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CAJE Dinner to Honor
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Ellen Beller
The Colorado Agency for Jewish Education (CAJE)
will honor two community leaders at its 2001 CAJE Dinner to be held
Sunday, August 26 at Congregation BMH-BJ in Denver.
The 2001 Leader of Learning Award will
be bestowed on Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, renowned spiritual
leader and holder of The Wisdom Chair at the Naropa Institute in
Boulder, Colorado. Presented at our annual dinner each August, the
Leader of Learning Award acknowledges the agency’s deep commitment to
Jewish education and to those who have devoted their lives to making
learning both sacred and accessible for Jewish people throughout
Colorado.
The 2001 Spirit of CAJE Award will be
awarded to Ellen Beller, who will become the immediate past president
of CAJE on June 30. Ellen is an advocate for Jewish education and
innumerable other Jewish causes.
“Both Reb Zalman and Ellen Beller
exemplify the partnership of educators and community proponents so
vital to the strengthening of our people through education. Zalman
represents what is the very best in all of our teachers, and Ellen
symbolizes all those whose tireless efforts make teaching and learning
possible,” said Dr. Stuart Senkfor, who will follow Ellen as president
of the CAJE board.
Reb Zalman has served as a
congregational rabbi, Hebrew school principal, Hillel Foundation
director, and as a spiritual guide for individuals and communities
worldwide. He is Professor Emeritus at Temple University and founder
of Jewish Renewal, as well as Director of Spiritual Eldering Seminars.
Reb Zalman has authored 150 articles on Jewish spiritual life and five
renowned Jewish books.
Before CAJE, Ellen Beller was a member
of the United Jewish Communities Young Leadership Cabinet, served as
President of the Hillel Council of Colorado and was a Wexner Scholar.
After her tenure as CAJE President she will assume the Chairmanship of
the 2002 Women’s Campaign of the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado.
Ms. Beller is also a founding member of CHAI.
The newly established Spirit of CAJE
Award honors a leader who has provided extraordinary support for
Jewish learning in the Rocky Mountain region.
Dinner chairs are Rabbi Tirzah Firestone
and David Friedman, Richard and Karyn Schad, Evi Makovsky, Andrea and
Jack Hyatt, and Susan and Cliff Weinberger. For further information:
CAJE, 303-321-3191 x 27, or email: cajedinner@caje-co.org. n
The Israel Study Tour Alumni Association is up
and running! Since the unique Denver trip began in 1972, CAJE has been
sending local teenagers to Israel annually for the summer experience
of their lives. There are nearly 1700 alumni today and we are eager to
connect with all of them!
Directing this new endeavor is Robin
Hanssen, an IST ’87 alumna. Together with a team of other enthusiastic
alumni, she is working to track down past IST participants. Help is
coming from Lori Goldberg (1976), Rae Ann Negreann (1976), Richard
Huttner (1984), Jodi Cooper (1985), Lottie Fryer (1990), Neil Bogan
(1991), Loren Knaster (2000), Steve Zimmerman (parent), and countless
other alumni are pooling their resources to locate friends from the
past.
In addition to assisting alumni in
reconnecting with old friends as well as with the their Jewish
community, we are also hoping to build a strong financial support
system for Israel Study Tours of the future. Those who experienced
Israel through CAJE’s IST program are best able to recognize its value
for today’s teenagers. We’re asking the alumni to donate their time
and money in order to ensure the continuing success of IST.
CAJE is currently in the process of
building our website. We have a variety of photographs from various
years as well as a message board for alumni to utilize in
communicating with fellow ISTers. Please visit our site at
www.caje-co.org. Future plans include developing career network
opportunities, establishing the ability to locate other alumni in
various geographical locations, providing informative updates on the
current situation in Israel, and planning reunion events for past IST
participants.
If you are an IST alum, know the
whereabouts of an alum, or would like more information about our
organization, please contact us at (303) 316-3960 or e-mail us at
ISTAlumni@caje-co.org.
