Dear Friends,

In a few short days, I will depart beautiful Reno to subject myself to the freezing gales of the Windy City for a week to catch up with friends and colleagues, learn about where our movement is headed, and hopefully represent us well as we vote on the issues important to American Reform Jews at the URJ Biennial in Chicago. Here is a sample of some of the sessions I will be attending:

Spark Soulful Tot Shabbats: This seminar, with Early Childhood experts Ellen Allard, Maxine Handelman, and Dr. Emily Teck, promises to give me lots of tools for energizing and connecting our youngest congregants and their families through wonderful Tot Shabbat programming.

Antiracism: “Doing the Work Within Our Own Communities” presented by Deitra Reiser, Yolanda Savage-Narva, and Bryant Heinzelman, this seminar will discuss how to take our movement’s commitment to racial justice into the 21st century by giving us tips to making our Jewish spaces diverse, equitable, and inclusive to all Jews.

Worship Streaming Copyright Compliance Made Easy: We have been hearing from congregants that streaming our services would help those who are injured, sick, traveling, or just plain don’t drive in the dark, so I’m going to learn about how to make that a reality.

I am also looking forward to touring Wrigley Field, hearing renowned author and historian Deborah Lipstadt speak at the Closing Plenary, and seeing a performance by The Second City.

I wanted to get you as excited as I am and encourage you to follow along with my learning the whole time I’m at the Biennial on social media. On Facebook, you can follow by liking the Sinai Reno page then paying attention to your feed between December 11 and 15th, and on Twitter, you can follow retweets of my personal account at our new Twitter account, @sinaireno.

I will miss you all when I’m gone, but I hope to come back with lots of great new ideas, music, and energy!

L’shalom,
Rabbi Sara Zober