Peninsula Temple Sholom is a Reform Jewish Congregation dedicated to meeting the spiritual, social and intellectual needs of its congregants. Together as an extended family with diverse Jewish backgrounds, we are committed to G-d, Torah and carrying on our Jewish traditions in a participatory, warm and nurturing environment.
High Holy Day Service Schedule
Peninsula Temple Sholom hosts a wide variety of services for the High Holy Days. They include a traditional service with a professional chorus, a contemporary service with a lay chorale, a family service, children's services and even services led by our high-school students.
New this year: We have TWO Family Services on Rosh Hashanah Morning and Yom Kippur Morning, to accommodate our growing membership and the popularity of the Family Service. The services are 9:30-11:00 AM and 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM. Choose just one!
Temple members recently attended an informative session about the new PTS L’dor Vador Endowment Fund, which will be established with the Jewish Community Endowment Fund. The endowment will provide the Temple financial security and the ability to plan and operate beyond year-to-year membership commitments and contributions.
Representatives from the Jewish Community Endowment Fund and City National Bank explained how they will consult with PTS and congregants. Examples of different giving programs were presented, including bequests and charitable gift annuities, as well as the many complex assets that may be contributed to the Fund, including real estate, appreciated securities and business interests.
The Jewish Community Endowment Fund will manage the assets in the PTS Endowment Fund. City National Bank will manage Charitable Remainder Trusts. CNB representatives explained how Charitable Remainder Trusts operate and how they can provide significant tax advantages.
Please contact Jerry Newman, Kathy Battat or Executive Director Amy Mallor if you would like more information about these new programs.
Nothing But Net Success!
The Nothing But Nets Hoop-A-Thon was a tremendous success, raising more than $10,000 to purchase anti-malarial nets for refugees of the Darfur conflict.
The PTS Family Israel Trip, led by Rabbi Feder, is a unique opportunity to express our solidarity with the people of Israel and to be touched as individuals & families by the beauty of our rich past & the vibrancy of the current State of Israel.
Shopping is a Mitzvah!
When you shop at Amazon.com, PTS gets a small donation, while you enjoy the same great prices!
Support PTS by using this box to search and shop from Amazon!
By Rabbi Eric Yoffie A rabbinic colleague recently sought my advice. Two congregants whose son had served as a doctor in a war zone had asked her to read from the bimah the names of American soldiers killed that week in Iraq. Should the congregation adopt this practice in conjunction with the recitation of Kaddish on erev Shabbat and Shabbat morning?
Though she was sympathetic to the request, this rabbi feared that the practice might ignite a controversy. While most of her congregants opposed the war, those who supported it might interpret the reading of names as an act of protest against U.S. policy in Iraq. She didn't want the issue to divide the congregation or offend those who had come to say Kaddish for a loved one. What, she asked, would I recommend?
By dcc "As cliché as it is, and yes, this is a true story, I started hearing a melody while I walked through the shuk. I knew that I had to put that melody to L'cha Dodi, as I was in the text's birthplace," said Jeremy Gimbel of his rock L'cha Dodi melody that he wrote in of Safed, the mystical town in Northern Israel.
Many of his melodies just come to him, he explained. Jeremy started writing music in middle school. "I remember coming up with a cool musical riff, and then I sang a melody with it, and found some words in 'On The Doorpost of Your House.' After the piece was done, I thought 'whoa, I think I just wrote a song.'" He continued to write music and in the past few years has become more dedicated to the process.
By dcc Answer this question for me honestly: Do you, as an active Reform Jew, practice a Jewish tradition simply because that is what Jews have always done? Professor Carol Ochs writes in this week's d'var Torah that our portion teaches us that we can't "keep doing something just because we have always done it." I don't observe rituals simply because my parents do (or don't) observe them, but in all honesty my family's observance does inform my personal observance. And for that matter my community's observance plays a significant role in the formation of mine as well. But I can say with no doubt in my mind that I do not follow Jewish tradition simply because it is the way it has always been done.
By Larry Kaufman In our wonderful American fusion of calendars, one of the signals we get from Labor Day is that the High Holy Days are coming, and their harbinger is selichot - the term applied both to a religious service devoted to penitence and to the prayers of forgiveness themselves. In the Sephardic tradition, selichot are recited nightly throughout the month of Elul; in the Ashkenazic tradition, nightly from the Saturday midnight preceding Rosh Hashanah by at least ten days.
Peninsula Temple Sholom hosts a wide variety of services for the High Holy Days. They include a traditional service with a professional chorus, a contemporary service with a lay chorale, a family service, children's services and even services led by our high-school students.
L’dor Vador Endowment Fund Officially Launched
Mishkan T'filah, the wonderful new prayer book, will be coming to PTS! 
Cantor Barry Reich has uploaded a new song, Ani V'atah, for Yom Ha'atmaut, and for the Zimriyah and Hava Nashir celebration.
If you need to authenticate to access non-public areas of this Web site, 
Two PTS members - Karen Wisialowski and Alan Zeichick - presented at the 
Peninsula Temple Sholom