Please read to the end of this email to hear about a very special opportunity!

May is just around the corner and it has lots of fun opportunities to celebrate and socialize and learn interesting things.

NEW!  Sisterhood is bringing in a speaker on Alzheimer's on Thursday, May 23, 7pm, to talk about this devastating disease. If you are dealing with a loved one with Alzheimer's now, or are concerned that you might be in the future, this presentation is a must see! The $5 fee is waived for Sisterhood members and Friends of Sisterhood. Contact Phyllis Bigelson ([email protected]) for more information.

Friday, May 10 (7:30pm), is our annual Sisterhood Shabbat. Come get spiritual with us as we celebrate Women of Valor at this special service. Many of us will be wearing purple in honor of Sisterhood.

And on Thursday, May 16 (7pm) we will celebrate Israeli Independence Day. Put your chef's hat on because we are having an Israeli food contest! Bring a homemade Israeli dish - we will sample all the entries and vote on the best one. There will also be presentations about Israel, and, of course, lots of time to schmooze with friends.
Flyers are available on the Sisterhood website (https://www.tassisterhood.org/) from the scrolling box and on the Upcoming Events page.

Speaking of Women of Valor, the theme of this year's Sisterhood Shabbat (on May 10), no list of Women of Valor could be complete without the name Carrie O. Simon. Carrie Simon was the first President of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods (NFTS), the organization that was renamed the Women of Reform Judaism (WRJ) in 1993, and is our Sisterhood's parent organization.
 
Simon founded NFTS in 1913. Two years later, it had become the largest Jewish women's religious organization in the United States.  As president of the federation (from 1913 to 1919), Simon established the National Committee on Religion, which organized religious schools, increased synagogue attendance, and collected and displayed Jewish ceremonial objects. The Committee on Hebrew Union College Scholarships enabled young men of limited economic means to attend rabbinical school and raised funds for religious educational work by UAHC laypeople. Simon also used her position to encourage the UAHC to include more women on synagogue boards and to welcome intermarried couples into the temple and its sisterhood.

During her lifetime, Simon watched as the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods grew from five thousand women in forty-nine American chapters to a hundred thousand women in 585 chapters throughout nine countries. Nice Job, Carrie!

From Carol Stern
You are invited to join your TAS family at the Hollywood Bowl on Wednesday Night, July 3rd. We have reserved a limited amount of tickets and reserved picnic area for the Firework Spectacular with Nile Rodgers & CHIC.

The seats are in Section M-1 and our picnic area is next to the main parking area (and bus drop-off). Tickets (including service charges, picnic area, individual seat cushions and service charges) will be $37 each per person.
As always, it's first come-first serve so please send your checks made payable to Carol Stern by May 9th to hold your seats.
Feel fee to invite your family and friends to join us. Call or email if you have any questions.

Last Wednesday's Sisterhood seder was another impressive seder in a long string of wonderful Sisterhood seders. Led by Rabbi Kalfus, Rabbi Samansky, Cantor Ken, and our amazing Jennifer Bennett to a sold out crowd, it featured stories, songs, and Jewish history from Mexico, Central and South America. You can find pictures on our Sisterhood website (www.tassisterhood.org). The Haggadah (with the sephardic charoset recipe on the last page) is on our website too. Click on "Events & Programs", then "Past meetings and Events", and then click on the seder flyer. Or go to our Facebook page, where a direct link to the Haggadah is posted.

Mucho thanks to the seder committee (Committee Chair Arlene Stone, Mel Birken, Becky Breuer, Sue Issler, Diane Levine, Sherry Lucks, Rhonda Mayer, Laraine Miller, Alyce Schultz-Rozsa, Laurie Scher, Sonia Smith, Judy Stehr, Tammy Singer) for all their excellent work making it happen. And thanks also to Rabbi Kalfus, Rabbi Samansky, Cantor Ken, and Jennifer Bennett for leading the service. A special shout out to Jennifer and Cantor Ken for their humorous rewriting of "What's New Buenos Aires" and "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina". Jennifer's a capella rendition of these songs was just perfect!

On an unrelated note, on April 5, the Google graphic celebrated Hedwig Kohn's 132nd birthday. Despite being born in an era when being a woman and being Jewish made accomplishing anything extremely problematic, Kohn perserved, educated herself and made significant contributions in the fields of flame spectroscopy and radiometry. Time.com has the following description of her accomplishments along with Google's interesting graphic at http://time.com/5564908/google-doodle-hedwig-kohn/.