Shavuot Games When Moses Climbed Mt. Sinai A Family Table Game Shavuot Bingo You will need a square of cardboard or poster board for each player. Rule each card into nine boxes to look like a bingo card. Draw Shavuot symbols in each ‘41 11 n 'v /11 n oin'' " 6 MILX . Hill w a ...................... Reprinted by permission from "Let's Have A Party" by Ruth Esrig Brinn. Search For Names Creates A Mystery The Krefman/Schebakowsky family inquiry presented a real challenge. After checking 11 written sources, we telephoned two out-of-state "experts." They also had never seen these names. The following material is, therefore, an educated guess. In Poland, there is a town named Shuvkov, which was called Shubkow by the Jewish residents. (Many Eastern European towns and villages had Jewish nicknames.) There are also Polish cities named Physical characteristics were the source of some Jewish names. Jaffe/Yaffe are . . . taken from the Hebrew word for beautiful. Szabasowka and Zabikow. Any of these town names may have been the source of your name. Schebakowsky, might also have been derived from the name Shabad. According to BenZion Kaganoff, Shabad is an acronym for Saliah Bet Din, or a high court bailiff or Shamash. Ski/Sky at the end of a name usually refers to a town of origin. L-8 :41 V um IIII1M Moses was up on Mt. Sinai for 40 days days when he received the Torah. What do you think he took with him? Things that start with the same Iptters as Mt. Sinai, perhaps. Gather everyone into a circle. The first person says, "When Moses climed Mt. Sinai, he took a magic stick (or a mink stole, or a million sheep, or a magnificent sweater). The next person must think of something else that begins like Mt. Sinai. To make the game harder, you may want to have each person repeat what everyone else has said before. square. Make each card different. You can use some of the same pictures on each card, but put them into different squares. Symbols you can use are: Torah, Star of David, Flower, Torah Pointer, Synagogue, Prayerbook, Wine Cup, Map of Israel, Holy Ark, Ten Commandments, Holy Temple, Ner Tamid, Sheaves of Wheat, Milk and Honey. Draw each symbol on a smaller card, and put all the small cards into a shoe box. One person is the caller. Everyone else has a large card. The caller picks a small card from the box, calls out the symbol, and whoever has that picture on his card, covers it with a button, a penny or small cardboard circle. The winner is the first person to complete a row of pictures, either across, down or diagonally. FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1988 Krefman as a name could have been taken from Krefeld, a city in West Germany. Jews lived there from the year 1617. In 1808 it was so important that 20 Jewish communities from Brussels to Cologne had their seat in Krefeld. Severe anti-Semitism began in 1927 and one-third of the Jewish people left by 1937. The remaining 800 were deported by the Nazis in 1939. Physical characteristics were the source of some Jewish names. Jaffe/Yaffe are such names taken from the Hebrew word for beautiful. In German/Yiddish, beautiful became Schoen, Schein, Shein/Sheiner. Jews in Arab countries used Hassan and Djamal as names meaning beautiful and in Spanish it became Ermosa, in Italian — Bella, Beilin, Baylin, Beilis, Belinson. Kaufman, Koifman, Kramer, Cramer, Markman are all Ashkenazic names meaning merchant in German/Yiddish. In Hebrew the name became Bakal and in Italian/Spanish shopkeepers were named Mercante. Schreiber/Schreibman are Ashkenazic names chosen from an occupation. Someone in your family was a scribe. Frumin/Frumkin come from the German/Yiddish for pious or Fromme. Furman, Fuhrman, Furmanov are of a different origin, however. These names were derived from the occupation of teamster or coachman. Sirota is a Slavic name meaning orphan. The Encyclopedia Judaica has an article about a famous Russian-born cantor, Gershon Sirota 1874-1943. The Chassicic movement, a mystical religious group adopted Chasid, Chusid and Chusit as names. Susskind, Zyskind, Ziskind are surnames of Ashkenazic origin meaning literally sweet child in German/Yiddish. Zysin, Zyskin, Ziskin and Zislin are also from the German zise or sweet. Sussman, Sussmann, Susmanovitz all mean sweet man. Bader and Baderman indicate an ancestor was an owner or attendant in a bathhouse. An ancestor in the Berg family chose their name from the landscape since it means mountain. Betty Provizer Starkman is the past president and founder of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Michigan. Declaring Love Through Ruth Every Shavuot we receive the Torah anew. We decorate our houses with flowers and we prepare our tables with delicacies, using milk and honey as special treats. In Israel, many adorn themselves with floral crowns and carry colorful baskets of fruit. There is great excitement in the air. Quietly, we unroll the scroll of Ruth and, with great pride, we read of Ruth's choice to join Naomi and the people of Israel. 'Ask me not to leave you, for wherever you will go, I will go. Wherever you will live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will he my God. Ruth became the mother of Oved, and Oved fathered Jesse, and from Jesse came David, The King of Israel. David, like his grandmother, was a great lover of God and of the people of Israel. He, too, spoke beautiul words of love. Many of David's psalms are sung on Shavuot. From Ruth, we learn to declare our love, from David we learn to celebrate it!