Ours is a challenging and often messy world. Doing effective community relations and civic engagement in this environment can be trying. It’s also incredibly rewarding.
People often ask me whether I’d rather be doing something else than leading a JCRC in these fraught times, or what I imagine doing after JCRC. My answer to that is that I can’t imagine, for myself, doing anything else than this work. I consider myself incredibly blessed that in a world where so many ask “what can we do?” I go to work every day with an amazing team – our professionals, our volunteers, our network or agencies and the leaders across our community – who together say: “This is what we need to do and are going to do.”
As we head into the dog days of summer, I’m immensely proud of all that we’ve achieved this year as a coalition representing Boston’s organized Jewish community in civic space. Just this week, the Massachusetts legislature passed a budget appropriating over $8 million to support priorities of our community’s social safety net – benefiting the entire Commonwealth. And, our Congressional House delegation unanimously supported H. Res. 246, rejecting the delegitimization of Israel by the BDS movement and strongly supporting a two-state approach to resolving the conflict. Successes like these don’t happen without a long-term approach of building relationships with civic leaders, partnering over time on many issues, and having a strong network of Jewish institutions working together.
I couldn’t imagine anything more rewarding. Candidly, it can also be consuming. The building of long-term relations and networks always competes with the daily reality of events that drive the news. Ours is a work premised on always seeing the horizon while living in the moment.
And with that in mind, I’m incredibly honored and privileged that, as I come to the end of my eighth year as Executive Director of JCRC, I am taking a three-month sabbatical.
Our board and management team began planning for my sabbatical over two years ago. It’s been an opportunity for all of us to think about organizational resiliency, our core values and strategies, and to intentionally deepen relationships across our network and with our partners that go beyond any one person.
During my sabbatical, Nahma Nadich, JCRC’s Deputy Director, will serve as the Acting Executive Director. I have known Nahma for two decades and we have worked hand-in-hand, side-by-side for eight years. I can say with absolute confidence that JCRC is in very good hands. Our incredible professional team has been preparing for this period without me and I’m already seeing them grow as leaders in advance of this experience.
I’m incredibly grateful to our board for offering me this special (and rare) opportunity, and to our professional team who shoulder the responsibility (and additional work) that allows me to step away.
Over the coming months I’ll be making a radical shift in my daily habits; Rather than absorb and react to global and local developments every day, I hope to – by and large – ignore them entirely. Rather than read twenty hot takes and ten different daily papers, I hope to read more books. And rather than offer a public Jewish voice that helps our community and the civic space understand how “we,” the organized Jewish community, understands the complexity of the events of the day, I’ll be spending some time traveling and having new experiences for my own personal growth and edification.
In June our board approved our new three-year strategic plan that will direct JCRC as we build on our strengths, adapt to the latest needs, and pursue a long-term vision as we celebrate our 75th year. I look forward to returning this fall refreshed in my sense of the purpose that drives me in service to our community, and with new energy to lead JCRC as we continue to add value to Boston’s civic space in the decades ahead.
In my absence I invite you to enjoy the voices of Nahma and other members of our team each Friday in this space and to follow them on social media. My last day in the office will be this coming Tuesday, July 30th. I look forward to returning at the beginning of November. Until then–
Shabbat Shalom,
People often ask me whether I’d rather be doing something else than leading a JCRC in these fraught times, or what I imagine doing after JCRC. My answer to that is that I can’t imagine, for myself, doing anything else than this work. I consider myself incredibly blessed that in a world where so many ask “what can we do?” I go to work every day with an amazing team – our professionals, our volunteers, our network or agencies and the leaders across our community – who together say: “This is what we need to do and are going to do.”
As we head into the dog days of summer, I’m immensely proud of all that we’ve achieved this year as a coalition representing Boston’s organized Jewish community in civic space. Just this week, the Massachusetts legislature passed a budget appropriating over $8 million to support priorities of our community’s social safety net – benefiting the entire Commonwealth. And, our Congressional House delegation unanimously supported H. Res. 246, rejecting the delegitimization of Israel by the BDS movement and strongly supporting a two-state approach to resolving the conflict. Successes like these don’t happen without a long-term approach of building relationships with civic leaders, partnering over time on many issues, and having a strong network of Jewish institutions working together.
I couldn’t imagine anything more rewarding. Candidly, it can also be consuming. The building of long-term relations and networks always competes with the daily reality of events that drive the news. Ours is a work premised on always seeing the horizon while living in the moment.
And with that in mind, I’m incredibly honored and privileged that, as I come to the end of my eighth year as Executive Director of JCRC, I am taking a three-month sabbatical.
Our board and management team began planning for my sabbatical over two years ago. It’s been an opportunity for all of us to think about organizational resiliency, our core values and strategies, and to intentionally deepen relationships across our network and with our partners that go beyond any one person.
During my sabbatical, Nahma Nadich, JCRC’s Deputy Director, will serve as the Acting Executive Director. I have known Nahma for two decades and we have worked hand-in-hand, side-by-side for eight years. I can say with absolute confidence that JCRC is in very good hands. Our incredible professional team has been preparing for this period without me and I’m already seeing them grow as leaders in advance of this experience.
I’m incredibly grateful to our board for offering me this special (and rare) opportunity, and to our professional team who shoulder the responsibility (and additional work) that allows me to step away.
Over the coming months I’ll be making a radical shift in my daily habits; Rather than absorb and react to global and local developments every day, I hope to – by and large – ignore them entirely. Rather than read twenty hot takes and ten different daily papers, I hope to read more books. And rather than offer a public Jewish voice that helps our community and the civic space understand how “we,” the organized Jewish community, understands the complexity of the events of the day, I’ll be spending some time traveling and having new experiences for my own personal growth and edification.
In June our board approved our new three-year strategic plan that will direct JCRC as we build on our strengths, adapt to the latest needs, and pursue a long-term vision as we celebrate our 75th year. I look forward to returning this fall refreshed in my sense of the purpose that drives me in service to our community, and with new energy to lead JCRC as we continue to add value to Boston’s civic space in the decades ahead.
In my absence I invite you to enjoy the voices of Nahma and other members of our team each Friday in this space and to follow them on social media. My last day in the office will be this coming Tuesday, July 30th. I look forward to returning at the beginning of November. Until then–
Shabbat Shalom,
Jeremy
