Expanding our outreach and amplifying our Jewish voice
As I write this month’s From Where I Sit column, we are preparing to kick off our 26th Annual Jewish Book Festival. For many in our community, this is the highlight of our programmatic year. For the last 26 years, during Jewish book month, which November has been designated as such, our community has come together around the idea of books, learning, and education.
However, for the first time in our organization’s history of producing and holding this annual event, one of the program’s inaugural/founding members of its planning committee will not be with us. Myra Weiss z”l passed away on October 15, leaving a hole in her family and our community. Myra’s passion for books, along with her love of people, is going to be missed. Along with Debby Klein as Co-Chairs of our Jewish Book Festival Committee, with the support of Jewish Federation staff members Marilyn Weintraub and Debby Singer, they helped us create and establish what would become one of the pillar events our Jewish Federation has been offering for the last 26 years. We dedicated the opening of this year’s festival to honor and remember Myra and look forward to working with the family to establish an annual commemoration for future festivals. While Myra’s presence will be missed, her impact on our community will live on. Kol HaKavod (well done), Myra, and thank you.
In addition to kicking off our Jewish Book Festival, our Jewish Federation is also excited to have re-established our Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) after a twenty-year hiatus. I was thrilled to announce this in my weekly eBlast message we sent out back on October 15. In that column, I explained that our JCRC aims to help support our Jewish Federation within its advocacy role on behalf of the local Jewish community. Under my direction as Executive Director, this group, made up of selected community members from across our community, will help us confront and respond to a wide range of areas including, but not limited to, antisemitism, anti-Jewish sentiment, the local implementation of ethnic studies, issues in and around the community that require a Jewish response, outreach to local school districts, as well as enhance and expand our relationships with local elected officials and bodies.
Over the last several years, as our Jewish Federation has expanded its advocacy efforts to confront antisemitism and the rise of hate that our Jewish community has been the target of since October 7, we have determined that a more robust, coordinated, and strategic approach is needed to deal with these issues for our community. As JCRCs exist throughout our country, both as efforts by the Jewish Federation and as separate nonprofit organizations, now was the time to bring back our community’s JCRC.
Initially, the JCRC will tackle our most immediate needs while laying the foundation for both short-term and long-term goals to ensure that our Jewish voice is heard and outreach is done to different pockets/groups of our local community to establish and/or enhance our relationships. I look forward to keeping our community updated along the way.
And lastly, be on the lookout for an announcement very soon about a new venture that will directly benefit our community’s youth beginning in the Summer of 2025.
Jason Moss is executive director of the Jewish Federation of the Greater
San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys.
