April, 2025 Megillah
RABBI'S NOTES
Driving home from Santa Rosa this past Monday, the sun was out, and my thoughts were wandering, as they do, when I had a visitation, or just about. I began to think very strongly and suddenly of Rabbi David Jacobson, father of my (and many of our) beloved friend, Liz Helenchild. I got to know Rabbi Jacobson, and his equally formidable wife, Helen Jacobson, some years after he retired from his long career as the rabbi of Temple Beth-El, the large Reform congregation in San Antonio, Texas. He and Helen would come out to visit Liz, and we always found time for a meal and a spirited conversation. He was interested in me and in our Jewish community. One year they were here for Yom Kippur, and Rabbi Jacobson read the Yom Kippur haftarah (Isaiah 58:6-7): “Is not the fast that I desire the unlocking of the chains of wickedness, the loosening of exploitation, the freeing of all those oppressed, the breaking of the yoke of servitude?” He read it powerfully and truly. I can still hear his voice in my bones.
Rabbi Jacobson was one of a handful of brave southern rabbis of the 1950s and 60s who stood up for, and stood with Black southerners in the struggle for civil rights. In his later years, when I knew him, he spoke with appropriate pride of his advocacy. I wish I remembered more of our conversations, but I do recall that one time I asked him why there hadn’t been riots over desegregation in San Antonio, as there had been in so many other southern cities. He looked at me with something like a shrug, like it was obvious and not the exceptional action it was, and said, if I remember right, “Well, my Christian colleagues and I got together and we went to the Blacks.” By which I think he meant that he and his fellow clergy activists had built relationships and trust in the Black community over time, by showing up, by speaking out.
Rabbi Jacobson came to visit me in my car last Monday to discuss speaking up. Ten days earlier Israel had cut off all food and water from entering Gaza. At about that same time that I was driving, though I wasn’t listening to the news to track it, Israel ended the fragile ceasefire, bombed Gaza City and killed 408 people in one day. That day Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “Hamas has already felt the blow of our arm in the last 24 hours. And I want to assure you: This is just the beginning.” Indeed the bombing continues, and a ground invasion has resumed as well.
A year and a half ago, when Hamas committed its brutal attack in Israel, and the horrific retaliation against Gaza began, I watched many Jewish communities riven into pieces as they tried to contend with their members’ and their leaders’ strong and pained responses to the atrocities. I very much felt that our little Jewish community needed to be a sanctuary for people’s souls during this terrible time in Israel and Palestine and in many other places besides, including this country. It seemed to me that for me to speak my own heart and mind would only sow division among us. Likewise for us to come together and try to speak our varied positions and passions (much less to try to come to any common statement) was more likely to be our undoing than our strengthening. In a time of so much strife, it seemed like one small offering in the direction of peace to keep our community soft and quiet. And I could see that no benefit would derive for people being starved, bombed, held hostage, or killed from us fighting amongst ourselves.
I’ve hewed to this position for the past 17 months. In my personal life I have been active with Rabbis for Ceasefire, which formed in the days immediately after October 7, 2023, to call for permanent ceasefire, return of hostages, and a just and lasting peace in Israel and Palestine. While I decided around that time to leave the Rabbinic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace, I have stayed a JVP member. I recently signed an ad in the New York Times with hundreds of other rabbis and Jewish leaders opposing ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Over the years, those of you who know me are aware that I have spent time in the West Bank and have organized to protect one family’s home from demolition there. I don’t think any of you will be surprised by where I stand. But I haven’t brought any of this to our Jewish community.
Earlier on the day that Rabbi Jacobson came to me I had heard someone say, in a completely unrelated context, “Silence is never a good idea.” Then I began to think about the many pained conversations I had the last time I was in South Africa, when I interviewed leaders in the Dutch Reformed Church about whether and how they spoke up during the apartheid years. To a person they had been silent. I thought about the children in those White churches, who grew up with the conspicuous silence of their ministers. I thought of the southern Jewish children who didn’t grow up in Temple Beth El in San Antonio or in any of the few other synagogues whose rabbis spoke up, marched, took a stand. I thought of the children of our Jewish community hearing my own silence.
