Our challah recipe

Where it may be eaten with meat dishes, milk and butter are ommitted and oil or margarine and water used.

Yeast : fresh yeast bought at your local boulangére or instant yeast bought at local supermarket. 25g fresh = 1 sachet (15ml) instant
The fresh yeast must be a pale grey colour. If you mix it with a little sugar, it becomes liquid and can then be added to the other ingredients.

1 packet instant yeast or 25g fresh yeast
45ml (3tbs) sugar
5 x 250ml flour
15ml (1 Tbs) salt
3 eggs, lighly beaten
60g (1/4 cup) soft butter, margarine or oil
310ml (11/4 cup) warm water or milk (approx)

Sift all dry ingredients together into a mixing bowl. Make a well and Add yeast according to your type. Then add lightly beaten eggs and milk, mix together with wooden spoon. Then add softened butter. Start mixing with fingers.
Turn it out onto a well-floured surface and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic (This takes max. 10 minutes). Do not overwork dough as it may avoid dough rising.
Place the dough in a large bowl (at least 3 times bigger than dough) lightly oil sides of bowl to avoid it sticking, cover with a warm damp cloth or cling wrap and leave in a warm place to rise to double its size. Then cover with cloth
After the dough has risen, return it to the floured surface; divide into two for loaves. *
Divide each half into 3 and roll each piece into a long sausage.
Plait crossing the braid over and not under. Do not braid too tight.
**Cover and leave to rise till double its size
Brush with yellow of egg and sprinkle poppy or sesame seeds or just plain.

Bake at 180°C for about 25-30 minutes or until golden.

*/**If you intend freezing stop at this step or just after braiding.

Braiding : divide into three long sausages. Pinch the tops together and fold under. Cross the right over the centre and then left over the centre through till end of bread. Pinch bottoms together and fold under. Ensure that the tops and bottoms are well pinched together and folded under to avoid it separating during baking...

Shabbat Sunday Fun

Today we made our own challah, ...

the kids did a great job of rolling the dough , then braiding and finally baking...

but it did not end there, then they made their shabbat placemats...

And finally time for a wonderful "goûter" thanks to Sue and Fred. Thank you for opening up your home and for such a warm welcome ...

Our shabbat class

Shabbat is the best day of the week !

It is a day of rest, a day of play and day of no work !

When did shabbat begin. Some people believe it started at the beginning of the world, when God after making the world in 6 days rested on the seventh day.

It's one day human beings do not interfere with the world - we behave as if everything were perfect. The rules of shabbat takes getting used to, but after a while, you begin to look forward to having that special day of rest.

Shabbat begins with lighting two candles. They stand for the opposites in life : light and darkness, holy and not holy, work and rest.

The candles are usually lit by the woman, but anyone can do it. We light the candles before the blessing because once the prayer is said, shabbat has begun and fires may no longer be lit. Cover your eyes in order not to see the candles already lit and recite the blessing : Baruch atah adonai, eloheinu melech ha-olam, asher kidushanu b'mitzvotav vitzivanu l'hadlik ner shel shabbat.

After the candles are lit, the kiddush, the blessing over the wine to proclaim the holiness of the day, is sung. Kiddush means 'holy'. It is said over wine, because "wine gladdens the heart" This blessing thanks God for the great delight of Shabbat, for the creation of the world, for freeing the Jews from slavery. After the blessing the cup is passed for everyone to sip from the wine.

Baruch atah adonai, eloheinu melech ha-olam, borei pri hagafen.

Baruch atah adonai, eloheinu melech ha-olam, asher kidushanu b'mitzvotav v'ratzah vanu v'shabbat kodsho b'ahavah uvratzon hinhilanu, zikaron l'ma'aseh v'rehsheet. Ki hu yom t'hila l'mkra'eh kodesh zeher litzi'at mitzraim. Ki-vanu vaharta v'otanu kidashtah micol-ha-amim, v'shabbat kodsh'ha b'ahavah uv'ratzon hinhaltanu. Baruch atah adonai mikadesh hashabbat.

Then, after everyone sips the wine, the hallah a sweet egg bread (which we baked today) is uncovered for the blessing.

Barach atah adonai eloheinu melech ha-alom, hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz

Shabbat brings families together.

If we all spent one day a week free of pressure and routine, taking time to renew ourselves, celebrating the world's creation and the creative energy that gives life to the world, we might enjoy our lives more and remember how precious life is.

