On March 19th, Dr. Dale Levy spoke at TEE in Cleveland, Ohio on Heart Health. The talk was called Heart Health, Don't Eat The Schmaltz! (Of course schmaltz was served for breakfast!!!) The talk focused on the risk factors for developing heat disease and how to change your risk factors. Since most risk factors are due to lifestyle decisions, making lifestyle changes will impact the heart health in your life! The talk finished with an educational session on using an Automated External Defibrillator (AED). The AED is present in nearly every institution, yet nearly no one knows where it is! So we showed where it is. We discussed how long it takes to get the AED (seconds) compared to getting EMS (Minutes) to show the importance. We also had a demonstration to show how east the AED is to use.
The temple had nearly 40 people in attendance and about 35 people attended by zoom. Zoom attendees were from MRJ in NY anf KIO in Ohio.
This is the 1st combined FJMC & MRJ event in our region. I'm not sure how many othe regions have done combined events, but this is a model event for regions to use to develop for combined events. As time goes on, the differences between MRJ and FJMC decrease! It is to both of our benefits to have combined programming.
I met Len Gold from TEE over a year ago when he approached me to have a zoom event with KIO with Ron Blomberg (the first designated hitter in MLB - A Jew) which was a successful event. When he approached me about this event I thought that KIO should be actively involved. Park Synagogue Men's Club promoted this event locally and TEE promoted it in the Cleveland Jewish News. We sent promotion to KIO and members from Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati connected by zoom. TEE promoted to synagogues in NY and Westchester connected by zoom. The Hybrid model is here to stay and is to be used to our advantage! We are now able to have NY and Ohio attend an event in which we discuss important information like heart health! Not only that, we are able to have men from reform and conservative shuls come together and learn together. When I looked around the room, I saw friends from elementary school, high school, synagogue in Cleveland and then on zoom, friends from Columbus, Cincinnati and NY. This is amazing! The Torch Award Designation is kind if irrelevant! - Health, Combined, Programming, Whatever! This event IS A TORCH AWARD. Prove me wrong!