Upcoming events

Our virtual Morning Minyan is one of the best-kept secrets of IKAR. Monday-Friday and Sunday at 8am PT on Zoom, we’ll explore a different modality we might use to help us access our prayer life: singing, meditation, study, etc. And each day we will end with a Mourner’s Kaddish.

Parenting is amazing. And hard. Really hard. But it can be so much better when we do it in a community of thoughtful, caring, supportive, inquisitive parents. Here’s a chance to be part of an amazing community from the comfort of your couch, one night a week. We will take up different parenting challenges and questions, share information and ideas from experts and from each other, and enjoy a bit of grown-up time. Facilitated by Beth Weisman, M.A., IKAR’s Early Childhood Engagement Consultant. Free and open to grown-ups with children ages birth-5 years. Members and non-members welcome. We will meet virtually Wednesdays from 8:30-9:30 pm 9/30, 10/7, 10/14, and 10/21. A Zoom link will be sent once we receive your RSVP. We hope you’ll join us!

Join TRIBE + Minyan Tzedek for an empowering evening of activism and leisure in the IKAR Sukkah! We’ll kick off the night with some inspiration from our rabbis, stopping by to share a little wisdom as we head into the election. Then, we’ll call the youngest voters in the IKAR community to get out the vote and ask for their support on two ballot measures endorsed by the IKAR Board. We’ll reward ourselves with a cozy outdoor screening of Don’t Look Up, complete with fresh popcorn, cocktails, candy and the works!

Following Services, we invite you to continue to join us over lunch at Shalhevet or live-stream on YouTube to hear from Sima Awad and Maayan Inon as they share their journeys towards reconciliation. Sima is a bereaved Palestinian sister whose brother was killed by an Israeli soldier when she was just 3 years old. Maayan is a bereaved Israeli daughter whose parents were both killed on October 7 by Hamas. Witness the transformative power of empathy in the face of devastating violence in Palestine and Israel. Their message that it’s possible to hold grief, humanity, and hope at the same time feels especially important right now. Learn more here.

For decades, Barry Michels has been one of the most sought-after psychotherapists in Hollywood—a practitioner whose no-nonsense, transformative approach earned him the devotion of some of the most creative minds in the industry. Bret Easton Ellis, Adam McKay, and Mark Levin are all patients who spoke openly in a 2011 New Yorker profile about how his methods changed their lives and their work. The book he co-wrote with his mentor and colleague Phil Stutz, The Tools, became a New York Times bestseller that has sold nearly 500,000+ copies, recently finding a new generation of readers through Jonah Hill’s acclaimed Netflix documentary STUTZ. Two years ago, Barry was, by any measure, a man at the height of his powers. And then a doctor delivered a diagnosis that changed everything: Lewy Body Dementia—the same degenerative disease that had taken his father’s life—would take his own. Ahead of All Parting: On Learning to Live with an Open Heart is a remarkable and unexpected book. Where one might anticipate a story of grief and loss, Barry has written something far more surprising: an expansive meditation on what becomes possible when we stop running from our deepest fears and allow ourselves to be truly seen. Barry is still practicing, still hiking, and very much present in the world, and that comes through on every page of this remarkable and deeply moving memoir. Michels shows us that being alive is more fragile and more astonishing than we usually allow ourselves to feel.

Tech2Peace continues to co-create and co-learn across divides, building bridges across the region even amid the fragile ceasefire and the challenges following October 7th. Their story reflects how dialogue, empathy, and innovation can help rebuild trust and hope in these complex times. https://tech2peace.com/

Rick graduated from Cambridge University and has more recently worked in the area of interfaith relations, including with the Woolf Institute where he is a member of the Development Committee. His comments on the Institute can be accessed here. In 2020 and 2021, Rick convened for the Woolf Institute an online dialogue between Professors of Religion at the world’s leading universities in a Reading Group to discuss the relationship between the Qur’an and the Bible. Further details can be found here. He has also dialogued with Muslim leaders on the subject.  Rick was awarded the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur in 2007 from President Chirac for his contribution to religious education in France and is Chairman or Director of several educational charities in the UK.