November 1, 2013 – Have sold 39 plots and first burial has taken place.

August 22, 2013 – A niggun, psalms, one hakafot (circle).  Rabbi Elder chanted the 23rd Psalm, and Liz Feldman did El Malei Rachamim. We ended with a shofar blast – really amazing in the woods. We buried pages from a prayer book symbolically for the greener practice of recycling old prayer books. Then we planted two small Jacob’s Ladder plants.(Deborah Brown and Shoshana Waskow are pictured planting) Deborah Brown read part of the Moed Katan passage about simple funerals. Tzedakah went to David Jacobson’s fund for funeral and cemetery expenses for those who can’t afford them.

March 19, 2013 – Deborah Brown standing in Hakafa section of the almost-ready-to-go green cemetery in Vernon Hills, Illinois, about 35 miles Northwest of Chicago. Still snow-covered but starting to melt.

February 27, 2013 – Congregation Hakafa signed the contract on a green cemetery section – they purchased 25 plots, and the cemetery is keeping a contiguous additional 25 plots for them for an additional year.  Lomdim is signing a contract for their own area of 11 additional plots next to Hakafa, and they will have a few more reserved for a bit longer, too.