Roo September 2009 Edition

AAUSY

The AAUSY ‘ROO September 2009 Edition

Edited By: The 2009-2010 AAUSY Communications VP Drew Lieberman

The AAUSY ‘Roo September 2009 Table of Contents: Welcome to USY!...............................................................3 Upcoming Events……………………………………………..4 Advisory………………………………………………………..5 REC Rules…………………………………………………….5 A Word from the President…………………………………..6 Kadima Krazed…...............................................................6 Israel Update………………………………………………….7 Pictures………………………………………………………..7 That’s So SATO………………………………………………8 Legend vs. Life……………………………………………….9 AAUSY Crossword………………………………………….10

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Welcome to USY! What is USY? USY stands for United Synagogue Youth. It is the official youth branch of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. The Agudas Achim Synagogue chapter, AAUSY, belongs to the Southwest USY Region known as SWUSY, which encompasses all USY chapters in Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana. What do we do in AAUSY? Our local Austin chapter of USY, AAUSY, usually has events twice a month. Programming ranges anywhere from fun social events, like a Chinese New Year Party or broomball, to religious events, like a Sukkot gathering or USY Shabbat services, to community service projects and exciting Israel programs. In addition, the SWUSY Region hosts 3 regional conventions throughout the school year that bring together Jewish teenagers from all over the Southwestern United States for several days of fun-filled activities, making new friends, and of course, davening (that means praying) SWUSY-style! How can I stay informed about AAUSY? There are several ways to ensure that you are up-to-date on all things USY! Firstly, make sure that both your personal e-mail address and one of your parents’ e-mail addresses are part of the listserve! Listserve is a helpful tool that we use to send e-mails to everyone in AAUSY at once. To have your e-mail added to the listserve, send an e-mail to Sarah Laves at [email protected]. Is AAUSY on Facebook? Absolutely! In fact, one of the very best ways to stay up-to-date on AAUSY is to join both the AAUSY facebook group, and the SWUSY facebook group. Joining both will ensure that you receive online invitations (and can RSVP online) to all chapter and regional events. We also recently have added a facebook page so you can become a fan of AAUSY and hear about upcoming events. And AAUSY is on twitter as well. 3

Who is in charge of AAUSY? AAUSY is led by our two advisors, Samantha Tugentman and Maury Jacobs, who are both former students at the University of Texas at Austin. AAUSY is also run by a seven member chapter executive board, which is elected in May of each year. The board positions are President, Religious Education and Culture VP, Israel Affairs VP, Membership/Kadima VP, Social Action/Tikkun Olam VP, Communications VP, and Outreach VP. There is also a chapter general board, which is chosen at the beginning of each school year by the chapter executive board.

Upcoming Events On Saturday September 26th AAUSY will be meeting at the Dimston’s house (4405 Bunny Run) at 8:00 pm to do havdallah, have a pizza making competition and have fun in the pool. The event is expected to go until 10:30 PM

On Sunday October 11th, AAUSY will have a social action community service event with the Kadimaniks which means anyone grade 6th to 12th may attend. The event is to be announced.

From Friday October 23rd to Sunday October 25th AAUSY will be at Fall Kallah for the first open SWUSY region convention of the year!! It will be near Fort Worth,Texas.

Advisory We are thrilled to start our third year as AAUSY advisors and what a great start it is off to! Our "Freshman Kidnap" event was such an awesome success, and will hopefully be a tradition to last in AAUSY for years to come. Our freshman are an 4

integral part of our chapter, and we are so happy we could give them an amazing experience to welcome them to our AAUSY family. We are very proud of our chapter board thus far as they just attended a convention at Greene Family camp (along with two other lucky AAUSYites Nathan Sorkin and Moshe Krumholz) where they focused on leadership training. We look forward to seeing their leadership skills strengthen and progress as the year continues. Again, we are so excited for this upcoming year and all of the fun and creative events to come! With love from AAUSY, we wish you a happy and sweet New Year! L'Shana Tova, Samantha and Maury

REC RULES Hey you guys, so as many of you have probably heard by now its Rosh Hashanah, so break out the pomegranates and shofars.

This is the beginning of the Jewish

calendar; Rosh Hashanah

literally means the head of the year. It is

said that during this period of

time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom

Kippur G-d decides whom

will live and die for the year, so during this

time we should be doing our

best to right any wrongs in our lives and

apologize to people we may

have offended. Even though it is a holiday

about life and death it is also about hope for the New Year. Coming up soon afterwards is Yom Kippur; its English meaning is “Day of Atonement.” This is when we focus around Atonement and repentance, and it is special because during the day we are fasting for the next 24 hours. Yom Kippur is typically celebrated on the tenth day of Tishri, as Jews we seek forgiveness for any wrongs we have done against G-d. Ari Dimston 2009-2010 AAUSY Religion, Education and Culture VP

A Word from the President Shalom! This month has definately been an eventful one. AAUSY had our first real event of the year the freshmen kidnapping. It was a ton of fun, as we got to split up and surprised all of the 5

freshmen late Saturday night. Broomball was crazy also, as we split up into teams, got on the ice with tennis shoes on, and played! Afterwards, we got to relax and eat some ice cream. It was a blast getting to play on ice, and meeting all the new freshmen and new members. Our next event is going to be a cooking competition on September 27th! I hope to see everyone there! Sarah Laves AAUSY President '09-'10

