Shalom Chaverim (Dear Friends),
Let me begin by wishing all the incredible mothers in our community a wonderful and love-filled Mother’s Day! This is an exciting week, not just for families, but for hockey lovers as well, as we enter the second round of Stanley Cup Playoffs. While our Florida Panthers have lost their first two games to the Toronto Maple Leafs, I have faith they’ll rally, regain momentum, and bring home the Cup for the second year in a row.
Shalom Chaverim (Dear Friends),
Each year, I am struck by the remarkable juxtaposition of the sorrow of Yom HaZikaron, the Israeli Day of Remembrance, to the joy of Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Day of Independence. Yom HaZikaron is perhaps the single most difficult day of the year for Israelis, as the lives of her fallen soldiers and victims of terror are honored. This year, it feels especially heavy as we continue to pray for the 59 hostages who remain captive in Gaza, 24 of whom are believed to be alive. And still, just as Israel does each year, we find the strength to move from mourning to celebration as we welcome Yom Ha’atzmaut, the anniversary of the reestablishment of a Jewish state nearly 2,000 years after we lost sovereignty of our native land. Remarkable indeed.
Shalom Chaverim (Dear Friends),
It is impossible to begin this week’s message without noting that today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Together we honor the lives and the memory of all of those who were lost, all who were victims of the Nazis and their persecution. More important than ever is the simple notion that we will never forget. NEVER. It is also important to acknowledge the sad news of Pope Francis’s passing on April 21. May his memory and deeds always be a blessing. In the coming weeks, the College of Cardinals will establish the next papacy, deciding between a “traditionalist” or a “progressive,” which would continue Pope Francis’s legacy. Seventeen percent of the world’s population identifies as Catholic, so the loss of such a pivotal religious figure is bound to produce significant changes in the world for all of us.
Shalom Chaverim (Dear Friends),
Passover 2025 concludes this weekend. This year, Lori and I were incredibly fortunate to attend two beautiful Seders surrounded by friends who have welcomed us so warmly into their homes and lives. As we begin our fourth year in South Palm Beach County, we are feeling especially grateful and blessed. And yet, as we celebrate our ancestors’ liberation from Egypt, we are reminded that our freedom is still incomplete. After a year and a half in captivity, there are still hostages, both living and deceased, who remain in Gaza. May they return home safely and soon.
Shalom Chaverim (Dear Friends),
This weekend, we begin Passover and retell the story of our ancestors’ journey to freedom. And yet, I am writing this message while still celebrating a different kind of redemption: the Florida Gators’ long-awaited NCAA men’s basketball victory. After a long plague of losses, the win felt like a miracle. The last time the Gators won was back in 2007, when my family and I were living in Sarasota. Though it’s not exactly akin to wandering the desert for 40 years, we have spent 18 years in the Sunshine State faithfully cheering and waiting for victory. That’s almost a third of my life, and this week, it paid off.
Shalom Chaverim (Dear Friends),
As we begin a new month, I find myself one week into a two-week stint as a bachelor while my wife Lori visits family in Arizona. April brings with it Tax Day, Passover, and baseball. Our community’s snowbirds are preparing to journey back up north, while year-round residents navigate construction everywhere, part of the continued growth and development of our burgeoning community.
Shalom Chaverim (Dear Friends),
This week, Lori and I wrapped up a wonderful stretch of family visits. Our home has been filled with so much love…and some friendly competition over foosball and cornhole. We shared meals, celebrated milestones (including our son Noah’s 29th birthday and my brother Stefan’s 59th), and enjoyed each other’s company. We feel so blessed to have enjoyed such quality family time with our children, grandchildren, siblings, parents, and extended family.
Shalom Chaverim (Dear Friends),
This week our community lost Betty Zale, a special leader who, along with her husband Marvin turned their passion for early childhood education into a commitment to ensuring generations of our community’s youngest members will have a warm, welcoming, and nurturing place to begin their educational and Jewish journeys. Betty, beloved mother of Margie Plough and mother-in-law of past Levis JCC President Maurice Plough Jr., made an indelible impact on our community.
Shalom Chaverim (Dear Friends),
Can somebody please slow down the clock? It’s hard to believe we are already finishing the first week of March. The Oscars have come and gone, Major League Baseball’s 2025 season is under a month away, and Purim is just around the corner, all of which means that Passover preparations have already begun in many Jewish homes! Lori and I are counting down the days until our son Noah, our daughter-in-law Patricia, and our granddaughters Gabby and Ollie come to visit. Meanwhile, my brother is preparing for a trip to Offenburg, Germany, where our family lived for centuries before being forced to leave during the Holocaust. He’ll be the first Haberer to return, and I can’t wait to see it all when he FaceTimes me from our ancestral home.
Shalom Chaverim (Dear Friends),
I am thrilled to share that I will be taking Adam Nimoy, son of beloved actor Leonard Nimoy, out to dinner when he visits our Levis JCC Beifield Auditorium on March 6th to promote his new book, The Most Human: Reconciling with My Father Leonard Nimoy. This is a dream come true for me. Growing up in Inwood, Manhattan, I spent countless hours in front of the TV watching Star Trek. Even then, I felt immense pride when I learned that Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner, the two stars of my favorite show, were both Jewish. Now, decades later, I am incredibly fortunate to meet prominent figures like Adam through my lifelong work in Jewish communities. Moments like these remind me of the deep impact of Jewish storytelling.
