D-Day 75 Normandy Concert

Thursday, June 6, 2 p.m.

Percy White Library

837 E. Hillsboro Blvd.

Deerfield Beach, FL 33441

This concert will be to honor the soldiers who stormed the beach on Normandy, France to expedite the end of World War II. Performing live will be the Senior Moments Unforgettable Band.

Old Town Untapped

Friday, June 7, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Bailey Contemporary Arts

41 NE 1 St.

Pompano Beach, FL 33060

Free samples of local beer crafted by breweries in Pompano Beach’s emerging craft beer scene. Food trucks, artists, crafters & interactive art. Inside Bailey Contemporary Arts, guests can grab some locally roasted coffee at Blooming Bean Coffee Roasters & walk through the galleries rotating art exhibits each month. 

Kick off to Summer

Friday, June 7 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Villages of Hillsboro Park

4111 NW 6 St.

Deerfield Beach, FL 33442

The City of Deerfield Beach Parks & Recreation Dept. will be hosting their second annual Kick off to Summer event with an evening full of free family fun! Not only will there be a huge beach ball drop, but one special beach ball can be exchanged for a prize! Enjoy the kid’s zone with interactive activities while listening to the musical entertainment by DJ Jr. Kong. Food will be available for purchase from food trucks and local vendors. For more information, call 954-480-4494.

Tropical Postcard Club

Saturday, June 8, 12 p.m.

Old Schoolhouse meeting room

NE Eller St.

Deerfield Beach, FL, 33441

Come to look, talk and hear about postcards. Questions? Call 954-254-8937.

2019 Church & Community

Fellowship Weekend

Saturday, June 8, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Sunday, June 9, begins at 11 a.m.

Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church

1060 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Ave.

Deerfield Beach, FL 33441

Come join Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church for free food & fun, games and music on Saturday, and Sunday for worship, praise, preaching & giveaways.

Pompano Budget Workshop

Monday, June 10, 9 a.m.

City Commission Chambers

100 W. Atlantic Blvd.

Pompano Beach, FL, 33060

The purpose of the Budget Workshop is to look at preliminary projections and discuss policy considerations for Fiscal Year 2020.

7 Week ABC Boating Course

Tuesday, June 11, 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Pompano Beach Sail & Power Squadron

3701 NE 18 Terr.

Pompano Beach, FL 33064

Enroll in the America’s Boating Course & learn navigation rules, water sports safety, docking, emergency situations, local knowledge & other valuable boater safety skills. Upon completion you will earn your U.S. & FL boating credentials. Cost $35-85 + tax (includes boating textbook, handouts, Florida Boaters Education Card). Space is limited. Register online at www.PompanoSafeBoating.com

Save the Date:

Sally Ling speaks about history

Thursday, June 13, 2 p.m.

Percy White Library

837 E. Hillsboro Blvd.

Deerfield Beach, FL 33441

Historian Sally Ling will speak about her book and the history of the Deerfield Beach Community. See more about Sally on pg. 7.

Lord & Taylor Fashion Show

With Broward Sheriff’s Office

Thursday, June 13, 7 p.m.

Wyndham Resort

2096 NE 2 St.

Deerfield Beach, FL 33441

Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies will be outfitted by Lord & Taylor for the fashion show. Held poolside. $15 donation for admission gets complimentary drink and appetizers. Proceeds to benefit the crime prevention fund for the city.

Mary Poppins Returns

Friday, June 14, 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Pompano Citi Centre

(Space C104 Next to Foot Locker)

1955 N. Federal Hwy.

Pompano Beach, FL 33062

Free movie, free face painting & free popcorn. Seating is limited. Bring your blankets or bean bags. Goody bags for the first 100 kids!

Wings and Wheels

Saturday, June 15, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Oveta McKeithen Recreational Complex

445 SW 2 St.

Deerfield Beach, FL 33441

This year’s event will once again feature the infamous Wing Cook-Off for the community to come out, taste, judge and vote for the People’s Choice Wing Champion. Wing tasting is free. A family-friendly event — Enjoy the tasty wings, take in a car and bike show & let the children spend the afternoon cooling off on waterslides! June 12 is the deadline to enter into the cook-off competition. To enter or for questions, visit www.dfb.city.wings-wheels, or call the Oveta McKeithen Recreational Complex at 954-480-4481.