And so I must say aloud: it is immoral and unconscionable to trap an entire population, to decimate their homes and schools and hospitals, to cut off food and medical aid and electricity, to leave them to freeze outdoors in the winter, to drop bombs that kill indiscriminately in vast numbers. It is immoral in Gaza and it is immoral in the West Bank as well. It is immoral no matter what the back story, no matter what the provocation. It is immoral when it is done to us or to people we care about. And it is immoral when we do it to other people.
I don’t know how to stop the violence. No one knows. I don’t have any platitudes about how “We just have to.…” I don’t even know how to finish that sentence. Having said this much, I don’t know what I will do next about Israel and Palestine. I continue to believe that our small, remote Jewish community can be a tiny bit of light and refuge in or hurting world. I continue to be committed to cultivating sanctuary and welcome. I will be glad and honored to listen to any of you who wishes to speak with me about this, whether you agree or disagree with me. I won’t try to get you to see it as I do. I will continue to pray for peace for both peoples.
For years now I have added a paragraph to Aleinu, the prayer that looks ahead to a better world:
May the day come quickly when there is food and shelter ample for all;
When war and violence are distant terrible memories;
When differences between one person and another are occasions for conversation and friendship rather than for hatred and separation;
When the natural order is vibrant and healthy.
May every one of us merit to bring this day closer.
Ken yehi ratzon—so may it be.
PAIGE NOTES
Chodesh Nisan tov! Or should I say “shanah tova” (happy new year)? I have heard from many about how difficult 2025 has felt, starting off with so much heaviness right away. Though we celebrate Rosh HaShanah, the main Jewish New Year in the fall, today marks the first day of the year, too! In the Torah, the Divine tells Moshe and Aharon that "This month (Nissan) shall be the first month of the year” (Shemot/Exodus 12:2). The Mishnah, a sacred Jewish text written around the second century CE, then explains the four different “new years” within our Hebrew calendar (Rosh HaShanah 1:1). This seems to emphasize the miraculous reality that we always have a chance to start over; it’s never too late to turn things around. So, if you’re feeling done with 2025, this new moon of Nissan and the rebirth of spring are here for you!
The Hebrew word Nissan shares an etymological connection with “nes.” If that word sounds familiar, you might be thinking of a dreidel: the letter nun stands for “nes” in the acronym “a great miracle happened t/here!” So Nissan is associated with miracles! What comes to mind when you think of what miracles you want to come true this month?
There’s a chance that what you imagined will come true, but there’s an even greater chance that unexpected miracles will happen! The Talmud, another sacred text written a few hundred years after the Mishnah, teaches that “one who experiences a miracle does not always recognize it” (Nedarim 41a). This makes me think of the famous 18th century philosophical question: "if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" If a miracle happens, but no one acknowledges that it was a miracle, then was it a miracle or a mere happening?
My dear friend here on the coast started a weekly in-person book club for The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. If you’re not familiar, it’s a 12-week guide for gaining artistic inspiration. I have been very surprised and touched by the author’s references to God, as the ultimate artist, the Divine Creator. At the end of each week, she outlines a “Check In” for readers in a book club like mine to complete with their fellow readers. Every week, one of the questions is “What synchronicities did you experience this week?” People in my group have shared how, unsurprisingly, being asked this every week has made them notice, more than ever before, all the synchronicities in their daily lives! So, maybe Nissan will bring us extra miracles, or maybe it’s here to remind us to keep noticing all the miracles already around us.
As we breathe in these strong spring winds and look around at our blossoming flowers and community, may we feel the rebirth energy of a new year, filled with unexpected miracles to come.
SHABBAT MORNING SERVICES
A full Shabbat service is led by community members, with singing, chanting and silence, Torah teaching and reading, blessings for healing and peace, and time for mourners to say Kaddish. The teachers for April are listed below. We have hybrid services, so come to the shul or Zoom from 10:30 AM until about 12:30 PM.
| 4/5/25 |
Vayikra |
Raven Deerwater |
| 4/12/25 | Tzav |
Margaret Holub |
| 4/19/25 | Passover |
Raven Deerwater
|
| 4/26/25 | Shemini |
Margaret Holub |
If you would like to give a Torah teaching during Shabbat services, or want more information about what’s involved, please contact Raven Deerwater at raven@taxpractitioner.com or (707) 937-1099.
