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TEMPLE BETH ISRAEL
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CONTENTS President's Message Save the Date: Passover Seder On Our Bookshelf A Year of Arts and Culture Giving that Sustains Our Work Reflections Spotlight on Service: Sheri Abrams In Memoriam LEADERSHIP Norm Berman, President Paula Rosenberg Bell, Pres Emerita Joel Rosenberg, Pres Emeritus Evert Gawendo, Vice President Rosa Goldblatt, Treasurer Sheri Abrams, Secretary Dora Glinn, Exec Committee Leah Abrams, Exec Committee Alicia Pion, Exec Committee Rachel Berman Eric Blumenthal Jeffrey Blumenthal Martin Drobiarz Richard Dvorin Elsie Fetterman Jacob Gawendo Michael Gawendo Matthew Goldblatt Rachel Goldblatt Vita Fetterman Goldstein Martin Israelit Henry Mondschein Bailey Rosenberg Nascimento Alan Turner Heather Drobiarz Waters Sherry Wiener ADVISORS Judy Engel David Fetterman Jack Hodys Rachel Sheppard Rubin James Weiss |
From Our President, Norm BermanWelcome to 2026. As we turn the page on a remarkable year, I do so with both gratitude and excitement. Our 75th anniversary is now behind us—a milestone that invited reflection and celebration but also marked a year of transition and preparation for what lies ahead. In 2025, TBIPS benefited from the work of Avianca Bouchedid, who helped move us into a new organizational era. She made us Salesforce-savvy, strengthened our internal systems, expanded our contacts by hundreds, helped secure new grant opportunities, and significantly broadened our educational outreach and connections to descendants of our founding families. Her work increased both our capacity and our reach. While we were sorry to see Avianca leave to become Executive Director of a major synagogue in New Jersey, we were proud of her achievement—and grateful that she left us with a detailed operating manual that continues to guide our work. We have since been fortunate to welcome Jett Adams, who has nearly seamlessly picked up where Avianca left off. Jett has embarked on refining and completing many initiatives already underway, reinvigorated our Yahrzeit program, integrated the Community Archive with our website, improved our narrative-collection tools, updated our Salesforce database, and is working to make the Community Archive far more accessible. Jett’s work is bringing clarity, momentum, and renewed focus to our core projects—including the publication of this newsletter. The past year also saw TBIPS deepen its presence in the wider community. We joined the Killingly Business Association, were interviewed on WINY radio, presented programs for Killingly’s Learning in Retirement QV, and played an active role in the local Interfaith Council. We participated in an interfaith rally for peace and a vigil against antisemitism organized by our friends at the Federated Church of Christ in Brooklyn, and we celebrated our 70th Annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Service—this year featuring the Preservation Society Singers. |
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Looking ahead, 2026 promises to be a pivotal year. We hope to publicly unveil the CommunityArchive, and we will need your help to continue gathering and organizing stories, photographs, and artifacts.
We also plan to expand our educational programs, grow our Rhythm Rendezvous concert series, and continue filling our historic building with learning, music, and spiritual life. This is an exciting moment for TBIPS. The foundations laid in 2025 position us well for the year ahead, and I am deeply grateful to our staff, board, volunteers, partners, and supporters. I look forward to what we will accomplish together in 2026. With appreciation and anticipation, Norman Berman |
Norman Berman, President
Temple Beth Israel Preservation Society |
Save the Date: Sunday, March 22nd at 2:00 PM
14th Annual Interfaith Community Passover Seder
The Temple Beth Israel Preservation Society warmly invites the entire community to join us for our 14th Annual Interfaith Community Passover Seder.
As in years past, this Seder will be a progressive, inclusive, and welcoming experience, reflecting the richness of our many backgrounds, faiths, and traditions. Whether you are Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, identify with another faith or belief system—or with none at all—you are welcome to take a seat at our table as we honor this ancient and enduring tradition together.
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Passover tells the story of the Exodus—the journey from bondage to freedom—and its message resonates far beyond any single community. At a time when freedoms long fought for and often taken for granted feel newly fragile, coming together in shared reflection and fellowship feels especially important.
We will follow the traditional Passover Seder structure, enriched with modern interpretations and reflections that speak to our contemporary lives and shared values. |
Together, we will explore the universal themes of freedom, justice, dignity, and solidarity—drawing connections across traditions to deepen our understanding of one another and of ourselves. Through reading,
discussion, and song, we will connect with friends and neighbors from across our interfaith community, building bridges of empathy and mutual respect.
