Seminars and Sukkot!

The last few weeks have been very active in Kenim all over North America! Here is a run-down of some of the latest happenings. But first, a few soundbites:

New Ken emerging in Sunnyvale/San Jose/Paolo Alto California!

Galil Fall Seminar 2006 hailed by camp committee member as "the biggest seminar in Galil history!"

Eizor DC launches Ken website! Check it out at http://hdmaryland.org

Ken Toronto gets down with some local Rikud

Michigan Shickvat ma'apilim ken has frequent asephot

Workshop Kvutzat Dofek has reunion in Pittsburgh

Chevre T'nua hanging out in Sukkas all over North America!


And now for more detailed descriptions of recent Ken Events:

Vancouver:

Eizor Vancouver has been extremely active this month! Most recently, they held sukkah building in the Vancouver Bayit earlier this week, where they simultaneously celebrated sukkot and Canadian Thanksgiving! They also recently had a reunion in Seattle and a Shabbat dinner at the Vancouver Bayit. This coming weekend they will be holding a hadracha seminar for the Post-MBI kvutzah in preparation for the upcoming Fall Seminar at Miriam on October 27-29th.

Southern Cali:

Announcing California's 5th and newest chanichim Ken: Ken Sunnyvale/San Jose/Paolo Alto!!! This ken recently had its first peula, where they built a sukkah. Madrichim from Santa Cruz and the Bay are helping out sunnyvale and they had a peula with 15 chanichim, 2/3rds of which were new to the movement! They are planning a havdallah peula for their next event.

The LA ken had a Sukkot peula on October 8^th and the 2 chanichim (almost half of which were new) had a great time learning about the chag and hearing about Gilboa’s winter camp, making decorations for our sukkah, hanging them, and writing down wishes and goals for themselves and israel.

Northern Cali:

Ken Bay Area, now known as BAY-KEN (pronounced Bacon, kosher of course) had a havdalla/rosh hashana ken event on Saturday Sept 30th. With 10 kids and a handful of madrichim fun was had by all.

Cali Ma'apilim:

California has not had ma'apilim activity in over 20 years. Within 8 days this all suddenly changed in both NorCal and SoCal! On friday the 29th of september there was a shabbat dinner at G's in UCSanta Cruz. 16 ma'apilim from as far as
Australia and as close as down the street came in to a wonderful shabbat dinner followed by talk about goals for the SC ma'apilim ken. A saturday brunch was also enjoyed by 10 ma'apilim in downtown SC. In SoCal 6 ma'apilim attended a shabbat dinner at Rachael Sevilla's house with a wonderful raisin challah, it was a great time indeed.

Michigan:

The Ann Arbor/Detroit Ken had a very successful ken event this past weekend, which was divided in to two peulot for older and younger kids. Lots of kids attended and it was very successful. The older kids watched and discussed the movie "Invisible Children." Fall Seminar at Tavor also happened recently, and tons of kids and ma’apilim attended and it was a great success. Also, the very active Ma’apilim ken is having lots of fun!

Philly:

Still riding on their incredibly successful Fall Seminar, Eizor Philly had Ken events for every shickvah for Sukkot, all of which were well attended. Next major eizor activity will be a Tikkun Olam project at the Jewish Relief Agency in November. They also have more shickvah Ken events planned for the near future and are looking into public Philadelphia spaces to host them.

DC-Maryland:

Mosh held a very successful Fall Overnight the last weekend in September with over 100 kids and 20 ma'apilim. The theme of the overnight was the ongoing situation with Israel and Lebanon. They challenged chanichim and madrichim alike with several peulot, some of which were divided by shickvah and some of which were for the whole overnight together. On October 29th they will be holding their first big Ken event for chanichim at the Rockville JCC.