FIRST NIGHT PASSOVER SEDER
Hosted by our Millennials Group and led by Rabbi Paige, the first Seder will take place on Saturday, April 12th, at 5:00 PM at the shul. Just as the Haman narrative at Purim hit us differently this year, it's a potent time for us to come together over the themes of Pesach to pray for liberation & equality. For more information, contact Paige at rabbipaige@gmail.com. Please sign up to bring a vegetarian potluck dish, and add your name to the Attendance List, here: (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lB2wA2miIJ0Pbs3GnKUWHjONP7dUdbv4ui7E6YsurEo/edit?pli=1&gid=0#gid=0).
WOMEN OF EXODUS SEDER
On Sunday night, April 13th, 15 Nisan 5785, we will gather in the shul at 5:30 PM. All are welcome to attend. The voices of women will lead the Seder, channeling the sacred lineage of our foremothers. We will follow the traditional Seder/Order, but will tell the Magid/Story by remembering six archetypal women who were agents of resistance in their people’s liberation from oppression in Egypt. We will bless the cup of the prophet Miriam and will end by beginning the mystical Omer count. If you want to participate in the Seder, we ask you to share the work and commit to one task: set-up, clean-up, or food preparation for the vegetarian meal. To sign up, or to volunteer to channel one of the powerful women ancestors, please contact Luna. She can be reached by text at (707) 972-4494, or by email at havaluna.18@gmail.com.
MATZAH BAKE???
We don’t yet have access to a wood-fired oven to bake matzah together. If you have access to an oven, please let Margaret know at mholub@mcn.org. If we find no oven, she had success last year baking matzah on a Weber grill, and she will welcome people coming to her house to BBQ matzah. Details to follow.
YOM HASHOAH SERVICE
Yom Hashoah, the annual day of remembrance of the Holocaust, is observed on the 27th of Nissan; this year that’s Thursday, April 24th. We will meet at the Jewish cemetery in Mendocino, at our Holocaust memorial grave, at 3:00 PM for a service of remembrance and a reading of the names of those connected to our community who suffered or died during the Nazi regime. This year is a good time to remember how Jews resisted the Nazis by fighting them in the ghettos and joining underground partisans who battled them in occupied countries.
KABBALAT SHABBAT
Kabbalat Shabbat Friday, April 18th at the home of Bonnie Mahoney in Fort Bragg. She can be reached at Bonniemahoney2015@gmail.com or (631) 466-0156 to let her know you are coming and for directions to her house. In May our hosts will be Esther Ehrlich and Neal Davis in Little River. We need hosts in August and September.
If you’d like to host, but don’t have the space in your home, it’s possible to host at the shul. To schedule a Shabbat gathering, please contact Mina at (707) 937-1319 or mcohen@mcn.org.
ZOOM ADDRESS
We are using the Zoom address below for many MCJC events. Password is shalom. Disregard the numeric passcode at the bottom of the invitation unless you’re dialing in on a landline. If you have questions or problems, contact susan.tubbesing@gmail.com.
Join: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7071836183?pwd=NzFaTkpjOXVYMDNnNnprOXlnZjVhQT09
Meeting ID: 707 183 6183
Passcode: shalom
Numeric Passcode: 776001
BIRTHDAYS
Please reach out to the celebrants noted below and spread love. If you would like your natal day listed, email rabbipaige@gmail.com with your birth date. (We list the day, but not the year, and your name will be featured only during the actual month of your birthday.) Below are the April birthdays:
4/1 Alix Sabin, 4/2 Bob Melendi, 4/10 Holly Tannen, 4/20 Paige Lincenberg,
4/23 Marty Freedman, 4/24 Hunter Rook, 4/28 Myra Beals
HERE FOR YOU
Rabbis Margaret & Paige want to remind you all that we’re always available for you in any way we can be! Please don’t hesitate to reach out to one of them to go on a walk or have tea with you.
GOD-ZOOKS FINALE
Our last God-Zooks gathering will be on Wednesday, April 9th, at 5:30 PM in the shul. God-Zooks has been an exploration of our personal beliefs about matters divine. In our final gathering we will reflect yet more and share some thoughts with each other. Let Margaret know if you would like to join in now at mholub@mcn.org.