This year’s Seder takes place during the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—a document that boldly proclaimed liberty, equality, and inherent human rights, and offered a vision of freedom that inspired generations. That promise, however, is not self-executing. In our own time, we see those ideals strained by the narrowing of freedoms, the erosion of constitutional protections, and the embrace of autocratic impulses. As we remember the Exodus, we do more than recount an ancient liberation; we affirm our shared responsibility to resist injustice, to reclaim freedoms that have been eroded, and to carry forward the unfinished work of liberty in the present moment.
Refreshments will include traditional Passover desserts, reflecting both the holiday and the diverse culinary heritage of our community.
We hope you will join us for an afternoon of learning, remembrance, conversation, and connection—an interfaith gathering rooted in tradition and alive to the moment in which we are living.
All are welcome. Admission is free.
discussion, and song, we will connect with friends and neighbors from across our interfaith community, building bridges of empathy and mutual respect.
This year’s Seder takes place during the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—a document that boldly proclaimed liberty, equality, and inherent human rights, and offered a vision of freedom that inspired generations. That promise, however, is not self-executing. In our own time, we see those ideals strained by the narrowing of freedoms, the erosion of constitutional protections, and the embrace of autocratic impulses. As we remember the Exodus, we do more than recount an ancient liberation; we affirm our shared responsibility to resist injustice, to reclaim freedoms that have been eroded, and to carry forward the unfinished work of liberty in the present moment.
Refreshments will include traditional Passover desserts, reflecting both the holiday and the diverse culinary heritage of our community.
We hope you will join us for an afternoon of learning, remembrance, conversation, and connection—an interfaith gathering rooted in tradition and alive to the moment in which we are living.
All are welcome. Admission is free.
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On Our Bookshelf: Survivors and Risen from the Ashes by Jacob Biber
Jacob Biber’s memoirs, Survivors and Risen from the Ashes, are remarkable testaments to endurance, faith, and renewal. In Survivors, Biber recounts his family’s harrowing journey through the Holocaust — from the destruction of their home in Poland to their struggle for life amid unimaginable loss. His writing is plainspoken yet deeply affecting, reminding readers that survival itself can be an act of resistance. In Risen from the Ashes, Biber turns to the years after liberation, chronicling the effort to rebuild shattered lives and communities. Here, resilience takes a different form--the courage to begin again, to reclaim dignity, and to believe in the possibility of a future. |
After arriving in the United States in 1947, Biber and his family settled in eastern Connecticut. He began as a dairy and poultry farmer in South Windham and later ran an egg production and distribution business in Preston. Through hard work and faith, he built a new life while remaining devoted to preserving Jewish memory and teaching the lessons of the Holocaust.
Many of our parents, farmers who later helped build Temple Beth Israel, knew Jacob Biber personally. His experiences — of survival, rebuilding, and community — mirrored their own, creating bonds that bridged shared histories of exile, labor, and faith. Together, Survivors and Risen from the Ashes form a powerful chronicle of Jewish perseverance and moral strength. Rooted in tragedy but illuminated by hope, Biber’s story reminds us of the enduring spirit that helped shape both our regional community and Temple Beth Israel itself.
Standing Recommendations
Don’t forget that our cookbook, featuring wonderful recipes from many of our parents and grandparents, Recipes Revival, remains available for purchase. And also, the inspiring Elsie Blumenthal Fetterman Story is available at Martinhermanauthor.com with $4 of every purchase being donated to the Preservation Society.
2026: A Year of Arts and Culture at Temple Beth Israel
As we look ahead to 2026, the Temple Beth Israel Preservation Society is excited to expand on Rhythm Rendezvous, elevating arts and culture in our community life. Launched in our 75th Anniversary year, this concert and performance series will bring new and exciting energy to our historic space.
At a recent board meeting, we voted to establish a new Arts and Culture Sub Committee to work with our Program Committee to develop plans for expanding the use of our historic building as a venue for performing arts, education, and entertainment. Alicia Pion and Leah Abrams, will help focus on bringing local talent and interesting ideas to the stage of our recently renovated community room.
Thanks to generous donations, our sound system is now truly concert-worthy, and the room itself is ideally suited for intimate performances to up to 100 audience members. This creates a rare and valuable opportunity: a welcoming, accessible space where musicians, storytellers, educators, and performers from our region can be heard, seen, and appreciated.
This initiative benefits the Preservation Society and the broader community. It allows us to activate our historic building in new and meaningful ways, ensuring it is not only preserved but lived in and enjoyed. At the same time, it enriches the cultural and social fabric of our town by offering opportunities for connection, creativity, and shared experience close to home.
