We Move Mountains, Thanks to You
International Torah Fund Chair Barbara Ezring shares her heartfelt connection to Torah Fund, which began when her husband was a rabbinical student at The Jewish Theological Seminary.
This spring, alumni from all of JTS’s schools, like countless other professional and lay leaders in America and elsewhere, are being tested as never before. I want to share the stories of four alumni whose innovative work in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has especially inspired me.
A letter arrived for my Dad the other day. “URGENT ACCOUNT NOTICE,” the envelope declared in bold red capitals. “Don’t let your membership slip away!” And on the back, in bigger letters still, “Please do not discard!” It’s been over eleven years since my father (who never lived at our address) slipped away, taken by a pneumonia that I think he decided at some point not to fight. My thoughts upon seeing the envelope went immediately to the families who received similar letters this week, addressed to loved ones who just a short time ago would have been at home to open them, but had since fallen victim to Covid-19. Others, thanks to selfless hospital staff and access to medical equipment that is still in shockingly short supply, would yet make it home to open letters like the one staring at me on the table, and savor the gift of answering or discarding them.
I’ll be celebrating Purim with a lot less enthusiasm than usual this year. The holiday will as always involve fun and laughter for kids and grownups, too: food and drink aplenty, festive meals in costume, raucous noise-making to drown out the sound of the wicked Haman’s name, and—the part I like best—satirical performances of the Purim story that make pointed reference to contemporary characters and events. It’s a remarkable holiday in many ways, not least because the book of Esther is truly funny at certain points. But the story it tells is not for me, not this year. In times as dark as these, even humor as dark as Purim’s falls flat.
Address at 2020 Rabbinical Convocation Ceremony
It’s a great honor for me, and a source of special pleasure, to address the rabbinical convocation ceremony one last time as Chancellor of JTS and to do so here in the physical expression of JTS’s renaissance. The architects call this atrium a “light court”—hatzer ha-or—and I want to take this opportunity to thank the extraordinary group of rabbis that JTS is honoring today for the light of Torah that you’ve carried and shared over the past 25 years and more. You have served our people and our tradition on at least five continents, by my count, and have done so in a host of different roles, united in your devotion to a cause that JTS and I personally hold very dear, almost as dear as life itself. For this we are grateful to you beyond words.
I joined a group of about 20 Jewish clergy on a trip to El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico last week to see firsthand how current U.S. immigration policy is affecting the individuals seeking entry to America and changing the border communities through which they pass. When people asked me why I was making the journey, the answer I wanted to give was simple: “Because I am a Jew.”
Mourning Jewish Martyrs in Pittsburgh
Last Sunday, watching a color guard move solemnly down the aisle of Pittsburgh’s Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall, I reflected on the significance of mourning Jewish martyrs, killed in synagogue on a Shabbat morning in these United States.
I would like to focus my remarks this evening on a passage that stands at the very center of the Yom Kippur service—one that has been on my mind even more than usual as I approached this High Holiday season, my last as the chancellor of JTS.