PRE-PESACH CLOTHING AND JEWELRY EXCHANGE
For those who are ridding their closets of hametz (shmutz)—or who would just like some new fashions for the season—our annual pre-Pesach clothing exchange will be on Wednesday, April 2nd from 3:30-5:00 PM at the shul. Please bring clean, comely clothes for trade (be selective, as there’s only so much space); jewelry and scarves are also a delight. We’ll swap around, ooh and aah about how our clothes look on new wearers, and then load up and bring the leftovers to one or another of the thrift stores in town. If you’d like to help with this mitzvah, that would be great. Contact Margaret at mholub@mcn.org.
ELDERS’ CONVERSATION
The Elders meet on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month from 3:00 to 4:30 on MCJC’s zoom link. April meetings will be on the 8th and 22nd. Usually we pick a new topic for our next conversation at the end of every meeting. People of all ages are most welcome to attend.
HOW CAN WE KEEP FROM SINGING?
All who love to sing are invited to a song circle on Sunday, April 20th, from 2:00-4:00 PM at the shul. We’ll share songs, teach songs (bring words and music if you like), and sing songs we already know. You are welcome to bring instruments. There is a piano at the shul waiting to be played. We’re looking to bring more music into our Jewish community and hoping that, by singing together, we will be inspired to bring new song into our services and other aspects of MCJC life. You don’t need to sing on key or know Jewish music; just come and lend your voice. For more info, contact Margaret at mholub@mcn.org.
THE LAST CHAPTER
The Death Conversation Committee wants to alert everyone to an upcoming local event. “Getting the Last Chapter Right” is sponsored by Friends of Health on the North Mendocino Coast, a nonprofit that has provided assistance to clients and agencies on the coast since 1988. The free community forum will feature knowledgeable speakers and plenty of discussion about quality of life, medical and financial decision-making, and communicating wishes with loved ones. It is taking place on Saturday April 5th from 9:00 AM–4:00 PM at the Caspar Community Center. Register on this page: https://friendsofhealthmendocino.org/upcoming-events. For help or for more information, call Ellen at (707) 357-1738.
BOOK GROUP
The readers will meet Monday April 21st, at 2:00 PM on Zoom to discuss The Five: A Novel of Jewish Life in Turn-of-the Century Odessa, by Vladimir Jabotinsky, translated by Michael Katz. The author was an author, poet, orator, soldier, and founder of the Revisionist Zionist movement and the Jewish Self-Defense Organization in Odessa. He wrote the novel in Russian in 1935. The book is Jabotinsky's elegaic paean to the Odessa of his youth that tells the story of an upper-middle-class Jewish family, the Milgroms, at the turn of the century. It follows five siblings as they change, mature, and come to accept their places in a rapidly evolving world. With flashes of humor, Jabotinsky captures the ferment of the time as reflected in political, social, artistic, and spiritual developments. He depicts the excitement of life in old Odessa and comments on the failure of the dream of Jewish assimilation within the Russian empire. If you are not currently in the Book Group, please contact Fran Schwartz for the Zoom invitation at franbschwartz@gmail.com. Books are usually at Gallery Bookshop.
MONTHLY MATANAH
Please join us for light-hearted, quasi-competitive game-playing on Sunday, April 20th at 4:00 PM in the shul. The game requires nothing more than Mrs. Byrne’s Dictionary, some slips of paper, and a desire to play with words, meanings, and people’s minds and prejudices. We call it fictionary (not Pictionary) and the variant we figured out, with some unusual reference books, stretches your brain even more. Other games will be available. For information about the Matanah, please send an RSVP to Leslie at elkrong@yahoo.com.
MCJC BOARD MEETING
The MCJC board will meet on Wednesday, April 2nd at 5:30 PM on Zoom. If you wish to attend part of the meeting, please contact Susan Tubbesing at (707) 962-0565, or susan.tubbesing@gmail.com, and she will give you the address.
MAILING IS A VIRTUE
Carla Jupiter and Steve Antler generously volunteered to prepare the newsletter for mailing, and afterward claimed it was real easy. Just ask and easy times can start rolling for you! This worthy task is mitzvah #246. Please contact Sarah at 962-0565 or sarah.nathe@gmail.com.
