Your weekly JUF update

During these uncertain times, it's more important than ever to come together as a community. With this weekly email, we hope to provide you with resources, moral support and other ways to adjust to this temporary “new normal.”  

We’ve created a JUF Coronavirus Community Resource Page where you’ll find links to more resources, info on JUF initiatives and ways to help or donate. And be sure to check JUF's Facebook page for daily updates.

5 rules to live by during a pandemic

Here’s a “playbook” with some basic rules for lowering risk while still enjoying life as we wait for the virus to get under control. Public health experts and scientists offer up tools to make your own decisions—from dining out to getting a haircut. 

Talking to Jewish kids about race

Three Jewish moms—a teacher, a marketing director and a social worker —discuss how they’re talking to their Jewish kids about race. Many of their observations are actionable ideas we can all take to heart right now.

Ben & Jerry: Stiller looks at life with his father

Actor and director Ben Stiller, whose legendary father Jerry passed away last month, reminisces about growing up with famous parents in a house where comedy was the fabric of their lives.

Dad Jokes for the win

Sure, posting Dad Jokes in the window of his home each day is fun, Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School teacher Yair Bernstein says. But it’s the tiny ripple effect of positivity they set off that makes a difference in the world.

Jewish Geography: the Zoom competition

Host Micah Hart discloses the name of “The Chosen One” at the beginning of the show, then the contestants use their own networks to find that person and get them on the Zoom call live. The addictive game’s motto? “It’s not who you know, it’s who you know knows.”

A message of reflection with Rabbi Sidney Helbraun

When the Israelite scouts returned from surveying the Promised Land, the majority reported that though it was filled with milk and honey, the people who dwelled there were greater than them and “they appeared to themselves as grasshoppers.” 

In times of transition and change, it is easy to imagine the challenges ahead as larger than life – insurmountable. But rather than reality, this vision reflects a lack of self-confidence, not an implacable foe. 

During uncertain times we are called on, not only to have faith in God, but to trust in our own strength and ability; to remember that we are destined to bring light into the world. 

Rabbi Sidney M. Helbraun, Temple Beth-El, Northbrook