Contact: Shira Burns
1.12.20 JCRC to Present Executive Director Jeremy Burton
with Warren B. Kohn Award
(Boston, MA) The Jewish Community Relations Council is pleased to announce that the JCRC Board of Directors has unanimously voted to present Jeremy Burton with the Warren B. Kohn Award on his ten-year anniversary as Executive Director. The Kohn award is presented by JCRC to an outstanding Jewish community relations professional in memory of Warren B. Kohn, a past president of JCRC. JCRC will present this award as a part of the JCRC Celebrates Gala in September 2021.
Jeremy joined JCRC as Executive Director in October 2011, after playing major leadership roles in many Jewish nonprofits as well as political campaigns. Under Jeremy’s leadership, JCRC has thrived as a national model for community relations.
“Jeremy is a unique Jewish leader who combines head with heart and a deep love of the Jewish People with a passion for American democracy,” said Rabbi Marc Baker, President & CEO of Combined Jewish Philanthropies. “In challenging and divisive times, our community is blessed to have a leader like Jeremy, a voice of conscience and conviction, who helps us all to navigate complexity and competing values with nuance and integrity. Jeremy has earned this honor because of who he is as a leader. I am grateful for his partnership and friendship.”
“Jeremy has dedicated himself to developing deep and enduring relationships within and beyond the Jewish community,” said JCRC President Stacey Bloom. “He cherishes his collaborations with our Jewish organizational partners, and his interfaith relationships are based on profound respect, authentic openness, and a generosity of spirit. Jeremy is the rare leader who feels responsibility not to any one segment of our community, but to its totality. He embraces and honors his duty to discern the concerns, hopes and aspirations of the organized Jewish community, to communicate them beyond our community, and to mobilize action on their behalf in the halls of power. Jeremy is a national thought leader in the Jewish community, and a leader the Boston Jewish community looks to again and again.”
“Jeremy came to us not only with extraordinary political acumen honed over decades of leadership in the public arena, but with a deep love for and commitment to the Jewish community acting on its most cherished values,” said Deputy Director Nahma Nadich. “Jeremy’s clarity of vision propelled JCRC to distill and amplify its core mission of building a Jewish community that is civically engaged and connected through enduring partnerships beyond our community, in service to Jewish concerns and the collective good.”
Past Recipients of the Warren B. Kohn Award:
- 2018: Robert Trestan, Anti-Defamation League
- 2016: Rabbi Barbara Penzner, Temple Hillel B’nai Torah
- 2012: Nahma M. Nadich, Jewish Community Relations Council
- 2008: Alan S. Ronkin, Jewish Community Relations Council
- 2005: Larry Lowenthal, American Jewish Committee
- 2000: Nancy K. Kaufman, Jewish Community Relations Council
- 1996: Barbara Gaffin, Jewish Community Relations Council
- 1992: Sheila Decter, American Jewish Congress
- 1989: Leonard P. Zakim, Anti-Defamation League
- 1987: Philip Perlmutter, Jewish Community Relations Council
Jeremy came to the Jewish community from a career in political strategy and public communications, having worked for New York Mayor David N. Dinkins, Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger, the 1996 Clinton/Gore Re-Election Campaign, and the New York State Assembly & Attorney General, among others. Previously he was the Senior Vice President of Programs at the Jewish Funds for Justice, and Vice President of Programs at the Jewish Funders Network. Jeremy also served as a board member of Keshet, working for the full inclusion of LGBTQ Jews in Jewish life. Jeremy writes and speaks widely about challenges and opportunities facing the Jewish community. He has been published in the Boston Globe, Times of Israel, New York Jewish Week, the Jewish Forward, and the Washington Post: On Faith. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency included him in their “Twitter 100” list of the most influential Jewish voices on Twitter. You can follow him @BurtonJM. About the Jewish Community Relations Council
JCRC defines and advances the values, interests, and priorities of the organized Jewish community of Greater Boston in the public square. Visit us at www.jcrcboston.org. ###
