Community Archives - JewishColumbus

Home Blog Shabbat Message – October 16, 2026

Dear Friends,

October 6 marked eight years since my father passed away. That evening, Lori Ann and I hosted a gathering at our home for Temple Beth Shalom volunteers.

For those who may not know, my father was the synagogue’s founding president, and I was its very first bar mitzvah. I have often said that the synagogue was like a fifth child to him. He loved it, nurtured it, and devoted so much of his life to helping it thrive. As I looked around at those volunteers, I couldn’t help but feel that he was there with us. The institution he helped build was still bringing people together. On the anniversary of his death, we celebrated the very commitment to community that meant so much to him.

I have thought about that evening quite a bit.

Last night, I was humbled to receive the Generation Award from the Columbus Jewish News. As part of that recognition, I was asked which Jewish value has most influenced my life and leadership. My answer was l’dor v’dor, from generation to generation. Standing among those volunteers on October 6, I was reminded that l’dor v’dor isn’t simply something we talk about. It is something we live.

My parents and grandparents taught me that being part of a Jewish community comes with responsibility. You give your time and your treasure. You show up. You invest in something larger than yourself, not just because it means something to you today, but because you want it to be there for those who come after you.

And that brings me to something I hope each of you will consider.

Next week is National Estate Planning Awareness Week. It’s a chance to consider how we can keep supporting the people, institutions, and causes that matter most to us, even after we are gone.

Gordon and Donna Hecker offer a wonderful example. Gordon, former President and CEO of JewishColumbus, and Donna have spent years generously giving their time and resources. Following Gordon’s cancer diagnosis and treatment, they began thinking more intentionally about the lasting impact they wanted to make.

They decided to include JewishColumbus, Orr Shalom, and other organizations meaningful to their family in their estate plans, so the causes they love will continue to thrive.

Phil Weinerman, Chair of our JewishColumbus Foundation Committee, puts it beautifully: “If you love your children and your community, you will invest now and in the future so Jewish life in Central Ohio can thrive.”

A legacy gift does not have to be enormous. Whether through a will, a beneficiary designation, or an endowment, each of us can make a lasting difference.

Imagine what our Columbus Jewish community could become if hundreds of families made that commitment. Imagine the strength and security it could provide our synagogues, schools, agencies, and programs for generations to come.

If you haven’t yet considered including JewishColumbus and other Jewish institutions meaningful to you in your estate plans, I encourage you to talk with Lori Maier Wishne at JewishColumbus. She would welcome the opportunity to help you explore what a legacy gift could look like.

Thinking about the legacy we leave brings me back to that evening at our home.

My father wasn’t there to thank the volunteers. He wasn’t there to see the work they were doing or the friendships they were building. But everything he believed in was there. And I realized that perhaps the greatest legacy we can leave isn’t a building, a name on a plaque, or even the money we give. It is a community that continues to thrive because we cared enough to invest in its future. My father didn’t help build Temple Beth Shalom so people would remember him. He helped build it so Jewish life would continue.

We inherited a Jewish community because generations before us built it. The best way to honor them is to make sure the generations after us inherit one that is even stronger.

Shabbat Shalom.

Dear Friends,

One of the things I love about Judaism is that no matter how long you have been living it, there is always something more to learn.

This week, I felt inspired to learn more about the holiday of Shemini Atzeret — one that is often overlooked or gets lost at the tail end of a long month of holidays. I found myself wanting to understand it better.

As I was thinking about this week’s message, I spent some time learning more.

Shemini Atzeret comes immediately after the seven days of Sukkot. It is a distinct Jewish holiday, and its name means the “eighth day of assembly.” There is a beautiful teaching about the holiday that imagines God, after the days of Sukkot together, essentially saying: don’t leave yet. Stay with me one more day.

I understand that feeling a lot better at this stage of my life.

Our three kids are adults now, building lives of their own. The times when Lori Ann and I have everyone home and around the same table are less frequent than they once were. When they are home, I find myself wanting dinner to last a little longer. One more conversation. One more story. One more hour before everyone heads in different directions.

