We hold Shabbat celebrations twice a month on Friday evenings from September to July. Services are at 7:30pm.
We meet at the 14th Street Y, 344 East 14th St., between 1st & 2nd Ave.
Guests are
always welcome at our programs.
Two Different Formats
Shabbat with Pot-Luck Dessert Shabbat
Service at 7:30pm followed by a Cultural Program and Pot-Luck Dessert.
Members and guests are encouraged to bring enough dessert for themselves
and one other person. We won’t complain if you bring more.
Shabbat with Catered Dinner ($17/adult, $7/child - ages 4-13) We'll start out out with Shabbat blessings at 6:30pm and then share a tasty catered meal. Arrive after 6:15pm. Shabbat service at 7:30pm followed by a Cultural Program and dessert. Children’s Program
For kids ages 5 and older pending sufficient enrollment. Please let us know by the Wednesday prior to the Shabbat if you are bringing a child or children with you. No charge.
Reservations are required with payment for meals by the Tuesday prior to Shabbat. Call 212-213-1002.
All dates and programs are subject to change. To confirm events and for more information, contact the office at 212-213-1002 or info@citycongregation.org.
Friday, September 9 Shabbat Service and Cultural Program at 7:30pm followed by Pot-Luck Dessert
A VIRTUAL TOUR OF JEWISH NEW YORK AND ITS EATERIES: Presented by Myra Alperson, owner of Nosh Walks
Travel from Boro Park to Midwood, from Kings Highway to Forest Hills, from the Lower East Side to Williamsburg, and points between. Find out about the wonderful cuisines from the Uzbek, Yemenite, Georgian, and Syrian cultures…and more. Discover pockets of New York City that you didn't know existed.
Myra Alperson founded NoshWalks in 2000 and is the author of Nosh New York: The Food Lover's Guide to New York City's Most Delicious Neighborhoods.
Friday, September 23 Shabbat Service and Cultural Program at 7:30pm followed by Pot-Luck Dessert WHAT DO CLASSICAL JEWISH TEXTS SAY ABOUT WOMEN AND DO WE AGREE?
How do secular Jews relate to Torah, Talmud, and other traditionally sacred texts? How do we make this literature our own? What allegiance do we have to it? How do we interpret or re-interpret the commentaries on the role of women? Join us for a lively discussion led by Rabbi Peter Schweitzer.
Friday, October 14 Shabbat Service and Cultural Program at 7:30pm followed by Pot-Luck Dessert
INSTANT MUSEUM: Displaying our Family Heirlooms
Where do our families come from? What cherished artifacts capture the stories of our families? TCC Members are invited to share with each other memorabilia, photos, and stories of their family’s journeys. All are welcome to join in. Please contact Rabbi Peter Schweitzer about your interest in participating in this program.
Friday October 28 Shabbat Service and Cultural Program at 7:30pm followed by Pot-Luck Dessert
ENCOURAGING JEWISH CHOICES: Welcoming Intercultural and Interfaith Families
In-marriage is no longer a norm. More and more Jews are in intercultural and interfaith relationships and marriages. This statistic is probably highest among secular and cultural Jews. Are we doing enough to engage these families?
Edmund Case, founder and CEO of InterfaithFamily.com, will examine this question and explore ways we can truly send a welcoming message.
Edmund Case lives in the Boston area where he practiced law for over 20 years. He is co-editor of The Guide to Jewish Interfaith Family Life: An InterfaithFamily.com Handbook and has written widely on intermarriage issues.
Friday, November 11 Shabbat Service and Cultural Program at 7:30pm followed by Pot-Luck Dessert
THIS I BELIEVE: City Congregation Members Join the Conversation – Round Three
For years on NPR, and in the 1950s on Edward R. Murrow's radio show, celebrities and ordinary people have participated in an extraordinary conversation about their core values. More than 60,000 of these three-minute talks – ranging in title from There Is No God (by Penn Gillette) to An Idea of Service to Our Fellow Man (by Albert Einstein) to Be Cool to the Pizza Delivery Dude – are now collected on the This I Believe website (thisibelieve.org).
