Newsflash for the week
CBA Newsflash for April 30, 2025
Thank you to our Oneg Chair this week: The Kaplan Family
Congregation B’nai Abraham (CBA) had been informed of a forthcoming bequest from the Robert Rosen family estate. The Rosens were past members of CBA. The bequest specifically designates and requires these funds be contributed to the CBA Endowment Trust.
Until one day last week, the exact date and amount of the bequest were unknown. We were then informed that the bequest is in the amount of $162,980.95. The funds were received by CBA and promptly deposited in the Endowment Trust (currently occasionally referred to as Endowment 1 or Endowment A).
Congregation B’nai Abraham is very fortunate to receive this bequest that will reinforce the long-term financial posture of our congregation. We are unaware of any surviving members of the Robert Rosen family. Please offer your kind words of thanks to the memory of the members of the family. Congregation B’nai Abraham will also offer prayers on their behalf.
Respectfully,
Mike Armel
Michael V. Armel
CBA President
Other Messages from the President:
Good day to all of our friends and fellow Congregation B’nai Abraham (CBA) congregants and their families.
Please join me in offering a prayer for those in need of our support.
We Continue to Work to Reach Our Goals With Your Help,
Congregation B’nai Abraham has proudly served the Jewish community of Hagerstown and Washington County and the tri-state area since 1892. Our service and leadership with other religious and community organizations in the Hagerstown area help make many charitable endeavors successful.
The congregants of Congregation B’nai Abraham will continue participating in and supporting programs in our community that boost learning both inside and outside of our shul, and that improve the meeting of nutritional needs of local families. We are also active supporting, among others, a food pantry, The Bester community of Hope, the Potters’ Bowl fund raiser of the Community Free Clinic (which, by the way, was initiated by our member Carol Mendelsohn and was first held, for several years, in our Social Hall with the soups and other foods cooked and assembled in our kitchen), Reach, and the Red Cross / United Way.
Please be proud of the contributions that you and your fellow CBA members, and our families and friends and neighbors make to these endeavors.
Educational and musical programs will be presented in May, June, September, October, and November 2025. At each event, attendees will be presented a program booklet featuring all of the events.
We want all of our fellow congregants and friends to enjoy each and every fundraising event from May through November in our ‘FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH AND GENERATION TO GENERATION’ assortment of offerings.
These events are and will be built into the various line items in recent (and current and future) CBA budgets. It is important that we have the continued participation and support of each of you in making these fundraising events a great pleasure and a success throughout the year.
Please help CBA achieve the fundraising goals by encouraging your family members, your neighbors and friends, your fellow workers and others to join you in buying the nominally priced tickets
to attend the entertainment.
PLEASE PLAN FOR OUR NEXT FABULOUS CAMPAIGN EVENT !!!
Rabbi Perman’s Special Production: ‘HITS and SKITS from FIDDLER on the ROOF’, with a ‘cast of thousands’ – or at least a dozen or so of us, full of song, comedy and drama, followed by a joyous, elegant reception, and a .
Look forward to gathering in our Sanctuary on May 17, 2025; doors open at 6:30 p.m.
CBA can use a lot of help to make this show successful. Please give us a call.
Beginning this Friday Evening
Rabbi Perman will lead us in our Friday Shabbat Services, followed by our Oneg in the Baer Room. Please also refer for further information in this Newsflash, especially for the link via You Tube.
This First Friday Family Shabbat will be the last for this spring. There will be no Religious School on this Sunday morning.
Also, please DO NOT MISS the upcoming BRUNCH event; on Sunday, May 4 at 10 a.m. We will be hosting another delicious BRUNCH and an enticing presentation of ‘Jewish Cuisine Around the World’ offered by Gil Godlewski, our CBA chef extraordinaire. Several exotic dishes will be made for your tasting.
To ALL, Enjoy the week, and Let us pray for PEACE.
Shalom,
Mike Armel
President
Congregation B’nai Abraham
240.675.0130
Message from the Rabbi:
This past Sunday, I participated in a Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance service, at Congregation Beth Sholom in Frederick. The event was very well attended, and the featured speaker was an 82 year old gentleman who was born during the Holocaust in Germany and spent his first few years with his mother (his father was then to a concentration camp and was ultimately killed) evading capture by the Nazis.
His story was very powerful, moving, and sad, and it made everyone in the sanctuary feel the level of pain and suffering he and his family went through during those years. And of course, the trauma of what happened has remained with him up until the present as it did for so many survivors, and he shared that with us as well.
I was invited to sing Hatikvah with the synagogue’s cantor toward the end of the service, and I also sang “America” by Neil Diamond. The idea behind that was to juxtapose what is taking place now regarding deportations of those who came to this country to find refuge and were going through the asylum process, with how the Spirit of St. Louis, which sailed from Europe to the United States during the second world war with Jewish refugees aboard, was turned away by the FDR administration and sent back to Europe. Many of those passengers on the ship, tragically, ended up dying in Concentration Camps.
