by: Michael Saxe-Taller
It’s amazing but here we are, only a couple weeks away from the start of another new year. That means that it is time to take stock of the past year and to imagine what is coming for the new one.
It has been a wonderfully full year for the Kehilla Community and for me as your executive director. We saw a steady growth in membership, leadership and activity. We celebrated the extraordinary work of our Community Rabbi, David Cooper, as he downshifted his rabbinic role. We shared in the wisdom of Founding Rabbi Burt Jacobson on the occasion of his 80th birthday. We reveled in the leadership of a whole crew of teenagers as they became Bar/Bat Mitvah. We had a big, joyous synagogue retreat.
And I think most importantly, that we stepped forward as a community to courageously face the more visible and numerous challenges that our communities and our country face in this new political moment.
I am excited for the new year that is ahead of us. We can’t know everything we will encounter, but we do know some of the opportunities that are on the horizon:
Celebrating our New Senior Rabbi – Rabbi Dev Noily has stepped into the role of Senior Rabbi and we will have a big celebration to honor the moment. Please mark your calendars for Friday evening, November 10 to Saturday evening, November 11 for our Brit Kehilla: Celebrating a Community Covenant with our new Senior Rabbi
A New Kehilla School Director – We our welcoming our new School Director, Rabbi Gray Myrseth. Rabbi Gray has begun developing their vision for educating Kehilla’s youth, in conjunction with Kehilla School parents and our former School Director, Rabbi Dev.
Caring for our Building – We have begun the process of identifying the repairs and improvements we need to make to our building so that it can be more sustainable, accessible and effective in meeting our communities needs. Over this next year we will engage in a process of setting priorities for these repairs and improvement to our precious, but slightly worn, building.
Kehilla Leadership Retreat – We are looking forward to our second Leadership Retreat where the many of us who are doing the heavy lifting of leading and guiding this community will come together to envision the next steps in our journey as a community.
Coalition Efforts for Justice – I have been heartened by the way that we continue to build and strengthen our relationships with our many community partners and allies. I imagine that this next year will be filled with new possibilities as we fight together for immigrant, racial and economic justice.
I look forward to engaging with you in these and many other opportunities over the next 12 months.
May we all have a sweet year filled with joy, growth, hard work deeply connected community.
L’Shana Tova