Typically, as we prepare for the New Year, I would share the enormous impact of our 2024 Annual Campaign where, together as a community, we raised more than $5 million to support the needs of the Jewish people and organizations locally, on college campuses around Virginia, and in Jewish communities around the globe through our overseas partners (please visit federation.jewishva.org/annual-campaign to see our impact report from the 2024 Annual Campaign).
I would also share the substantial impact of the over $4.8 million our community raised within just a few months, following the horrendous attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. The funds were quickly sent to our overseas partners to help meet Israel’s humanitarian, emergency, and wartime needs.
But this year, as we prepare for 5785, my thoughts remain where they have been for the last 339 days (as I write this), with the hostages and their families. We are most recently mourning the death of 6 hostages, executed by Hamas in the tunnels of Gaza, including American Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, originally of Richmond. The slaughter of more than 1,200 on October 7, the hundreds of thousands of displaced Israelis, driven from their homes by Hamas and Hezbollah, and the death of countless Palestinian civilians callously subjected by Hamas to the ravages of war, has indescribably impacted all of us.
We have given with our contributions, our hearts, our volunteerism, and our voices over the last year. We have advocated, we have prayed, and we have marched. Almost 100 from our community joined over 290,000 individuals who participated in the historic March for Israel, the largest pro-Israel rally in U.S. history, in November 2023 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. I recently had the opportunity to spontaneously participate in a (much smaller) march in Nashville, Tennessee, while on vacation with my family. I learned about the march when I bumped into a Jewish family walking down the street in Nashville. The father is the rabbi of Nashville’s largest reform congregation. Our small Jewish world got a little smaller that day. (I was also proud to march both times with my colleague from Tidewater Jewish Foundation, Naomi Limor Sedek.)
Many of you joined us on October 10, 2023, as we came together following October 7. You joined us at the March for Israel. I hope you join us this October 7, as we continue to pray, remember, and act.
As we prepare for this solemn anniversary, I wish you and your families l’shana tova tikatevu. May 5785 free the hostages and bring peace to Israel and the Jewish people.
Betty Ann Levin
Executive Vice President/CEO
United Jewish Federation of Tidewater