Suddenly, a holiday I had always wondered about made a lot more sense to me.

Maybe that is a new tradition for me this year: allowing a part of our tradition I had long wanted to understand more deeply to teach me something new.

And then comes Simchat Torah.

We finish reading the Torah and immediately return to the beginning. Same Torah. Same words. Same stories. But we are not the same people who read them a year ago.

I have lived in Columbus my entire life and have been involved in our Jewish community for decades. I thought I knew it pretty well.

Serving as Chair of JewishColumbus has shown me how much I still have to learn.

I have met people I probably never would have known otherwise. I have learned more about our synagogues, schools, agencies, Israel, and the people who quietly make this community work every day. I have listened to people whose Jewish lives look very different from mine. And sometimes those conversations have made me look differently at things I thought I already understood.

That may be one of the lessons I most want to carry into this new year: never assume you are finished learning, especially about something you love.

Maybe there is a Jewish tradition you have never explored. A text you have never studied. A person in our community whose story you have never heard. Maybe there is something you think you understand that deserves another look.

Read something. Attend a class. Have a conversation with someone you might not normally talk to. Ask a question you thought you already knew the answer to. And when you think you have figured something out, be willing to look at it again.

Because these two holidays leave us with two pretty remarkable lessons.

On Simchat Torah, we reach the end, celebrate everything we have learned, and then go right back to the beginning.

And Shemini Atzeret, the holiday I finally made time to explore more deeply this year, asks us to do something even simpler: don’t leave yet. Stay a little longer.

Maybe there is wisdom in both.

Stay long enough to appreciate what is in front of you. And remain curious enough to see something in it you have never seen before.

After 57 years, Shemini Atzeret taught me something new this week.

Perhaps that is the gift of our tradition. No matter how long we have been part of it, it is never finished teaching us.

Shabbat Shalom.

Dear Friends,

As we begin 5787, I have been thinking about a simple question: what kind of year do we want this to be?

There is a Jewish idea that the way we begin a new year can help shape what follows. We dip apples in honey because we hope for sweetness. But I think there is something more to it. If we want a year filled with kindness, connection, belonging, and Jewish joy, we cannot simply wish for those things. We have to put our hands in and help build them.

That idea of putting our hands in together has been on my mind lately.

I know I talk about my family a lot in these messages. There is a reason for that. So much of what I understand about community started with them.

My grandparents, Troy, Pearl, Richard, and Gussie, put their hands in. My parents did the same. They taught me that being part of a Jewish community came with a responsibility to help carry it. You showed up. You gave your time and your treasure. You opened your home. You were there when people needed you. You did not wait for someone else to build the community you wanted to be part of.

Lori Ann and I have tried to carry those lessons into our own family. And now, as our children have grown and begun building lives of their own, I think more and more about what we are passing on.

What my grandparents and parents gave me was not simply a set of traditions. They taught me that I belonged to something larger than myself, and that belonging came with responsibility. If you wanted the community to be there for you, you had to be willing to put your own hand in to make sure it was there for everyone else.

That is what I want 5787 to be about.

During the High Holidays, there is a moment that always strikes me. Hundreds of us gather in one place, reciting the same words. We arrive with different families, different stories, different struggles, and different relationships with Judaism. Yet for those moments, we are one community.

Imagine if we carried that feeling with us throughout the year.

Maybe it means giving more of your time. Maybe it means giving more of your treasure. Maybe it means inviting someone to your Shabbat table, showing up at an event, checking on someone who is alone, or reaching out to someone who has not yet found their place in our community.

This is how I see our community: all of us stacking our hands together. No one hand can carry a community alone.

But when all of us put our hands in, we can build something vibrant, connected, joyful, and strong. Without engagement, our institutions cannot thrive. Without generosity, they cannot endure. And without people willing to show up for one another, neither can our people.

My grandparents and parents understood that. They put their hands in and helped build a Jewish community they believed was worth inheriting.

Now it is our turn.

Someday, our children and grandchildren will inherit the Jewish community our hands are building today.

