If you’ve considered adding a loved one’s name to the Pillars of Remembrance at the Nashville Holocaust Memorial (NHM), your opportunity is here.
Each year, JCRC decides on key issues of focus for the coming year’s programs. The topics generally relate to specific current events, voting rights, immigration, and access to healthcare. Whatever the winds of change bring we adjust and respond, but there are two areas of focus that are constant every year in our work, Israel education and addressing antisemitism.
The Nashville Jewish Film Festival appreciates and is grateful to the many people who have sponsored the 2022 festival.
If you can believe it, Hanukkah is right around the corner and the Gordon JCC is excited to announce that our Hanukkah Store is officially open, and that Hanukkah Fest will be on December 11!
On Oct. 30, over 100 people attended this year’s Hadassah donor event, a concert at West End Synagogue, featuring internationally known singer, Batsheva, performing the music of Leonard Cohen in Hebrew and Yiddish. The president of Hadassah’s Southern Region attended and spoke of the lifesaving work that Hadassah medical personnel have performed on the border with Poland. Israel has taken in over 35,000 Ukrainians since this war began. Donations from this event will be split between Hadassah Hospital and Youth Villages where displaced Ukrainian youth are living. Hadassah thanks the Nashville Jewish community for their generosity. Donations can still be made with checks sent to Beth Wise or at hadassahsupersouth.org/donorconcert
Ask any kid who is the hero of the Chanukah story and they will say Judah the Maccabee: the leader who waged war against the Greeks and became the hero of the story of Chanukah.
Chabad of Nashville to present the 180k Challenge Chabad of Nashville will be hosting a very exciting end-of-year fundraising campaign, “We. Belong. Together. – 180/180 Challenge,” which will kick off Dec. 6 at 10:00 AM, and will continue until Dec. 8 at 10:00 PM. If $180,000 is raised in 60 hours, it will be matched by $180,000 from several generous donors in Nashville. "Tzedakah (charity) is equal to all the other commandments combined." This meaningful fundraising campaign will provide the Nashville community with 60 hours of tremendous opportunity to support the influential and far-reaching work of Chabad of Nashville and the Revere Jewish Montessori Preschool.
It is with a heavy heart that I announce my retirement. I have thoroughly enjoyed interacting with every one of you through this column. I plan to travel, spend time with my family (especially my grandchildren), spend time in my kitchen perfecting the art of baking Challah, and make more Matzo Ball Soup to share with friends and family. I am hoping that Nashville will start an annual Matzo Ball Soup contest and I will be sure to return to enter my famous that would win the golden ladle.
This month, we are featuring Part 1 of Dr. Frank Boehm’s essay on love. For Frank, love is…well, it’s everything. To gain insights into how and why people fall in love and, more importantly, stay in love, he interviewed several couples. Each couple has its own unique story and perspective, but Frank learned some universal truths. In this first part, we share Frank’s thoughts on love, as well as his love story with his wife, Julie. Next month, we will present the others. And we are asking for you, dear reader in love, to share your love story with The Observer. Be brave, be vulnerable, and most of all, be loving. Send your submissions to Editor Barbara Dab at barbaradab@jewishnashville.org.
Early last month, Vanderbilt University made news when Vanderbilt Football’s defensive backs coach, Dan Jackson, posted to his Facebook page comments defending Ye’s, formerly known as Kanye West, antisemitic comments on Twitter. Jackson’s post was to his personal Facebook page but was captured by Stop Antisemitism, an organization that monitors and exposes antisemitism in the media. The post was reported in The Hustler, Vanderbilt University’s student newspaper, on November 4th. Later that evening, Jackson posted an apology on Twitter, taking “full responsibility.” The apology reads in part:
