By Cindy Mindell ~

Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz

In addition to the traditional monthly blessing recited in synagogues to welcome the new Jewish month, many congregations and Jewish organizations sponsor women’s Rosh Chodesh groups that meet monthly to mark the holiday with learning, discussion, and hands-on activities. There are several throughout Connecticut, most of them open to the community.
The Rosh Chodesh group at Congregation B’nai Israel in Bridgeport was created in 1995 by a student rabbi and several congregants. The group was led by a series of rabbinic students from Hebrew Union College in New York until Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz joined the staff in 2006.
An intergenerational gathering of women, the B’nai Israel group meets once a month from October to May to study and share in each other’s lives, starting each meeting with candle-lighting and music. “In this way, it feels very different to many study groups,” Gurevitz says. “The ultimate goal is to support and foster the inner spiritual life of women in a communal context.”
Group members usually choose an annual theme; this year, they are studying biblical women role models. Four years ago, the group initiated an annual women’s seder and day-long women’s spirituality retreat.
The Fairfield County Women’s Rosh Chodesh Group, sponsored by Beth Israel of Westport/Norwalk, was founded in 2002 by Freida Hecht.
“Growing up in Crown Heights as a disciple of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, I was infused with the Rebbe’s teachings based on Torah values,” Hecht says. “The Rebbe often spoke about the power and influence of the Jewish woman and the feminine soul. To be endowed with these abilities imparts both a responsibility and privilege upon Jewish women for them to influence their families with Torah values and to help inspire and nurture a more moral and ethical society. Women are the foundation of the home and of the universe, so the world is dependent on their direction and input.”
Hecht came to Norwalk in 1984 with her husband, Rabbi Yehoshua Hecht, to lead Beth Israel. “I would meet women in the community who were highly intelligent and accomplished and yet never had the opportunity to study Torah, or have access to the inner teachings of Chassidism, Jewish mysticism, and

Rabbi Debra Cantor

Kabbalah,” she says. “I wanted to create a platform for women to connect with their spiritual selves and form a closer relationship with their inner souls, while meeting and socializing with their peers. This was especially important for woman in their 30s and 40s, busy with raising children at home and juggling so many responsibilities at the same time.”
Cantor Dorothy Goldberg is founder of the Rosh Chodesh group at Congregation Kol Ami in Cheshire, as well as the current incarnation of the group at Temple Beth Tikvah in Madison.
“It’s a way of getting women together which is both social and spiritual,” Goldberg says. “There aren’t that many opportunities to have that particular combination. Women create very strong bonds to Rosh Chodesh because the subjects can be quite personal and we talk about our lives, so the experience becomes very intimate.”
When she joined the Beth Tikvah staff in 2000, Goldberg took over the existing Rosh Chodesh group from leader Rayzl Feuer. A decade later, Goldberg became cantor at Kol Ami, where she started a new group. Each meeting begins with candle-lighting and a short service, and ends with a prayer. Topics often reflect significant days in the Jewish calendar, or themes like renewal or ancestry.
Rabbi Debra Cantor of B’nai Tikvoh-Sholom in Bloomfield just started a women’s Rosh Chodesh group last year, focused on text study and open to women of all faiths. Over the first year, the group studied the seven female prophets listed by the Talmudic sages in Tractate Megillah.
At the end of the year, Cantor’s mother, Marion Basset Cantor, died, and the rabbi canceled the last session because she was sitting shiva. “My mother was a brilliant and voracious lifelong learner,”

Cantor Dorothy Goldberg

says Cantor. “She had so enjoyed the times she came to the Rosh Chodes group and had contributed enthusiastically to the discussion.”
Cantor decided to continue the Rosh Chodes group in her mother’s memory, renaming it the B’not Malka Rosh Chodes Group, after her mother’s Hebrew name.
Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz echoes a sentiment shared by many group facilitators. “For me, the highlights are always the ‘a-ha’ moments that we share when we see something we are studying so clearly resonating with our own deepest experiences,” she says. “The support for each other as members of the group have gone through challenging times in their lives is deeply moving and a significant part of the group. Yet, while some have come for many years and know each other well, we have always had new people join us and the group has been open and inviting as people come in and out of the group.”
Many Connecticut congregations host Rosh Chodesh groups for women.  To find out about groups in your community, contact your local congregation.