Let’s make sure we never leave it for someone else’s hands to carry.

Shabbat Shalom.

Shabbat Message is sent to our email database. Join the JewishColumbus mailing list.

Dear Friends,

There is a particular feeling that comes with the High Holidays. It is the sound of a room filling up, the familiar faces, the seat that has always been yours. For all the reflection this season asks of us, what we love most is the simple warmth of being together again.

Belonging is the heart of Jewish life. We gather to reflect, to connect, to celebrate and in doing so we remind one another that we are not alone. This year, we want us all to lean fully into that warmth. We want our sanctuaries and social halls to feel full, our tables crowded, our children growing up knowing the joy of a community that shows up for them.

And we want us to feel safe while we do it.

In a time of rising antisemitism, the freedom to sing a little louder, to linger a little longer, to bring a friend who has never come before, all of it depends on knowing that someone has thought carefully about our safety. This year, that is exactly what we have been building together.

Our security program is designed so that your safety never depends on a single point of protection. State of the art technology forms one layer. Trained, armed security forms another. Deep coordination with our law enforcement partners forms a third. Woven together, these layers give us multi-level, integrated coverage across our community’s institutions.

This summer, we brought those layers under one roof. In June, we launched our Security Operations Center (SOC), a hub staffed by trained professionals who monitor our systems, share intelligence with regional and national partners, and stand ready to coordinate a response the moment one is needed. If a serious threat ever emerges, the SOC can reach the whole community in minutes. It is, quite simply, the nerve center of how we keep one another safe.

But security is not only cameras and operators. It is people who know what to do. Before this school year began, all of our community schools completed Active Shooter Response training. Two hundred and sixty-four members of our community have been trained in Stop the Bleed, learning skills that save lives in the moments before help arrives. We have led emergency management, crisis management, and emergency communications training, supported security planning at 11 community events, and presented to the boards of six partner organizations, so that shared knowledge becomes shared strength.

These numbers matter, but not for their own sake. They matter because behind each one is a child in a classroom, a family at services, a newcomer who walked through our doors and felt welcome. Every training, every partnership, every hour in that operations center exists so that you can do the most Jewish thing of all: gather, without fear.

Here is where you come in. A safe Jewish community is a safe Columbus community. When we come together, protect our own, and live proud, vibrant lives—we strengthen the whole city we call home.

So this year, come in. Take your seat. Bring someone with you. Let the room fill up. We will take care of the rest.

Wishing you and your loved ones a sweet, healthy, and meaningful new year.

Shabbat Shalom.

Shabbat Message is sent to our email database. Join the JewishColumbus mailing list.

Dear Friends,

This week, Lori Ann and I took our youngest son, Julius, back to Clemson for his junior year. I loved having him home this summer. The house felt fuller when he was here, and it certainly feels a lot emptier now.

I know many families in our community are experiencing their own version of that feeling right now. Some are sending a child off to college. Others are walking a preschooler into a classroom for the first time, watching a teenager start high school, or simply adjusting to another school year and another reminder of how quickly our children grow.

And after a wonderful summer, there is something comforting about knowing that wherever our kids are headed, there can be places waiting for them where they belong.

We saw that all summer long. At camp, friendships picked up right where they left off. On Birthright, young adults who began as strangers came home connected by something much larger than themselves. Our children experienced what it feels like to be surrounded by other Jewish kids, to celebrate who they are, and to know, these are my people.

Now summer gives way to school, but that sense of belonging does not have to end.

For some children, it continues in our preschools and day schools. For others, it is synagogue religious school, BBYO, or a teen program. And for our college students, it may be walking into Hillel hundreds of miles from home and finding a Shabbat dinner, a familiar tradition, and people who understand a part of them that needs no explanation.

That is why we invest in these places and experiences. We are building spaces where Jewish connection can happen at every age and every stage. We are helping our children develop friendships, confidence, identity, and pride that they can carry wherever life takes them.

As a parent, I find myself appreciating that more this week.

I cannot make our house feel quite as full with Julius back at Clemson. That is part of watching our children grow up. We raise them, love them, give them roots, and eventually watch them make their own way in the world.

