6:00 p.m. Shabbat Dinner catered by Blueberry Hill. Menu: Spinach and Artichoke Stuffed Salmon, Israeli Couscous with fire roasted vegetables, Vegan option: Butternut ravioli with a buttery (vegan) sage sauce), Grilled Vegetable Medley of leeks, snap peas and asparagus, Charred Broccolini, Caesar with Kale and Chickpeas topped with sesame seeds, Fruit. Dinner registration has closed. Please register below for services. 

7:00 p.m. Synaplex Shabbat Alive Services, our jazz and pop service with a band, led by Rabbi Rachlis and Cantor Braier, during which Jewish Art and Architectural Historian Dr. Samuel D. Gruber, will speak and show a PowerPoint presentation on “Glorifying The Commandment: Great Synagogues Of The World.” All those celebrating birthdays and anniversaries this month will also be honored. Our Shabbat Alive musicians are sponsored by Gilbert Gluck and Catherine Bradley.

Jews are the “People of the Book,” but surprisingly to many they are also the “People of the Building.” Given the opportunity, Jews have built beautiful synagogues for their communities for hundreds of years. Inspired by the detailed architectural accounts in the Bible and by their contemporary surroundings, Jews in many places have fulfilled the concept of Hiddur Mitzvah (glorifying the commandment) through architecture and architectural decoration. Great synagogues have been built in Europe since the Middle Ages. Since the lavish inauguration of the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam in the late 17th century, the stream of impressive Jewish buildings has continued with little interruption on every inhabited continent throughout the world. This lecture illustrates this architectural and artistic heritage with historic and contemporary images and traces its survival in the 21st century with special emphasis on lesser known “great synagogues,” on recently restored buildings, and on some of the newest synagogues built.

Dr. Samuel D. Gruber is an internationally recognized art and architectural historian. For 35 years, he has been a leader in the protection and preservation of synagogues, Jewish cemeteries, and other historic sites around the world. He is an authority on synagogue architecture, Jewish art, and the Jewish heritage of Eastern Europe. Since 1994, he has regularly taught courses in Jewish art at Syracuse University and elsewhere. Dr. Gruber is author of American Synagogues: A Century of Architecture and Jewish Community and Synagogues and scores of published reports and articles. Since 2008, he has written the blog Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art and Monuments. During the pandemic, he has curated two on-line exhibitions: Romaniote Memories for Queens College under the auspices of the Government of Greece, and Synagogues of the South for the College of Charleston, for which he previously curated Life of the Synagogue. Beginning in 2021, Dr. Gruber is a planner and lead researcher on the Holocaust Memorial Monument Database project based at the Center for Jewish Art at Hebrew University which is supported by the Claims Conference. An exhibition he curated of historic prints of synagogues is now on view at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York from October 26 through March 2024. Sponsored by Dr. Miriam Piven Cotler.

Our Oneg Shabbat will be sponsored by the Toporek Family in honor of Noah becoming a Bar Mitzvah.

Please register below for dinner and/or services.