Home

SHABBAT MORNING SERVICES - 1/4

Join us for Shabbat Morning Services on Saturday, January 4 at 9:15 am at Friends Meeting of Washington (2111 Decatur Pl NW). Kids programming will begin at 10:30 am.

Kiddush (with vegetarian cholent!) is sponsored by

Eliana Fishman and Isaac Brooks Fishman to mark one year from Isaac's kidney donation. Isaac encourages those who are able to consider kidney donation and would love to discuss the donation process with people over kiddush.

Darlena Stark-Naor and Michael Naor in honor of new beginnings.

FRIDAY NIGHT SERVICES  - 1/10

Join us for Friday night davening on Friday, January 10 at 6:00 pm at The Chastleton (1701 16th St NW).

FAMILY KABBALAT SHABBAT AND COMMUNITY DINNER

We are seeking 1–2 volunteers to coordinate an upcoming Family Kabbalat Shabbat and Community Dinner on Friday, January 24. Coordinators will oversee the following, in partnership with the Programming and Lifecycle chairs and other volunteers:

• Food ordering
• Creating a registration form (using drafts from past years)
• Creating name tags
• Supporting additional logistics

Please contact programming@dcminyan.org or volunteer@dcminyan.org to express interest.

SHABBATON PLANNING COMMITTEE

The DC Minyan Shabbaton will take place March 14–16, 2025, and we are looking for volunteers to help plan it! If you’re interested in helping with Shabbaton recruitment, programming, logistics, or fundraising, email shabbaton@dcminyan.org.

Hi DC Minyan. It’s that time of the year… Shall we begin? 

🎶 DC MINYAN WRAPPED 2024 🎶

Life moves fast. Luckily we took some notes. You had:

82 new members 👫
6 engagements 💍
4 aufrufs 🫶
2 b’nei mitzah 📖
1 Baby Minyan, Class of 2037: Shai, Eitan, Maya, Nava, Micah, Bernie, Nessa, Elizabeth, Dafna, and Ori

Davening can be long but you stuck through it. You listened to approximately 216 minutes of Anim Zmirot this year — shtark!

You sent approximately 4,786 messages in the DC Minyan WhatsApp this year and only 8 were political. Wow!

We emailed 56,004 weekly Announcement...and you opened 73.9% of them! 🙏🙏🙏

While it’s not a competition… there is a leaderboard. The top recipients of the DC Minyan Programming Survey reminder email in 2024 were: 
Sandra Marks - 104
Katie Hyman - 568 
Rafi Cohen - “somewhere in the 700s” 

You’ve changed. And so have your melodies:

This year’s Kedusha tunes ranged from Neo-Yeshiva Prayer Pop to Kiddush Klezmer Wedding Revival to Eastcoast Egal Geshmak Tubi Yiddish.

Who else got a big shout-out?
 

DC Minyan Deeds & Jewish Goals Unlocked!

• The members of the DC Minyan Mishnah Club completed learning three tractates of Mishnah (Avodah Zarah, Sanhedrin, Moed Katan)
• Jessica Goldkind led a DC Minyan Sukkah Hop group for the first time
• Stephanie Schneiderman rejoined the Shabbaton Committee AND took on a longer-term volunteer role for the first time as DC Minyan D’var Torah Coordinator [If you too would like to volunteer with DC Minyan, contact volunteer@dcminyan.org to discuss opportunities!]
• Jeremy Shur went to shul more than he ever has in his life, thanks to the amazing and contagious spirit of DC Minyan
• Charles Koppelman-Milstein, along with Shalom Flank, finished learning the mishnayot in Seder Zerayim
• Joshua Matz led his first ever shiur at DC Minyan’s Tikkun Leil Shavuot on Jewish religious freedom objections to abortion bans, in addition to successfully representing E. Jean Carroll in her defamation trial against Donald J. Trump and helping negotiate a settlement with Florida that nullified many discriminatory impacts of the "Don't Say Gay" law
• Ariella Bock and Julia Zuckerman doled out more than 650 lollipops to DC Minyan kids (and adults) during davening 
• Michael Freiman sent a seemingly unending stream of calendar minutiae to the DC Minyan WhatsApp
• Ayelet Weiss learned to lead Shabbat Mincha
• Ben Rosenbaum baked 90 challot
• Jordy Snyder absolutely crushed her DC Minyan Purim costume three days before giving birth and traveled to Japan with B’nai B’rith

Workplace Achievements

• Stephanie Schwartz taught her first graduate course in Museum Fundraising at George Washington University’s Corcoran School of the Arts & Design
• Margarita Bronshteyn published an analysis of never-before-released data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics on sentence length and time served for a variety of offenses — now available to the general public in an accessible way
• Jael Goldstein completed her first decade of teaching in June and published a lesson plan with the National Women’s History Museum 
• Nicole Cox secured a permanent job at National Defense University
• Luisa Moss became the Associate Religious School Director at Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church
• Yael Schoenbaum started a new role as the regional OneTable field manager (host a Shabbat meal!) and landed the lead role in an upcoming play (come to the show!)
• Micah Szubin started his first internship, at Fantom Comics in Dupont Circle
• Benjamin Epstein started a new job as a scientist at Precigen, Inc.
• Ayal Subar edited five broadcasted television episodes on PBS — newest episode drops tonight, December 31, 2024! 
• Hillel Smith made more than 1,800 square feet of big new art in pieces for DDOT (mural at 9th & S and 8th & S); Dorothy Height Elementary DCPS; Congregation Beth Ahm in West Bloomfield, Michigan; the Jerusalem Biennale art festival; and the Edlavitch DCJCC sukkah (with help from Asher Smith-Matz and Berek Solomon-Tessler)
• Daniel Michelson-Horowitz received Public Service Loan Forgiveness after ten long years as a government bureaucrat
• Zach Epstein and Eytan Deener-Agus's team beat Michigan's expected early youth voter turnout in the 2024 presidential election by 255%!… to mixed results
• Miriam Cross landed a new job after her first and only stab at applying through USAJobs.gov (partly thanks to some tips shared in the DC Minyan WhatsApp group!)