In our program an eclectic group of City Congregation members will offer their own three-minute reflections. Moderated by Carol Sternhell, TCC member and professor at the NYU Arthur L. Carter
Journalism Institute. This was such a successful program the last two years that we are repeating it this year.
Friday, December 2 Shabbat Service and Cultural Program at 7:30pm followed by Pot-Luck Dessert
IF I HAD A HAMMER: A Sing Along History of the Early Folk Music Revival in America, 1941-1964
TCC member Dan Wyman will talk a little and sing a lot - with you! - through the early period of the American Folk Music Revival, which was led by musicians like Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and Josh White, and later by Odetta, Peter Paul & Mary, and Bob Dylan. We’ll meander through the era of WW II, McCarthyism, and the early Civil Rights Movement. Some of the musicians, and a large percentage of the audiences, were Jewish. Why? Bring your singing voice!
Friday, December 16 Chanukah Service, Menorah Lighting and Catered Dinner at 6:30pm followed by Game Night at 8:15pm
PRE-CHANUKA CELEBRATION & GAME NIGHT!
Menorah Lighting / Holiday Music from the TCC Choir Delicious Catered Dinner with Latkes
Following dinner, it will be GAME NIGHT! Parcheesi. Pinochle. Bridge. Checkers. Plus, Dreidl Spinning!
Reservations for dinner are required with credit card payment by Tuesday, December 13. $17/adult --- $&/child (ages 4-13)
Friday, January 6 Shabbat Service and Cultural Program at 7:30pm followed by Pot-Luck Dessert
THE THREE RACHELS: Rachel of the Bible (a long time ago), Rachel the Salon Hostess (1771-1833), and Rachel the Poet (1890-1931)
Who were these women and what made them famous? Find out about these three important Rachels in Jewish history. Presented by Rabbi Peter Schweitzer.
Friday, January 20 Shabbat Service and Cultural Program at 7:30pm followed by Pot-Luck Dessert
PEOPLE OF THE SILVER SCREEN: A Celebration of Jewish Songwriters in Hollywood
Just as Jewish songwriters have dominated musical theater for almost a century, Jews have also written most of the songs for Hollywood movies. Think of composers and lyricists like Rodgers and Hart, George and Ira Gershwin, Bacharach and David, and the Sherman Brothers, to name only a few.
In this program, presented by TCC members, Jack Lechner will review the colorful history of Jewish songwriters in Hollywood, while Rachel Dahill-Fuchel, Trudy Elins, David Klein, Jennifer Klein, Kim Kramer, Jim Ryan, Michelle Lang Zalph, and Dan Wyman perform musical selections, accompanied on piano by Louise Moed. Come enjoy this wonderful music!
This same production will also be performed at our Sunday Adult Perspective on January 22.
Friday, February 3 Shabbat Service and Cultural Program at 7:30pm followed by Pot-Luck Dessert
ESSENTIAL BOOKSHELF: Jewish Books That Made A Deep Impression
Which books have influenced your Jewish identity? What makes them relevant or long lasting? TCC members will talk about the books they won't forget and why. Moderated by member Randye Bernfeld.
Friday, March 2 Shabbat Service and Catered Dinner at 6:30pm followed by Cultural Program at 8:15pm
JOIN US FOR OUR ANNUAL PURIM CELEBRATION
Let’s make it a festive party! Please come in costume!
In honor of Queen Esther, we will celebrate the role of Jewish women by selecting one for a special tribute honoring A Woman of Valor.
Followed by TCC UNPLUGGED: Our Second Annual TCC Variety Show!
Reservations for dinner are required with credit card payment by Tuesday, February 28.
