Check out Portsmouth, NH

New Phone System

We now have our new phone system. We ask your patience and cooperation in learning to use this system. There are NEW extension numbers for you, and you may dial the desired extension number at any time during the opening message. Please remember that you must dial ^"10^" to reach the temple office, NOT "0" The extensions are:

10-Office/

14-School Director; Jim Dricker

12-Rabbi Mark

18-Preschool Director: Pam Battin-Sacks

Office Notes: If you are sending in a check to the office for something other than budgets/dues, please designate this on the memo line or include an explanatory note for us. Thank you!  

Rabbi’s Office Hours: Rabbi Mark’s office hours are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings from 10 am to 12 noon, and other times by appointment. Afternoons he is tutoring students and teaching religious school classes.  To schedule an appointment, please call him at 436-5301, Ext. 12.  

Weekday Minyans are held Tuesday, Weds. and Thurs. at 5:15 pm in the sanctuary, just before the close of Religious School at 5:30. They are open to all in the community. Parents especially are invited to join the students in the sanctuary for the service.

Bulletin Board

Annual Chanukah Party

The Annual Chanukah Party will follow regular Sunday Hebrew School on Dec. 17, with a special Latke Party with all the trimmings! Please bring your chanukiyote (Chanukah menorahs) and enough candles to light for the 2^nd Day of Chanukah, which Sunday is. (Since we are lighting an “odd number” of candles this year, everyone lighting a menorah during for the entire holiday will need two boxes of candles, so as not to run out of candles during the holiday.) We will be distributing dreidels for playing with M&M’s, and singing songs, both traditional and new. No charge—join us! More info to follow.

Pro Portsmouth First Night

On First Night, Sunday, Dec. 31^st, Temple Israel will again participate as one of the entertainment sites for Pro Portsmouth’s First Night celebration. This has been an annual event here for many years. Pro Portsmouth needs a few volunteers who are members of the temple to monitor and help out in shifts during the evening. They start at 5:00 pm and go to about 11:30 pm.

If you can volunteer some time for this event, please contact Temple the Temple Office.  Many thanks.

Chanukah Fun at Shapiro House

Kol Dodi will represent the Jewish community at Strawbery Banke's Candlelight Stroll on the second night of Chanukah, Dec. 16, from 5 to 8 p.m.  Please come and enjoy the candles lighting the paths, the candles in the menorah at Shapiro House, and the familiar Chanukah tunes, sung by Kol Dodi.  From Maoz Tsur to the Latke Song, we'll share some of the Chanukah spirit with Mrs. Shapiro and the many visitors to the annual stroll.  While you're there, check out the gingerbread house competition and the music in the Cider Shed! 

Library Reminders:

As you collect books, videos, CD’s, tapes for the “book” sale, please be sure they have been gently used or nearly new and are SALEABLE. (Anything torn, soiled, very old or musty is hard to deal with and creates disposal problems.) Thank you for your consideration. Please remember the library operates solely on donations and is quite apart from the synagogue budget. Along with the Purim Party, the BOOK SALE will be Sunday morning, March 27, in the State Street lobby.

Library rules are posted on the door; and assistance may be obtained by calling the library and leaving a message (Extension 20); or by coming in on a Tuesday, when the library is staffed.

The next Book Discussion Group will be on Tuesday, March 22 at 10:20 am.

                                                                                                  B.R.F.

Sisterhood News

Sisterhood is considering organizing carpools to the Maine Jewish Film Festival on March 13 in Portland. To check out what is playing on the 13th, go to www.mjff.org. If you are interested in carpooling, contact anyone listed on the membership form on the planning committee (include whether you are interested in afternoon, evening or both) no later than March 6 (that is a firm deadline!). If there is enough interest, Margie will get back in touch to organize carpools. Everyone is responsible for purchasing their own tickets ahead of time through the website. New ideas for future Sisterhood sponsored events continue to come up. In the coming months, Sisterhood hopes to bring some of these to fruition. If you have any questions or ideas you can contact anyone listed on the membership form on the planning committee.

Community Service Society

Interfaith Hospitality Network

The Network now has three families. Two enrolled on Wednesday afternoon during our rotation, and thanks to our dedicated team captains and volunteers we adjusted to the change quite nicely. We even kept them an extra night, due to the snow storm. We thanked our volunteers with a most wonderful evening at Flatbread Pizza on Congress St. The pizza was delicious, the staff terrific and we urge you to patronize them. Our next rotation is March 20-27. To join the team, call Jeff.

Salvation Army Soup Kitchen

Upcoming dates are March 22 and April 26. If you can help, call Hannah to sign up for this.

