In this Issue:

• Tzedakah Spotlight Event

• Volunteer: Mitzvah Opportunities

• Newsletter for Young Familes

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Check out photos from past events.

Please join us for an informative and meaningful evening on Wednesday, April 1, for the 2009 Tzedakah Spotlight event at a private home in Chicago. Our featured speaker, Rotem Yehudai, an Israeli teen living in Sderot, will share her compelling story of perseverance and hope amidst constant Hamas rocket attacks. Jay Tcath, JUF’s Senior Vice President for Public Affairs, will provide a briefing on the current situation, our community’s advocacy efforts and an update from a mid-March counter-terrorism trip to Israel with senior officers of the Chicago Police Department.

This event celebrates women who make an individual gift of $250 or more to the 2009 Jewish United Fund-Israel Emergency Fund (the gift can be paid in installments and is not due in full until December of 2009). Couvert - $36. Register online.

In conjunction with JUF’s Tikkun Olam Network (TOV), the Young Women’s City (YWC) Council coordinates special volunteer opportunities for groups of women throughout the year. Locations will be announced upon receipt of reservations. Limited spaces are available for each program. Please contact Elissa at YWCcouncil@juf.org for more information or to RSVP.

Deliver Passover Food Packages
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Location released as date approaches
9:00 – 11:00 a.m.
Family Friendly

Maot Chitim of Greater Chicago provides food to needy Jewish people in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs for Passover and Rosh Hashanah so that they may observe the holidays in a traditional and dignified manner. Volunteers will meet a truck at an apartment building and distribute food boxes to individuals’ apartments.

Volunteers are needed to deliver packages to clients’ homes.

JUF Uptown Cafe
Thursday, May 21, 2009
909 W. Wilson, Chicago
5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Adults only

The JUF Uptown Cafe is coordinated by the Dina and Eli EZRA Multi-Service Center under the auspices of the Jewish Community Centers of Chicago. This cafe, which is a kosher, anti-hunger program, provides 4 meals per week to people who are hungry while nourishing their spirits.

Volunteers are needed to serve food and converse with guests at their tables.

Beautify a Jewish Child and Family Services group home facility & make meaningful crafts
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Location confidential – will be released once signed up.
1:00 – 3:30 p.m.
Family Friendly
Cost: $18 per participant for Glazed Expression supplies

Jewish Child and Family Services (JCFS) runs numerous group homes for foster children and disabled adults in the city of Chicago. You can put smiles on the faces of those in need by planting a beautiful garden at a JCFS facility in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. Then spend the remainder of the time painting a new set of dishes for the JCFS facility, in partnership with Glazed Expressions.

Families with young children! There’s a new e-newsletter especially for you that highlights programs of JUF and its agencies that are available for young families in addition to informative and interesting articles.

The Shofar, an ancient instrument usually made from a ram's horn, is used during the Jewish high holiday services of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. When the shofar is blown, its loud sound attracts the attention of worshippers. So too, we hope that The Shofar e-newsletter will attract your attention and interest in Chicago's Jewish community's programs for you and your young children.

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