Friday, March 16 Shabbat Service and Cultural Program at 7:30pm followed by Pot-Luck Dessert
THE HISTORY OF BLOOD LIBEL: From the Middle Ages to Sarah Palin
Blood libels are pernicious false claims that Jews require human blood, taken from murdered children, for the making of matzoh. What is the origin of this myth and how did it lead to a counter-myth of the Golem? How did blood libels fuel modern pogroms and anti-Semitism? What is the Mendel Beilis case and the Massena affair? How does this myth persist today? Presented by Rabbi Peter Schweitzer. David Freeland is the author of the books Ladies of Soul and, most recently, Automats, Taxi Dances, and Vaudeville: Excavating Manhattan’s Lost Places of Leisure, which won the Victorian Society’s Popular Culture Publication Award for 2009.
Friday, April 20 Shabbat Service and Cultural Program at 7:30pm followed by Pot-Luck Dessert
YOM HASHOA - HOLOCAUST COMMEMORATION Memorial Candle Lighting Ceremony, Songs of the Holocaust
JEWISH LIFE AND CULTURE IN POSTWAR GERMANY
Richard Dollinger will describe the reemergence of Jewish communities in the "country of the perpetrators" and consider some of the existential dilemmas that arise from this seemingly untenable situation.
Richard Dollinger was born in Augsburg, Germany, and received his Ph.D. in Literature from Princeton University in 1989. He is an Associate Professor at Sarah Lawrence College where he has taught German language, literature, and cultural studies since 1990.
This program is funded in part by the New York Council For The Humanities.
Friday, May 4 Shabbat Service and Cultural Program at 7:30pm followed by Pot-Luck Dessert
JEWISH MUSIC THROUGH THE AGES: A Sampling from Around the World
Music is an essential part of Jewish culture and celebration and through music our heritage has been transmitted from one generation to the next. But we are not one culture, we are many. Each offers its own unique sounds, rhythms and keys. The TCC Choir will offer a variety of songs that showcase these different cultural experiences.
Friday, May 18 Shabbat Service and Cultural Program at 7:30pm followed by Pot-Luck Dessert
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE AND ACTS OF CONSCIENCE
When do you take a stand? When do you speak out? How do you act in the face of injustice? How did Jews and non-Jews stand up during the Holocaust? How do Israeli soldiers protest positions they oppose? Eyal Press will explore these questions and others in his presentation about civil resistance and in his forthcoming book, Beautiful Souls: Saying No, Breaking Ranks, and Heeding the Voice of Conscience in Dark Times, published by Farrar Straus Giroux in February 2012.
Eyal Press is a Nation contributing writer and a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation. He is the author of Absolute Convictions, a narrative account of the abortion wars that racked the city of Buffalo, NY. His essays, reviews, and feature stories have appeared in the New York Review of Books, The New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly, Mother Jones, The Columbia Journalism Review and numerous other publications.
Friday, June 1 Shabbat Service and Cultural Program at 7:30pm followed by Pot-Luck Dessert
SHAVUOT CELEBRATION: In Honor of Our Collective Literature Traditionally, this holiday commemorates the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. As Humanistic Jews, we use this occasion to celebrate all of our collective literature.
DRAMATIZING THE JEWISH ENCOUNTER WITH AMERICA: The Tenth Man to Angels in America
While characters in plays by Wendy Wasserstein are trying to free themselves from their heritage, Jewish protagonists in plays by Paddy Chayefsky, Jules Feiffer, and others are left deeply unsatisfied by their American "success." Drama critic Julius Novick will explore the tensions in these plays and others between the legacy of the Jewish past and the opportunities of the American present.
Julius Novick is Professor Emeritus of Literature and Drama Studies, Purchase College, SUNY. He was a theatre critic at The Village Voice, The New York Observer, and Channel 13 television, and has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, American Theatre, Vogue and The Forward. This program is funded in part by the New York Council For The Humanities.
Friday, June 8 Shabbat Service and Catered Dinner at 6:30pm followed by Cultural Program at 8:15pm
END-OF-YEAR CELEBRATION and KIDSCHOOL GRADUATION Plus Jewish Trivia
Join us for our annual tribute to our special volunteers, board members, and leaders of the congregation. Celebrate the graduation of our KidSchool students. Then test your Jewish knowledge! See how much Jewish trivia you know!
Reservations for dinner are required with credit card payment by Tuesday, June 5.
