Newsletters

Worship Events

of the Week

This Friday, August 1, at 6 PM, we make Shabbos together on the south lawn of the Nelson Atkins Museum by the maze (about halfway between the museum and Emanuel Cleaver Blvd. toward the east side of the lawn). An informal service followed by a BYOP-bring your own picnic for a Seudah-a festive Shabbat meal.

On Saturday, August 2, at 7 PM, we will be at the home of Fay and Rabbi Doug to observe Tishah B’Av-the ninth day of the month of Av. This is a day to commemorate all tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people. We read from the Book of Lamentations, and ponder what we can do differently so that such tragedies and persecutions are not endured by any people.

Kol Ami Events

Jews Who Read

Book Club
The Jews Who Read Book Club welcomes everyone, members and non-members, to meet on September 7, 2025 at 2 PM in the Small Meeting Room at the Plaza Branch of the KC Public Library. We will read and discuss The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel. Please RSVP to president@kolamikc.org

​​​​We Wish Mi Shebeirach

A Complete Healing of Mind, Body and Spirit to:

Liz Garrison
Edi Shifrin
Micha ben Sarah
Melvin Michael Slater

Rufus Magobotha
Tzipporah mibet Avraham v’Sarah

If you would like a name to continue to be listed or if you have a new name to include, please send an email to healing@kolamikc.org.

Yahrzeits

August 1

Thomas Patterson - husband of Wynne Begun;
father of Michael Patterson
and Mallary Smith

August 3

Nelson Romero -Godbrother of Rachel Rilinger

August 4

Mary Kenneally - Mother of Mark Kenneally

Tina Cooper - Mother of Blythe Edelman

Membership

Interested in membership at Kol Ami? Email membership@kolamikc.org

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Rabbi's Week in Review


I am writing the blog this week while away for some vacation time with extended family.  I have been admonished on such excursions not to bring any “work-related” reading - to keep it light. So, to no one’s surprise, I found in that reading something to write about in the “Rabbi's Week in Review.”

The book is Homestand: Small Town Baseball and the Fight For the Soul of America, by Will Bardenwerper. As a lifelong baseball fan (poor Fay has lost count of how many times she’s heard me mention that my father, z”l—of blessed memory—pulled me out of school to attend Opening Day of the Kansas City Royals’ first season in 1969 at old Municipal Stadium—by the way, we beat the Twins that day 5–3), I immediately picked the book off the shelf at Rainy Day Books...Read more

This Week's Torah Portion
Parashat Devarim

(Devarim/Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22)

This week’s Torah portion begins the final book of the written Torah. At this point the Israelites have done their journey in the wilderness and are about to enter HaAretz-the Land. It is a new generation that did not know slavery.

Much has happened in Bamidbar-in the wilderness- since we entered into our covenant with G-d at Mount Sinai, not all of it good. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l references, the Book of Devarim/Deuteronomy is a necessary renewal of our covenant with God. He points out that a central pillar upon which our covenant uniquely stands is that an entire people is a party to the covenant with G-d. Through that we learn that we are all responsible not only to G-d, but to each other in creating a better world.

Social Justice News

Virtual Social Justice Opportunities - 

Second opportunity is July 30 
No Kings is offering two more virtual sessions this summer with the theme: One Million Rising: Strategic Non-Cooperation to Fight Authoritarianism—a national effort to train one million people in the strategic logic and practice of non-cooperation, as well as the basics of community organizing and campaign design.

Upcoming sessions are: How to Make it Happen on July 30; and What Now? on  August 13. Learn more and sign up HERE.

Recommended Viewing:

Harbor from the Holocaust
If you're looking for a powerful and lesser-known chapter of Jewish history, consider watching the PBS documentary Harbor from the Holocaust.

This program tells the story of nearly 20,000 Jewish refugees who fled Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II and found an unlikely haven in the Chinese port city of Shanghai. Amid war, displacement, and unimaginable hardship, Shanghai opened its doors when so many others did not.

The documentary explores the extraordinary bond that formed between the Jewish refugees and their adopted city—even through the difficult years of Japanese occupation (1937–1945) and the Chinese civil war that followed.

Watch the program trailer here. 

Urgent Assistance Request

The Migrant Farmworkers Assistance Fund (MFAF) is urgently in need of donations of bags of pinto beans and bags of white rice (NOT canned beans and NOT instant rice, please) for the families working the Lafayette County orchards this year. Please place donations in designated bins at All Souls.

As always, MFAF has an ongoing need for your donations of brown paper bags.