As a Jewish community, we have a similar responsibility. We cannot know exactly where life will take the next generation. But we can make sure we have given them strong roots, meaningful connections, and a community they will always know is theirs.

Our children will grow up. They will leave our classrooms, our camps, and eventually our homes.

Our job is to build a Jewish community they will always want to come home to.

Shabbat Shalom.

Shabbat Message is sent to our email database. Join the JewishColumbus mailing list.

Dear Friends,

As we welcome Shabbat, I find myself reflecting on the extraordinary gift that this past week has been. For the third consecutive year, we welcomed a delegation of Israeli cyclists who traveled thousands of miles to ride in Pelotonia alongside our Columbus community. What began three years ago as an opportunity to support Israelis post October 7 has become something much deeper.

We have learned that supporting Israel is not simply about dollars or programs. It is about people. It is about opening our homes, sharing our stories, celebrating one another’s joys, carrying one another’s burdens, and discovering that although an ocean separates us, we are truly one family.

Pelotonia itself is one of the great expressions of our city’s character. For eighteen years, thousands of riders have gathered in Columbus to raise millions of dollars in the fight against cancer, each mile affirming that every life is precious and every breakthrough is worth pursuing.

For our Israeli friends, however, this year’s ride carried an even deeper meaning. Many come from communities forever changed by the horrors of October 7. Getting back on a bicycle was an act of resilience. It was choosing hope over despair, purpose over paralysis, and life over fear. Riding beside them as members of Team Bexley reminded us that healing often begins with taking the next step, or the next pedal stroke, together.

Perhaps the most beautiful part of this week was not the ride itself, but the relationships it continues to create. This year’s delegation included riders from the Gaza Envelope and, for the first time, riders from our long-standing Partnership2Gether community of Kfar Saba and from Kibbutz Carmia, the community our Columbus Jewish community embraced following October 7.

These are not just places on a map. They are people we know, families we have welcomed, and friends we have come to love. A special thank you to the nine host families who lovingly opened their homes to our guests, and the community members who supported this incredible week. One friendship even inspired the creation of a therapeutic cycling program in Kibbutz Urim, using the healing power of cycling to help survivors recover from trauma. Such is the power of genuine human connection.

One of our Israeli riders, Pato from Kibbutz Carmia, who was warmly welcomed into the home of my sister and brother-in-law, Julie and Randy Friedlander, offered words that none of us will soon forget: “I came to say thank you. You gave us hope when we had lost it. You gave us support. You were there for us. You mean more to us than you will ever know. I am so grateful to be here to say thank you.” We were fortunate that Julie and Randy brought Pato and several of their other guests to our home one afternoon. There was plenty of conversation, lots of laughter, and, naturally, a toast. We learned something that probably will not surprise anyone: Israelis are more than happy to toast l’chaim with a glass of bourbon. It was a lighthearted moment, but one that perfectly captured the week.

As Shabbat begins, may we celebrate not only the miles that were ridden or the funds that were raised, but the friendships that were deepened, the hope that was restored, and the enduring truth that has sustained the Jewish people throughout every generation: life is sacred, life is worth fighting for, and together we help one another choose life.

לחיים — L’Chaim.

Shabbat Shalom.

Shabbat Message is sent to our email database. Join the JewishColumbus mailing list.

We asked our community how they’ve been spending their summer.
The answer?
Making memories with family, friends, and community:
on mountaintops, around campfires, at the lake, and visiting
destinations around the world.

Enjoy our Summer Photo Gallery!

Summer Photo Gallery

Shabbat Message is sent to our email database. Join the JewishColumbus mailing list.

Dear Friends,

We did it again!

Another year of setting bold, audacious goals, and another year our community rose to meet them. That’s not luck. It’s who we are. Agencies, synagogues, and schools that show up in partnership with JewishColumbus every single day, keeping this a place where we can live, work, and play with pride. And you, the donors who lean in, who say yes, who care so deeply that you turn generosity into action.

