03/13/2020
Addressing Concerns in our Community
- Share This Story
Dear Friends,
Thank you for the extraordinary things many of you have done during the past few days and for those many more of you will do in the weeks to come. Your Federation’s team has been energized and motivated by the way in which Jewish community leadership and volunteers from across our community have pulled together to embrace our current challenges. From providing housing to making and delivering meals to caring for those in quarantine to sourcing needed products to caring for our caregivers. The list goes on.
The timeline is not clear. Our one certainty is that Coronavirus-related challenges will continue.
Governor DeWine’s pronouncements yesterday caused a shift in our collective mindset – perhaps giving us a little reality therapy? With school closings and many synagogues and other community institutions temporarily closing or severely limiting their hours and operations, we are entering a new period of the fight. We are going to need to be calm, resilient, nimble, and creative.
While your Federation and other Jewish institutions do not claim to be experts in Coronavirus, we are experts in community and engagement. Our values of caring for those most vulnerable among us, educating our children, reducing isolation and welcoming others need to continue to be front and foremost. We are thinking differently about how to engage and interact with everyone. How to make sure that whether you are a parent home without childcare or an older adult home for health safety reasons that you know that you have a community embracing you – virtually and emotionally – even if not physically. Working together, reconfiguring how we work while remaining true to our values – your community will be here to support you through this time. And when we emerge at the other end, we will emerge stronger because we banded together.
We are blessed to live in a community that is home to some of the finest medical institutions in the world. As you can imagine, we have been in constant contact with these experts, as well as relevant government agencies. For your convenience, we have compiled several key resources – as well as a list of events that will need to be re-imagined if possible given the current conditions.
https://www.jewishcleveland.org/news/blog/coronavirus/
In the meantime, there are no shortage of opportunities for volunteering. If you’re interested, you can let us know by emailing volunteer@jcfcleve.org.
Stay in touch, reach out. I look forward to hearing from you.
Shabbat Shalom,
Erika B. Rudin-Luria
President
