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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.
About Us
The Congregation for Humanistic Judaism (CHJ) is a welcoming, supportive community, serving Fairfield County since 1967, for secular Jews and their families to affirm, celebrate, and enrich Jewish identity and values. CHJ believes in personal responsibility to fulfill the Jewish ideals of loving-kindness, justice, and good deeds. History In 1963, Rabbi Sherwin Wine, originally ordained… Read More
Mitzvah Mentoring Program
For over six decades, the CHJ’s bar and bat mitzvah program has offered highly meaningful opportunities for secular Jewish families to celebrate a traditional milestone in their children’s lives while remaining faithful to their humanistic beliefs and values. Uniquely tailored to the interests of the student and family, the mitzvah program allows each young participant… Read More
Invitation to Join
Humanistic Judaism offers contemporary Jews an alternative to theistic-based branches of Judaism. At the Congregation for Humanistic Judaism (CHJ), our services and programs embrace Jewish historical and cultural traditions and its ethical values as applicable to our secular humanistic worldview. In our services, and especially on the High Holidays, we celebrate our Jewish identity while… Read More
Letter from the President
Thank you, all CHJ members, for giving me the opportunity to serve as your President. I promise to do my very best to meet your needs. Also, thank you, CHJ’ers, for enriching my life, and for your friendship in difficult times over the past >17 years. CHJ has given me the opportunity to celebrate being Jewish, to enjoy being Jewish, to share being Jewish, to learn more about being Jewish, and to support social/environmental goals. There are as many ways to do these things as there are members of CHJ.
Celebrate, Enjoy, Share, Learn, and Act!
Under the guidance of Steve Getz who is now Immediate Past President, the CHJ Board held special extra meetings in the past 5 months to work on a project Steve called “Envisioning CHJ.” This initiative was successful in many ways. It reconfirmed our commitment to the goals in the bylaws. It achieved the financial review required by the bylaws. It enabled us to update our insurance contract. And it will be ongoing, because it generated a list of multiple ways in which we can act to make sure CHJ can thrive in the future.
Among other ideas that have now been implemented is the renewed commitment to the B’nai Mitzvah program. We will also have not one but two Havdalahs on the beach this summer. We will continue Friday evening programming through the summer… no more “school year only” schedule. Other plans are in the works…The Board will hold regular meetings in the summer months, and I will update the congregation in the President’s letter. I am convinced that the more that we enjoy what we do in CHJ, the stronger CHJ will be. Read More
Upcoming Events
WHAT IS SKEPTICISM AND WHEN IS IT GOOD OR BAD TO BE SKEPTICAL?
“A skeptic is a doubter. A cynic is a disbeliever “(even when there is evidence to the contrary).
Why do some people spell the word with a ‘k’ or a “c”?
Why are some people skeptics and what are they usually skeptical of?
What are the reasons why nurturing a healthy skepticism can be good for you. Is being a skeptic good for you?
How does being a skeptic affect our views of life and attitudes towards our religious and other beliefs
This zoom program will be led by Jeffrey (Jeff) Spieler, PHD, a retired Science Advisor in Population and Reproductive health at USAID Technology and Utilization Division. He has more than four decades of international experience in contraceptive research and development, family planning, and reproductive and maternal health, HIV and cervical cancer prevention, including three decades of scientific leadership experience at USAID, and as a Scientist in the Special Programme of Research, Development, and Research Training in Human Reproduction at the World Health Organization, Geneva, where he spent 11 years. Jeffrey began his career doing research at a pharmaceutical company in New York.
After an introduction to the topic Jeff will invite you to weigh in on your thoughts and ideas.
A Zoom link will be sent closer to the date.
This event is open to the public. Non-members please fill out the form below.
All CHJ members are invited to join a discussion of Lady Clementine by Marie Benedict via Zoom.
In 1909, Clementine steps off a train with her new husband, Winston. An angry woman emerges from the crowd to attack, shoving him in the direction of an oncoming train. Just before he stumbles, Clementine grabs him by his suit jacket. This will not be the last time Clementine Churchill will save her husband.
Lady Clementine is the ferocious story of the ambitious woman beside Winston Churchill, the story of a partner who did not flinch through the sweeping darkness of war, and who would not surrender either to expectations or to enemies.
. Please let Irene Blumenthal know if you plan to attend..
As the CHJ Representatives to the CT Coalition of Reason (CT CoR), we are pleased to invite all CHJ members (including families and guests) to join us on Saturday August 13th , starting at 11 am, at Wharton Brook Park in North Haven & Wallingford for a CT CoR Statewide Social Picnic. It is a central location with easy access to Route 15 & I-91, parking and admission are free.