What matters most isn’t the number on a page. It’s what that number becomes: dignity for an older adult at Wexner Heritage Village, a Jewish student who walks through the world proud of who she is, a family in Israel who feels less alone because Columbus showed up for them. Your yes reaches further than you know, from our neighborhoods here at home to communities we may never meet around the world.

Thank you for being part of something bigger than any one of us.

Enjoy this video and see what we built together!

Thank you to the generous donors who made this achievement possible and whose impact will be felt across the community, Israel, and the world thanks to the tremendous investments we can now make where it matters most.

Click below to view our honor roll of the generosity that fuels our community.

Donor Honor Roll

Shabbat Shalom.

Shabbat Message is sent to our email database. Join the JewishColumbus mailing list.

Dear Friends,

This week, as we prepare to close the JewishColumbus Annual Campaign, I find myself reflecting on what an extraordinary year it has been. Serving as Chair has given me a front-row seat to the heart of this community. I have seen generosity, compassion, courage, and pride. I have seen agencies, synagogues, schools, donors, allies, lay leaders, and professionals step forward together.

I know I often talk about my parents and my family, but that is because they held community as something sacred. They taught me that giving and showing up were not optional. They were how you demonstrated responsibility, gratitude, and love for the community that helped shape you.

To everyone who has already made a gift, thank you. Your generosity is the reason a child went to camp, a senior was not alone, a family felt connected to Israel, and our community had the resources to live Jewishly with confidence.

With just four days left until our Annual Campaign closes, we are only a few hundred thousand dollars away from our $15 million goal. If you have not yet given, please give now. Every gift matters. Every gift moves us closer to ensuring that our community can continue to live Jewish joy safely, proudly, and with excitement.

I am especially grateful to our Campaign Co-Chairs, Terri Meldrum and Josh Barkan, who have worked tirelessly toward this goal.

As you watch this short video message from Terri and Josh, I hope you will reflect on and be proud of the way you have shown up for our community in your own unique way.

Shabbat Shalom.

Shabbat Message is sent to our email database. Join the JewishColumbus mailing list.

Dear Friends,

What I want most for every person in the Columbus Jewish community is simple: to feel welcomed, invited, and connected in whatever way is meaningful to you.

Not because someone tells you that you should. But because you feel it. Because you walk into a room, a synagogue, a program, a school, a camp, or a community gathering and know there is a place for you, even if that place looks different than it does for someone else. We celebrate that difference. Diversity of thought and experience is one of our greatest strengths, and it creates entry points for people to find their own way in.

As summer begins, so many of our children and young adults are heading into experiences that make that connection real. Day camp. Overnight camp. Teen programs. Birthright Israel. These are not just summer activities. They are moments when young people look around and feel, often for the first time in a powerful way, these are my people. Those moments come home with them. They shape pride, identity, and how they see themselves as Jews for years to come.

I felt that kind of connection deeply this past year on the JewishColumbus Israel 614 Mission. Traveling with 190 members of our community, standing together in Israel, spending time with our partners in Kfar Saba, and sharing moments of grief, resilience, and even joy changed me. What made it so powerful was not only where we went, but that we went together. The conversations, the bonds, the shared purpose—all of it made me feel more connected to this community and to the Jewish people than ever before. That is the kind of experience JewishColumbus is building and growing.

And now, a question worth sitting with: How do I connect? What would it take for me to feel that sense of connection in my Jewish community? We don’t have one answer, because there isn’t one. But we hope you’ll let us be part of finding yours.

Because everything I am talking about, connection, Jewish pride, shared experience, does not happen on its own. It happens because people choose to step in. In 15 days our Annual Campaign closes, and we are within reach of our bold $15 million goal. Last year, we doubled our campaign, and because of that, every synagogue, school, agency, and program received double the investment from the year before. Reaching this year’s goal means we can sustain that progress and build on it.

To everyone who has already given, thank you. And to those who have not yet participated, I hope you will make your gift now. Your gift is not just a number. It is one of your ways of saying: I am here. I care. I am part of this.

Let today be the day you step in. jewishcolumbus.org/donate.