Shabbat Shalom!  Welcome to 2011.  Besides a generally beautiful week in Boulder, the community is gearing up for a winter of interesting activities and events.  This week, MoVeRs and the Boulder JCC welcomed famed Chinese Judaic Studies scholar Professor Xu Xin to Boulder.

This weekend, Congregation Har HaShem celebrates the work of Rabbi Deborah Bronstein, Congregation Bonai Shalom has Cantor Richard Kaplan in Residence, and the Omni in Broomfield hosts OHALA, the conference of the Association of Rabbis for Jewish Renewal.  Next week marks the beginning of CU’s Week of Jewish Culture.

On a sad note, it was reported late Thursday that noted Jewish singer/songwriter Debbie Friedman is in critical condition in a hospital in San Diego. Her Hebrew name is Devorah bat Freidel. Her music has touched the lives of millions of Jews over nearly 40 years. Please keep her in your prayers this Shabbat (many tweets say “we know just the Mi Sheiberach to use”). We will post updates on Facebook and Twitter as we get news and are showing the live twitter stream on the BJN home page. The JTA Rss feed can be found in the footer section (the blue part at the bottom) – lower left corner of all pages on BoulderJewishNews.org; those headlines link directly to the JTA. May she have Refuah shleimah in the coming days.

Shabbat shalom.