Saturday is Jews’ Next Dor Shabbat

Spend Shabbat with the CBD community, as Jews’ Next Dor, Congregation Beth David’s Young Adult Group leads Shabbat morning services, and sponsors lunch this week. Come support Jews’ Next Dor, and schmooze over lunch. It’s our first ever Jews’ Next Dor Shabbat. All Congregation Beth David Shabbat services are open to all. Congregation Beth David is a Conservatice Synagogue associated with USCJ.

Facebook event

EcoJews

I got this from IG of EcoJews of the Bay in my message box, thought I’d share it with everyone, since Congregation Beth David is a pilot synagogue for the the Conservative Movements Greening Initiative, and Jews’ Next Dor is CBD’s Young Adult Group. I hope you find something useful in these tips for a “Green Hanukkah”

EcoJews of the Bay Guide to a Green Chanukah

As we celebrate the Festival of Lights, we remember the miracle of the small cruse of oil which lasted eight days. According to Rabbi Arthur Waskow, the rabbis taught that this “‘conservation of oil’ was a Divine miracle. We might translate this to mean that it is a sacred act, carrying out G-d’s will and following G-d’s lead, for us to conserve oil, trees, water, air – all the strands of the earth.” Not only did the Maccabees fight to preserve the Jewish religion against the Greeks’ attempts to Hellenize our people, but they also kept the menorah burning with a small amount of oil. Why not approach Chanukah in modern times with the same spirit of conservation? We hope you find the following information useful and inspirational for your own interpretation of the holiday.

Check out these online resources and the tips below to green your Chanukah this year.
www.coejl.org/Hanukkah (click here or copy – please note the URL is case specific)
http://rac.org/_kd/Items/actions.cfm?action=Show&item_id=1270&destination=ShowItem
http://www.greenyour.com/lifestyle/events/hanukkah

Gift Giving

Tread lightly on the earth with these waste-free gift ideas:

• Gift certificates for restaurants, concerts, theaters, iTunes, massage or yoga classes
• Museum or nonprofit organization memberships or donations

• Plant a tree in honor of your friend or family member (Visit www.jnf.org to plant a tree in Israel, or find a tree organization in their community.)
• Give of yourself: certificates for babysitting, cooking dinner, home organizing, help a friend set up recycling/composting, etc.

• Create an electronic cookbook of your favorite recipes and email it to friends
• Donate used items to a local charity such as St. Anthony’s or Goodwill

Make your own gifts or find eco-friendly products at natural food stores and other local merchants. Here are some ideas:

• Steel water bottles
• Locally made natural soaps
• Rechargeable batteries with charger; Hand crank flashlights and radios
• Bake cookies
• Package your own spice, tea or potpourri blends from your garden or the bulk foods aisle
• Creative reuse crafts you can make at home: http://www.recycleworks.org/schools/creativereuse.html
• Create a gift basket of fair trade, organic coffees or teas with a steel travel mug

Visit these green gift events on Sunday, December 14th:

• GAIA’s Annual Holiday Party and Craft Sale at the Ecology Center in Berkeley http://www.ecologycenter.org/calendar/event.php?eventID=27621
• Urban Alliance for Sustainability’s new EcoHolidaySF: Local Shopping Experience www.ecoholidaysf.com

Instead of buying wrapping paper made from trees, try these less wasteful options:

• Old paper items such as maps, posters and the Sunday funnies make for amusing gift wrap.
• Save and reuse wrapping paper and gift bags.

• Japanese furoshiki cloths are a reusable alternative to wrapping paper. Almost any size or type of fabric or fleece — from your craft closet or a store’s bargain bin — will work. For detailed directions on how to fold and tie your own furoshiki, visit http://www.env.go.jp/en/focus/attach/060403-5.html.

• Give gifts in reusable shopping totes instead of paper gift bags.

Party Hosting & Cooking

Use reusable or compostable cups, plates and utensils. Avoid plastic and Styrofoam. Ask guests to bring their own reusable ware. Host a white elephant gift swap where no one has to buy new gifts to bring- regift or reuse only! Seek out local, organic ingredients, wine, beer and spirits for holiday meals and parties. Why not make your own applesauce for latkes with this easy recipe?

Ingredients
• 4 apples – peeled, cored and chopped (Good cooking apples include Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Fuji, Jonathan, Mcintosh and Gravenstein.)

• 3/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Optional: 1/8 tsp nutmeg, juice and peel of half a lemon (use a vegetable peeler to strip 4 lengths)

Instructions
Heat apples and water over medium heat to boiling. Reduce heat; simmer, stirring occasionally, 5 to 10 minutes or until tender. Stir in brown sugar, cinnamon and optional nutmeg and lemon; heat to boiling. Allow to cool, remove lemon peel then mash with a fork or potato masher.

Take Action- Give the gift of a cleaner planet

Join our friends at Sviva Israel for Hannukah Eco Lights 2008 / 5769

Let’s celebrate Hannukah 5769 by
1) cleaning up the world!
2) sharing Jewish environmental teachings!
3) …and lighting the Hannuka candles!

On the 1st day of Hannukah, pick up 1 piece of litter and put it in the trash can / recycling container.
On the 2nd day of Hannukah, pick up 2 pieces of litter and place them in the trash can / recycling container.
On the 3rd day of Hannukah, pick up 3 items of litter and …well, you get the idea.

In the spirit of Limud U’Maaseh, every day of Hannukah, Eco Lights participants will receive a daily Jewish Environmental teaching from incredible guest writers!

