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2021 June OCN

Minute With Moshe

What will it take to become the best little Jewish town in America?

Dreaming, boldly. Nuturing mutual trust. Giving free reign to imagination. Grappling with the nuts and bolts of a detailed plan. 

As we slowly come out of our COVID-19 hibernation, we have an opportunity to once again reengage in Jewish life for mutual support, spiritual searching, Jewish learning, and cultural activities. We are blessed to have a diverse community with many ways to express our unique Jewish identities.

In my view, our diversity brings strength. Our Jewish ecosystem is dynamic and growing. I’m pleased to report that the Snowbird Community and Bais Yaakov High School have recently been added to our community matrix. 

Along with the professional staff of the Federation, I invite you to become part of this process to plan and build the best little Jewish town in America. 

The first step is identifying and prioritizing our choices to grow, enrich, and strengthen our community. In creating a community roadmap, we’ll need both insight and foresight‒ insight about the present to identify underlying connections and interactions and foresight to identify the emerging conditions, issues, and opportunities.  

My proposal entails executing our community development timeline over three years in coordination with the entire Jewish community:

  • In Year One: we’ll brainstorm, use community survey feedback, parlor meetings, and town halls to identify the dreams our community wants to turn into realities. 
  • In 2022: we’ll review the findings and present proposed solutions to take the next steps forward on our timeline. We’ll look carefully at our dreams and refine the most promising strategies for success. 
  • In 2023: we’ll be well-positioned to engage the community in a capital campaign for our most significant goals. Our last capital campaign was in 2000 when we raised funds to erect the new community center.  Our beautiful center demonstrates that community dreams can really come true!

Finding Our Way

Prayer is no panacea, no substitute for action. It is, rather, like a beam thrown from a flashlight before us into the darkness. It is in this light that we who grope, stumble, and climb, discover where we stand, what surrounds us, and the course which we should choose.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel

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