"We’re not your father's men's club!"  That's what I used to hear when I first became active in my club in the early 1990's.   At that time the stereotype was a bunch of older guys who sat around playing cards and drinking beer, and this comment was meant to reassure prospective members that our club included men of all ages and our programming was meaningful and worthwhile.  To be honest we did on occasion play cards and drink beer, but we also fulfilled the FJMC mission of involving Jewish men in Jewish life through ritual programs, Hebrew literacy training, social action projects, and se

Of all my activities as President of FJMC, visiting clubs and chatting with men’s club members are among my favorites.  I had an opportunity to do a lot of this recently, as I went on what I’ve jokingly called my “odyssey.”  Over the course of 11 days, my travels took me to seven cities where I met with members of 18 men’s clubs in various venues.

I’m usually a pretty optimistic guy, but for the past several weeks events in Israel and for Jews in the rest of the world have been disheartening and frustrating, to say the least. As Israel pursued its legitimate right and moral responsibility to defend itself against the continuous barrage of Hamas rocket attacks with Operation Protective Edge, the world seems to have gone mad. Here’s my take on the situation, which removes all semblance of sanity and common sense.

In March, Gail and I had the pleasure of traveling to France as part of the 2014 FJMC/Masorti Olami Mission to Provence and Cotè d’Azur. The main purpose of the Mission was to build relationships with the two Masorti congregations in that part of the world, Maayane Or in Nice and Or Chalom in Aix en Provence.

In this Blog I’d like to review the progress we’ve made in accomplishing our plans and objectives, since we’re now six months into our two-year term.  You may recall that at Convention and in my first Blog, I described three focus areas that we planned to work aggressively during this administration:  growth, club support, and programming.  Here’s how we’re doing thus far: