CBI Coastal
Congregation B’nai Israel will be undertaking an initiative called CBI Coastal in the next few months. At its May meeting, the CBI Board of Directors approved a project to provide additional and enhanced services and programs to congregants in the south Irvine, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Newport Coast and Laguna Beach areas. This new program will enable members of the community to participate more fully in CBI activities that they may currently have difficulty attending because of distance and traffic issues, by providing periodic religious services, once-a-week religious school classes and a schedule of social and cultural programming in the south Irvine and Newport Beach area, according to CBI’s president, Joel Kuperberg.
“By way of background, the location where CBI members reside has expanded over time,” Kuperberg said. “During the past several years, we have become a shul where most of us live now in two different geographic areas: the Tustin-northern Irvine-Santa Ana-Orange-Anaheim area, which remains the core location for CBI members; and the south Irvine-Newport-Laguna area, where an increasing number of our newer members have moved. Particularly during the work week, our congregants in this coastal area are challenged by distance and commuter traffic in traveling to CBI to participate in our Friday evening Shabbat, weekday religious school and social programs.”
CBI Coastal is intended to alleviate this problem, by making CBI more accessible to our members, in three ways, Kuperberg added:
• Religious Services
• Religious School
• Social and Cultural Programming:
While the CBI Coastal program has been developed to address the particular needs of members in the coastal area, the services, religious school and programs are open to all CBI members, regardless of where they live.
“The CBI Coastal program is evolving step by step,” said Rabbi Elie Spitz, spiritual leader of Congregation B’nai Israel. “This is an attempt to meet people where they are without minimizing the time they spend in learning or other forms of participation. Our religious school gives students 5¾ hours per week of instruction, and they have an enriched foundation of Jewish understanding. Our leadership is wise enough to say that our primary focus is on people, rather than place.” For more information visit www.cbi18.org.
World-Fixing Event
Building on last year’s summer world-fixing event, Southern California Jewish Student Services (SoCalJSS) is teaming up with Long Beach Hillel to run this year’s Tikkun Olam Institute. Tikkun olam, which means “world-fixing” in Hebrew, has become an important means of engaging young Jews these days, according to Rabbi Drew Kaplan, SoCalJSS rabbi. This year’s event will happen from July 22 to 24. For more information, visit SoCalJSS.org.
Spa for the Soul
Chabad of West Orange County will hold the 9th Annual Spa for the Soul event for women at the Huntington Beach Central Library on August 5 from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. The event, which is for women only, is called “A Royal Renewal.” Organizers encourage women to “take time to relax and pamper your body and soul.” See www.chabadhb.com for more details.
KindredSPIRITS
The KindredSPIRITS concert, on Saturday, June 23, at Disney Hall, benefited Jewish World Watch. Amick Byram, Ilan Davidson, Cassie Byram and Julie Silver were joined by the L.A. Jewish Symphony under the direction of Dr. Noreen Green and Faithful Central Bible Church’s 60-voice gospel choir. KindredSPIRITS’ Executive and Artistic Director, Ilan Davidson, is proud to announce one of this year’s Humanitarian Award winners, Rabbi Harold Schulweis. Past honorees have included Carlos Santana and Ed Asner. A