Kadima Krazed We had our first Kadima event of the year just a few weeks ago and it was a huge hit! With about 20 kids participating in the Barton Creek Mall scavenger hunt the competition was intense between the 3 competing teams. After the scavenger hunt we finished off the event with some delicious ice cream from Marble Slab. Recently we had our USY kickoff event, Operation Sweep! It was a blast! We “kidnapped” the freshman and took them to Chaparral Ice rink by Northcross mall to play broomball. We introduced them to the excitement and fun of being a USYer. The event was a huge hit as we played an hour of an amazing broomball game! Everyone loved it and had a great time. While people were off the rink they got to talk and laugh with friends and meet new people. After broomball everyone went to Sam’s Courtyard to finish the event off with ice cream while everyone socialized! Elijah Price 2009-2010 AAUSY Membership/Kadima VP

Israel Update One of my favorite times on Pilgrimage was our first Shabbat in Israel. We started Kab Shab and Mariv just outside of The Old City walls, at Yemin Moshe. As the sun set you could actually see why Jerusalem is The City of Gold; it was breathtaking. We walked back to Agron singing and dancing to welcome the spirit of Shabbat. Dinner was followed by more ruach and dancing and then some delicious Mazipan Bakery treats. After my group said their goodnights to each other my roommates and I went back to our room. Not all the rooms at Agron have balconies but we were in a luckier room. My first Shabbat room had some of my best friends from my trip, after curfew we all got on the balcony for girl talk and brownies from the care package my friend’s parents sent her. We sat outside for about 2 hours after we were supposed to be in bed. We dodged the people passing underneath and then breaking out in fit of laughter when we thought they were gone after being silent so long. It was probably one of the best nights of my Poland/ Israel Pilgrimage trip. Aimee Kanter 2009-2010 AAUSY Israel Affairs VP 6

Pictures

Advisor Maury Jacobs gets into the Game

AAUSY Broomball

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2009-2010 AAUSY Communications VP Drew Lieberman at LTI

That’s So SATO Hey everybody! My name is Nathan and I am running to be AAUSY’s new SATO. I think its going be a great year for AAUSY. In the past year I’ve started getting more involved in USY and I would love to be a bigger part of the chapter. As Social Action Tikkun Olam VP I will help plan some community service events for AAUSY. The first planned strictly SATO event will be held on October 11th and will be a USY and Kadima wide event for grades 6th-12th. Also our region SWUSY is participating in a SATO event with TOMS shoes. Every pair of TOMS shoes bought donates a pair of shoes to a child in need in a third-world country, and our region is trying to have our members buy 250 pairs of shoes for the year. For more information about TOMS shoes visit the SWUSY homepage at www.swusy.weebly.com. Sincerely, Nathan Sorkin Temporary 2009-2010 AAUSY Social Action/ Tikun Olam VP

Legend VS Life This Month’s Matchup: UNICORN VS. NARWHAL Good day, and welcome to the first issue of Legend VS Life, the only article (as far as I know) that pits mice and men against centaurs and Sirens. This month’s matchup: From the land of Legend and Lore comes the mighty and majestic Unicorn. Whereas from the side of confirmed fact comes the eloquent and elegant Narwhal. It’s no coincidence that I’ve matched these two creatures together, for they both bear a similar trait: Upon their foreheads is a large horn. Let’s go over the basic facts of our two creatures here. The tales of the Unicorns (Monocerus) go all the way back to the days of Greek Mythology, being found not in myths but rather in accounts of natural history by the Greeks, claiming to have first found them in India. Nowadays, the tales of Unicorns have spread far and wide, saying 8

that they could only be captured and tamed by virgin females and that their horn could cure various poisons. The narwhal (Monodon monocerous) is a medium-sized toothed whale, more closely related to the Beluga whale. They live year-round in the Arctic, found primarily in Canadian Arctic and Greenlandic waters. Besides their horn, their most notable trait is their ability to dive deep underwater, some records indicating even up to 2,400 feet underwater. So now, the Unicorn and the Narwhal clash. All in all, it depends on where the battlefield is. If the fight were to take place on land, the Unicorn would be in its prime. However, if such a fight were to take place in the water, the Narwhal would win, no doubt. It’s difficult to interpret such a fight, considering the two species cannot really fight on an equal plane. So, because of such, we’re going to call this fight a TIE. So, until next time, keep dreaming, true believers! Sincerely, Louis Lutes 2009-2010 AAUSY Outreach

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ACROSS 3 AAUSY's Advisors 7 AAUSY's Israel Affairs VP 1 AAUSY's Comm 0 11 AAUSY's First event of 2009 1 AAUSY's mascot 2

DOWN 1 AAUSY's Temporary SATO 2 AAUSY's Mem-Kad 4 AAUSY Annual Fundraiser 5 AAUSY's REC 6 AAUSY's Outreach 8 President of AAUSY 9 Region AAUSY is in

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