Apr

10 2016

Grandparents Circle: How to Positively Engage with your Intermarried Family

7:30PM - 9:00PM  

Congregation Beth Ohr 70 Highway Rte 516
Old Bridge, NJ 08857

Contact Ari Saks
7324422431
ari.saks@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/events/1025732160826014/

“PLEASE UNDERSTAND ME”: How to Use Personal Narrative to Positively Engage with Your Intermarried Family

Come learn with us as we use the tools of Personal Narrative to grapple with important questions affecting relationships within our intermarried families. These will include:

* How to deal with our feelings of loss and our fear of not being understood?

* How to create the right environment to be heard by one another

* And, in the midst of understanding each other, how to appreciate otherness?

This workshop will be facilitated by experts in the field (BIOS BELOW) along with Rabbi Ari Saks (Beth Mordecai) and Rabbi Joel Mishkin (Beth Ohr) through a combination of conversation, text learning, and developing a piece of our own narratives.

We invite all members of Congregation Beth Mordecai and Congregation Beth Ohr's Grandparents’ Circle as well as anyone whose children have married someone who comes from another faith tradition to join us. ANYONE WHO IS INTERESTED IN THIS TOPIC IS ALSO WELCOME TO JOIN US. Please RSVP to Rabbi Saks (ari.saks@gmail.com) by Thursday, April 7th.

We are also holding a similar workshop - PLEASE UNDERSTAND ME - How to Positively Engage with your Intermarried Family (Faithful Families) - for couples who come from different faith backgrounds from 12:30-2pm at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Perth AmboyIf you know someone who might be interested, please contact Rabbi Saks at ari.saks@gmail.com.

BIOS OF SPECIAL GUESTS

In 2008, DONNA CEPHAS received a Master’s Degree in Jewish Education from the Jewish Theological Seminary and has applied this education to projects that support Jewish identity formation and interfaith community building. She is writing a book, which chronicles the personal narratives of a cross-section of Non-Jewish adults committed to raising Jewish children, teaching workshops and developing a curriculum to teach lay and professional audiences how to foster and use personal narratives. In 2003, at Congregation Rodeph Sholom in New York City, she founded and co-facilitated a learning and support group for non-Jewish adults raising Jewish children (an associate group of the Jewish Outreach Institute) and has been a member of the Committees on Inclusion/Outreach and the Role of the Non-Jew. Donna is a Co-President of the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, the first US domestic network of Muslim and Jewish women dedicated to cultivating relationships between Muslim and Jewish women, interfaith learning and social justice initiatives. Donna is a member of the Newark Interfaith Coalition and traveled to Israel in October 2012 on a Hope & Peace Mission.

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In 2015 JESSICA COHEN received a Master’s Degree in Jewish Education from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Currently, Jessica is a Community Educator at Temple Israel Center of White Plains, New York. Jessica grew up in the Reform movement in Memphis, TN, as a member of Temple Israel and spent many summers as a camper at URJ camps. While at JTS, Jessica taught at Congregation Rodeph Sholom. Since 2013, she has worked with Donna on The Narrative Project, and believes that narratives can be an amazing tool in helping her learners and congregants through their personal journeys.

Sponsor: Congregation Beth Mordecai, Congregation Beth Ohr, Grandparents Circle, Jewish Federation in the Heart of New Jersey