2023/2024 Schedule
Classes take place on Sundays from 1:30pm-3:00pm, Congregation Beth Shalom 4746 El Camino Ave., Carmichael, CA 95608
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SCHEDULEÂ
December 3, 10. 17
January 7, 14, 21, 28
February 4, 11, 18, 25
March 3, 10, 17, 24
April 7, 14, 21
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REGISTRATION
Registration is required for all participants of the class. You may download and email a registration form to federation@jewishsac.org. You may also mail your form to the Federation office at 2130 21st St., Sacramento, CA, 95818.
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FEES
Cost of the course is $180 per person. Please ensure check (preferred method of payment) is submitted prior to the start of class. You may also pay by credit card by calling the Federation office at 916-486-0906 ext. 0.
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Partial scholarship may be awarded by a sponsoring Rabbi on a case-by-case basis.
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Full scholarship may be awarded to full-time college students. Copy of School ID/Class Schedule required.
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Intro to Judaism is a program of the Jewish Federation with support from the Sacramento Area Board of Rabbis.
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FACILITATOR – RABBI NANCY WECHSLER
Rabbi Nancy Wechsler was ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1990. Her undergraduate degree was in Psychology from UCLA, and her rabbinical thesis was: Rabbinic Attitudes Toward Healing. After receiving ordination, she was called to Temple Kol Ami in Thornhill, Ontario, Canada, to be their first rabbi and provide a foundation for their congregation. She was a student at the Blanton-Peale Institute and Counseling Center in New York City. From 2003 to the present, Rabbi Nancy Wechsler serves as Rabbi and Cantorial Soloist at Congregation Beth Shalom in Carmichael, California. At Congregation Beth Shalom, she established a monthly Rosh Chodesh program for women (spiritual ethics), Mussar learning for adults, Family Education, and a lively monthly band service called “Shabbat with a Beat.”
Rabbi Nancy Wechsler has also been pivotal in creating interfaith programs of understanding. She has fostered the Sacramento Interfaith Freedom Seder, interfaith Thanksgiving gatherings, and interfaith teen programs. Through ACT, Area Congregations Together, she rallied her community to extend the age of maturity for emancipating foster youth. She is a member of SALAM SHALOM, a monthly program of learning and sisterhood between Jewish and Muslim women and Interfaith Clergy work for social justice. Rabbi Nancy Wechsler engages in the ongoing education of mysticism, Kabbalah, and art. She studies cello and yoga. She received her Doctorate in Divinity in 2015. She is a past president of the Rabbis’ Association of Sacramento and written about in Parenting Magazine and Reform Judaism. She has articles in the Mitzvah of Healing, Jewish Lights: A Women’s Torah Commentary and A Woman’s Haftarah Commentary, Torat Hayim-Living Judaism, LifeLights: Surviving a Crisis or Tragedy, and Three Times Chai: 54 Rabbis Tell Their Favorite Stories.
REQUIRED TEXT
Introduction to Judaism: A Sourcebok compiled and edited by Rabbi Stephen J Einstein and Lydia Kukoff
Here is a selection of books that you may find helpful in supplementing our classes:
Living a Jewish Life, Anita Diamant and Howard Cooper, (HarperCollins, 2007).
It’s a Mitzvah, Bradley Shavit Artson, (Behrman House Rabbinical Assembly,
1995).
Choices in Modern Jewish Thought, 2 nd Ed., Eugene Borowitz, (Behrman House,
Inc., 1995)
Choosing a Jewish Life, Anita Diamant, (Shocken Books, 1997)
The Jewish Way, Irving Greenberg (Jason Aronson, 1988)
How to Get More Out of Being Jewish, Gil Mann, (Leo & Sons Publishing, 2002)
A Short History of the Jewish People, Raymond P. Scheindlin, (Oxford University
Press, 1998)
The Jewish Home, Daniel Syme, (UAHC Press, 1988)
Finding God, Rifat Sonsino and Daniel Syme, (UAHC Press, 2002)
Jewish Literacy, Joseph Telushkin, (William Morrow and Company, 1991)
Why Be Jewish?, David Wolpe, (Henry Holt and Company, 1995)
For more information, please contact Nancy Hernandez at the Federation. Call 916-486-0906 or email nhernandez@jewishsac.org.