Today is November 2, 2024 -

Congregation Sha'arey Israel

A Conservative Jewish Congregation serving the spiritual needs of the Middle Georgia Jewish community since 1904

611 First Street, Macon, GA 31201
Phone: (478) 745-4571
Email: secretary@csimacon.org

Message from the President February 2019

I hope everybody has had a great start to 2019.

Mazel Tov to Addie Denisar on her Bat Mitzvah!! Everyone is talking about what an outstanding job you did. Our entire Kehilla looks forward to seeing you continue to soar and grow into the special person you are!

We recently formed the CSI E-Communications/IT Committee to assess our current CSI E-communications efforts and de-velop strategies, policies, and guidelines for future communications. We want to be sure that we are delivering effective, consistent communications.

As some of you may be aware, we have had some challenges lately in getting e-communications to all of you. This is due to numerous issues and we are in process of correcting the cause of these issues. We have decided to use Mail Chimp as our primary delivery of e-communications. There will be more changes coming down the road to give us a fully integrated sys-tem for all our communications.

One of the discussions that came up as we discussed Branding and updating our Logo, was ‘When was the last time we updated our Mission Statement and Values statement?’ Great question! It has been a long time since we looked and this and we are overdue to re-evaluate our mission and values as a Kehilla. Look for future meetings to occur as we work to get everybody’s input on this.

We have a lot coming up in the month of February.

We start off with Sister Theresa Sullivan, the Director of Daybreak will be coming to speak on Friday Night and Saturday morning services 02/01 & 02/02 about homelessness in Macon.

Also, our own Laurel Robinson has pieces entered in art show at Macon Arts on First Street. The opening is February 1st and the show will be on display through February 22nd. Since Macon Arts is so close to the shul, maybe some of our atten-dees to Friday night Shabbat services can walk over once services are done.

On Sunday February 3rd , we’ll start off the morning with Coffee, Bagels, Lox, and Schmooze time. This is a great time to get to know your fellow congregants that you may not have met yet.

Sunday afternoon February 3rd, is our Super Bowl Party Fund Raiser. Sorry the Falcons are not there. A big thank you to Anne Bayme and her committee for all the work they’ve done putting everything together for this. A special thanks to Scott Bayme for soliciting some very generous sponsors! Be sure to thank our sponsors and let them know you appreciate their support of CSI.

The following week, February 8-10th, we are extremely fortunate to have Merle Feld as our Scholar-In-Residence for the weekend. She is a well-known educator, activist, author, playwright, and poet. There are many of her writings in our Sid-dur and High Holiday Machzor. The weekend will include a Friday Night Dinner, wonderful Kiddush lunch at Shul and Havdalah at Jan Lewis and Robert Fildsteel’s house. Please make you reservations in advance to allow us to order the proper amount of food.

As we go into March we look for to Concert Fundraiser by Ian Altman. Mr. Altman had originally planned his concert for March 3, but that has been postponed due to unforeseen circumstances. New event details will be forthcoming.