Journeys, Literal and Figurative

• A number of personalized items originally belonging to Micah Szubin continued their rotation from former DC Minyan member Shira Margol's son Micah to Becca Tanen and Jesse Rabinowitz’s son Micah Rabinowitz
• Noam Kutler collected seven passport stamps this year, including five from Japan
• Akiva Fishman and Amalia Fishman mapped more than 380 Little Free Libraries within a one-hour walking radius of home
• Raz and Ori Brenner Peltz graduated from the NICU on January 11
• Kaylin Bugos completed a 2024 Pasta Quest, creating delicious dishes with 52 different pasta shapes
• Michael Levin is hopeful for better days ahead after recently returning from Israel to celebrate the bar mitzvah of a young cousin whom he first met in Jerusalem on October 6, 2023
• The Romirowsky family had their first family trip to Israel
• Sara and Julian Kritz swam with turtles in Hawaii. Julian collected a series of stuffed turtles, including one with a tiny kippah
• Maya Nason achieved a 100% lifetime DC Minyan Shabbaton attendance record, in addition to managing a 10-day trip to France (pro tip from her parents: traveling with a baby is great when there’s wine!) 

Literary Triumphs & Artistic Accolades

• Rafi Cohen wrote 16 articles in five different publications 
• Nathan Szubin organized the library at the Montana Jewish Project
• Hadar Litwin Berkley read the entire Harry Potter series
• Judah Schwartz Kutler (7) learned to read and is plowing through Harry Potter! He’s currently on book five
• Jessica Goldkind taught 50 kids to read (among other skills) and read more than 200 books to first-graders 
• Tamara Litwin learned to knit
• Sarah Koralnik crocheted 10+ wearable items (and unfortunately is incapable of not saying "Thanks, I made it!" when someone compliments her sweater), and earned her certification in Executive Coaching, after 1.5 years of classes and practice hours!

Feats of Fitness

• The 20+ members of the DC Minyan Strava Group ran a total of 7728.5 miles. Join the DC Minyan running group here!
• Mo Pasternak visited 282 Capital Bikeshare stations, reaching the top 1% of Capital Bikeshare users 
• Nadav Karasov ran a personal record time at Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota
• Michael Tomer ran the New York City marathon, fundraising for Shalva, an organization for children with Down syndrome in Israel. He completed the marathon in under three hours, while using the time efficiently to catch up with friends and family on the phone while running!
• Jon Dine swam/biked/ran his first triathlon
• Adi Friedman-Roth ran a 5K (together with Rivka Friedman)
• Josiah Szubin took his parents sailing for the first time
• Maya Litwin Berkley learned to swim and to ride a bike
• Orly Litwin Berkley learned to walk and to talk

#RelationshipGoals

• Michael Freiman marked 13 years of friendship with Charles Koppelman-Milstein (“Our friendship is now a Jewish adult!”)
• The Koppelman-Milstein family welcomed a new member, dog Milo Moshe 
• Luisa Moss became an aunt to Penelope Cecile Moss
• Miriam Szubin officiated a wedding for the first time
• Adam Szubin celebrated 20 great years of being married to Miriam Szubin
• Ken and Nicole Cox celebrated their 21st wedding anniversary

Accomplishments of All Kinds

• Ben Greenberg and Jael Goldstein tallied twenty-two turtles on the Towpath! (That is, they saw 22 turtles on the C&O Canal Towpath on the same day — a record and an excuse for alliteration)
• Marci Bayer bought a condo
• William Koppelman-Milstein is pleased that his brother, Joshua, graduated from speech therapy
• Josh Koppelman-Milstein is proud that he ate more than 60 hotdogs in 12 days of sleepaway camp
• Josh Nason won his first championship in the DCSTL Fantasy Football League, founded 11 years ago at DC Minyan
• Rachel Lipman has successfully cat-sat a board member’s cat Oscar for more than four months without her original owner noticing that she has no plans to give her back

Pictured: Oscar aptly enjoying Joey Weisenberg at the Hadar Rising Song concert

• Amanda Baia Campos tried her first black-and-white cookie (she liked it!)
• Lev Chudnow Nagar exponentially increased his knowledge of safari animals, the famed "Dinosaurus Rex," and most importantly discovered "chelokat"
• Asher Smith-Matz learned all his ABCDs, knows 12 colors, can count to twelveteen (it comes after eighteen), and met the mayor of Beverly Hills
• Eytan Deener-Agus successfully went a full year without one bike being stolen — but when it comes to electric waffle makers… reached all-time highs
• Karen Toomasian purchased and assembled at least three pieces of furniture this year — NONE were from IKEA

Thank you for being a part of this community in 2024. Whether it’s your first year or 22nd, we are so glad you are here with us. See you next year!