PB Chamber dinner

Wednesday, June 19, 7p.m.

Hillsboro Club

901 Hillsboro Mile

Hillsboro Beach, FL 33062

Dinner, live auction, guest speakers. Celebrates Board members, trustees & graduates of the Leadership Program of North Broward. See Pat Anderson’s art too! (More on Pat, pg. 2).

Woman’s Club Trips

Vizcaya Museum & Gardens

Thursday, July 18, 8:30 a.m.

Deerfield Beach Woman’s Club invites you to a wonderful day trip to Miami. It includes door to door transportation, a tour of Vizcaya (driver & tour guide gratuity included), a visit to Lincoln Road Mall and sit down lunch. Cost is $80 per person. Limited seats. Men are welcome too. Call Sally 954-427-2175 for more information.

Navy Seal Museum

Tuesday, Aug. 13, 8:30 a.m.

Deerfield Woman’s Club is delighted to offer a very special trip to Ft. Pierce and Stuart. The National Navy Seal Museum is home to one of the most unusual collections of artifacts and exhibits of any museum. Cost is $90 and includes round trip motor coach transportation, a tip to your driver, a visit to the museum and a sit down lunch overlooking the beach, as well as a visit to historic downtown Stuart. Limited seats. Call now. Men are welcome too. Call Sally 954-427-2175 for more information.

A can of beans

Three guys are alone on a desert island: an engineer, a biologist and an economist. They are starving and don’t have a thing to eat, but somehow they find a can of beans on the shore.

The engineer says, “Let’s hit the can with a rock until it opens.”

The biologist has another idea, “No. We should wait for a while. Erosion will do the job.”

Finally, the economist says, “Let’s assume that we have a can opener.”

The Desert

What was the significance of the fact that Torah was given in a wilderness, in a barren and infertile desert, not in a civilized terrain, nor on soil conducive to human living and nature’s blessing. Why did G-d communicate His blueprint for life and enter into an eternal covenant with the Jewish people in the aridity and desolateness of a desert?

1. The Torah was given on soil not owned by any particular people or community, to signify that the Torah belongs to every single soul.

2. The giving of the Torah in the wilderness represents the idea that Torah is not a product of a particular culture and genre. It enriches all cultures, but transcends them. 

3. The function of Torah is to confront and refine the “barren wilderness” within the human psyche and the world.

The Bible relates that when Moses presented the covenant before the Israelites, they responded, “We will do and we will listen” (Exodus 24:7). This expression has always been a source of wonderment and surprise to rabbis and a refutation of the anti-Semitic portrayal of Jews as calculating and self-protective. “We will do and we will listen” implies a commitment to observe the covenant even before the Jews heard its details and understood its ramifications.

The Talmud tells a story about a Sadducee who once saw one of the great Talmudic sages, Rava, so engrossed in learning that he did not attend a wound in his own hand. The Sadducee exclaimed, “You rash people! You put your mouths ahead of your ears [by saying “we will do and we will listen”], and you still persist in your recklessness. First, you should have heard out [the covenant details]. If it is within your capacity, then accept it. If not, you should have rejected it!” 

His argument was logical. Imagine somebody offers you to invest a large sum of money in a developing company. To respond, “Sure, here is the money, and then, afterward, I will listen to the details” is ridiculous. If you do not know what the company is all about, why subject your money to possible loss? And, yet, in this case, the Jews declared that they were ready to embrace a life-altering covenant, even before they heard all the details and knew what Judaism was all about! Why? How?

Rava answered the Sadducee with these words, “We walked [into it] with our whole being.”

What Rava meant was this: By definition, a relationship with G-d cannot be created on our terms; it must be on His terms.

