Learning Opportunities
Expand your Jewish knowledge and friendships by being part of our growing community of lifelong learners. Please check our calendar for more information on Adult Learning opportunities in 2024-2025. We also invite you to learn more about our resources in the Rabbi Richard B. Safran Library.
Classes currently are offered on Zoom. Links are sent to members of our extended Temple family by email. Please contact the Temple office for access information at office@templecav.org or (260) 744-4245.
Beit Midrash With Rabbi Meir and Guest Teachers
Beit Midrash translates to “House of Study,” and describes the institution of classical Jewish learning. Join Rabbi Meir Bargeron or guest teachers to learn about a variety of topics. Classes generally are offered on the second Wednesday at 7 p.m. on Zoom.
Please check back for information on our first session on Wednesday, September 11 at 7 p.m. on Zoom.
Temple Book Club 2024-2025
We’ll read two highly-acclaimed books and meet with their authors through the Jewish Book Council’s LiveChat program. 
We’ll meet on Tuesday, November 19 at 7 pm on Zoom to meet with Jennifer Rosner to discuss her novel, Once We Were Home. A finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, the plot follows two children who were “rescued” from a Polish ghetto by Christian friends. Twenty years later, they are still processing the loss of their losses.
On Tuesday, February 25, Lynda Cohen Loigman will join us at 7 p.m. on Zoom to discuss The Matchmaker’s Gift. The plot centers around a Lower East Side matchmaker, Sara, and her granddaughter, Abby. Abby inherits her grandmother’s journals after her death.
Both authors will join us virtually to discuss their work, thanks to the arrangements of the Jewish Book Council. The titles are available in the Rabbi Richard B. Safran Library. Zoom links will be included in the Temple’s weekly emails.
Hot Topics Shabbat
The Temple’s Social Action Committee hosts occasional programs on Friday evenings highlighting important social justice topics.
We’ve welcomed speakers from Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend to inform our members on resettlement efforts for the recently arrived Afghan refugees. Watch the program
We’ve learned about Police Reform and Social Justice with guest speaker Michelle Chambers, an at-large member of the Fort Wayne City Council who co-chaired the city’s Commission on Police Reform and Social Justice. Please check our calendar for upcoming programs.
Hot Topics in 2024-2025
On Friday, September 28, we’ll discuss food insecurity following our Hot Topics Shabbat service at 7:30 p.m.
Genealogy and the Holocaust
Over the past few years, Temple member Irv Adler has presented several programs on Genealogy and the Holocaust in Fort Wayne and beyond to share his worldwide search through Holocaust records to find out more information about his grandmother and family. Watch his presentation on “Families Lost & Found: Tracing My Viennese Roots After the Holocaust” to IPFW’s Campus Ministry on November 16, 2017.As part of this personal historical journey, Irv traveled to Vienna to place a Stone of Remembrance in front of the home where his grandmother Clara Bader Nichtern lived before she was murdered in 1942 by the Nazis at the Maly Trostinets death camp outside of Minsk. He returned in 2018 to dedicate additional stones of remembrance. His research continues today.
Learn more about family history resources in the Madge Rothschild Resource Center and through the Northeast Indiana Jewish Genealogy Society.