Tefillin Giveaway

(Great Ideas to ‘Borrow’ for your Wrap)

FJMC Awards Tefillin for World Wide Wrap Growth

Orin Rotman, the Chairman for the 2014 edition of the World Wide Wrap, and Chaim Kofinas conducted a tefillin giveaway contest, using several sets of tefillin made available by the FJMC. The purpose of the contest was to reward those clubs with the best and most creative ideas for using gift sets of tefillin to enhance their World Wide Wrap programs by improving attendance, participation, and effectiveness. Winners pledged to use their awarded tefillin in furtherance of those goals.

There were many excellent ideas and suggestions, many worthy of Torch Awards if they can be actualized and documented. Here are the winners, in no particular order:

1. Alex Romano of Temple Aliyah Men’s Club, Western Region was awarded one set to incorporate in his detailed model for using the tefillin as the basis of a WWW raffle. All kids are given one free raffle ticket and friends and relatives are encouraged to purchase additional tickets, raising money for additional sets or for tikun olam projects. The raffle winner must be present at the WWW.
2. Mark Rudin of Ner Tamid, New England Region was awarded one set to incorporate in an innovative plan to shift his congregation’s general annual meeting to WWW Sunday, highlighting the WWW and using the awarded tefillin as a learning set for those who haven’t their own.
3. John Sudenfield of Temple Israel of Natick, New England Region was awarded one set to incorporate into his day long congregational WWWfest, a program including morning programs for the school, lunch for the families, afternoon events with the USY, and an evening Superbowl party. The awarded tefillin will be highlighted by being used either as prizes in a raffle or used as teaching tefillin during the event.
4. Gavin Rosenberg of Shomrei Torah, Western Region was awarded two sets to incorporate into its “MR. JACK ISRAEL” memorial award to be given out at the WWW, Jack having been a legend in his community who didn’t have his own set of tefillin. The awarded tefillin will be made available as spare sets to encourage attendance at the WWW in honor of both Jack and the mitzvah of tefillin.
5. Elliot Miller of Beth Shalom of Elkins Park, Tri State Region was awarded two sets to use with his comprehensive Tefillin Boot Camp in conjunction with other invited congregations in his community, highlighted by pre-WWW classes for tefillin wrapping drills.
6. Stephen Neustein of Beth Shalom of Pittsburg, Tri State Region was awarded two sets to use in a WWW Masorti twinning project outside North America, incorporating a pen pal program and a two-language tefillin-based song competition between the communities, with a set of tefillin to be awarded to the best tefillin song writers of each community.

A hearty Thank You to all clubs that participated!

The World Wide Wrap will be on Superbowl Sunday, February 11, 2024.  Does your club or organization desire additional tefillin to help grow involvement in your Wrap? Please continue your education and inspiration. Click here for more information or to register your club for the Wrap.