By ShinShinim, Kyla and Eden
Guest Columnists
This past month has been filled with exciting meaningful activities and lots of snow!
We began the month celebrating Hanukkah with our community by attending Hanukkah parties, leading Israeli dances, and doing all kinds of fun crafts! Later on, we kept the celebrations going by leading Hanukkah activities at the Trager Family JCC’s winter camp, where we taught the campers more about the background of the holiday and made crafts.
Experiencing snow in Louisville has been fun and very cold. We had an awesome time with BBYO at the regional kickoff event snow tubing at Perfect North! It was great hanging out, making new memories, meeting new people, and getting to know KIO (the Kentucky Indiana Ohio region of BBYO) better. It was such a cool way to bring the teens together and strengthen the sense of community among them.
One of our more special moments this month was our baking event at AJ, where we baked cookies using Dekel Swissa and Yael Libusho’s favorite recipes through an organization called Recipe in Memory. Dekel and Yael are fallen soldiers who died on October 7. Just like us, Dekel was a ShinShinim in Atlanta during 2019. This event meant so much to us — it was such a meaningful way to honor their memory, and we’re so thankful to everyone who came and helped make it happen.
This January, we’ll be giving a presentation to the seniors here at the Trager Family JCC, where we’ll share stories about our families’ immigration to Israel. We are also participating in Temple Shalom’s monthly Lunch and Learn series leading conversations about Israel.
Looking ahead, we’ve got so many more events and activities planned! We’re very excited for our New Year’s Women’s event on February 11 (see below), focused on setting goals and making vision boards. Also starting in February, we’ll be leading monthly cooking lessons for adults, where we’ll make Israeli food from different cultures. On February 6, we’ll be making Ethiopian Dabo bread and hearing Eden’s family’s story.
During February, we will be taking a two-week break to go home to Israel. We are very excited and invite you to leave a note for the Western Wall in the box in the lobby of the Trager Family JCC for us to carry back.
We can’t wait for all the amazing things still to come and are looking forward to seeing you at one of our next activities or events!