Message From President Marcy Zimmerman

L’shana Tova to our Temple Israel family, and welcome to our new members and friends.  We look forward to our High Holiday services and welcoming in the new year.   

Thank you to all of the dedicated board members and congregants who continue to make Temple Israel of DeLand a warm and loving place to come to for Shabbat and Holiday services.  Our services are led by our spiritual prayer leader, Reuven Silverman.  He brings wonderful insight into the weekly Parashat and we look forward to his services every Friday evening, as well as the holidays.  While we continue to learn some new tunes, we still sing some traditional ones.  A fresh perspective helps keep our services from becoming mundane. 

We are blessed to have Joe and Lynn Goldovitz as our teachers for the children’s religious/Hebrew school, which has been re-named The Sy Weiner Sunday School.  Vivian Santos is dedicated to Jewish education and also works with the young children.  Our children enjoy coming to temple on Sunday mornings to learn about Judaism and/or to study for their B’Nai Mitzvah.  We were blessed to have a Bar Mitzvah of one of our students this past year, as well as a second Bat Mitzvah of one of our adults.  They were both wonderful events!

Temple Israel of DeLand offers many other events throughout the year, including pot luck dinners, Rockin’ Shabbats with Joe and Lynn, adult classes, and various holiday meals.  This past year, our adults studied beginner’s Hebrew, intermediate Hebrew, as well as Judaism 101.  For more information on our events or classes, please visit templeisraelofdeland.org. 

Temple Israel of DeLand has become an independent shul again, yet still practices reform Judaism.  We use the same books and our services remain the same. We want everybody to continue to feel as comfortable as they have felt these past years.

Our Interfaith kitchen “Tikkun Olam” project continues on certain designated Mondays and on Christmas Day.  Everyone’s help has been tremendous for this project. 

We have much to be thankful for and may all of you be blessed this year with good health and prosperity.

Marcy Zimmerman,

President