Did You Hear?

I take much of the language in this week’s Shabbat message from a correspondence I received from our national system, the Jewish Federations of North America.  I know that for many of us our “Jewish attention” has been focused on our local Jewish community, on the Israeli elections and on growing anti-Semitism across Europe.  I […]

The buzz this past week has been about Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech in Congress.  Admittedly, there is a divide both within and from outside the Jewish community as to whether the Prime Minister should have given the speech at all.  There is debate about the right way to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat.  One thing […]

In last week’s New York Times Magazine, “The Ethicist” had a question posed to him.  The question raised was, “During a pledge drive for a public-radio station, an on-air personality made an accusation I’d never heard:  that regular listeners who never contributed were behaving unethically.”  Is it unethical? The Ethicist responded that it was not […]

Debbie Winn Horvitz, the CEO of the Jewish Association on Aging, spoke at a meeting of the Federation Beneficiary Agency Executives.  Debbie mentioned that at a recent session of the Wechsler Leadership Development Institute (Federation’s Young Adult leadership development program), one of the attendees was very taken by an aspect of the work of the […]

A tremendous Fundfest took place this past week. Despite some tough weather, hundreds came to the Federation offices to get on the phones to reach out and connect with other fellow community members to ask for their support of our 2015 Campaign.  Fundfest has propelled our campaign to $6 Million and added many new donors to our […]

The Centennial Fund for a Jewish Future, our Federation’s initiative to secure permanent endowment dollars to fund Jewish identity building programming, has had exceptional progress since its inception just five years ago.  To date, approximately $24 Million in commitments have been secured and with much of those commitments already being paid by generous donors, we […]

I had intended to write today about a visit during my family’s December vacation in Atlanta at the Ebenezer Baptist Church.  I wanted to tie that into this Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend when we recall King’s struggle for civil rights in this country.  However, recent events have unfortunately redirected my message. Nearly three years […]

Over the past few years, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh has sent several missions to Cuba.  We witnessed a small yet vibrant Jewish community and saw the work our dollars make possible with our own eyes.  As part of those missions, we visited the American Intersection.  As you know, the United States has not […]

Sunday night was the graduation of this year’s cohort of Diller Teen Fellows.  This group of 20, who have been together with a group of teens from our Partnership2Gether Region of Karmiel and Misgav as part of a leadership development program, will travel to Israel in a few weeks.  Their originally scheduled trip this summer had […]

I write today about our Jewish future and about two ways our Federation is looking and preparing for that destination. Monday was the first Pittsburgh Jewish Community Scorecard Roundtable.  Approximately 65 volunteer and professional leaders in our community came together to review some of the findings in our first round of collecting data as part […]