Most importantly, this effort aligns squarely with our mission—to be a positive, engaged presence in our local community. By opening our doors to the arts, we honor our past while helping to shape a vibrant, inclusive future.
Most importantly, this effort aligns squarely with our mission—to be a positive, engaged presence in our local community. By opening our doors to the arts, we honor our past while helping to shape a vibrant, inclusive future.
Giving That Sustains Our Work
One of the quiet success stories of the past year has been the growing use of TBIPS’s online donation portal—a sign that more people are finding easy, meaningful ways to support our mission.
In 2025, 37 individuals made 54 online donations totaling $19,708, with April, June, and September emerging as our busiest giving months. These contributions have supported everything from helping to build our endowment to our Annual Campaign and Interfaith Community Seder, to the Aliyah Auction, High Holiday offerings, and Interfaith Thanksgiving Service.
Most recently, we improved the ability to make Yahrzeit donations through the portal, allowing members of our community to honor loved ones in a way that is both personal and sustaining for TBIPS. You can visit the portal at Preservation Society - Yahrzeit
Our secure website makes giving simple and flexible—and every contribution, large or small, helps keep our historic building active, our programs vibrant, and our mission moving forward. We are deeply grateful to everyone who has chosen to support TBIPS in this way.
Reflections on Memory, Fear, and Moral Courage
Norm Berman
Recent images and reporting of masked, heavily armed, and unidentified ICE agents deployed into American cities and towns have struck a deep and painful chord for many of us. For families who survived the Holocaust—and for their children and grandchildren—these scenes are not abstract or distant. They echo images etched into family memory: uniforms without names, sudden raids, the presence of state power divorced from accountability, and the fear that followed people into their homes, schools, churches, and onto their streets.
For me, these images are inseparable from my mother’s own recollections of terror as she hid, together with her mother and sister, from Nazi roundups in the Vilna Ghetto—holding their breath, listening for footsteps, fearing a knock on the door, knowing that discovery could mean disappearance. I know that fear did not end with liberation; it lived on in memory, in vigilance, and in the unspoken lessons passed to the next generation.
Watching Americans today take to the streets with cellphones and whistles to object to these tactics prompts an unavoidable question: might some outcomes during the Holocaust have been different if ordinary German citizens and their political leaders had resisted earlier, more visibly, and in greater numbers? History does not allow us to test such scenarios, but it does leave us with responsibility. Memory is not meant only to mourn; it is meant to teach, inspire and warn.
For communities shaped by Holocaust survival, the images we are seeing sharpen the stakes. The lesson carried forward is not that history repeats itself in identical form, but that moral choices always present themselves. If we learned nothing else from the Holocaust, it was that Silence and indifference have consequences. So does the courage to speak, to protest, and to insist that fear must never become an accepted instrument of public policy.
What makes this moment especially sobering is that these moral choices are arising as we mark 250 years since the adoption of the Declaration of Independence—a document that distinguished the United States from nearly every other nation of its time by grounding its legitimacy in human rights. The Declaration’s radical assertion that all people are endowed with inherent dignity and unalienable rights was not merely aspirational; it was meant to serve as a moral compass, especially in moments of fear and crisis.
These are not abstract concerns. They live in family stories, in inherited trauma, and in a shared obligation to uphold the ideals that define this country—and to ensure that the promise of human dignity remains more than words on a piece of parchment.
Spotlight on Service: Sheri Abrams
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One of the great strengths of the Temple Beth Israel Preservation Society is the way our board members carry our values into the wider community. Few embody that spirit more fully than Sheri Abrams, our board secretary, whose quiet leadership and commitment to service reflect the very best of who we are. As Sheri began contemplating retirement, she started thinking about what she hoped this next chapter of life might include. |
High on her personal “bucket list” was finding a way to help local soup kitchens serve meals on Thanksgiving and Christmas—times when food insecurity can feel especially acute.
After sharing this idea with her friend Earl, a fellow member of the local Interfaith Council, Sheri was encouraged to take an even more immediate step: to become the weekly “soup lady” at the food pantry sponsored by the United Methodist Church in Danielson. As Sheri puts it, she isn’t very good at saying no when people she respects identify a real need—and so she said yes.
“It is a thrill and a privilege for me to be representing TBIPS at this worthy and desperately needed endeavor.”
What followed has been an experience she describes as rewarding beyond words.
