New Shul Social Action Day

This year's day of community service was a great success! We had over 20 people helping out the great people at Trinity Soup Kitchen and a fabulous group at Randall's Island who worked with determination and sweat to beautify the area. Our delicious lunch, provided by Liz Newman and family, was eaten over a discussion about the connections between Judaism, community, and tzedakah.

The day inspired everyone involved, and some of us plan on trying to increase The New Shul's social action programming and provide more service opportunities. If you are interested in getting involved, please contact info@newshul.org with any of your personal questions and ideas. If you have more pics from the soup kitchen or Randall's Island, please send them in!

Mitzvah Accomplished!

One of our very own Bar Mitzvah students, Noah Levy, has been working tirelessly for the past few weeks to raise money for his Social Action project in preparation for his Bar Mitzvah which took place on April 30th. Noah rode his unicycle and also asked for monetary donations instead of gifts, and he reached his goal of building a water treatment plant in the Amazon. We aren't surprised that he did it, but we are extremely proud of him. Mazel tov Noah!!

Please read below to find the note he sent out to his contributors, including many New Shul members and friends:

Dear Friends and Family,

W E D I D I T ! ! ! ! !

Thanks to your generosity, I have collected the amount of money I needed to purchase a water treatment plant for an Amazon village!

Thanks to your cooperation, an entire Amazon village of 350-400 people will soon enjoy clean drinking water!
I couldn't have done this without your help.

This is a real-life example of one of the verses I read from the Torah at my Bar Mitzvah: "When YOU (plural) reap your harvest, YOU (singular) shall leave the four corners of your field for the needy." The rabbis interpreted this to mean that EACH of us must do our small part and if we do, TOGETHER we can solve problems that none of us could solve on our own.

I am so excited about our accomplishment, that I may even travel to Peru to see the water treatment plant installed. If I do, I will let you know.

Thanks again for helping me turn my Mitzvah Project into a real-life Mitzvah.

Love,
Noah

Read the Great Story Behind Rebbe's Table This Month....

From member Anita Sher---learn why she and her family will be attending this month's Rebbe's Table at City Winery on Sunday, May 22nd starting at 9:45 a.m. to discuss the topic "Here Today? How Tomorrow?"


Hi Everyone,

Just wanted to share with you the announcement for the next Rebbe’s Table....

The topic is actually one my kids and I came up with and focuses on the question of evolution vs. creation – the role of God and the role of science.

Last summer the kids and I went to Montana and while we were there, visited a creationist dinosaur museum. The tour guide at the museum presented everything from a creationist perspective and showed evidence to prove that only God could have created the dinosaurs and there is no evidence of an evolutionary process. The guide demonstrated evidence that dinosaurs even lived amongst us and that dinosaur and human bones can be found side by side. The guide also claimed that the embryo theory is wrong (the theory that all embryos start out looking alike) so therefore the evolution theorists are wrong. The kids and I knew this did not make sense but were not in a position to counter the arguments. So I thought it might be helpful to explore the topic further with the help of folks who can address the religion and science involved.

With the help of Rabbi Dan and Mark Siegel (a Biology Professor from NYU), we will be exploring this topic at the City Winery on May 22nd.

I really hope you can join us for this interesting and fun event. Let me know if you have any questions. Hope to see you there!

Warm regards,
Anita

Help Lady Gaga Help Those in Need!

This opportunity was brought to us by member Amy Mereson through her work at the University Settlement. Please consider casting your vote---it's for a great cause. Voting ends this Friday. Good luck Amy and The Door!

Lady Gaga is giving away a million bucks to 5 NYC non-profits, and one of those groups is The Door, which is a part of University Settlement. The organization that gets the most votes on Facebook will get $500,000; the other 4 will get awards ranging from $200,000 down to $50,000. Needless to say we want the half million. If you don’t know about it, The Door is a really amazing organization serving thousands of the most underserved 12 to 21-year-olds from all over NYC. Lady Gaga chose the groups (with the help of the Robin Hood Foundation) because of their work with disconnected LGBTQ youth, and/but the money will support the organization as a whole.

We’re a week into the competition and what was a solid lead has dwindled to 1%. Your help is needed! So if you’re on Facebook, please VOTE as often as you can (no limits on individual voters.) And whether or not you’re on Facebook, please share as widely as you can with your networks, and ask them to share as well; help us go viral. Here’s how it works:

1.) Log onto Lady Gaga’s Facebook Page

2.) “Like” Lady Gaga by clicking “Like” next to her name at the top of the page. (OK I know you don’t want to have to like Lady Gaga, but what can I do? You can un-like her a minute later.)

3.) Click on the "Gaga + Robin Hood" tab

4.) Cast your vote for The Door!

Voting ends this Friday May 6 at 6 a.m. Thank you!! I’ll keep you posted