Passover Shopping Trip

The annual Passover shopping trip to Brookline, Mass., is scheduled for Sunday, April 3. Meet at the temple at 9:00 am, and we will car pool to The Butcherie and other shops in the area. For info, call the Temple Office.

June Event

Members of the CSS will be escorting handicapped youngsters from the Edgewood Centre to Market Square Day on Saturday, June 11. Keep this date in mind.

More information to follow. CSS is looking for volunteers to work with this group from Edgewood. See the following note from Karin Anderson about them.

 “Hi, my name is Karin Anderson and I work at Edgewood Centre nursing home in Portsmouth. I am letting you know about a group of young people (ages 13-21) who live here at Edgewood. Their health care needs are extensive enough that each of the five kids requires 24-hour care. Not only do I work with the kids here at Edgewood, I am also the mother of Tyler, our youngest resident. Tyler, like our other youngsters, is in a wheelchair, is nonverbal, and requires hand over hand assistance with everything he does. It takes a lot of hands to accomplish any task! I am hoping that with your help we can build fuller lives for our kids. You may have seen the Valentine’s Day article in the Herald about the circus performers that came to Edgewood for a volunteer performance. The kids loved it! It can be a big (yet impossible!) task to get all the kids out at once for an event, so we are all so grateful when someone can come in to entertain, read, bring a craft, or help us to push a wheelchair for a walk. I will write again next month. Until then, take good care.”

Call Jeff if you can help with this group.

Next Meetings

Our next meetings will be on Monday, March 7 and Thursday, April 7.

Brotherhood News 

A productive meeting of the Temple Israel Brotherhood was attended by some 12 members on January 30, with another meeting scheduled for Sunday, February 20. Discussion on the 30th dealt with potential programs and activities for the coming months. Among the suggestions were: continued work on the cemetery and temple grounds keeping, a trip to a baseball game (Manchester or Portland), another Duck Tour in Boston, pertinent speakers for breakfast and/or luncheon meetings, ski, fishing and golf outings, and a dramatic program by UNH students. We are working on a dramatic program which deals with the life and times of Anne Frank, hopefully with a program date in April.

Brotherhood has revived its Card Nights and meets now on the 2nd Thursday of every month at 7:30 pm for poker at the temple.

To date, only 30 men have submitted the annual dues of $10. You can leave an envelope with your dues check in the Brotherhood mailbox near the copy machine in the temple coatroom or you can mail it to Temple Israel Brotherhood, 200 State St., Portsmouth, NH 03801.

                                                                        Geoff, President

Senior Lunch Bunch Meets Thursday April 7

The next meeting of the Senior Lunch Bunch will be at 11:30 am on Thursday, April 7th. CSS will be helping to coordinate the Bunch. Invitations will be mailed out soon. We invite you to join us for a relaxing, informative afternoon where you can enjoy a tasty luncheon, a brief program, and a visit with your temple friends. Come and enjoy Noodles Romanoff and an interesting historical program!

The program for April will feature a special speaker talking about the community’s early Jewish history. Temple member Audrey Bierhans and her husband Irwin have been Portsmouth residents and temple members since 1998. She is chairman of the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Cemetery Committee and offers tours of the North Burial Ground via her business Gravestones By Dusk. Audrey currently organizes programs at the city’s four ancient burial grounds entitled “Spirits 2005, Bringing the Dead to Life”. She is well known at the temple for writing and directing the play “If I Forget Thee, Oh Jerusalem” for the Holocaust Memorial Service a few years ago. This highly successful and powerful production will be repeated this May at a Friday evening service. She has extensively researched the lives of Abraham and Rachel Isaac and is in the process of completing a play on this first of Portsmouth’s Jewish families, a project interrupted when she suffered a stroke in 2003. For the Lunch Bunch program, Audrey will discuss the Isaacs and early Jewish life in colonial America, and will read excerpts from the play.

Be sure to call the office if you need a ride to this event. Volunteers are always welcome. Call us at 436-5301, Ext. 10. Please call us to RSVP for the luncheon by March 31st.

Other Bulletin Board News

The Nominations Meeting will take place on Wednesday, April 20 at 6:00 pm.

Nominations for the Board of Directors and Temple Officers will be accepted at this meeting. The person being nominated must be present. No nominations are accepted at the Annual Meeting. The Annual Meeting of the congregation for Elections and Proposals is set for Thursday, May 19. A free for members hotdog supper is held at 6:00 pm, followed by the annual meeting at 7 pm. Members will receive a separate mailing about this meeting.

Notice to Those on Budget Payments: Depending upon your budget agreement, you have just two or three months to pay off your balance. Please keep your account up to date.

Temple Israel Webmaster

 12/07/06