In tribute to our honorees, Rabbi Zalman
Schachter-Shalomi and Ellen Beller, the CAJE Library recommends the
following selections from their extensive collection.
Books by or about Rabbi Zalman
Schachter-Shalomi, our Leader of Learning. Reb Zalman is a prolific
and talented writer whose books are read by Jews and non-Jews alike.
• The First Step: A Guide for the New
Jewish Spirit by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi with Donald Gropman. New
York, NY: Bantam Books, 1983.
• From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Profound New
Vision of Growing Older by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Ronald S.
Miller. New York, NY: Warner Books, 1995.
• Paradigm Shift: From the Jewish Renewal
Teachings of Reb Zalman Schacter-Shalomi, edited by Ellen Singer.
Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1992.
• Sparks of Light: Counseling in the
Hasidic Tradition by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi with Edward Hoffman.
Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 1983.
• Worlds of Jewish Prayer: A Festschrift
in Honor of Rabbi Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi edited by Shohama Harris
Wiener and Jonathan Omer-Man. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1993.
Ellen’s Favorite Pick for 2001
• The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True
Story Of Music And Love In Nazi Germany by Martin Goldsmith.
Ellen Beller is the recipient of the Spirit of
CAJE Award. She is an avid reader and collector of books of interest
to Jewish readers. Here are her thoughts about this remarkable story.
There are so many stories that we will
never know about the Holocaust. But it took a child of survivors to
bring this fascinating account of the Jewish Kulturbund to life.
In the last few years itís been as if
the floodgates of Holocaust books have opened and people want to tell
their story or is it the children who are searching. No, this is not
another Holocaust book. Not only was the book fascinating, it was
hard to put down.
Before I read this book my knowledge of
the Kulturbund was nonexistent. The talent and the quality of
performances can never be equaled again. Dancing, music, and theater
with subscriptions of twenty thousand people was amazing during a time
when Jews were forbidden to own businesses and were barely surviving.
The Kulturbund gave German Jews a little bit of hope for normalcy
during a bleak existence. In between this wonderful history is a love
story that brings to us an insight into their world and the role music
played in the survival of two young people. Thru them we get a glimpse
of everyday life for Jews in Germany.
I can not imagine growing up knowing
nothing of your family or having parents who did not want to talk
about their painful past. Martin Goldsmith, the author felt the need
to search for what he describes as a tree that grew and over shadowed
his home in darkness. Thank goodness he took this journey and gave us
a little-known piece of Holocaust history. —Ellen n
Easy On-Ramp to Teaching...CAJE Recruits and
Trains New Teachers
Each year, religious school principals and
directors panic because they can’t find enough teachers for their
classrooms. The temptation is always there to simply recruit “anyone
with a pulse who has difficulty saying no.” These recruits, thrown
into the classroom with little or no preparation and often with even
less support, sink or swim. Or perhaps they doggy-paddle for a year or
two, and then, exhausted, resign. The high rate of teacher turnover is
demonstrated by the fact that despite many teachers in our community
with years and years of experience, local teachers remain in the field
of Jewish education only an average of 3.9 years at area religious
schools.
We have in our community many solid
prospective teacher candidates of whom we know, and many we are sure
who we have not yet identified. They include college students, retired
people, professionals whose careers have taken them far away from
teaching Judaism and children, parents of children entering religious
school, and others with an affinity for Jewish learning. Many lack
Judaic knowedge or classroon skills. When such prospective teachers
are approached, many invariably take a step backward and say, “Me? Oh,
no. I don’t know anything about teaching and I’m not Jewishly
knowledgeable.” Easy On-Ramp to Teaching is designed for just these
individuals.
CAJE is working with principals,
teachers, rabbis, synagogue staff, and lay leaders to recruit
prospective teacher candidates from the community at large. During the
summer of 2001, CAJE will provide group training with these
individuals, covering topics such as: What is Good Teaching?, Creating
a Learning Environment, Making a Positive Start, Classroom Management,
Teaching Techniques, Student Development, and Text Study.