If there is something called Truth, if there is something called Reality, we cannot define it; it must define us. We cannot accept it on condition that it suits our senses and expectations. On the contrary, we must realign our condition to it. Once the Jewish people knew that G-d was communicating with them, they did not want to fit religion into their imagination; they had no pre- conditions for a relationship with truth. It was in the desert that the Jews can declare, “We will do and we will listen.”

 This process must occur each year anew. To receive Torah, we must have the courage to walk into a desert; we must strip ourselves from any pre-defined self-identity. We need to be ready to hear the sound beneath the sounds we are accustomed to. Torah is not merely a cute and endearing document filled with rituals, to satisfy nostalgia or tradition. Torah demands that we open ourselves up with our whole being and declare, “We shall do and we shall listen!”

Ten Commandments will be read at services Sunday at 11 a.m. Feel free to join our services.

Happy Shavuot 

Rabbi Tzvi Dechter is the director of Chabad of North Broward Beaches, located in the Venetian Isle Shopping Center at 2025 E. Sample Rd. in Lighthouse Point. For all upcoming events, please visit www.JewishLHP.com.

By Emily Rosen

ERosen424@aol.com

www.emilyrosen424.com

On June 6, 1944 —”D-Day” — 75 years ago, Allied troops invaded the Normandy beachhead in France. Who remembers? We had been officially “at war” since Dec. 11, 1941, and the victory we all prayed for seemed deadly far into the future.

I was 17 and, on that day, I was walking down the aisle for my high school graduation and the boys in my class — almost all of them — were preparing to go to war. The ones in the classes ahead of mine were already gone. Saturday night dances to the songs of the popular radio program, Your Hit Parade, most often in different people’s homes, became an all girls meeting. We shared mail and discussions about whose boyfriend was stationed in what weird-named place no one had ever heard of in Asia or which Air Force base or Navy ship those boys were likely to have been on, curled up and writing longing letters on what was called “onion skin” paper — “V-Mail.” (V for victory) I can still remember the serial numbers, (required on addresses) of some of the boys with whom I corresponded. I was a prodigious letter-writer.

That was only one of the things we did for the “war effort.” Bob Hope would bring his troupe of entertainers to the most remote corners of the globe, but I wasn’t a celebrity and the only “cheer” I was capable of was a newsy letter, as funny as I could make it. I can only now imagine how they might have been received — “mail call” in the midst of bombing and sniping, and surrounded by blood and guts.

We were all-in for “sacrifice.” The government issued “ration” books to every household, which limited the supply of sugar, canned goods, meat and cooking oil, and we couldn’t purchase those or a list of other items without relinquishing some ration stamps. I’m sure that fuel for cars was on that list, although who ever heard of a two car family back then?

We gave blood — even lying about our age. My parents were volunteer air raid wardens stationed at assigned times on the roof of our apartment building, dispatched to do — I can’t imagine what — at the suspicion of possible foreign planes hovering over our space. Neither of them, or anyone I knew at the time, had remotely considered the possibility of ever being a passenger on an airplane.

We didn’t have television and relied on newspapers and radio for information. The movie, Saving Private Ryan, was not even a budding creation in the mind of the not yet two-year-old Steven Spielberg.

Too many of us knew one or more than one “kid” who came back home in a body bag or with missing body parts or some who didn’t come home at all. Sadness was pervasive, but life at home went on.

I was bound for college, a commute of sorts, a daily subway ride from Brooklyn to NYU (downtown Greenwich Village) — where there was always another passenger to shake me from my sleep so that I would not miss my station, as I held tightly to my tell-tale bundle of books. And where, within a year after D-Day, “the boys” were flooding back to colleges on the (free) G.I. Bill.

Obviously, I’ve had several birthdays since D-Day. When I think of the seismic changes in society, technology, communication, musical trends, standards of behavior, political conduct, healthcare, attitudes about food and fitness, attempts at racial and gender equality, connectivity to the ends of our planet and, of course, so much more, I feel so lucky to have experienced “many lives” and much personal growth. Although today feels like a low point in that roller coaster ride, I know enough about history to be confident that we will drag ourselves out of this current morass, too. Indeed, it is the lessons of history that give us hope.