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Membership
Members meet for Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk at Sherwood Island State Park.
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Community Service
As a member of local community and religious groups whose goals and values we share, we volunteer where help is needed.
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Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur
The shofar is heard at CHJ Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Family Services.
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Social Justice
After Charlotttesville
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Tu B’Shvat
Celebrating nature at the Tu B’Shvat seder is a joyous event filled with music and good food.
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We’re a Cooperative!
Members all play a role in making the congregation work. Read about how CHJ is organized.
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Teen Tzedakah Group
Teen Tzedakah Group shows off backpacks ready for Mercy Center school kids.
Hanukkah
Lyrics, Latkes, & Light: A CHJ Hanukkah Party w/ musical performance by the Shul Band’s Adam & Ernesto Saturday, December 4, 2021 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm Greenfield Hill Congregational Church Annex 1045 Old Academy Road, Fairfield, CT RSVP HERE Hanukkah, an eight-day winter holiday, is derived from the solstice celebrations of ancient people. Hanukkah,… Read More
Shabbat & Adult Education Continue on ZOOM!
CHJ has adapted to the new reality since the start of the coronavirus pandemic! The celebration of Shabbat is integral to Jewish tradition, too important to let lapse for an undetermined period. And our Adult Ed programs offer another opportunity to listen, learn and discuss topics relevant to Humanistic Judaism. Read more about Adult Education… Read More
Invitation to Join
Families are the future of CHJ. Our inclusive, warm, welcoming Congregation includes families of all stripes coming together to celebrate Judaism and being Jewish. From Baby Naming to Sunday School to Bar & Bat Mitzvah to the Teen Tzedakah Group to Adult Ed, you’ll find a community for families and kids of all ages. Humanistic… Read More
Letter from the President
There is a good chance that you are here because you are seeking to learn more about the Congregation for Humanistic Judaism (CHJ) and about Humanistic Judaism. This site is designed to provide you with that introduction. By navigating on the menu bar at the top of the page you will find a wealth of information.
CHJ is affiliated with the Society for Humanistic Judaism (shj.org) and is part of a movement that celebrates Jewish culture and heritage through a non-theistic, human-centered approach. Our membership reflects a diverse group of people who have enriched our community by collectively representing many different personal and professional backgrounds.
CHJ is very affordable. Membership for a two-adult household is only $450 per year. For a one-adult household it is $300 per year. After a successful initial pilot program, CHJ has continued to offer a 50% reduction for the first year of membership. This means that first year membership is now only $225 for a two-adult household and $150 for a single-adult household. We want to make “trying CHJ on for size” as easy and as affordable for you as possible.
Thank you for visiting our website and please look around. I encourage you to ask questions or obtain additional information by emailing us at info@humanisticjews.org or by calling 203-293-8867. We would be very happy to assist you.
If you have already decided to join simply click onto the Membership Form page to complete and submit your form.
With Kind Regards,
President
Upcoming Events
Join Women’s Rap vis Zoom, to stay connected at a distance. All CHJ women members are welcome. It’s a great way to get to know each other.
The Zoom link will be sent just prior to the meeting date. Please RSVP Roberta Frank if you plan to attend.
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A TODAY SHOW #READWITHJENNA BOOK CLUB PICK! • The moving story of an undocumented child living in poverty in the richest country in the world—an incandescent debut from an astonishing new talent
All CHJ members are invited to join a discussion of Beautiful Country: A Memoir via Zoom. Please let Irene Blumenthal know if you plan to attend..
Save the Date:
Federation for Jewish Philanthropy of Upper Fairfield County
Mitzvah Heroes Awards
Each year the Federation for Jewish Philanthropy of Upper Fairfield County in conjunction with its member congregations honors one member from each congregation. The prestigious Mitzvah Hero award is given to those who embody the values of tikkun olam and are selected from among the membership of their respective congregations. CHJ has selected Rochelle Green as our congregation’s choice for this year’s Mitzvah Hero Award.
Rochelle’s contributions to our community have been countless and over many years. Among her contributions are serving in the capacities of Ritual Committee chair, a long-standing member of the Board, Mitzvah Coordinator and as Co-coordinator of the Sunday school. However, this award acknowledges not just serving in those roles but importantly, what Rochelle has done in those capacities. Making an impact such as superb High Holiday programs providing CHJ members and guests with a meaningful Humanistic Jewish High Holiday experience and one that reflects so well on CHJ that we frequently see a bump in new membership as a result, the continuation of High Holiday programming despite the recent and historic challenges of the pandemic, the positive and the life-long influence our Mitzvah program has had on our students thanks in part to Rochelle’s involvement. She is a steering committee volunteer for the CHJ oral history project and has been a constant source of thoughtful, well-reasoned leadership as a valued and contributing member of CHJ’s board of directors.
