2022 - 23 Torch Award Submission
Tifereth Israel from the KIO region will submit this as a Torch Award. This will be in the category of Joint Programming. Our region President, Dale Levy, has long held an idea for holding a summit on Combatting Antisemitism. The vision was to hold a weekend event in the model of a scholar – in – residence weekend. We would have a session on Shabbat evening, a session on Shabbat afternoon and a session on Sunday morning. Each session would address a different aspect of antisemitism in the community and how to deal with it!
Dale is a member of multiple clubs in KIO! He recruited members of B’nei Jeshuran, Park Synagogue and Tifereth Israel to Advise and plan this event. While this is truly a Regional Torch Award, as Dale is a member of Park, BJ and TI we agreed to submit this under the club at TI.
As mentioned above, the idea was to have a full weekend event to teach people how to combat Antisemitism in our time. We would model this in a Scholar-in-residence weekend. Instead of having all the sessions at one location, we chose one city in KIO with individual sessions to be distributed at locations around that city. We would hold one session at a local shul on Friday night where we would hold services and Shabbat dinner at the shul and have a presentation just afterwards. We would have services at another shul on Shabbat morning followed by a kiddish lunch and the panel program. Finally, we would have a session on Sunday morning at our JCC with a brunch and panel to cover the final topic.
The goal was to cover the topics of combatting antisemitism in the media, our personal lives, in our work lives and on campus. To this end we engaged Local Leaders of National organizations to give speeches and engage us in discussions in these topics. We engaged and had involvement from these organizations: ADL, AJC, Hillel International, Stand With Us and Honest Reporting and Ohio Jewish Communities ( an organization of the statewide government advocacy, public affairs, and community relations voice of Ohio's eight Jewish Federations and their network of 150 nonprofit agencies statewide for the purpose of enhancing the Jewish community's ability to serve vital human needs.)
The organizing Committee was Jerry Brodsky (B’nei Jeshuran – Cleveland), Mark Rosenson (Tifereth Israel – Columbus) and Dale Levy, (B’nei Jeshuran, Park synagogue and Tifereth Israel). We ultimately decided that this submission will be under TI: however, it is truly a regional effort!
The committee began with determining the programming. We decided to begin with Defining antisemitism and Combatting Antisemitism in social and written media; then we would discuss antisemitism in the work place and our personal lives and finally we would have a day devoted to combating antisemitism on campus. Our discussion combatting antisemitism on campus would encourage college age members to attend this session. Next, we chose locations for our discussions. We ultimately decided to hold the event in Columbus as this is a central location for our region.
Our Friday evening event was held at Agudas Achim in Columbus. This included a Kabbalat Shabbat service, a Shabbat dinner and a session on the topic. Our Friday night topic was defining antisemitism and combatting it in the media. We had a panel that included ADL, AJC and Ohio Jewish Communities.
Our Shabbat morning service was at another shul, Tifereth Israel. The D’Var Torah / sermon from the Rabbi was pertinent to our topic. There was kiddush lunch followed by another session. The topic was combatting antisemitism in your personal lives and at work. The panel included the ADL and AJC. This was presented live and on LiveStream.
Our final session was held at the Columbus JCC and covered our final topic, combatting antisemitism on campus. There was a brunch followed by our panel discussion. Our panel included Hillel presidents from 2 campuses in Ohio, Ohio U and Miami U; there was a representative from Stand With Us from Israel and Honest Reporting from Israel.
We placed an emphasis on the “combating” as opposed to understanding the issue. We believe that at our current level of understanding Jewish Congregations understand the issue itself very well, yet we may lack the tools for combatting it.
To make this a successful program we decided to limit our committee to 3 members who would report to the KIO Regional Board. We decided that 1 would arrange speakers, the next would be dedicated to marketing and fund raising; the last would be finding venues and meals. This turned out to be the most efficient means of getting the program to fruition. For clubs that wish to implement this program I strongly suggest this model!
We looked at multiple ways to get financial support. The FJMC Foundation for Life generously supported our program with a grant. We ended up getting financial support from the local Jewish News who provided 2 full page ads for the cost of 1; all the clubs in KIO donated and several families / individuals donated. Many local businesses also supported our program. We also had many donors who want the program to be successful!
We chose to make the event neutral in terms of raising money. However, we see this as an opportunity for clubs to make this a significant fund raising event. We did not charge admission and all meals provided by donors and all speakers donated their time.
We had a very successful program. We averaged 40 – 50 persons per event. We did not count zoom or live streaming for our attendance numbers. The panels were excellent! We received positive feedback from those who attended.
This is a very labor intensive program in regards to planning, but is truly achievable at your clubs’ and Region’s level. I found it was difficult to obtain speakers, but ultimately I made my connections and it worked out. The venues were ultimately decided based on each of our schedules!..We tried to engage Reform shuls but ultimately only had buy-in from our conservative movement. As I mentioned, the event was held in Columbus as that was the central location; we had members from Cincinnati, Dayton, Cleveland, Toledo and Columbus attend, not to mention Hillel leaders from Miami, Ohio and Ohio University, ADL from Cleveland, AJC from Cleveland and Cincinnati. We also had zoom leaders from Israel join our program, Honest Reporting and Stand With Us. So this was truly an international event.
Antisemitism is on the rise and is increasingly resulting in violence. We must combat antisemitism and not let it pass unanswered! This program is to provide us with the tools to combat antisemitism. It is not enough to just know what antisemitism is! We must learn how to actively combat it. This program did this for us in KIO and is a model for other regions to follow. I am always available to assist other clubs that wish to do this program.
It took over a year of planning to make this program possible. If a region wishes to do the program I recommend that time for planning. If you choose to make it a recurring program, I recommend it be every other year.