These are AARC’s ads in the Washtenaw Jewish News from 2009 to 2014. You’ll see lots of our members and some of what we think makes us a lovely community.
Blog
Member Volunteer Opportunities at the Community Kitchen
AARC Members volunteer to help prepare lunch at the Community Kitchen at the DeLonis Center on the first Saturday of every month. Our time slot is noon to 2:30 P.M. The Delonis Center is located at 312 W. Huron St, 48103 (near First Street).
We are currently scheduling volunteers for September 6. Please sign up here. Enter each volunteer’s name on a separate line. Entries and changes are automatically saved.
This is a great opportunity for adults and for youth over 12 years old to participate in this wonderful team meal prep experience. Keep in mind that only 2 of the 5 volunteers may be between 12-18 years of age. Food Gatherers and Community Kitchen staff are very grateful for our participation.
New Member Profile: Carole and Rose (& Cleo)
Carole Caplan and her daughter, Rose Brown, are new members who have recently relocated to Ann Arbor from the suburbs of Chicago, IL. With their new kitty, Cleo, they are currently renovating a home that sits on a dirt road on 11 acres on the far north side of Ann Arbor. Carole’s dream of living rural is enhanced by the farm being only 12 minutes from all that Main Street has to offer, and by the fact that Ann Arbor is home to the like-minded Jewish, yoga and “green” communities that have been such an important part of her and her families’ life in the Chicago area.
Rose currently attends Washtenaw Community College and is looking to work with horses through the summer before studying Equine Management at MSU in the fall. Carole’s son, Max, is hard at work for IBM in Chicago, and her daughter Elana graduates from Hampshire this spring.
When not working the farm, Carole teaches yoga and meditation, trains yoga instructors, and offers Thai Bodywork sessions as well. Believing that sustainable living starts with physical and mental health that is heavily influenced by our environment, Carole also offers Healthy Home consulting for building and renovating spaces that people can truly thrive in. (www.livebychoice.com)
Raised as a cultural Jew in a reform community outside of Detroit, Judaism initially failed to offer Carole the spiritual connection that she had been seeking since a young age. After years of practice and study in Eastern systems, Carole feels grateful to have found her way back to Judaism through Reconstructionism. An active member of the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, IL for many years, Carole is both a Wexner Heritage Fellow and a Greenfaith Fellow, and has a passion for helping people explore the important intersection between spirituality and environmentalism.
Carole and Rose are excited to get to know the AARC!
Seasoned Member Profile: Mac Moore and Deborah Dash-Moore
Deborah Dash Moore and MacDonald Moore joined the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Havurah in 2005 when they moved to the city to teach at UM (Deborah is Director of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies). Both had long been members of a Reconstructionist congregation in New York, West End Synagogue, participating in a family tradition on Deborah’s side that extended to her maternal grandparents’ support for Mordecai Kaplan and membership in the Society for the Advancement of Judaism (SAJ). Deborah attended Hebrew school at the SAJ and became Bat Mitzvah, a ritual not widely available in those years.
Deborah and Mac write: “Our sons, Mordecai and Mikhael, mostly grew up as the fourth generation of Reconstructionists. Because of strong ties with family in New York City where Mordecai and Mik (now married men with children) and Deborah’s parents live, we tend not to stay in Ann Arbor for the major holidays, but we appreciate AARC and try to attend Shabbat.”
Meet Genna Cohen, Who Met Us Through Jana Hirsch!
Genna writes: “I moved to Ann Arbor in 2010 to start a Ph.D. program through UM’s School of Public Health. Prior to that I lived in Washington, DC, and Atlanta, GA. I love to spend my nonworking time at yoga, rock climbing, baking, and stopping strangers on the street to say hi to their dogs. I really appreciate the energy at AARC. I am grateful to Jana Hirsh, another new member, for introducing me!”
Meet Jana Hirsch, Nice New(ish) Girl & Epidemiologist
Jana Hirsch moved to Ann Arbor in 2010 (from Philadelphia, and before that New York). Here’s what she says:
I moved here to start a Ph.D. in Public Health. I am in the department of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan, where I work in the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health. I am eager to defend my dissertation about how neighborhood environments influence walking—that happens on March 14, 2014, at 1:30p.m. A video I made about some of my research can be found at: http://goo.gl/oefdzp. Anyone who wants to come watch my defense should join in on the event!
Jana reports that she was drawn to AARC by our High Holiday services and by the fact that not all of us are students or faculty at U of M.
Here are some of her favorite things:
- Favorite novel: Watership Down.
- Favorite movie: “Anything so terrible that someone else would turn it off.”
- Favorite food: “Ras Malai (a sweet Indian cheese dessert), because it’s one of the few things I can’t cook/bake myself!”
Welcome to Jana.
WJN Torah table article
New Torah Mantle Dedicated, from Nov. 2001 Washtenaw Jewish News
This article appeared in the November 2001 Washtenaw Jewish News.
