From arts organizations linking up for a joint performance or retailers linking arms to optimize a holiday shopping event, Mill Valley has long been a hub of collaboration.
On Sept. 21, that tradition continues when Chabad Mill Valley, the local chapter of one of the largest Hasidic groups and Jewish religious organizations in the world, teams up with the Mill Valley Public Library to celebrate Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year, a two-day observance and celebration that begins on the first day of Tishrei.
Rabbi Hillel Scop and his wife Chana Scop, who have run Chabad Mill Valley for more than 18 years, opened their Brooklyn community space and retail shop in 2018 at 29 Miller Avenue, adding a retail, arts and cultural element to the shopping center in the space formerly occupied by True Botanicals in the downtown strip of shops on Miller Ave. near the Depot Plaza that also includes Boo Koo and Studio Velo.
The Rosh Hashanah event, set in the outdoor amphitheatre behind the library at 375 Throckmorton Ave., will feature storytelling and a Challah braiding class for kids of all ages interested in learning how to make the braided bread that is typically eaten on occasions like the Sabbath and major Jewish holidays. Participants will be able to take home their very own Challah to bake.
If you can’t attend the event, Chabad Mill Valley and Brooklyn regularly host their own Hanukkah events featuring the lighting of a menorah, hot latkes with applesauce, Sufganyot jelly doughnuts, chocolate Hanukkah gelt and dreidels and crafts for kids and live music. They follow that up with a grand menorah lighting in Tiburon at 5:30pm. They cap it off with their participation in the Mill Valley Chamber’s annual, all-day Winterfest , which arrives on Dec. 4.