JEWISH FEDERATION
Federation Star
December 2023
3
Light over darkness Jeffrey Feld
Nat Ritter
Federation President/ CEO
Federation Board Chair
A
s a community, we are about to celebrate the holiday of Chanukah. This holiday celebrates the miracle of a single day’s portion of holy oil (to
be used for the eternal light) that lasted for eight days. During second century BCE, the Holy Temple was destroyed and desecrated by King Antiochus and
the Assyrians. Thanks to the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire, the Jews reclaimed the Temple and were free and able to practice Judaism. We celebrate the holiday to remember good overcoming evil. The word Chanukah means dedication. As a community, we celebrate “dedication.” We celebrate being dedicated to building a Jewish community. We celebrate being dedicated to helping Jews.
At this particular time, we are dedicated to Israel. We are dedicated to helping ensure Israel’s existence. We are dedicated to helping the Israelis who have been affected by the barbaric terrorist attack of Oct. 7. We are dedicated to Am Yisrael Chai — the nation of Israel lives! Chanukah is the Festival of Lights. We are dedicated to providing light against the darkness of evil. We wish you a Happy Chanukah — to the dedication of light over darkness.
The importance of our annual campaign By Rosalee Bogo, Campaign Chair
W
hat an incredibly caring community we are. Since the appeal for the Israel Emergency Fund has been made, you have answered the call. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have come to our Federation and will go directly to heed humanitarian needs in Israel. Anytime there are emergency needs, there is a strong effect on our annual campaign. That happened this past year when the community donated funds to help with Hurricane Ian and the war in Ukraine. As a result, the annual campaign fundraising goal, which was set to satisfy the needs of our budget, was not reached. This was especially problematic, and
our Allocations Committee was forced to cut the funding of many of our recipients as we simply were unable to fulfill their requests. You may not know where the dollars you donate to your Federation go. The larger synagogues in our community get scholarship money for religious school and camps. Our smaller local synagogues get funds for help with community programming. The Baker Senior Center gets funds to help with geriatric case management and the Holocaust survivors, who are a priority of this Federation. With the amount of antisemitism happening, it is even more important to give funds to the Holocaust Museum to educate
the community about the for abused children who are Holocaust. We support Jewish referred by the local law. It War Veterans, BBYO, FGCU has the only emergency center Jewish students, Jewish Hisfor teen girls. Many of our torical Society, and many othleadership team have visited ers. We have local and overseas these sites and see the need needs that also must be met. for support. There are core assessments There are so many needs we must satisfy annually from for the dollars we raise. Our JFNA to JAFI, ORT and JDC, campaign kickoff is Nov. 29 Rosalee Bogo our overseas partners. This also and campaign cabinet workers includes Birthright Israel. We allocate to will be calling you to get your pledge. Be agencies in Israel that help the elderly, sure to thank them for calling. Raising like Yad Lakashish, and the immigrant money is not easy, but nothing is more children who need to be educated to gratifying than helping those in need. prepare for the army and Israeli life. We “Be glad you are the hand that gives support Neve Michael, a residential home and not the one who needs to receive.”
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