Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton

I love baseball. In fact, one of the items on my bucket list is to visit all of the baseball stadiums in the United States.

While JFS continues to help our clients, we as a Jewish community can help our neighbors. By opening the Tornado Relief Fund, we will collect donations to be gifted from the Jewish Community as a whole, to the Miami Valley Community Action Partnership and the American Red Cross.

The Whim (short for What Inspires Me) was developed to communicate to our community the inspiring stories that emanate from our work as a Jewish Federation. However, my Whim this week expresses not just the inspirational but the disturbing.

On April 25th, an anti-Semitic cartoon ran in the international edition of the Times, depicting the Prime Minister of Israel as a dog, leading a blind American president wearing a yarmulke. When I was made aware of this disturbing cartoon, I was deeply bothered.

As many of you may be aware, today is a very special day. It is Administrative Professionals Day.

I love to read. In fact, I make a point to read every day. There is something magical about escaping in the pages of a good book. Occasionally I come across a book that not only provides me that escape, but also proves to be transformative.

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the Driving Out Darkness: Cincinnati Regional Summit on Antisemitism and Hate. It was an incredible day where each speaker was more amazing then the next.

There are several topics in this world that tend to produce tense and often destructive conversations.

“Hate speech is what happens before hate crimes,” said Representative Steve Stivers. As a representative for Ohio’s 15th congressional district, he was one of the many people I had the privilege of meeting with this past Wednesday.

I like to consider myself a visual artist. Anyone who knows me knows calligraphy and mosaics are a passion of mine.