Shalom Chaverim (Dear Friends),
Today Hamas released the bodies of four hostages, including three members of the Bibas family – baby Kfir, his older brother Ariel, and their mother Shiri -- as well as Oded Lifshitz, one of the oldest hostages abducted on October 7, 2023. This news is simultaneously heartbreaking and gut-wrenching. This news comes as a reminder that we must continue to come together as a community in strength and in support for our Israeli brothers and sisters, always. I continue to pray for all the remaining hostages and their families. Bring them home now!
Shalom Chaverim (Dear Friends),
This week has been filled with ups, downs, and nonstop headlines, beginning with Sunday night’s Super Bowl and now shifting to the fragile state of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. As Shabbat approaches, we are collectively watching, waiting, and continuing to pray for the safe return of all the hostages.
There is no better way to begin this week’s Shabbat message than with gratitude for the release of the 13 Israeli hostages, along with 5 Thai laborers, from Gaza. Their safe return to Israel is bittersweet as we continue to pray for the remaining 76 hostages, knowing some of them may no longer be alive. We cannot rest until each and every one of them is brought home.
I am writing to you from the Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore, where I am learning alongside 200 colleagues at JCCA Mifgash, an annual gathering of executive leadership from our network of 170 JCCs across North America. It is inspiring to be surrounded by colleagues and friends, recharging together so we can return home and serve our local JCCs and Jewish communities at our very best. One particularly moving moment was bidding farewell to twelve esteemed colleagues as they retire and step into the next chapter of their lives.
This has been quite a week. Martin Luther King Jr. Day coincided with Inauguration Day this past Monday for a rare overlap amid brutally cold temperatures. Here in South Palm Beach County, it has been unusually wet, gray, and chilly. So chilly, in fact, that I just bought four more bales of wood for my fireplace – rarely used here in Boca, but truly appreciated this week! Of course, the most significant moment of the week took place on Sunday with the safe return of three Israeli hostages from Gaza. They are finally back where they belong: home with their loved ones. We pray for the continued safe releases of hostages during the first phase of the ceasefire agreement and for the eventual return of all 91 remaining hostages.
This morning, I had coffee with Sean Haberer, a gentleman who is likely a cousin of mine. Sean’s family, like my own, originates from Offenburg, Germany. Of the Jews from that region who survived World War II, most left prior to Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass), which occurred throughout Germany on November 9–10, 1938. After leaving Offenburg, my family came to New York through Ellis Island. Sean’s family moved to South Africa, then Toronto, where he still resides today. It was fun spending time with Sean and exploring the potential of our familial ties. Haberer is not your typical Jewish name. There are approximately 2,600 Haberers in the world, with 2,400 from Germany. Throw in the fact that the majority of Haberers are not Jewish and it becomes a much smaller universe.
You are receiving this Shabbat message 2 days before my 61st birthday, amid the chilliest temperatures of the year for us here in Boca Raton. With the holiday season behind us, we’re heading into a very busy time: we have an upcoming Presidential Inauguration, the NFL Playoffs are on the way, Russia continues its aggression against Ukraine and sadly, we still await the release of the over 100 hostages continuing to be held in captivity in Gaza. Of course, we are keeping the people of California in our hearts and thoughts as the devastating fires continue to rage on. There is a lot going on nationally and globally. It is a good reminder that there is always a place to come together right here at our Adolph & Rose Levis Jewish Community Center.
Shalom Chaverim (Dear Friends),
I remember sitting with friends in Cincinnati on New Year’s Eve of 2000 and waiting to see if the world would come to an end. The dreaded “Y2K” was predicted to wreak havoc globally. As the clock struck midnight, we all breathed a sigh of relief as the new millennia dawned. We enjoyed our get together with friends, and of course, life went on. A quarter century has passed like the blink of an eye. Our children are grown and married, and Lori and I have 3 beautiful granddaughters! We live in South Palm Beach County now and it is my great privilege to lead the Adolph & Rose Levis Jewish Community Center into a new chapter of its long history. A quote I’ve heard our community icon and leader Larry Feldman say, “how blessed are we”?
Shalom Chaverim (Dear Friends),
Today is the first day of Chanukah, which was never canonized in Jewish texts. The main reason for this is because the Rabbis viewed the violence and the bloodshed of the Maccabees’ victory over the Greco-Syrians as incompatible with the Jewish values they were promoting. Instead, over the millennia, Jewish thinkers and teachers chose to focus on the lovely idea of our “Festival of Lights.” As we gather with family and friends to continue the tradition of lighting our chanukiot, spinning the dreidels, eating latkes and sufganiyot, and enjoying the spirit of the season, I feel the comfort of rallying behind the idea of light in darker times.
Shalom Chaverim (Dear Friends),
One week after the flash rebel victory over the 50-year Assad regime in Syria, the stakes continue to grow higher for Israel, for Turkey, the US, Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and the entire region. It will be fascinating watching how things unfold in the coming days, weeks and months. As the President & CEO of the Adolph & Rose Levis JCC my lens is very much focused on Israel’s security, how the Jewish community here in South Palm Beach county is feeling, and how we are being perceived by our non-Jewish neighbors.
