BEKI Kids

Happy Chanukah! 

BINA Shabbat is THIS FRIDAY at 5PM.

Join us this Friday, December 19, at 5 PM for Kabbalat Shabbat Services

(everyone welcome, with special participation by BINA students) 6PM for Dinner (for those registered).

In This Edition

• Friday, 9:30-11 AM: Tot Shabbat Chanukah Celebration at the JCC

• Friday, 5 PM:  BINA Shabbat and Latke Dinner

• Saturday, 11 AM: Shabbat Children’s Services

• Sunday: No BINA

• Wednesday: No BINA

• Fun with the Parsha: Miketz

* Friday, 9:30-11 AM: Tot Shabbat Chanukah Celebration at the JCC

Come to the JCC for a special Chanukah celebration, and the final Tot Shabbat of 2025!

Join us at 9:30 AM at the Fleischman Family Center, Beckerman Lender Jewish Community Building, Woodbridge, for holiday activities including sensory games and crafts.

The event will be led be Jess Wallace – Jess serves as the Federation’s Women’s Engagement & Philanthropy Associate, though many of you may know her from her previous work at the JCC in the Camp and Afterschool programs. Jess is filling in for Elisabeth Warren, who has gone out on a medical leave for the coming weeks. We are wishing Elisabeth a speedy recovery and are looking forward to welcoming her back soon to continue the great PJ Library and Shalom Baby work that she has been doing over the past year.

After this, Tot Shabbat will be on “winter break.” Look out for announcements about new Tot Shabbat dates in 2026.

For more information, contact David Heilbron at dheilbron@jewishnewhaven.org.

* Friday, 5 PM:  BINA Shabbat and Latke Dinner

Celebrate Shabbat and Chanukah with a festive Kabbalat Shabbat service and latke dinner!

Join us this Friday, December 19, at 5 PM for Kabbalat Shabbat Services. Everyone is welcome! BINA students will have special roles in the service, leading Chanukah songs.

Kosher dairy dinner to follow at 6 PM for those who have registered.

If you have registered but not yet paid, you can pay online here (Under “Other Payments,” “Miscellaneous Payments,” Other) or bring a check to the BEKI office. $15/person 5 and over; children under 5 eat free.

* Saturday, 11 AM: Shabbat Children’s Services

Shabbat Children’s Services will meet in their usual rooms:

Children’s Havura (Birth-Preschool) meets inside in the preschool classroom.

K-2 Kehila (Kindergarten-2nd Grade) meets in Classroom 6.

Junior Congregation (3rd-6th Grade) meets in the library.

* Sunday: No BINA

After BINA Shabbat, religious school will be on Winter Break until 2026. We’ll see you back in the classroom on Sunday, January 4!

* Wednesday: No BINA

BINA will be on Winter Break.

* Fun with the Parsha: Miketz

Have you ever had a funny dream? Sometimes dreams are just dreams, but sometimes, including in the Torah, they mean something really special.

In this week’s parsha, Miketz, Joseph has a special skill for telling people what their dreams mean. The Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, has two dreams that might seem kind of silly:

• In the first dream, there are seven fat cows and seven skinny cows. The skinny ones eat the fat ones.

• In the second dream, there are seven ears of wheat and seven skinny ears of wheat.* Again, the skinny ones eat the fat ones.

You might think these were just silly dreams. But Joseph tells Pharaoh that his dreams predict the future. Joseph says that there will be seven years of good harvests with a lot to eat. Then, there will be seven years with bad harvests and not enough to eat.

Pharaoh decides to make Joseph a leader in Egypt, who will be in charge of storing food during the good years, so that there will be enough left over for everyone to eat during the bad years.

It turns out that Joseph is right! Seven years of bad harvests do come right after the seven years with lots of food. In the end, planning ahead helps keep everyone safe and happy. Joseph is an example from the Torah of a really good leader!

* Trivia for parents: many translations say that Pharaoh dreams about “ears of corn,” but the plant we think of as corn is a food from the Americas, and they would not have had access to it in Ancient Egypt. This is a translation that comes from British English, where they call wheat “corn” and they call our corn “maize.” The grain that the Torah means here is probably emmer wheat, which you can buy at the grocery store as farro.