Last Friday, I was invited to be at Community Day School (CDS) for a very special visit by the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Education. It’s a rare moment for a person so highly positioned within the federal government to make a visit to a private Jewish day school, no less in Pittsburgh. That same day, I attended Shabbat 1000, a joint program of our Hillel Jewish University Center and Chabad on Campus, to bring 1,000 Pittsburgh area Jewish university students to a single Shabbat dinner. Both had lots of elected officials and other “important” people. You know what took my breath away? The young people.
At the Shabbat 1000 dinner, the two college students who were attacked a few weeks ago while walking to the Hillel building for Shabbat, got up in front of all the other students with incredible Jewish pride to wish all a Shabbat Shalom. Across the room, I saw one of the CMU students who played a critical voluntary role in organizing community volunteers to review petition signatures, one of several efforts to combat the failed attempt to place an anti-Israel and antisemitic referendum on the November ballot in the City of Pittsburgh. These young people and so many others there make me so proud. The Federation was happy to contribute to help underwrite Shabbat 1000.
At CDS, we sat around a table with four students—two eighth graders and two fifth graders. Each spoke briefly about why CDS is so important and special to them. And after the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Education and a representative from the Department of Homeland Security opened the floor for questions, these kids asked deep, thoughtful, probing questions about what the federal government is doing to keep Jews safe not just in Jewish day schools, but in public schools and on university campuses. Their poise, confidence and knowledge about these issues gives me deep hope for our Jewish community’s future.
It’s been a difficult few years in Pittsburgh given the shooting in 2018, the pandemic, the trial for the shooter, the war in Ukraine and the war in Israel. It’s moments like the ones I had over the last week that remind me what our Federation is all about: creating a Jewish community where everyone feels included, supported and inspired. The agencies supported by our Federation are providing that inclusion, support and inspiration to our next generations.
Shabbat Shalom. Go Steelers!