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A special Yom HaShoah gathering

SJC is a proud Community Partner of the Holocaust Center for Humanity's new exhibit: Let Me Be Myself: The Life Story of Anne Frank. In observance of Yom HaShoah (Jewish Holocaust Remembrance Day), the Circle will be touring the exhibit as a community on Thursday, April 24th.

Tickets are required, but you may reserve them either online in advance, or in person at the door. While the Holocaust Center has a suggested donation amount for tickets ($12/person or $7/person for verifiable students, seniors and veterans), to ensure as many people as possible are able to experience the exhibit, they're offering a "Pay What You Can" option; making it accessible even for those who can't afford any donation at all.

Reserve your tickets today!

With spring comes renewal... 🌸

SJC hosted its annual Secular Humanistic Passover Seder on Sunday, April 13th at a new venue with a refreshed, even more inclusive Haggadah! 🍷 The venue unfortunately did not allow candlelighting, due to all the historical murals in the hall having been recently restored, but fortunately, we had a young Hogwarts witch in attendance who knew alohomora and could magically light up everyone's tables!

Thanks go out to everyone who made this event so special: Education Director Deirdre O'Dwyer and longtime member Tina crafted artistic, floral centerpieces for the tables, Madrikh Jeff Treistman's spouse volunteered to lead all the singing portions of the Haggadah, and longtime volunteer Dana graciously volunteered to manage the chaotic trash/recycle/compost organization and disposal at the end of the event, to name just a few Huge Helpers. And as always, we can't forget to thank everyone who arrived early to help set up, who stayed late to help clean up, and who contributed to the potluck! These events don't happen without you!!

Want to ensure we can continue to host secular humanistic Jewish cultural events like this around the 'Sound? Consider volunteering with us! We have several roles we're looking to fill urgently!

Get involved with SJC today!

 

A Successful Purim Party! 🎭🎲

Thanks to all who attended our first self-hosted Purim event since the pandemic! Inline with this Hebrew year's event enrollment trends, registrations again exceeded expectations! (And honestly, attendance pushed the occupancy limits of the space we'd rented...!)

Our Madrikh Jeff Treistman gave a contextual, humanistic history of the holiday, our Education Director Deirdre O'Dwyer manned a noisy (and delightfully messy!) grogger painting station, and attendees of all ages participated in a live spiel recounting the classic tale. Huge thanks to all the brave kids who stepped up to participate, and to all the adults whose enthusiastic performances kept the spiel engaging and lively for everyone!

 

Happy New Year, Trees!🌲

This year's Tu Bishvat ceremony and environmental action event was a huge success! SJC and Mitzvah Secular Sunday School families met up at the Kingfisher Natural Area in North Seattle on Sunday, February 9th to do some good in our community.

Our ordained Madrikh, Jeff Treistman, led a brief standing seder over light snacks of trail mix and juice, followed by a tree-planting ceremony. Typically, this is the only tree we are able to plant at this event, given Seattle's typical frigid January/February weather, but the weather was so uncharacteristically fortuitous that day that we were actually able to permit attendees to plant many of their own trees as well! Following the holiday programming, GSP's trained steward Rick Swing led some invasive species removal and planting of new, native plantlife in the natural area.

Coming up in March, we'll be hosting our own Purim event for the first time in years, and it's bound to be a ton of fun for all ages! We went with a "game night" theme for this year. Save the date!

Get involved with SJC today!

 

Despite the awkward timing, astounding turnout for Hanukkah!

Despite Hanukkah falling on Christmas day and continuing straight through New Year's this year, forcing our annual Hanukkah celebration to fall squarely during winter break, we still had record registration and turnout for this event! Thanks to EVERYONE who chose to spend their cherished holidays with us!!

Making the glow  of everyone's menorahs, the hum of spinning dreidels and the patter of exchanged gelt even more special were our valued volunteers. We had a full kitchen of passionate chefs, manning five separate griddles simultaneously to fry fresh latkes for everyone, and at least a dozen families who arrived early to help set up and decorate.

2025 will be a challenging year politically, so it will be imperative we come together in our downtime to support our communities and foment positive change. To that end, we hope to see you all at our upcoming Tu Bishvat environmental action event next month! Save the date!

Get involved with SJC today!

 

SJC Sukkot wrap-up!

Photo of Sukkah from 2024 holiday with branches and vegetation bound to skeleton of canopy, with beautiful decorations added.

After years of hiatus, Sukkot has returned to the SJC! We hosted a warm and welcoming Sukkot potluck at a local public park on 10/19. We erected a canopy frame as a base and worked together to adorn it with foliage (the recent blustery weather provided lots of branches and leaves) and decorations crafted by our talented Sunday School students!

 

Wondering what's in store for 5785?

By popular demand, we've added our full base event schedule for the 5785 Jewish calendar year to the website. Check out what we've got cooked up!

We want to stress that this is our BASE schedule...there will likely be more events than this, depending on the level of engagement we see from the community this year.

 

Fremont Fair 2024 & planning for 5785!

Despite the rocky geopolitical climate, we had an amazing turnout at Fremont Fair this year! We had double the booth volunteers compared to last year and had many thought-provoking conversations about the importance of the separation of church and state, what it means to be a Jew, and how we can best support and give back to our communities. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who stopped by to say hi or help us staff the booth, and to everyone who saw our booth and looked us up to learn more or engage our community. Welcome! We're fortunate to have you with us and hope you find meaning in our programming!

On Saturday, July 6th, we'll be holding our annual planning meeting for 5785. Once we have a rough schedule planned, we will post it here on the home page, alongside our updated membership and Sunday School pricing. Anything you want us to discuss or take into consideration when planning for next year? Shoot us an email at info@secularjewishcircle.org and let us know! Your feedback shapes this community.

See you all in 5785!

Fri, 25 April 2025