Programs & Services

Services (weekly services)
Weekly services are held throughout the year at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, 170 Council Street, on Friday Nights at 7 PM. The road to the church is behind the Earth Fare Grocery Store on King Street. There is ample parking. Parking for services is at the upper level parking lot.

We use the Reform prayer book Gates of Prayer (1975 edition) for our services. Newcomers to our community often comment enthusiastically on how much member participation our services allow. Each week a volunteer leads the service and another prepares a commentary on the week's Torah portion. The service leader guides the service and we go around the room in turn reading the prayers from the siddur. Over the years a "minhag Boone" has evolved which includes among other things fairly informal dress for services and open-ended discussion between the week's Torah commentator and the rest of the congregation.

Following the services we have an Oneg Shabbat.

Programs
HAVURAH OF THE HIGH COUNTRY
Our name, “Havurah” implies a small group of Jews meeting for religious services and or education. It is a misnomer. We will tell you why. In 1996 the late Ed Grad, of Beech Mountain, placed a blind ad in the Mountain Times. He asked anyone interested in klezmer music, or in the Yiddish short stories that had recently been recorded by well known actors to contact him. To his surprise the phone started ringing and in a short while there were 26 people sitting in his living room. That was the birth of the Havurah of the High Country.

There were two more meetings that year. The members, or their family members, gave talks of interest. The following year there were 4 meetings again, in the home of the Grads and the Levys. Our membership continued to provide the programs. And we grew.

Shortly, the entire membership could no longer meet at a home and the Grads arranged for us to have luncheon meetings at the Holiday Inn in Banner Elk. We were surprised by the amount of talent in our membership and a good number of them provided interesting and educational material. But, our speakers were no longer limited to our own membership. Professors Horowitz and Hanft gave lectures. We discussed books and had book reviews, learned about Hebrew holiday music, the Chagall windows and some fun projects. And we continued to grow.

We continued to have planning meetings in our homes. We began to have a winter meeting in South Florida to plan for the next summer. And we grew. The summer of 2000 we had five meetings and Saul Genet became Program Chairperson. He was able to arrange for many programs. We grew and needed a telephone committee.

Along with the Boone Jewish Community we had picnics, very well attended, at Wildcat Park in Banner Elk. There were Shabbat dinners at the Holiday Inn and some potlucks early and late in the season when many of our members were not in the mountains.

Jewel Fogel started and led a Havurah book club that has grown into a valuable part of the lives of its members. They meet in each other’s homes. Each member is expected to have read the book and to be able to discuss it. As a result each meeting is vital and lively. They choose the books to be read and reviewed the summer before they meet again.

Our greatest claim to fame is that as a group, and as individuals, we helped create the Center for Judaic, Holocaust and Peace Studies at Appalachian State University and continue to support it and glow in its growth and work

In 2005 the Grads retired from the leadership of the Havurah. The membership acknowledged their great work and had a plaque made for them in recognition of their contribution to our success.

Jack Lubin and his wife, Ruth, assumed the leadership of the Havurah. And we grew. We reached the point where we had too many members for the Best Western Hotel, the successor to the Holiday Inn. They could not accommodate all of us at a luncheon meeting. We knew we were too big but how do you refuse a Jew who wanted to join us? Presently you must reserve your place early to be sure you can attend. The Lubins with their planning committee have arranged excellent speakers and entertainers. Ruth and Stan Etkin served as program chairpersons for a few years and are now followed by Linda and Neil Lentin, and Roz Silverman. We presently number more than 200 persons and are growing. Would you like to join us? We welcome new members and encourage you to try us out. You can contact Jack Lubin at 828-387-5251 or 828-963-5167.