MEGILLAH SUBSCRIPTIONS
The Mendocino Megillah is published monthly as an emailed PDF and an online version. The online Megillah is posted on the newsletter page of the MCJC website: www.mcjc.org/newsletter. Any information on changes in email address or in email notifications should be sent to Sarah Nathe at sarah.nathe@gmail.com. If you choose not to be a contributing member of MCJC, we request a $54 annual fee for the Megillah.
THANK YOU TO THE FOLLOWING DONORS
Steve Antler & Carla Jupiter, Marinela Miclea, Benjamin & Pam Graham, Frieda Feen, Donna Weintraub, Deena & Mark Zarlin, Wendy Block & Michael Sigman, Joyce Gertler, Stuart & Tara Marcus, Sandy Oppenheimer, Marc Kalman & Marcia Steinfeld, Marc Yasskin, Sydelle Lapidus, Holly Tannen, Myra Beals, Philip & Nancy Wolkin, Claire Ellis & Chuck Greenberg, Sandra & Kenny Wortzel, Mark Slafkes & Helen Gregory, Pia Chamberlain & Ruth Saldivar, Lari Shea & Harvey Hoechstetter, Ronnie James, Ruth Rosenblum & SA Ephraim, Laura Goldman & Dennak Murphy, Zomala Abell, Joan & Paul Katzeff, Tracy Salkowitz & Rick Edwards, Rosalie & Art Holub, Merry Winslow, Rio Russell, Kath Disney Nilson, Bob Evans, Roberta & David Belson, Alena Deerwater & Jon Goodstein
In Honor of Rabbi Margaret Holub’s Double Chai Anniversary
Ellen Saxe & Ronnie Karish, Sally and Lee Welty, Yarrow Rubin
Ellie Trope in honor of Fran Schwartz’s birthday
Danny Mandelbaum & Benna Kolinsky in honor of the baby naming of Micha Brent Mandelbaum
dobby sommer in memory of her dad, Edward Sommer
Citizenship Scholarship Fund
Frieda Feen, Judith & John Garratt, Coast Sangha, Rosalie & Art Holub
EDITORIAL POLICY
The Mendocino Megillah is published monthly, except for August. The deadline for article submission is the 20th of the month before publication. The editor will include all appropriate material, space permitting, with the exception of copyrighted material lacking the permission of the author. Divergent opinions are welcome. Material printed in the Megillah does not necessarily represent the policy or opinions of the MCJC Board of Directors.
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| Chevra Kadisha |
Clare Bercot Zwerling |
956-571-0945 |
clarebercot@icloud.com |
| Cemetary |
Donna Montag |
707-877-3243 |
montag@mcn.org |
| Outreach (new to the community), Finance Committee, Announcements |
Susan Tubbesing* |
707-962-0565
|
susan.tubbesing@gmail.com |
| Justice Committee |
Donna Medley* |
707-962-9493 |
dmthebeez9@gmail.com
|
| Women's retreat, Annual dinner |
Harriet Bye |
707-937-3622 |
bysawyer@mcn.org
|
| Kabbalat Shabbat Coordinator |
Mina Cohen |
707-937-1319 | mcohen@mcn.org |
| Volunteer Coordinator |
Joy Lancaster* |
510-703-9955 | martyjoy@sbcglobal.net |
| Building Maintenance |
Marnie Press* |
707-937-1905 | marniepress@gmail.com |
| Treasurer, Finance Committee |
Raven Deerwater* |
707-964-8333 | raven@taxpractitioner.com |
| Landscaping, Library |
Nina Ravitz* |
707-357-6462 | ninabo@mcn.org |
| Secretary, Finance Committee |
Alix Sabin* |
415-238-1342 | alixsabin@gmail.com |
| Book Group, Bikkur Cholim |
Fran Schwartz |
707-937-1352 | franbschwartz@gmail.com |
| Web dude |
Gus Mayeno |
webmaster@mcjc.org | |
| Megillah Editor, Name & Address & Subscription changes |
Sarah Nathe |
707-962-0565 |
sarah.nathe@gmail.com |
| Rabbi |
Margaret Holub |
707-734-0311 | mholub@mcn.org |
| Rabbi |
Paige Lincenberg |
rabbipaige@gmail.com |