Jewish Journeys Committee Presents,via Zoom
The Yiddish film classic “Mamele” starring Molly Picon
(In Yiddish with English subtitles, 97 minutes)
Film viewing followed by discussion
We will begin promptly to allow time for discussion.
“The joys of Yiddish cinema are served up to yet another generation in this beautifully restored print made for Mamele’s 75th anniversary. The film retains its sparkling mix of humor, song and predictable pathos… Only in retrospect does its picture of Jewish life in Poland between the wars—replete with tenements and fancy cars, gangsters and yeshiva boys, sukkahs and supper clubs—become priceless… a relic of a lost world.”—Jewish Film Institute
Non-members are welcome.
Zoom link will be sent after December 12.
For additional information, contact adulted@humanisticjews.org
SAVE THE DATE!
Join Women’s Rap vis Zoom, to stay connected at a distance. All CHJ women members are welcome. It’s a great way to get to know each other.
The Zoom link will be sent just prior to the meeting date. Please RSVP Roberta Frank if you plan to attend.
The Jew Store is that rare thing–an intimate family story that sheds new light on a piece of American history. Here is One Man’s Family with a twist–a Jew, born into poverty in prerevolutionary Russia and orphaned from birth, finds his way to America, finds a trade, finds a wife, and sets out to find his fortune in a place where Jews are unwelcome.
All CHJ members are invited to join a discussion of The Jew Store by Stella Suberman via Zoom. Please let Irene Blumenthal know if you plan to attend..
Join Women’s Rap vis Zoom, to stay connected at a distance. All CHJ women members are welcome. It’s a great way to get to know each other.
The Zoom link will be sent just prior to the meeting date. Please RSVP Roberta Frank if you plan to attend.
All CHJ members are invited to join a discussion of Caste: the Origins of Our Discontents via Zoom
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.
. Please let Irene Blumenthal know if you plan to attend..
Join Women’s Rap vis Zoom, to stay connected at a distance. All CHJ women members are welcome. It’s a great way to get to know each other.
The Zoom link will be sent just prior to the meeting date. Please RSVP Roberta Frank if you plan to attend.
All CHJ members are invited to join a discussion of A Play for theEnd of the World by Jai Chakrabarti via Zoom.
The haunted man at the heart of this book is one of the few survivors of a generation, a Polish immigrant in New York who can’t forget the makeshift family that was transported to Treblinka without him. . . . As the novel moves between [America and India] with interludes that return to the Warsaw ghetto, we come to understand Jaryk’s guilt-stricken ‘need to burrow into oblivion’—and to hope that another need will somehow uproot it.” —The New York Times Book Review
. Please let Irene Blumenthal know if you plan to attend..
Join Women’s Rap vis Zoom, to stay connected at a distance. All CHJ women members are welcome. It’s a great way to get to know each other.
The Zoom link will be sent just prior to the meeting date. Please RSVP Roberta Frank if you plan to attend.
All CHJ members are invited to join a discussion of Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell via Zoom. Drawing on Maggie O’Farrell’s long-term fascination with the little-known story behind Shakespeare’s most enigmatic play, HAMNET is a luminous portrait of a marriage, at its heart the loss of a beloved child.
. Please let Irene Blumenthal know if you plan to attend..
Facebook Activity
This Friday!
Exploring Racial Justice
Awareness, Part 1 of 3
This interactive, 3-part program (Awareness, Relationships, Commitment) will include curated multi-media content (short videos, readings and journaling/discussion) that will cover the three areas of "Arc of Fighting Racism," a framework by Dr. Jemar Tisby, Historian and Author of “How to Fight Racism.” Each session will include learning and small group discussions about the content. We strongly recommend planning to attend all three sessions.
Part 1: November 19, 2021: Awareness: Understanding the history of racism and its impacts.
Friday, November 19, 2021, 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Fascinating:
www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/harry-potter-translated-yiddish
The Inside Story of How 'Harry Potter' Was Translated Into Yiddish
www.tabletmag.com
J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series is one of the most translated works of fiction in human history. Over the last two decades, it has appeared in over 80 languages, ranging from well-trodden tongues like French and German to more exotic idioms like Gaelic and Latin. Today, that collection expands ...November 9th----Tomorrow night!!!
Mondiant Dogon: THOSE WE THROW AWAY ARE DIAMONDS - The Westport Library
westportlibrary.org
"Those We Throw Away Are Diamonds offers an immersive, riveting look at one Bagogwe man’s singular journey from war in Congo to safety, in which good and evil are relative when war offers no good choices to anyone, when safety is an illusion, and when forgiveness is fraught." Jessica Goudeau Hear ...
