Musical Shabbat Tu Bishvat this Saturday, February 7, 4:30 pm @ 1416 Montague - parking & walking info

[Sara Schoen]

Ice and snow are blocking most of the parking on our block, but the good news is that 16th St is wide open for parking on Saturdays.  The Bahá'í Center at 16th & Montague has unfortunately not shoveled their long stretch of sidewalk on Montague St, so walking in the street for that stretch is likely safer than the sidewalk.  After the Bahá'í Center, the sidewalk is clear.

We'll start at 4:30 and end with havdalah. Feel free to bring fruit or other food to share (or for yourself/your crew), but absolutely no need to bring anything.  RSVP by replying to this email and please invite anyone you'd like.  It’s literally never too late to RSVP, including after the event.   All welcome – ages 0-120, Jewishness completely optional, literally atheist to orthodox.  

To ensure that DC Musical Shabbat emails don’t go to spam, please add schoe...@gmail.com and dc-musica...@googlegroups.com to your contacts. To ensure that DC Musical Shabbat emails go to your Primary inbox and not a promotions tab or similar where they’re easy to miss, please drag them to Primary and ask your inbox to put them there going forward.  We send very few emails and email only when necessary.

Photos and videos are often taken on people’s phones at DC Musical Shabbat, and they are sometimes used for grant reporting or promotional purposes. If you don’t want photos or videos of yourself or your children used in such ways, please let us know.  

Upcoming gatherings @ 1416 Montague St NW: Feb 28 (Purim!), March 7 & 21 (we might move outdoors if the weather's good)

& Rock Creek Park Picnic Grove 9 (unless weather pushes us indoors): April 4 (Pesakh) & 25, May 9, 16 (Shavuot), & 30, June 6 & 13

Musical Shabbat Google Calendar  Musical Shabbat Email List (extremely low-volume: typically 2-3 emails/month total; digest or abridged settings not recommended as we sometimes send time-sensitive location changes due to weather or illness)

Ways to support Musical Shabbat:

• Bring instruments (kid or "real"); Play and/or sing along; Lead a song or brakha.
• Bring fruit or other food to share.  

• Help clean up.

• Share ideas, feedback, requests, suggestions, or any other offers of help.
• Contribute financially: As of July 2023, DC Musical Shabbat is funded by The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. Please continue to support Musical Shabbat both financially and in other ways to help it continue!

      -Easiest way to contribute financially: PayPal shirsh...@gmail.com.

      -Easiest tax-deductible way to contribute financially: Scroll to the bottom of this evite to contribute via Pledge.

      -Tax-deductible via amkolel.org/donate: In step 4 (Additional Information) under "How would you like your gift applied?", select "One of Am Kolel's donor-designated funds" and then "DC Musical Shabbat".   

Check out this documentary on YouTube about some of the people behind DC Musical Shabbat 🎶✡️

Musical Shabbater Shirley is peer-leading no-cost Peaceful Parenting learning sessions at her home in Silver Spring approximately once/month to help moms bring mindfulness, compassion, and Jewish wisdom into their parenting lives. The next gathering will be on Sunday, February 22nd.  Register here, or email Shirley if you have questions.  

“Parenting can be a beautiful, life-affirming journey — and it can also be really hard. If you are a parent, you're likely familiar with the struggle to find the balance between being fully present for the kids and finding time for self care. If you’ve ever found yourself reacting in frustration, putting your own needs aside, or just wishing you could parent with a little more ease, you’re not alone.  Each session includes mindfulness practices, Jewish wisdom, and practical tools to help you navigate parenting challenges while deepening your connection with your kids — and yourself. If you’ve been looking for a way to show up as the parent you want to be, The Peaceful Parent Project is a powerful first step.” 

Stay warm,

Sara

FAQs:

Q: How did this start?
A: My (musical) husband Ari helped volunteer lead services over many years with various congregations around DC. As far back as 2016, we hosted some informal kid Jewish holiday and shabbat gatherings at our house with friends both in Petworth and then after we moved to 16th St Heights in 2021. Ari had always told me he that wanted to lead with other musicians, so in May 2021 I reached out to Aaron Shneyer, a Takoma DC dad and professional musician and service leader we’d met a couple times at a mutual friend’s birthday parties. Turned out that he and his wife Lula had talked about organizing uptown shabbat gatherings, and Lula also used to organize informal shabbat gatherings in Adams Morgan when they lived there. Thankfully they were up for joining forces even though we barely knew each other :). The first Musical Shabbat happened just over 9 months later on March 5th, 2022.  Am Kolel kicked us off with a very generous grant, and from March 2022 until July 2023, Musical Shabbat met once a month. In June 2023, DC Musical Shabbat was awarded Federation funding, enabling us to increase to twice a month starting in September 2023. We are very grateful for the support.

Q: Is DC Musical Shabbat organized by Am Kolel?

A: Am Kolel is DC Musical Shabbat's fiscal sponsor (a role Am Kolel has fulfilled for many startup Jewish groups) but does not organize DC Musical Shabbat.  When Am Kolel offered fiscal sponsorship for what was then just an experiment, we jumped at the opportunity to be able to collect tax-deductible contributions (including from Ari & me) without setting up a separate nonprofit entity. 

Q: What is Shir Shalom?

A: Just a made-up placeholder name that we used at the beginning of this musical shabbat experiment.