Young Israel of Orange County       בס"ד

5319 University Drive (#122)

Irvine, CA 92612

Hi, everyone.

With the mournful fast of Tisha B’Av now behind us, we turn to planning for Young Israel’s fourth High Holidays season.  We look forward to your continued and continuing support and membership as we enter our fourth High Holidays – and, a few months later, our “First Birthday” (February 29, 2012).  We are so blessed that, G-d willing, Chazan Baruch Erblich will be with us again this Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, as will Jared Friedman as Chazan Sheini and Ba’al K’riah.  And our gorgeously comfortable location at Back Bay Conference Center again is reserved for our davening and spiritual experience.

This has been our very best year yet at YIOC, even amid painful economic times in America and the never-ending stresses that we Jews feel and experience as Israel comes under attack from the Usual Suspects.  But we have been strong, and there are so many breakthrough areas to report.

We are the first new Orthodox shul to be founded in Irvine in more than twenty years.  Many wondered whether Irvine could sustain our shul, a fledgling congregation without bricks and mortar (yet).  But we opened our doors, offering something new, fresh, and different.  And for more than three years, we have honored our Mission Statement. Now we are stronger than ever.

Our numbers are remarkable – more than eighty membership households.  Originally we really did struggle every week with minyan, never quite knowing whether we would have ten. Now we have succeeded in making minyan for the longest unbroken stretch in our shul’s history.  Last Friday night, we had twenty men and ten women on Friday night, followed by large Shabbat morning and Sunday morning turnouts.  At Shabbat meals, we had 44 people this past weekend.  So what has happened?  How explain the phenomenon of The Little Shul That Could?

When we were founded, we relied heavily on some college students whom we knew would soon be leaving town, some teens en route out of state – even my own son, who always was at minyan, would be departing for Israel and thereafter for college.  Some inevitably moved – to Los Angeles, to be closer to grandchildren; out of state, for business or family reasons.  Transition is inevitable.  So how did we get so much stronger so soon?

It seems that, along the way, newcomers have joined us, people and households firmly planted in Orange County.  They have met us on the street, literally told by people like you at a Ralph’s or Albertson’s “You gotta check out Young Israel.  It’s a different kind of shul, nothing like what you have encountered before.”  And they did.  And they joined.

Some found us at Pesach time, at our hugely successful and gorgeous Public Sedarim, and they liked what they experienced.  Some fell in love with us from that experience.  Others find us on Sunday mornings or Shabbat services, or through friends, or word of mouth.

And then there are our classes. And guest scholars like Anita Tucker and Prof. Medoff.

Our classes continue to be a real gem in our diadem.  People who had been going to shul for thirty years now, for the first times in their lives, proudly lead services.  They attended our Siddur Navigation class.  Others now read Hebrew for the first time, so they more easily can sing z’mirot at the Shabbat table.  Our Chumash-Rashi-Commentaries weekly Tuesday night class continues to flow over into a second table, as people drive from throughout Orange County to learn Torah as it never before has been taught or learned in this town.  And our new Thursday Night Talmud Class has brought in additional people with deep commitments, with a learning level that exceeds any level of Torah previously taught anywhere in Orange County.

In our smaller shul – yes, our Boutique Shul – everyone can be served with a personalized focus.  Someone needed a Guardian ad Litem – an honest one – in a litigation matter, and we handled it.  We have set single people up on dates.  We introduce young professionals for business networking. We regularly counsel many people of all ages and backgrounds confronting some of the most challenging moral and situational dilemmas imaginable.  In the face of learning that Jewish students at UCI were being sent to “Palestine,” even meeting secretly with a Hamas terrorist leader who since has been arrested and imprisoned by Israel, with the trips funded with Jewish community money – we alone spoke out fearlessly. Our members’ leadership now has been joined by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Zionist Organization of America, and the Council of European Rabbis. We have opened a Shabbat Table to the community, and we have created such an island of Shabbat that people – literally from all over Orange County – come to us, just for that Shabbat infusion.  Our members’ guest bedrooms, our hachnasat orchim program, sees Shabbat sleepover visitors almost every weekend of the year.

We moved forward this year on our plan to study the Books of the Prophets – the N’vi’im – together every week, and we continue planning to launch a monthly variation on those classes, bringing them around town to meet in members’ homes.  We have entered into formal arrangements with our friends at Back Bay to begin our long-awaited Film Series this coming season.  And we continue hand-crafting programs to fit every need, every request.  We now offer a personalized weekly class for teen boys in Gemara/Talmud.  This past year, for the first time, our pre-teens in junior high enjoyed our two weekly afternoon classes: one, in Hebrew reading and writing, the other in Chumash and Rashi.  And we learn in the text. Our teens continue meeting every week at The Coffee Bean with our Teen Leader, Jared.

It has been a year of wonderful personal stories.  Dennis’s daughter, Leora, gave birth to twin girls.  Fred and Roksana are at three.  Yaeli patiently awaits news from Moriah and Shlomi.  What a year for Ken and Barbara – grandsons with Jennifer and Dana.  And Ruth and Steve:  Lewis and Laila brought in a daughter two months ago; Jacquelyn and Lev brought in an East Coast boychik; Victoria and Rick (who was one of our witnesses at this year’s Chametz Sale) are slated to marry on Labor Day weekend.  Cora just returned from helping Brie get started for medical school in St. Louis. Seth and Debbie experience the bittersweet, as Max finishes high school and leaves the nest, but first goes to Israel for a year of Torah study and living and experiencing the land with friends in a great program, even as Aharon has returned from his year of Torah study (and experiencing the strange sociology of cab drivers) in Israel.  Ricky will be starting college in Arizona, Aharon in Massachusetts.  Peter and Valerie have shared great and deserved pride in Josh’s stint in Israel.  We also shared with Oded and June in their enormous pride as Shani made Aliyah, with Hannah preparing to follow later in the year.

It was a year when we met Ron and Rina, on Sabbatical at UCI, who became part of our lives. Now we welcome Marcos, as he begins his year of post-doc biology research at UCI.  Jaci spent a year in Israel, learning and studying, now returned.  Candice and Byron married, while Alan now has become a regular pillar of our Friday night services. Trevor has become a regular leader of services, as well as a pillar of our minyanim.

It has been a fabulous year of growth – both individually and for our shul.  Thank you all.

Rabbi Dov Fischer