissinger.
Indyk takes readers inside the negotiations, as that of a historian poring over the records of these events, as well as an inside player seeking to glean lessons for Middle East peacemaking.
Free to all.
Martin Indyk is a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former US Ambassador to Israel, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs and Special Assistant to President Clinton. He served as President Obama’s special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from July 2013 to June 2014.
Judaism in Song with Rabbi Ron Isaacs
- Tuesday, November 29
- 7:00 PM
- In-person at the JCC
The late Leonard Cohen was the quintessential Jewish composer of our time – perhaps even more than Bob Dylan. He was not only an entertainer, song writher, poet, but a man with his own Torah. Through film, guitar, and voice, Rabbi Ron Isaacs will present several of Cohen’s songs with religious themes and illustrate their connection to both liturgical and biblical texts.
Free to All
Rabbi Ron Isaacs is the Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Sholom in Bridgewater and the Rabbi of historic Beth Judah in Wildwood, NJ. In recent years, he served as a music therapist and bedside musician for a local Jewish hospice. He has written more than 130 books, including Chords of Comfort: Unlocking Life’s Lessons of Healing Through Music and his latest children’s book, Prayer for the World: Song of the Grass.
The Daughter of Auschwitz: Tova Friedman
A powerful memoir by one of the youngest survivors of Auschwitz, following her childhood growing up during the Holocaust and surviving near death experiences in a Jewish ghetto, Nazi labor camp, and Auschwitz.
Tova was four years old when she was sent to a the camp at the start of WWII. While friends and family were murdered in front of her eyes, the only weapon that Tova and her parents possessed was the primal instinct to survive.
Free to all.
Tova Friedman is 83 years old and revered as one of the youngest survivors of Auschwitz. She is a strong campaigner against Antisemitism. Tova is a retired therapist living in Highland Park, New Jersey.
Jewish LIFE is Supported by:
• Chabad of Greater Somerset County
• Chabad Jewish Center of Southern Somerset County
• Chabad of Hunterdon County
• Flemington Jewish Community Center
• Congregation Kehilat Shalom, Belle Mead
• Congregation Knesseth Israel, Bound Brook
• Jewish Family Service of Somerset, Hunterdon and Warren Counties
• Jewish Federation of Somerset, Hunterdon and Warren Counties
• Or Chadash, the Reform Temple of Hunterdon County
• Shimon and Sara Birnbaum Jewish Community Center, Bridgewater
• Jewish Center of Northwest Jersey
• Temple Beth- El, Hillsborough
• Temple Beth El, Somerset
• Temple Har Shalom, Warren
• Temple Sholom, Bridgewater