[Jewish] minutes from meeting 9/30/2003

[RL Sarafconn]

Hello all, 

Only six students and Rabbi Lisa were able to come to yesterday's meeting.
(RL, Lexi, Diana, Alizah, Beth, Justin)

As everyone present was a returning member, we didn't discuss the roles of
signers, what is JSU, Shabbat, and the list serve as planned.

We brainstormed with Rabbi Lisa ways in which she could help us in the
coming semesters: 
    -as an advocate (explain to community that "these are real needs")
    -as a contact person
    -help us brainstorm
    -unite the community
    -support
    -continuity (someone who will be here when we leave)
    -help us get things like prayer books and lulav and etrog
    -facilitate discussions

Also, Rabbi Lisa summed up the mini meeting last Tuesday. Students had many
practical ritual ideas about things that JSU might like but didn't have very
many ideas for the distant future.

The top of Donut 5 is not officially a religious center yet and so we are
not keeping any JSU property in that room. Rabbi Lisa said she would push
for the official word.

We talked about some of the tasks related to Sukkot.
    -Beth is going to call Special Programs to get a work order put in for
Phys. Plant to set up the sukkah for us.
    -We would like to repaint the sukkah or have it repainted.
    -Rabbi Lisa will buy us a lulav and etrog.
    -We want to buy permanent skach for the sukkah but we need to know the
dimensions first.
    -The first night of Sukkot is a Friday night. Thursday the 16th we would
like to invite Rabbi Lisa, the new Jewish studies professor (I forgot her
name) and Alizah's boss, the rabbi from Holyoke to join us for dinner. The
night after that is Friday again. These three days will be big cooking days
which will require a good deal of planning.
    -We can't plan a sukkah decorating day until the sukkah is up and we
know who is going to be around (Sukkot starts on October break.)

5-College Simhat Torah celebration will be at UMass Hillel House at 7:30pm
on Saturday the 18th of October. This has been a wonderful, joyful,
fun-filled night in the past and several of us are planning on going again
this year. There may be a smaller turnout from a couple of the schools this
year so it is especially important that Hampshire students go to represent
our school.  We'll talk more about rides and bus schedules closer to the
time.

Also in the five colleges, there will be an Orthodox minyan on Oct. 4th and
libral minyan on Oct. 11th. We don't have any more details yet.

We also talked about ideas for future programming.

    -Justin would like to have daily minyanim.  We scheduled the first
meeting for Tuesday October 7th. Interested students should meet in the
center of Donut 5 at 8:15am.  We will each bring whatever prayerbooks etc.
we have and try to accommodate everyone.  We understand that different
people want different things in a prayer service and we will try to make
everyone comfortable. We won't be praying in Donut 5, but will meet there
and go to another location.

    -Lexi had ideas about some Judaica arts + crafts making programs.  Also,
she has a friend who studies at the Culinary Institute of America and wants
to someday open a Kosher restaurant. We talked about inviting Lexi's friend
to come lead a Kosher cooking class.  We, of course, would need a big Kosher
kitchen for that. We're brainstorming.

    -Alizah Yarrow, a Prescott  intern, is looking for a program to sponser.
We are brainstorming.

    -We are wondering if it would be possible to take over one of the
bulletin boards in the library or in FPH.

    -We would like to invite MHC to something. Possibly the Kosher cooking
event. Possibly we'll start by postering their campus with our Shabbat times
and how to find Donut 5.


We ended the meeting by discussing the political climate at Hampshire and
the plausibility of bringing a cultural Israeli program to Hampshire, such
as an Israeli film festival or Israeli dancing.




b'shalom

RL