Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC)
JCRC: A Bold but Trusted Jewish Voice in the Community
Sarah Weiss has been a tremendous mentor to me for years. We first met when I was working in news. When I wanted to know what “the Jewish community” thought about something happening in our city or around the world, I showed up at the JCC, and asked her. That was before I came to really understand that there isn’t one “Jewish response” to anything. Of course now I’m really starting to realize, how almost impossible it is to speak with one voice for the entire community. I guess that’s what I get for making her answer those tough questions!
But in all seriousness, during my four years reporting for WLWT here in town, the real reason I came to Sarah when I wanted a response from the Jewish community was because I knew Sarah spoke for the JCRC. And I knew that the JCRC was a credible, respected, trusted Jewish voice. One voice that spoke on behalf of a diverse community, from a place of Jewish values. A thoughtful, responsible voice that was bold, but always credible. Tonight, we are focused on honoring our past, and shaping our future.
And when I think about those bold, credible Jewish voices, I can’t help but think about my past and hear my grandmother’s voice. Beverly Klein was a child of the depression. Her grandparents had fled the Pograms in Russia with nothing more than their two feather pillows and a set of candlesticks. Born in 1930, Beverly was raised in a Baltimore Jewish neighborhood by one of her grandmothers. Beverly was strong, and nurturing. Witty and sharp, but humble.
Looking back on my upbringing in an interfaith home with a father who was Catholic, it was my grandmother’s voice that grounded me in my Jewishness. And it occurs to me that what made her voice one that I respected — a credible one — in my eyes — were the values, her Jewish values and her Jewish identity that shaped that voice and informed the way she lived. She treasured Jewish community, with a diverse friend group that she and my grandfather had their whole lives. This group was made up of Republicans and Democrats — people who didn’t always agree. But for my grandmother, her sense of community was grounded in mutual understanding and respect.
She cared deeply about her extended family — the Jewish people — and she loved Israel. She and my grandfather often talked about their visit there in 1990. I now have the album from her trip, and as I look through the pages, I see the same places I had the chance to visit last year, on the community mission. When we were at the Kotel for Shabbat services, I could almost feel her essence around me. I think she probably felt that way standing there, too, some 26 years before me, thinking about the generations of our people who came before her.
But my grandmother’s Judaism and her Jewish values reached well beyond her own Jewish community. She believed fervently in the power of helping others. Once her nest was empty, she and my grandfather volunteered in D.C. area public schools, as part of a program that paired grandparents with kids who needed mentors. And as a CPA, she volunteered her accounting services, preparing taxes for people who couldn’t prepare their own, until ALS took her ability to talk.
My grandmother lost her battle to ALS about a year before I started working in the Jewish community. And while I wish she could be here to see where I am now, I realize she was here just long enough to be that values-driven presence in my life until I found all of you. You see, while I’ve lived in Cincinnati for going on six years now, it really wasn’t until I started working in the Jewish community two years ago that this city really started to feel like home. And I can’t put into words how grateful I am to now be in a position as JCRC Director to really give back to this incredibly vibrant, diverse, welcoming community that has so warmly embraced me.
Over the past few months, I’ve really been focused on getting to know each of you better, on hearing what you want from your JCRC. I’ve heard you say you’re worried about a rise in antisemitism, intolerance, and bigotry, both here and abroad. I’ve heard you say you’re concerned about poverty and racial inequity in our city – that you want to build stronger bridges with our friends of other ethnicities and faiths. I’ve heard you say you’re worried about Israel – about those who seek to delegitimize and destroy the only true democracy in the Middle East. And about how that’s affecting your kids on college campuses. I’ve heard you say you’re troubled by the toxic political divisions that are tearing at the fabric of our communities. I’ve heard you say you’re worried that we can’t work to fix all of these things at the same time. That somehow they are mutually exclusive.
I’ve heard you. And I’m here to say tonight – that we can – and must – work to fix all of them. That they are not mutually exclusive, but rather, they build on one another. Our mission statement articulates this beautifully and succinctly: Jewish security depends on a just society for all. While I know these times are turbulent and worrisome in many different ways, I also know that our history tells us we can rise to the challenge.
We are standing on the shoulders of lay and professional JCRC giants, who, to quote my predecessor Dr. Michael Rapp, were doing this work when there was no guarantee that the Nazis wouldn’t win. They had then, and we have now everything we need here in the diversity, passion, and fortitude that’s sitting in this room.
If my grandmother was alive today, she would be sitting right there… front and center. Kvelling big time. But I don’t have to imagine her sitting there. I see her in the ladies who meet for mahjong over bagels and lox in our J Café. I see her in our community’s volunteers, who are working to make our Jewish community and our Cincinnati community a better place for all people. I hear her credible values driven Jewish voice in the work of the JCRC.
That’s why I believe in what we are doing. For me, it’s about honoring that voice – my past, our past – and being that voice – to shape my future, our future – so that it’s one in which my children and my grandchildren, all those who will come after us, can flourish.
The Jewish Community Relations Council is one of over fifty programs and agencies funded in part by the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati.
The Jewish Federation of Cincinnati: We look at the whole picture, taking into account the diverse needs of the entire community. Together we can do almost anything.
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