Elizabeth and I then went from attending that service to our rehearsal here at the synagogue for our Fiddler on the Roof program later that afternoon. Rehearsing my role as Tevyeh and watching our amazing cast sing some of the classic songs from the show reiterated for me how incredible it is that the Jewish people have managed to survive despite pogroms, an attempt to annihilate us, and historical anti-Semitism that we see rearing its ugly head even more pronounced across Europe and the United States since October 7th, 2023.
Please make sure to join us on Saturday evening, May 17th, as our extraordinary cast and musicians bring the experience of Fiddler on the Roof to life as we revisit a time in our people’s history where a community of Jews managed to survive and even find joy and humor in life despite the trying circumstances they lived under every day.
Shalom Uv’racha (Peace and Bkessings),
Rabbi Mark
Message from the Treasurer:
Please mail all Treasury-related communications/payments/donations to:
PO Box 6
Funkstown, MD 21734
Please send electronic correspondence for the treasurer to Steve Slavick saslavick@yahoo.com
Notes from Religious School:
We hope you enjoy seeing the “Israeli Flag: Variations on a Theme” display created by our students, who learned about the founding of the modern State of Israel.
Ways & Means:
With a generous donation from a congregant, we are now able to offer seats to “Hits and Skits from Fiddler on the Roof” for only $20.00! Don’t miss out on this fun event, which will also include a silent auction and a delicious reception. See the attached flyer for details.
Questions? Contact Barb Schwab Armel, Ways & Means Committee Chairperson, at 2254-291-2957 for details.
Lifelong Learning:
TIME IS RUNNING OUT!!!
CBA’s Life Long Learning Committee reminds you to join us this Sunday, May 4, for our last brunch of the season (see attached flyer). Our presenter will be Gil Godlewski, who will lead us through some of the highways and by-ways of Jewish cuisine in the diaspora. But hurry—-shopping and cooking wait for no man. RSVP NOW!
Hebrew Classes occur on Wednesday evenings. If interested, please contact Rabbi Mark at: rabbimarkcba@gmail.com There are both beginner as well as a more advanced level.
General Messages:
Swipe Cards
Please bring your programmed ‘swipe card’ with you for Friday evening services to assure being able to unlock and enter the doors (front synagogue door to main level foyer; rear lower-level door into the social hall – accessibility for mobility challenged individuals). For lost or Replacement access cards a charge of $20/each will be required. Thank you for your attention and cooperation in this matter.
Plant a Tree in Israel
Planting a tree in Israel is the perfect way to show you care while helping green the land of Israel. Since 2001, more than 250 million trees have been planted. For each order, a beautiful certificate of your choice can either be emailed or mailed to the recipient with your own personalized message. Trees can be planted for any occasion such as a birth, Bar or Bat Mitzvah, graduation, wedding, get well wish or in memory of someone special. The cost of the tree is $18 with the check made out to Congregation B’nai Abraham.
For more information and to order a tree, contact Carrol Lourie at (240) 818-7555 or cglourie@gmail.com. Be sure to have your contact information and the contact information for the person the certificate is being mailed to available to facilitate the order.
THIS WEEK’S EVENTS
PLEASE DO NOT SHARE LINKS – THEY ARE INTENDED ONLY FOR CONGREGANTS
| FridayMay 2 | Religious School Family Shabbat Services & Dinner-see attached flyer | 6:00 PM |
| FridayMay 2 | Shabbat Service Join us in the sanctuary or streaming live on YouTube https://youtube.com/live/Ic6B4CANJCk?feature=sharelink for 5/2/25 | 7:30 PM |
| SaturdayMay 3 | Torah Study Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/83429576649?pwd=WDRkYnh5cXVHREdDWi90MXdBYllzQT09 Meeting ID: 834 2957 6649Passcode: 030303 | 10:00 AM |
MI SHEBEIRACH (PRAYERS FOR GOOD HEALTH) – Please notify the CBA Office if you wish to add someone’s name.
Kevin Miller
Cole Peyton
Andy Peyton
Tess Dew
Joe Cunningham
Amelia Kasinof
Gloria Ray
Janet Hawbaker
Curtis Sager
Peggy Dirolf
Pat Loffler
Robin Shoemaker
Ruthie Forman
Steve Hummel
Jody Nielsen
Laura Liebersohn
Mark Money
Donna Christensen
Cathy Jackson
Greg Axtel
Stephen Hill
Mary Pat Aravanis
Rabbi Fred Raskind
Rabbi Leila Galberner
Sybil Schiffman
Anna Lohr
Jack Deckelbaum
Buck Macht
Betty Penn
Donald Penn
YAHRZEITS (MEMORIAL PRAYERS) for those who passed between May 2– May 8. As in years past, it is traditional and appropriate to make a donation in honor of your loved one’s memory.
*Denotes a memorial plaque in our Sanctuary
Flossy Dirolf
Amelia Fleisher
Ginny Franke
Alexander Heisler
*Bonnie Amalfitano
Bernard Hammerman
*Samuel J. Cohen
*Marie Portugais Uzan
Sunny England