Hanukkah class fun !

Not only did the kids have a great sing along, learn about the Maccabees and the rededication of the temple, they also had lots of fun making candles and painting their menorahs...

checking to see if our handmade candles fit...

And even the older kids could not resist and got their fingers dirty...

Learning to light the menorah and practicing the blessings :

Thank you to Alex's dad for helping out

Lighting the menorah and playing the dreidel

Lighting the candles at Hanukah :
We place the candles in the hanukkiyah (8 branch menorah) from right to left. To light the menorah we us the highest candle on the menorah which is called the shamash, also known as the servant/helper candle. Once the shamash is lit two blessings are said. The first blessing is said over the hannukah candles :

Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu melech ha'olam, asher kidushanu b'mitzvotav vitzinvanu l'hadlik ner shel hanukkah.

The second blessings gives thanks for all the miracles :

Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu melech ha'olam, she-asah nissim lavoteinu ba-yamim hahem bazman hazeh.

On the first night, and only on the first night, a third prayer is added to giv thanks for being able to celebrate the holiday. This pray is also said at the beginning of most holidays and at a new and happy event :

Baruch ata Adonai, eloheinu melech ha-olam shehechiyanu vekiymanu vehigiany lazman hazeh.

Then using the shamash we light the first candle, and one by one every night starting with the newest candle and moving toward the right.

These small and pretty candles are a reminder taht even the small, when they stand together can light the darkness.

What is a dreidel :
A dreidel is a spinnng top. The word dreidel means "turn".
The dreidel has four sides, on each side there is a hebrew letter : Nun, gimel, hey and shin. These letters stand for the words, Nes Gadol Haya Sham which means A Miracle Happened There. There indicates Israel.

How did it all start :
Dreidel game began when the King Antiochus forbade the Jews to study Torah,the Jewish Bible. Grops of children who had secretly meorized the entire Torah studied together until they heard teh footsetps of the soldiers approaching. Then they quickly pulled out spinning tops and pretended to be playing games.

Rules to play the game:
Each child gets the same number of tokens, which are often nuts, candy, or coins. Each child puts two or three tokens into the middle. Then he/she takes a turn spinning the dreidel.
Usually you use candy or nuts to play this game. In case you don't have those items to play with, we've added points here for you to use.

- Nes ... N or nun stands for nisht or nothing. If the dreidel lands on nun, you do nothing.
No Points.


- Gadol ... G or gimel stands for ganz or all. Take everything in the middle.
Get all the tokens in the middle.

- Haya ... H or hay stands for halb or half. Take half of what is in the middle plus one if there is an odd number of objects.

- Sham ... S or shin stands for shtel or put in. Share , so give half into the middle.


Players who have nothing left are out of the game, and the player who outlasts the others is the winner...

Hanukkah : how did all come about...

On 25 Kislev on the Jewish calendar, which this year corresponds to December 1st on the secular calendar, the Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah, a wonderful holiday, one that commemorates events that took place in Jerusalem in 138 BC (year 3622 from the creation of the world). A miracle occurred in the Temple in Jerusalem, crowning one of the most brilliant pages in the history of the Jewish people.

The Hellenistic rulers (the Greeks) of that time tried to eradicate the Jewish culture using fire and sword. Under penalty of death, Jews could not study the Torah, observe the Sabbath, or keep the holidays. They installed a statue of Zeus in the Temple in Jerusalem. Then, Mattathias the Hasmonean, who refused to worship the Greek idols, raised an armed revolt against their oppressors with the appeal, “All those who are for the One God, stand with me!” This war was the first one fought in the world for religious freedom. After the death of Mattathias, his son Judah the Maccabean continued his cause, under whose leadership the Jews achieved one victory after another. Little by little, the Jews liberated their homeland from the enemy and in a decisive battle liberated Jerusalem.


