After a successful ten-part series directed to a kollel in Melbourne, Australia, and another program to Norfolk, Virginia for school children, OU Kosher’s Harry H. Beren ASK OU Skype program will once again present OU rabbinical experts in New York lecturing to a distant audience, in this case the Denver Academy of Torah (DAT) Minyan in Denver. The three-part program begins Motza’ei Shabbat, November 15 at 7:30 p.m. Denver time, 9:30 in New York, when Rabbi Chaim Loike, OU Kosher expert on our fine, feathered friends, will provide a session on “The Mesorah of Kosher Birds and Animals.”
The three sessions will take place at the DAT Minyan, 6825 East Alameda Ave.
According to Howard Shapiro, immediate past president of the DAT Minyan, “The potential audience will be the entire DAT community which consists of the DAT Minyan, a 150-member unit congregation on the east side of Denver, as well as the Denver Academy of Torah, a K-12 school with about 170 students.”
Follow-up programs will be January 17, 2015 at 7:00 p.m. Denver time, when Rabbi Avrohom Juravel will speak on “Reading and Understanding the Ingredient Panel.” Then, on February 21, Rabbi Dov Schreier will discuss “Eating Out” at 7:30 p.m.
The Skype initiative is sponsored by the Harry H. Beren Foundation of New Jersey. Rabbi Yosef Grossman, Senior Educational Rabbinic Coordinator of OU Kosher, has organized the program, as he did the Melbourne and Norfolk editions. He declared, “It is most gratifying, following our highly successful ten-part Harry H. Beren ASK OU Kosher Skype series to Melbourne as well as one to Norfolk, that we are now beginning a three-part Skype series to Denver. Through modern technology we are able to share the kashrut expertise of our OU experts to the four corners of the world. We are most pleased to be able to strengthen kashrut knowledge and practice globally.”
The Melbourne sessions were presented in the evening in New York by the OU experts, and watched live the next morning in Australia, by the well-rested students and rabbis.
Welcoming the program, Rabbi Daniel Alter, Head of School and Acting Rabbi of DAT Minyan, said, “Our community has embarked on an ambitious and exciting project, a communal kashrut theme. This means that the school will be learning halachot of kashrut as well as chullin, and that classes on these topics are available for adults of all levels as well. We are thrilled that the OU can serve as a resource and partner to us in providing a number of Skype classes on topics of interest from leading experts.”
Rabbi Alter is a past graduate of the Beren ASK OU summer seminars for rabbis and advanced rabbinical students who want to further their knowledge of practical kashrut, either to enter the field of supervision, or to better advise their communities on the intricacies of kosher law and its modern applications. “Rabbi Alter has been at the forefront of this program,” said Mr. Shapiro. “Having an educational theme of kashrut for our community was his idea. The idea is to raise awareness of the importance of kashrut, explore some of its complexity, and help refine our community’s level of observance.”
The program is being organized at DAT by Mr. Shapiro, who is now on the board of the DAT Minyan and serves on the Adult Education committee. “This initiative has truly been a team effort, of which I play a small part,” he said. “There are several individuals involved in the program: Rachel Rabinovitch who heads the Adult Ed committee, Terry Samuel, Rabbi Alter, Rabbi Michael Sunshine (Shabbat Teen Coordinator), and Noam Horowitz. Each person has taken a different piece of the program to make it successful. I was tasked with reaching out to the OU and local kashrut agencies and coordinating their participation in a variety of kashrut-themed events throughout the year.”
He can be reached at Howieshapiro@gmail.com. The synagogue phone number is 303-281-8999. Rabbi Grossman is available grossmany@ou.org. or 212-613-8212.