We have reserved Pavilion 1 at Wharton which is a covered area with picnic tables that seats 36. Bring your own picnic and beverages (alcohol is permitted). There is a swimming hole so don’t forget your swimsuit.
CT CoR (Connecticut Coalition of Reason) is the liaison group connecting CT humanist organizations: Congregation for Humanistic Judaism, Connecticut Valley Atheists, Hartford Area Humanists, Humanist Association of Connecticut, Humanists and Freethinkers of Fairfield County.
THIS PICNIC WILL BE AN OPPORTUNITY TO MEET AND GET TO KNOW FELLOW SECULARISTS ACROSS THE STATE AND STRENGTHEN OUR COMMUNITIES. WE HOPE YOU WILL JOIN US
Join Ruth Light to celebrate the joys of being Jewish on those Fridays when there is no official “program.” Ruth will be lighting candles at her home online in a Zoom room at 7 PM on those Fridays. “This is a new thing for me: even my grandmothers didn’t light candles for Shabbos”, says Ruth. We will take just a few minutes to schmooze, light candles if you like, perhaps share a little music or poetry or a short video, and touch base with our CHJ family.
A Zoom link will be sent closer to the date. Contact Ruth with questions.
Join Ruth Light to celebrate the joys of being Jewish on those Fridays when there is no official “program.” Ruth will be lighting candles at her home online in a Zoom room at 7 PM on those Fridays. “This is a new thing for me: even my grandmothers didn’t light candles for Shabbos”, says Ruth. We will take just a few minutes to schmooze, light candles if you like, perhaps share a little music or poetry or a short video, and touch base with our CHJ family.
A Zoom link will be sent closer to the date. Contact Ruth with questions.
All CHJ members are invited to join a discussion of Writers and Lovers by Lily King via Zoom.
. Please let Irene Blumenthal know if you plan to attend..
SAVE THE DATE!!
All CHJ members are invited to join a discussion of The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey via Zoom.
1920s India: Perveen Mistry, Bombay’s only female lawyer, is investigating a suspicious will on behalf of three Muslim widows living in full purdah when the case takes a turn toward the murderous. The author of the Agatha and Macavity Award–winning Rei Shimura novels brings us an atmospheric new historical mystery with a captivating heroine.
. Please let Irene Blumenthal know if you plan to attend..
Our first fall program will be a short story reading and discussion with themes evoked by the soul-searching asked of us especially during the time before and during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
For more information, contact adulted@humanisticjews.org.
All CHJ members are invited to join a discussion of The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey via Zoom.
First published to critical acclaim in 1929, Passing firmly established Nella Larsen’s prominence among women writers of the Harlem Renaissance. The Modern Library is proud to present Passing—an electrifying story of two women who cross the color line in 1920s New York—together with a new Introduction by the Obie Award- winning playwright and novelist Ntozake Shange.
Irene Redfield, the novel’s protagonist, is a woman with an enviable life. She and her husband, Brian, a prominent physician, share a comfortable Harlem town house with their sons. Her work arranging charity balls that gather Harlem’s elite creates a sense of purpose and respectability for Irene. But her hold on this world begins to slip the day she encounters Clare Kendry, a childhood friend with whom she had lost touch. Clare—light-skinned, beautiful, and charming—tells Irene how, after her father’s death, she left behind the black neighborhood of her adolescence and began passing for white, hiding her true identity from everyone, including her racist husband. As Clare begins inserting herself into Irene’s life, Irene is thrown into a panic, terrified of the consequences of Clare’s dangerous behavior. And when Clare witnesses the vibrancy and energy of the community she left behind, her burning desire to come back threatens to shatter her careful deception.
. Please let Irene Blumenthal know if you plan to attend..
All CHJ members are invited to join a discussion of The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura via Zoom.
. Please let Irene Blumenthal know if you plan to attend..
Facebook Activity
thejewishnews.com/2022/07/20/congregation-for-humanistic-judaism-offers-a-warm-inclusive-communit...
thejewishnews.com
The Congregation for Humanistic Judaism of Metro Detroit was founded as the Birmingham Temple in 1963 by Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine (1928-2007) and eight families seeking to establish a new temple in suburban Detroit.Mitzvah Mentoring Program
humanisticjews.org
For over six decades, the CHJ’s bar and bat mitzvah program has offered highly meaningful opportunities for secular Jewish families to celebrate a traditional milestone in their children’s lives while remaining faithful to their humanistic beliefs and values. Uniquely tailored to the interests o...Wonderful! Our secular coming-of-age events are so empowering for the young people involved! It’s not rite recitation but critical thinking and feeling strong!
