Shana Tovah!

Dear Friends,

The Hannaton Educational and Spiritual Center is proud and excited to launch its first newsletter for 5771. The Center will continue to update you throughout the year with exciting developments here.

Please help us spread the word.  Share this newsletter with your friends and family and encourage them to subscribe as well.

Hannaton has been bustling with excitement this past summer including hosting youth groups, Masorti congregations, a retreat for special needs children (Tzaad Kadima), and a family camp.

Preparations have begun for Rabbi Yoav Ende to serve as scholar in residence the first weekend in March of 2011 sponsored jointly by Congregation Beth El (Voorhees, NJ) and Temple Beth Sholom (Cherry Hill, NJ).  Additionally, for those of you in the Washington, D. C. area, Yoav will be hosted as scholar in residence at Adas Israel in May, 2011.  Stay tuned for more information about his upcoming visits. Please let us know if you are interested in having Rabbi Ende visit your community on one of these trips or in the future.

On behalf of the Hannaton Educational and Spiritual Center, we wish you a very sweet, healthy, and meaningful new year.

Please, visit us at Hannaton!

It Happened Here!

The Hannaton Educational and Spiritual Center hosted over 1200 teenagers this summer including youth from Ramah Seminar, USY Pilgrimage, NOAM England and for the very first time, NFTY.  Some groups made Hannaton their base while touring the north of Israel, others came to visit. All the groups participated in our program “Pioneers in the Galilee”. Through experiential stations at the egalitarian synagogue, mikveh, and around the kibbutz, the teenagers were challenged to consider the meaning of the word pioneer and how the pioneers at Hannaton can meaningfully relate to their lives today.

We were happy to host members of the Lasko Foundation from Philadelphia at Hannaton in July.  We are grateful for their recent grant to develop the Pluralistic Jewish Spirituality Retreat Center at Hannaton. Thanks to their support, our spirituality programs will continue to be developed and enhanced for participants from Israel and abroad and receive top notch programming from its outstanding staff

Upcoming Events

Age of Mitzvah Project

This past June, a very successful pilot program took place for the Age of Mitzvah project, a 2-day experiential Bar/Bat Mitzvah seminar run in conjunction with the TALI educational fund for 6th grade Israeli school children. Viki Pines, the coordinator of the project, and the staff at Hannaton are continuing to publicize and develop the program to make an impact on the lives of Israeli youth. The first schools will participate this fall.

Your Shul at Hannaton!

The Educational and Spiritual Center continues to look forward to hosting Diaspora and Israeli Masorti (Conservative) congregations and others this year.  Families and synagogue groups join the members of Kibbutz Hannaton in spirit and celebration of Shabbat and during the week for "Lunch and Learn" programs.

Meet a Member of Hannaton

Rabbi Yoav Ende, ordained by the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary in Jerusalem in 2008, is the director of the Hannaton Educational and Spiritual Center and is spearheading the revival at Kibbutz Hannaton.  He and his wife, Shira, are the proud parents of three children, Tomer, Elah and Itai.  Yoav’s excitement of participating in the development of the Educational Center shines through as he takes pride in seeing his dreams become a reality.

Partner with Us

We wish to thank Barry and Adrienne Gray and family for the generous donation of the new “Tent of Avraham” in honor of Mervin Gray’s 90th birthday.  Thanks to their support, participants will enjoy the warm and inviting space for spirituality programming and life cycle celebrations.   For more information about naming opportunities at Hannaton, please contact Shira at shira@echannaton.org