Shul News & Notes

Dear members and friends,

 This is the fifth year I am asking you to support our High Holiday Matching Gift Campaign. However, the urgency is significantly greater this year, given the threats at home and worldwide, and the cost those threats generate for our synagogue.

Our annual campaign raises leadership gifts from our congregants in sums of $10,000, $5,000, $2,500 and $1,250, which make it possible for us to match your gifts 2:1, and provide incentive for giving until the end of the 2024.

This year, I’ve decided not to dwell on the programming and services our shul has delivered to our community. Or the advances in technology and security that have changed the way we do business. Or the ideas and planning for growth and physical plant enhancement that we have imagined and discussed. What I am going to talk about is the need for all of us to be engaged. Borrowing Scott Galloway’s recommended word, “engage,” heard during the excellent interview with Debbie Epstein Henry, I encourage all of you to engage in our shul services, engage in our shul programs and events, and engage in our shul community.

Engage friends, relatives, and neighbors in conversation about the fearsome and frightening antisemitism and anti-Zionism that grow daily. We need to talk about it. We need to counteract the lies and the untruths spread about the horrors of October 7, and the ongoing nightmare that has ensued throughout the Middle East. We need to speak up and speak out.

When we consider the level of fear among Jewish young people and students, when Holocaust survivors warn us that this is just like the 1930s, then history shows us that keeping quiet, keeping a low profile, result in unspeakable outcomes. We need to speak up and speak out.

Antisemitism and anti-Zionism are no longer swimming around below the surface, politely invisible. Now these movements are up in our faces. They threaten us on all levels. In the most prestigious universities. In neighborhood communities. In the voting booth. And yes, even in our sanctuary, where I was once called a racist.

These are the reasons we need to support our shul. We need the safety and support of our Jewish community. We need the comradery of friends and neighbors in an environment where we can talk, and worry, and even cry.

Your tax deductible gift for this High Holiday Campaign will help support our shul community when our costs are higher, when our security is threatened, and when our community needs the comfort and safety of our shul.

In our synagogue, we keep our overhead unbelievably low. We operate on a tiny budget because we rely on the generosity of volunteers and board members who give their time to the ongoing operations.

In the words of David Ben Gurion, “In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.” And I also believe in this: So goes Israel, so goes the Jews around the world. We need a strong Jewish community right here on the North Fork. We need your contribution to the High Holiday Campaign before the close of the year. Thank you.

—Judith K. Weiner