Key to the program is ongoing
mentorship. CAJE will work with each candidate individually to develop
a Study Portfolio and a Personal Jewish Enrichment Plan. Teacher
candidates will also attend the National CAJE Conference in Fort.
Collins in August, 2001. In the fall, each candidate will begin
apprenticeships in area schools in the community. During that initial
time period, candidates will spend valuable time with their CAJE-trained
mentors. In addition, CAJE will host in-service meetings for the new
teachers.
In the spring, there will be a siyum for
the new teachers, who will receive a certificate from CAJE, and
community recognition.
For more information about this exciting
program, please contact Maggie Miller at (303) 321-3191 ext. 17. n
As this publication goes to press, CAJE’s 29th
Israel Study Tour prepares to leave Denver, and students and staff
alike gear up for the challenges and rewards of a summer in Eretz
Yisroel. Says trip leader Ira Miller, “It’s really amazing to see how
much these students grow both personally and Judaically during the
trip. This experience will change them and shape them and help them
become adults who are more Jewishly connected.”
This year especially, with all the
unrest in Israel, CAJE is proud of the families and students who will
be part of IST 2001. Safety, which is always CAJE’s primary concern,
will be everybody’s top priority. According to Risa Buckstein,
Associate Director of CAJE, “We are in regular contact with ISI
(Israel Study Institute, CAJE’s Israeli partner in facilitating the
trip) as well as with government officials regarding the safety of our
community’s children. We use the most updated information available
and have the ability to make last minute changes to keep the students
safe.”
The six-week tour travels throughout
Israel, including a Shabbat in Safed, a week in the Golan heights,
several stays in the Negev Desert, a sunrise hike to the top of Masada,
and everybody’s favorite, two days in the resort town of Eilat. This
year’s staff will include six veteran IST staff members and three
Denver youth group directors. Assistant trip leader Steve Glickman
sums it up: “This year’s staff is a Jewish youth Dream Team. Many of
us already work together and between the group we have many, many
years of experience working with Jewish students in a wide variety of
settings.”
Be sure to check out the CAJE website,
www.caje-co.org, for updates and current photos of our teens in
Israel. n
The CAJE Board congratulates the First
Graduating Class of the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School:
Dorothy Aaron, Phyllis Adler, Celina Aisner,
Sharon Andersen, Victor Brener, Janet Bronitsky, Sheila Clark, Evie
Cohen, Jeffrey Cohn, JoAnn Dare, Michelle Dunn, Michael Edesess,
Howard Entin, Carole Foss, Joyce Freeman, Michael Frieman, Susan
Frisch, Nancy Gart, Steve Glickman, Laura Goff, Rick Goff, Ann
Goldberg, Lori Goldberg, Barbara Goldburg, Sandy Goldman, Jane
Hermann, Cherie Karo Schwartz, Marilyn Kopelman, Leo Kopilow, Mark
Kramer, Susan Levine, Glenn Levinson, Della Levy, Jennifer Logan,
Robbie Marks, Chuck Michaels, Carol Morris, Roni Ogin, Julie Perlman,
Sherri Rojhani, Carla Sciaky, Karen Shapiro, Goldie Sher, Carol Sobel,
Jan Spitzer, Mark Suprenand, Ruth Toltz, Warren Toltz, Debra
Weinstein, Heather Younger-Dogu
At the June 14 graduation held at the
Hebrew Educational Alliance, graduates received a certificate in
Jewish education from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. We wish our
graduates a hearty Yasher Koach and hope to see many of them returning
for the CAJE Melton Graduate Seminar this fall. For more information
about adult
learning opportunities call Maggie Miller, 303-321-3191 x
18 or email: mmiller@caje-co.org.
Left: Who says kids don’t learn important
skills in school? Rafi Krausz and Ephie Zussman play Go Fish during
recess at Denver Academy of Torah.
Right: Sunday Fun Club members Lauri, Jonathan and Shayna enjoy the
polar bears at CAJE’s outing to the Denver Zoo on April 30.
