09/11/2026
Looking Ahead to the New Year Together
Rosh Hashanah brings families, friends, and community together to both reflect on the past year and look ahead to the future. As we gather around tables at home and in our synagogues to celebrate the holiday, it is a time of mixed feelings: gratitude and humility, excitement and anxiety, clarity and confusion.
In Jewish Cleveland, Rosh Hashanah also reminds us how blessed we are to live in a community that cares so deeply for one another. Whether through expanded services that enable older adults to age with dignity, innovative programs that help teens cope with mental health issues, or any number of other initiatives that make our community so special, Jewish Clevelanders have always understood the collective effort needed to care for each other and ensure a strong foundation for future generations.
Our resolve to meet this obligation will be tested in the new year. The upcoming elections come at a time when American and Israeli politics are highly divisive and deeply felt. In times like these, differences of opinion can feel like betrayals – which puts strain on even the strongest relationships.
We must not let politics divide us or place conditions on who we will care for, when we will stand up for what is right, how we will support the people of Israel and Jews everywhere, or what we will do to help keep our local community safe, strong, and growing.
There’s too much at stake – and the needs of the community are too great – to allow anything to compromise our connection to one another. Doing so would put at risk everything our community has built over the generations.
Which is precisely why those who seek to harm us are trying to exploit our differing opinions through deceptive advertising and destructive online rhetoric. In fact, they are counting on us to let political differences distract us from our shared values and responsibilities.
This is not the first time our community has faced divisive forces – nor will it be the last. But we should look ahead to the new year with confidence because our community has shown time and again a steely resolve and resiliency to weather such storms. Jewish Clevelanders simply refuse to disconnect from our community and Jewish life. This commitment defines us – and will continue to drive us forward in the new year and beyond.
May this Rosh Hashanah be a time of reflection, repair, and renewal. May we continue to turn toward one another with empathy and courage. May the year ahead bring sweetness and healing to Jewish Cleveland, to Israel, and to our global Jewish family. May we also see an end to the suffering of innocent victims of violence in the West Bank, and may all people know peace in the year to come.
Finally, with this being the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we remember all those who were lost in that unimaginable act of evil – as well as those lost on hijacked Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania before it was able to reach its intended target. May their memories be a blessing that continue to inspire us all.
Shana Tova, Shabbat Shalom, and Am Yisrael Chai,
Jeffrey J. Wild, board chair
Erika B. Rudin-Luria, president
p.s.: If you or someone you know is in need of assistance, please do not hesitate to contact Access Jewish Cleveland at 216-292-4636 or via accessjewishcleveland.org.