Each Wednesday, the kitchen serves between 100 and 150 meals to members of the community. Unlike many pantries, this is not simply a distribution of packaged food. Under the leadership of Connie, an extraordinary volunteer and chef, the meals are prepared from scratch and are both nourishing and generous: fresh salads, homemade soups, and full platters featuring meat, fish, or chicken, along with vegetables, starches, rolls, and butter. Connie, Sheri adds, is not only an amazing cook but also a wonderful singer—bringing warmth and joy into the kitchen along with her culinary talents.
Sheri is quick to emphasize the volunteers themselves. Many are veterans. All are deeply giving. Together they form a diverse, interfaith group united by compassion and purpose.
“Working side by side with these special people from many faiths and backgrounds is truly a privilege.”
Sheri’s weekly service is a living expression of the Jewish mandate of Tikkun Olam—the obligation to help repair the world through acts of kindness, justice, and responsibility. In feeding the hungry and strengthening community bonds, she brings Jewish values into action in the most direct and meaningful way.
For Sheri, representing the Temple Beth Israel Preservation Society in this effort is a source of pride—and for all of us, a reminder that preserving memory and tradition also means living out the values they teach. We are grateful to Sheri for her leadership on our board and for the quiet, faithful way she carries our mission into the world each week—one meal, one smile, and one act of compassion at a time.
After sharing this idea with her friend Earl, a fellow member of the local Interfaith Council, Sheri was encouraged to take an even more immediate step: to become the weekly “soup lady” at the food pantry sponsored by the United Methodist Church in Danielson. As Sheri puts it, she isn’t very good at saying no when people she respects identify a real need—and so she said yes.
“It is a thrill and a privilege for me to be representing TBIPS at this worthy and desperately needed endeavor.”
What followed has been an experience she describes as rewarding beyond words.
Each Wednesday, the kitchen serves between 100 and 150 meals to members of the community. Unlike many pantries, this is not simply a distribution of packaged food. Under the leadership of Connie, an extraordinary volunteer and chef, the meals are prepared from scratch and are both nourishing and generous: fresh salads, homemade soups, and full platters featuring meat, fish, or chicken, along with vegetables, starches, rolls, and butter. Connie, Sheri adds, is not only an amazing cook but also a wonderful singer—bringing warmth and joy into the kitchen along with her culinary talents.
Sheri is quick to emphasize the volunteers themselves. Many are veterans. All are deeply giving. Together they form a diverse, interfaith group united by compassion and purpose.
“Working side by side with these special people from many faiths and backgrounds is truly a privilege.”
Sheri’s weekly service is a living expression of the Jewish mandate of Tikkun Olam—the obligation to help repair the world through acts of kindness, justice, and responsibility. In feeding the hungry and strengthening community bonds, she brings Jewish values into action in the most direct and meaningful way.
For Sheri, representing the Temple Beth Israel Preservation Society in this effort is a source of pride—and for all of us, a reminder that preserving memory and tradition also means living out the values they teach. We are grateful to Sheri for her leadership on our board and for the quiet, faithful way she carries our mission into the world each week—one meal, one smile, and one act of compassion at a time.
In Memoriam
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Mili Rapp, our dear friend, died on November 22, 2025. She was more than a member of our community. An advisor to the board of the Preservation Society, Mili was a strong, kind, warm, supportive presence at our meetings and gatherings. She believed in and supported our mission deeply. She also joined regularly for Shabes services with Alan and Rich — a testimony to how central community and shared spiritual values were to her life.
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She brought kindness, thoughtful insight, and a sense of shared purpose. In our conversations, she offered encouragement, wisdom, and generosity. She helped make TBIPS a caring, connected community. You can find her obituary here. May her memory be for a blessing.
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Edith Mavor, a longtime friend of the Preservation Society, died on January 4, 2026. Edith served for several years on the Board of the Preservation Society and was a truly delightful presence among us. She brought warmth, kindness, and genuine interest to every meeting and event. She fully understood and deeply supported our mission, and her engagement was always thoughtful, her spirit generous, and her companionship a gift. Edith moved away from the area some years ago, but remained very much a part of our story and our collective memory.
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We are deeply grateful for the time we shared with her and for the care and commitment she showed to our community. We are honored that Edith’s children asked that memorial donations be directed to the Preservation Society because the Temple meant a great deal to their family, and Edith spoke with pride about being part of the original Temple and her early involvement in the formation of the Preservation Society. Learn more about her life and legacy here.
May her memory be for a blessing.
May her memory be for a blessing.
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