Federation is your Jewish home

Starting down the rabbit hole of definitions, “home” refers to a place where one lives. “Live,” as one definition says, is where one makes one’s home in a particular place. In other words, it seems as though “home” and “living” both refer to a place where one feels comfortable and at ease. Home, for many of us, can be in more than one place. Some of us have moved frequently in our lives and some have not. It seems as though each of us gets to define “home” in various ways.

Your Jewish Federation wants you to know that if you are here 3 months, 6 months, 9 months or all 12 months, Greater Naples is your home. And we are doing everything we can to make it a place that is welcoming, engaging and special.

How does Federation make this home? We have programming for you: Jewish Book Festival, speakers from and about Israel, speakers regarding your relationship to the Catholic community, our Jewish Day of Learning and special events and speakers.

We provide support to elderly Holocaust survivors; the Holocaust Museum, which teaches students and teachers in our area the lessons of Holocaust; preschoolers; BBYO students; and a huge variety of charities in Israel and overseas.

We send out the monthly Federation Star publication to keep you informed of most of the Jewish happenings in our area.

We sponsor PJ Library, a service for small children to receive books with Jewish themes.

Your Federation cares about all of us. We are here as your Jewish home.

Our new home, the Nina Iser Jewish Cultural Center, is rising from the sand at 4720 Pine Ridge Road. The walls are up, and the roof will soon be on, allowing the interior work to be done during “rainy season.”

With your help, we have come a long way. With your help, we will finish our campaigns, both Annual and Capital, and continue to meet the needs of our Jewish home.

On April 12, we will hold our Annual Meeting via Zoom. We hope you will join us as we thank retiring board members and welcome new board members. You will notice that, in this time of building our new home, the officers of Federation is not changing. We believe this continuity is important while the construction is underway.

Thank you for caring, participating and being at home with all of us. Hope to “see you” April 12 at 7 p.m.