Upon entering Jerusalem, the army of Judah the Maccabee went to work. It was necessary to clean the temple after its desecration, they had to take down the statue of Zeus, and they had to wash, clean, and repair everything within it. When the work was finished, the Temple was ready to receive the Torah scrolls and the other religious items. However, it was necessary to sanctify the temple, so that it was fit for the worship of the One God, as it was before. They needed to light the temple lamp, the menorah. The ordinary oil used in the temple rites would not do, they needed olive oil, purified and sanctified in a special way. There was not enough of this oil in the Temple because the Greeks had destroyed everything. Miraculously, they managed to find a small vessel with some of the special oil in it. However, it could last, at most, only one day. Nevertheless, it was impossible to postpone the ceremony. Judah decided to fill the menorah with the oil that was available. Then, a miracle happened, the fire burned for eight days, the time that was necessary to prepare a new portion of oil. To commemorate this miracle, Jews celebrate Hanukkah (in Hebrew, Hanukkah means “dedication”) and light Hanukkah candles.


Noting Hanukkah, we remember the Jewish revolt against their oppressors and rejoice in the victory of our ancestors over their enemies. However, the main thing that we celebrate these days is the miracle of the pitcher of oil. In memory of the eight days, we light the Hanukkah lamp, the Menorah. In these days, we treat everybody to sweet donuts and share funny gifts. The kids especially love this holiday because they get toys or we give them money, called Hanukkah geld, so that they can buy sweets.

Come and learn all about hanukkah !

Come and join us this Sunday, November 21st in Saint Germain-en-Laye at 3.30pm as we reach for the artist in us, sing songs, read the story of the Maccabees and play dreidel games and learn all about the traditions of hannukah.

Bring along your favourite story book and / or traditional hannukah snack.

See you there !

November Lesson Part II : Rosh Chodesh and mezuzahs in the making

Remember when you went back to school after the summer holidays we celebrated Rosh Hashanah. And we learn that Rosh means head and hashanah meant year and so Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year.

Today our Sunday Funday class falls on the first day of Rosh Chodesh, which means :
Rosh = head, Chodesh = month, so rosh chodesh is the start of the new month.

More than a thousand years ago before calendars, telephones and emails, Rosh Chodesh was an important festival day. People would watch the sky carefully between the 29th and 30th day and when the a sliver of the moon appeared and became visible after dark, and was witnessed by at least two people, the new month was declared. They would light a fire on the hills of Jerusalem so that neighbouring towns could see, where more fires would be lit and so on. The next day the festivities would start, they would sound the shofar and festivities would begin. Then the same Syrain Greek king which caused the Maccabees to revolt (we will learn about this at our next lesson) and why we celebrate hannukah did not allow the jews to continue celebrating Rosh Chodesh. And much later, we calculated the months differently. Rosh chodesh is a celebration of starting anew. And this new month we’re entering is called Kislev on the hebrew calendar and during Kislev we celebrate Hannukah

Rosh Chodesh story read today :

In the beginning the sun and the moon were the same size,
Two equally great lights, lighting all creation

The moon dared to wonder... “Is it possible for two rulers to wear one crown?”

The Holy One responded by shrinking the moon to it’s present size to be ever smaller than the sun.

The moon was angry. “Just because I questionned the wisdom of creation should I be punished for all time?”

Ok, how about this said the Holy One,... “The sun shall rule by day, but you the moon shall rule by night”

“Oh that’s good” said the moon, “but not quite good enough”

“What about this... ” “The nations of the world will set their calendars by the sun, but the people of Israel will set their sacred times by the newest and fullness of the moon”

“This too is good, but not enough. You must find a way to fix all the brokeness and mistakes in your creation’

The Holy One thought a long time, and finally came back to the moon and said “When all creation will learn to live together and when all have an equal share in the blessings that fill the world, then you will be restored to your rightful size.”

“Oh this is good” said the moon
‘For this I and your smaller creations will wait’
And so the Holy One promised to fix all the mistakes in creation with the promise that one day all children will grow to be old, and all the oppressed will be set free and the world will know Shalom – Peace and so,
Once every month when the moon is full, we sing and dance in her light and remember the Holy Ones promise

May It Come so....

And we sang with our musical instruments :
Oseh shalom,
Bimromav hu ya’aseh
Shalom aleinu
v’al kol yisrael
v’imru amen

We also learnt to say good-bye together and wish our friends a good week :

Shavuah tov, shavuah tov, shavuah tov, shavuah tov (x 4 times again)

A good week, a week of peace,

May gladness reign and joy increase

A good week, a week of peace

May gladness reign and joy increase

And then our artists went to work...

And the hard work paid, they all went home with their very own mezuzah for their bedroom...

Next Sunday Funday, Nov 21 at 3.30pm in St Germain en Laye.

