On Saturday, Dec. 16, from 10-11:50 a.m., Or Emet will host a Shabbat service followed by a program and social time. The events will take place at the Minnesota JCC Sabes Center Minneapolis, 4330 S. Cedar Lake Road, Minneapolis. 

The service will be led by Eva Cohen, Or Emet’s ritual leader and a Humanistic rabbi in training.

Susan Weinberg

After the service, Or Emet member Susan Weinberg will give a presentation on immigration through the lens of laws, documents and family stories. With a focus on the 1900s, she will explore the immigration laws that affected entry as well as the documents created as laws changed that are available to genealogists. 

Juxtaposed with laws and documents are stories of the Jews of the 1900s who came to America. Weinberg’s multimedia presentation will incorporate experiences drawn from an oral history project with Jewish elders. The stories span those who grew up in early immigrant communities, Holocaust survivors who came in the 1940s-50s and immigrants from the former Soviet Union who arrived in the 1970s-90s. 

Weinberg is an artist, author and frequent speaker on genealogy topics. She is president of the Minnesota Jewish Genealogical Society and serves on the board of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies and the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest.

She developed the Jewish Identity and Legacy Project, an oral history project with elders, then authored the book “We Spoke Jewish: A Legacy in Stories” that includes oral history, artwork and history about three groups of Jewish immigrants who spanned the 1900s. 

Those who cannot attend the program in person may join over Zoom. Please register in advance here. 

Or Emet is a secular congregation celebrating and honoring Jewish culture, history and values from a humanistic, inclusive perspective. For more information, email info@oremet.org or visit oremet.org.

On Sunday, Dec. 3, Or Emet will host a program by David Jordan Harris, artistic director of Voices of Sepharad, who will describe through word and song the customs, food and melodies that are special to a Sephardic Chanukah celebration.

The program will run from 10 a.m.-noon at the Talmud Torah of St. Paul, 768 Hamline Ave. South in St. Paul. A social time will follow. 

David Jordan Harris

Harris has pursued study and performance of Sephardic music throughout North America, Greece, Israel, France, Turkey, Poland, Bosnia, Spain and Morocco. He has received numerous awards, fellowships and commissions supporting his fieldwork and performances with Voices of Sepharad, which he co-founded in 1986 with dancer Judith Brin Ingber. 

Harris was the founding executive director of Rimon: The Minnesota Jewish Arts Council, which he led until 2022 and served as cantorial soloist/music director at Shir Tikvah Congregation for 21 years.

Those who cannot attend in person may join over Zoom. Please register in advance here. 

The Sunday adult programs are free and open to the public and meet concurrently with the Jewish Cultural Sunday School. 

Or Emet is a secular congregation celebrating and honoring Jewish culture, history and values from a humanistic, inclusive perspective. 

For information about Or Emet’s Jewish Cultural Sunday School, contact JCSS director Molly Phipps at school-1@oremet.org. For information about Or Emet, email info@oremet.org or visit oremet.org.

On Friday, Nov. 17, from 7:30-9 p.m., Or Emet will host a Shabbat service followed by a program and social time. The events will take place at the Minnesota JCC Sabes Center Minneapolis, 4330 S. Cedar Lake Road, Minneapolis. 

The service will be led by Eva Cohen, Or Emet’s ritual leader and a Humanistic rabbi-in-training. 

Alan Miller

After the service, longtime Or Emet member Alan Miller will discuss his new novel, “A Reluctant Madonna.” Foreign interests buying up Native lands, a lecherous artist, a stalker, intrigue in the Supreme Court — all come together in the novel. Miller will talk about becoming a novelist as an octogenarian and will be available for a Q&A session at the end of his presentation.

Miller began his love of journalism early in life. After serving as editor of his high school newspaper and sports editor of the local newspaper at 15, he landed a sports reporter position at Newsday at 16. 

A journalism and political science major in college, he became an attorney, worked at several newspapers and taught at universities and law schools, as well as for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy. 

For the past 25 years, Miller has been the host-producer of the award-winning local access TV program, “Access to Democracy,” now networked in 35 Minnesota cities. He recently created a new local access TV program in Minnesota, “Writer’s Corner.” 

Those who cannot attend the program in person may join over Zoom. Please register in advance here. 

Or Emet is a secular congregation celebrating and honoring Jewish culture, history and values from a humanistic, inclusive perspective. For more information, email info@oremet.org or visit oremet.org.

On Sunday, Nov. 12, Or Emet will host a program by Michelle Horovitz, co-founder of Appetite For Change, a nonprofit organization that uses food as a tool to build health, wealth and social change in North Minneapolis.

Michelle Horovitz

The program, titled “Gastronomical Tzedek: Repairing the World One Harvest at a Time,” will run from 10 a.m.-noon at the Talmud Torah of St. Paul, 768 Hamline Ave. South in St. Paul. A social time will follow. 

Horovitz will share how she went from public defender to line cook to social justice advocate, helping us understand food justice through a Jewish lens.

Those who cannot attend in person may join over Zoom. Please register in advance here. 

The Sunday adult programs are free and open to the public and meet concurrently with the Jewish Cultural Sunday School. 

Or Emet is a secular congregation celebrating and honoring Jewish culture, history and values from a humanistic, inclusive perspective. 

For information about Or Emet’s Jewish Cultural Sunday School, contact JCSS director Molly Phipps at school-1@oremet.org. For information about Or Emet, email info@oremet.org or visit oremet.org.

On Friday, Oct. 20, from 7:30-9 p.m., Or Emet will host a Humanistic Shabbat service followed by a presentation by Tedi Grey Owl, a Native American community activist and the academic internship specialist for Migizi, an organization that prepares Native American youth for education, careers and community leadership. 

The events will take place at the Minnesota JCC Sabes Center Minneapolis, 4330 S. Cedar Lake Road, Minneapolis. A social time will follow the program.

Tedi Grey Owl

The service will be led by Eva Cohen, Or Emet’s ritual leader and a Humanistic rabbi in training. Following the service, Tedi Grey Owl will present “Empowering Our Youth: A Strong Circle of Support.”

A citizen of the Haudensaunee Seneca Nation, Heron Clan, Tedi Grey Owl has worked to provide academic and cultural support for Indigenous students in urban and suburban school districts in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area for three decades.

She comes from a family of Native activists. Her mother, Laura Waterman Wittstock, was one of the original members of the American Indian Movement, and co-founded Migizi in 1977. 

Those who cannot attend the program in person may join over Zoom. Please register in advance here.

Or Emet is a secular congregation celebrating and honoring Jewish culture, history and values from a humanistic, inclusive perspective. For more information, email info@oremet.org or visit oremet.org.