Shalom, Shalom, Shavuot
By Rabbi Jessy Dressin
In many ways we are coming to the end of the year…the end of a period of time in which we learned together, celebrated together and shared lots of great times and experiences as a community.
There is a famous Israeli song with the words that read: “Shalom Shalom, Shalom Shalom. It means hello and welcome home. And when you want to say goodbye, we use the words Shalom as well.” How great that the same word we use to say goodbye is also the word we use to say hello! It’s like one big circle! Or spiral!
The Jewish calendar also moves according to cycles. We celebrate the same set of holidays year in and year out and yet each year we are in a little bit of a different place than we were...
The JCC of Greater Baltimore is thrilled to have two Israeli high school graduate-emissaries on its team this year -- Shani Kalmanovich and Bar Ling. Shani and Bar work at the JCC three days a week as part of an expanded “Shinshinim” program sponsored by the Jewish Agency of Israel, funded in part through The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore and locally facilitated by The Louise D. & Morton J. Macks Center for Jewish Education. (Shinshinim stands for Shnat Sherut, which translates to a year of service in Hebrew).
“Strong is the new skinny” is Robyn Korobkin’s motto. She handed out magnets with the slogan to her students at a 6:00am BODYPUMP class to remind them that feeling good and healthy is more important than clothing size or body weight. In addition to BODYPUMP, Robyn teaches BODYFLOW and SH’BAM at the Weinberg Park Heights JCC where she’s been leading 
