When Erin and I started our family in London, Ontario, we lived far from our parents and nuclear family. The Jewish community, while supportive and welcoming, was small. Without a bevy of cousins and extended tribe, I always felt it important for my young children at the time to have other families to celebrate holidays with and engage in Jewish life with. Chanukah is a holiday where we typically gather with friends and family, and I usually have our entire year of socializing packed into eight straight nights! Once again this year, our Chanukah was more subdued as the pandemic wanes on. While I don’t miss the cleanup, I have missed the moments of mingling and the freedom to kvell at the moment, embracing our collective faith and customs.

I truly enjoyed the opportunities to reconnect with so many of you this past week during community events. Whether it was at the Menorah Lighting at the Legislature, with all the delicious babies and parents at our Shalom Baby gathering and with the Jewish Medical Students Networking, it’s wonderful to see friendly faces. It is a pleasure to thank the occasional canvasser in person when they are delivering their United Jewish Appeal (UJA) cards and have a delightful conversation.

Chanukah is a Jewish festival about the reclaiming and rededication of the second temple in Jerusalem. With a rise in antisemitism and increasing anti-Israel sentiment, I am uplifted when I watch our youth and young adult leaders rededicate themselves to the Jewish community and to support Israel. Whether this is in lighting a menorah, joining a Hillel or JCore event, or engaging in training on how to counter antisemitism, we are resilient and have a bright future ahead. In our UJA video this week, Zach, a Hillel student, illustrated how he has rededicated himself to Judaism. I encourage you to watch this video that really struck a chord with me.

We will present our strategic plan to the community at our annual general meeting on Wednesday night. Doug Wolch, the chair of this project, and I are eager to share the results after many months of consulting with the community and collating the data with the committee and the board. Please register and join us. This meeting is open to UJA members only. Unfortunately, we will not be serving coffee and cookies, but we will send a Zoom link and agenda out in advance!

A strategic plan is an opportunity for an organization (and community) to take stock and to set a course to move forward and guide its endeavours. I think it is fitting that we are launching this on the heels of Chanukah, a holiday of rededication. I hope you will join us at Jewish Federation as we maintain to look ahead to the future and use this project to galvanize your rededication to the community.

We also know Chanukah as the Festival of lights, and we invite you to help us Shine a Light on Antisemitism. Tammy Vineberg spoke about this campaign in her message last week, and I hope to see many of you on Sunday. Please come and create a tile about how antisemitism has affected you. The impact of all of our voices uniting to culminate in a large mosaic will be a piece of art to be proud of and on display at city hall this January. We look forward to welcoming many city councilors, Mayor Amarjeet Sohi and our Edmonton Police Service partners at this event. You need to bring proof of vaccination, and this is a masked event. We will ask those in attendance to flow through the space at Westridge Community League Hall to ensure there is social distancing and keeping the health and safety in mind for all.

This has been a challenging year, and the path out of the pandemic is not entirely clear. We have and will remain to be Here for Good. I look forward to connecting with you at future events and discussing the possibilities that the strategic plan presents for our community.

Shabbat Shalom,

Stacey