November lesson : Part 1 "My very own mezuzah" and shema

There are many symbols for the home, but the first one we usually see is a little box hung by the door, this box is called a mezuzah. Mezuzah is the hebrew word for doorposts.

Why do we fix a mezuzah to our doorposts? The passover story, which we will learn a little later on in the year, we see that the israelites followed a similar practice. During the last plague they smeared their doorposts and this sign kept their families safe.

Today a mezuzah is a sign that a jewish family lives in that house, it is reminds us that we want our home to be a jewish home. That we want our home to be filled with joy and love and family peace - shalom bayit and that it is a place God can be found.

Inside the mezzuzah is a special paper called parchment with the shema and vehaya. We learnt the shema in song today.

On the mezuzah is the hebrew letter 'shin' which stands for shaddai a hebrew word which means guardian of the doors of Israel. It is also the name of God.

When we hang a mezzuzah we have a ceremony. This is a dedication of our home, like when the Macabees cleaned up the Temple, they had a dedication ceremony to make it a place where God could be found. We will learn all about this at our next lesson.

Today we learn to sing the Shema :

Shema Israel , Adonai Eloheinu , Adonai Echad

Hear o Israel, Hashem is our God, Hashem is One

And with actions :

Shema (Listen) - so we hold our hands behind the ears

Israel (being the people, you and I) so we make a circle infront of us.

Hashem (being everywhere too, but we lift up as Adonai is above us, not specifically in the heavens though, but above our heads) raise both hands up.

Eloheinu (Our God) so we embrace and hug ourselves

Hashem- we raise the hands upward again

Echad (One ) so you point with one finger.

Change in programme, change in location...

Hi all,

I confirm that we will have a Sunday Funday class this Sunday at 3pm as usual, however, this weeks class will be held in Paris and we will look at Sukkoth.

I know the holiday is over, but it is never to late to learn about this fun holiday.

We'll also learn the bracha said before shaking the lulav :
Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melech ha olam
Asher kidishanu b’mitz votav v’tzivanu
Al n’tilat lulav

and how to shake :
Hodu (shake to the front, east)
le Hashem (hold in front of us, without shaking)
ki- (shake right)
tov, (shake back)
Ki (shake left)
Leolam (shake above)
Chasdo (shake below)

Hodu le Hashem ki-tov ki laolam chasdo
Translation :
Give thanks God who is good,
For his loving kindness endures forever.

And then we'll make our own little sukkah (craft activity) - don't forget to bring along short tree cuttings for the roof - and we will be shaking our lulav to song 9 and 10...(click on the link, first album)
http://www.deezer.com/fr/music/judy-caplan-ginsburgh#music/judy-caplan-ginsburgh

If anyone has a story book on sukkoth please bring it along...

See y'all

What is simchat torah?

Simchat Torah is one of the holidays where children gets to actively participate in the service. This is the one time kids do not have to sit still – singing and dancing with the torah and waving flags are the order of the day. Children do not carry the scrolls of course (it’s way too heavy), but you can bring along a toy torah or paper torahs. The torah scrolls are taken out of the ark, seven times and carried around the synagogue. Can you imagine all the excitement and noise! It is a real parade in the synagogue and mom and dad joins in too.

Now before we continue, do you know what the torah is? The word torah means teaching. The Torah is best known as the five books of Moses. In it you have historical events (explaining things that happened a long time ago, our bible stories for instance), it explains families (just like a family tree), and it also contains all the commandments (and there are not only 10, in all there are 613 commandments), but we will learn more of this later on in the year. The torah scrolls we read from in the synagogue are called a Sefer Torah ‘(that’s more Hebrew).

Now the reason for this parade is because we celebrate a year of reading and learning of torah. Just like you do and are going to do during this year at Sunday Funday.
Simchat Torah simply means ‘Rejoicing in the Torah’. All through the year we read portions of the torah called parashot. At Simchat Torah we make a circle with the torah: that means we read the last words in the torah and start up again right from the beginning – just like a circle, just like for us the studying of the torah is never ending.

An activity to do at home
Make a simchat torah flag.
http://www.behrmanhouse.com/jam/pdf/simhattorahflag.pdf

Join us at Kehilat Gesher, KG 17, for Simchat Torah services this Wednesday evening at 7pm!

Venez nombreux à notre office de Simchat Torah chez Kehilat Gesher, ce mercredi soir, à KG17 à 19h00 !

Hag Sameach