Society+for+the+Advancement+of+Judaism+(New+York,+NY)

__**SAJ (The Society for the Advancement of Judaism)**__ **New York, NY (Reconstructionist/Conservative 260 Member Units)** The SAJ will expand the reach of our family service by creating new opportunities for different populations. We will further intergrate our families into the life of the congregation through congregation-wide Shabbat and holiday celebrations. We are also bringing our Hebrew School into closer connection with our family services through music education.
 * "Musical service expansion and intergration at the SAJ"**


 * Informational and Marketing Materials**

[|Saturday morning Family service flyer] [|Tween and family service flye.pdf]

[|Hanukah Flyer & Poster.doc] [|PJ Library Passover story hour.pdf] [|Closing serviceceremony invitation.pdf]

Our intergenerational Hanukah party kicked off with a latke-hamantashen debate with Rabbi Michael Strassfeld representing latkes and our education director, Gidon Isaacs representing hamantashen. The links below were sent to the entire congregation in the days after the event. __Latke and Hamantashen Debate on You Tube:__ Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS0dtabqnmg Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDqF4RAlKV8

Our family services include a combination of song, story, disucssion, and movement activities. We work to construct a service that has a nice balance between the various components and still flows nicely, keeping parents and children alike engaged while not feeling rushed. Since these services are monthly, we also incorporate elements that connect to approaching holidays. On Saturday mornings our service is geared specifically towards children 9 and under.
 * Education Materials and Best Practices**

[|SAJ Friday night Family Service January 22.doc] [|SAJ Friday night Family Service - February 8.doc] [|SAJ Friday night Tween Family Service - February 8.doc] [|SAJ Friday night Tween Family Service - March 7.doc] [|SAJ Friday night multi-cultural family service.doc]

[|SAJ Saturday morning family Shabbat - December.doc] [|SAJ Saturday morning family Shabbat - March.doc] [|SAJ Saturday morning family Shabbat - April 12.doc] [|Communal Tour of Israel.doc]

On many levels the work we did this year integrating the family population with the rest of the congregation and broadening participation in family services allowed us to hold our Hebrew School closing "ceremony" as a Friday night service open to the whole congregation. In preparation for this service, each student in our Hebrew School was guided to create his or her own personal prayer for the end of the year. They each created works of art out of their prayers, writing out the prayers and decorating them in a host of different ways. We also gathered these prayers and "redacted" one prayer for the whole community by selecting lines from various individual prayers. For the closing service, we decorated the stairs from our sanctuary up to our social hall (where a pot luck dinner was held) with the students' individual prayer. It was a very powerful embodiment of our community values of personal exploration and spirituality and our communities high value on art as a Jewish expression. [|End of Year Lesson Template.doc] [|End of the Year Prayer.pdf] [|End of Year Program.doc]

Our PJ Library programs are geared to children between the ages of 2 and 5 years old. The programs take place on Saturday evenings and have three set elements - a craft project, a story read by the Rabbi, and a sing-along led by our Hebrew School music teacher. Below you will find an example of how these elements come together in the description of our Passover program.

[|Passover Story hour logistics.doc]

[|Website] 15 West 86th Street New York, NY 10024

Rabbi Michael Stassfeld mstrassfeld@aol.com

Gidon Isaacs education.saj@verizon.net