If you pick up one more item each day, then by the end of Hannukah’s 8 days, you will have picked up 36 items of litter and helped make our world a better place to live (If you live in Israel, you get extra points for beautifying Israel – Mitzvat Yishuv Eretz Yisrael ) Every 28 people who join the Hannukah Eco Lights will remove over 1000 pieces of litter from our streets! So invite your friends to join in!

** Please do not pick up the garbage while your Hannuka candles are burning. Use this time to reflect on how even a small flame (or act) can light up the darkness.**

To sign up and receive the daily Jewish Environmental teachings via email or Facebook, visit http://www.svivaisrael.org/programs_en.asp?id=100#eco%20form

Join us Friday for Young Adult Shir Shabbat

Our bi -Monthly Young Adult Shir Shabbat is this Friday. Complete with food, friends, and a festive service. Bring your energy and kavanah and of course friends. Acoustic instruments and food for second harvest optional.

Young Adult Shir Shabbat
Friday, February 22, 2008
8pm

Congregation Beth David
19700 Prospect Rd, Saratoga, Ca

Join with the congregation for a lively Kabbalat Shabbat service followed by a Young Adult oneg in Classroom 1. Shir Shabbat is an upbeat and joyous Friday evening service (held every 4th Friday) welcoming in Shabbat, complete with Carlebachi melodies, dancing and instruments. After the service, young adults will be enjoying a separate kiddush to get a chance to unwind and celebrate Shabbat. RSVPs appreciated to cbdyag@gmail.com.
NOTE: We won’t be having another Young Adult Shir Shabbat until June, as we won’t be having one during Passover, but you’re welcome to attend Shir Shabbat any 4th Friday of the Month and enjoy the congregational oneg.

Find Your Bay Area Jewish Community on Facebook

CBDYAG has been using Facebook as another means of reach and communicating with Jewish Young Adults for months now. In recent months there’s been an increase in Jewish Groups with programming for young adults jumping on the Facebook band wagon. We know some of you are against social networking sites, or have your favorite site that’s not Facebook, but for the rest of you, here’s some links (in no order) to CBDYAG’s sister groups on Facebook.

	Congregation Beth David Young Adult Group (CBDYAG)	CBDYAG Facebook Group
	Silicon Valley Young Adult Division of the Jewish Federation (SVYAD)	SVYAD Facebook Group
	Hillel at Stanford Grad and Young Adult Group	Hillel at Stanford Grad & Young Adult Facebook Group
	San Francisco Young Adults Division of the Jewish Federation (YAD)	SF/Pen YAD (Young Adult Division) of Jewish Community Federation
	The Hub	The Hub @ The JCCSF
	Bay Area Tribe	Bay Area Tribe
	Temple Emanu-El’s Young Adult Community	Temple Emanu-El’s Young Adult Community
	Mission Minyan	Mission Minyan
	Roots Collective (Beth Am Young Adults)	Roots Collective (Beth Am Jewish Adults, ages 21-39)
	Oy Bay	Jews that say “Oy Bay!”

Please note: Facebook is not the primary means of communicating for most of these, visit each of their sites to find out more about them and how to join their mailing list. If you’ve not joined the CBDYAG Google Group to get our weekly messages you can do so here, or e-cbdyag[at]gmail.com with a message requesting to be added to our mailing list, and the e-mail to subscribe and we’ll take care of the rest.

Join Our New Mailing List: Important Change to CBDYAG Event Annoucements

Over the past year CBDYAG has gone through many changes and is experiencing positive growing pains. For the coming (secular) year we’re making some changes. We’re hoping the changes are for the better and that you’ll work with us in this process. If you haven’t heard, we launched a renaming CBDYAG contest, enter Now to win 2 tickets to AMC Theaters.

Besides the name, we’re changing our mailing from the Yahoo!Group that it’s been to a Google Group. You can visit http://groups.google.com/group/cbdyag to sign yourself up for the group or send cbdyag[at]gmail.com a request to be subscribed to the mailing list/group. Please included the e-mail you would like subscribed in your message.

We’ll try to keep messages to 1 a week, with all the latest event info and group news. To this end, we will no longer be inviting you to event through evite, but rather linking to evites in our weekly message. You can add yourself to any of the evites-we encourage it in fact.

Those of you in our Facebook group will still be invited to events there.

Please bare with us during this transition.

We always welcome your feedback to cbdyag[at]gmail.com

 

 

 

Meet and Greet: Chinese

Meet and Greet: Chinese

Tuesday, December 25
7pm

Mandarin Gourmet

10145 N. De Anza Blvd.
Cupertino, CA 95014

This month’s Meet & Greet will coincide with an annual Jewish tradition: Chinese food on Christmas. Let others deck the halls and fa la la. We’ll enjoy a vegetarian meal at Mandarin Gourmet. RSVP to cbdyag[at]gmail.com

It’ll be just the thing to help you recover from the Latke Ball the night before. Visit the Evite

Bring a New Toy to SVYAD Connect for Discount Admission

SVYAD and CBDYAG are doing a Toy Drive to benefit Jewish Family Services. If you bring a new toy in it’s original packaging to the October 17, SVYAD connect this month you’ll get $2 off the regular $10 admission.

With or without a Toy they’d still love to see you at Connect. Come say goodbye to this San Jose venue, as Connect changes venue in November. Toy discount is valid for the November Connect as well.

Save the Date of Wednesday, Nov 28, to join SVYAD and CBDYAG for a toy wrapping party of the collect toys. 7-9pm at the Levy Family Campus; cost of admission is a roll of wrapping paper. Snacks, drinks, scissors, tape and ribbon will be provided. We might even teach you a few gift wrapping tricks if you ask. RSVPs to Jonathan at svyad[at]jvalley.org are always helpful.