Dear Bet Torah Family,

As the heartfelt response to last Sunday’s “Bring Them Home” vigil showed so powerfully, Bet Torah is truly committed to supporting Israel. 

Here are links to remarks that Rabbis Brusso and Sacks made at the vigil, photographs and local press coverage (from News 12 Westchester and The Examiner News) of the proceedings, and a post on the Bet Torah Blog.

This is just the beginning. We want to continue to support Israel in many ways. To ensure that our efforts will be both effective and sustained, we have created the “Bet Torah Israel Task Force” to coordinate our efforts and ensure that we are making available the programming, information, and emotional support that will help us help Israel and our people.

Task Force members and their portfolios are as follows:

Co-Chairs: Carol Haber Cohen and Jill Ratner

Carol Haber Cohen/Eden Edrei: Israel Affairs 

David Simonds/Jill Ratner: Leadership 

Rabbi Brusso/Rabbi Sacks: Clergy 

Seth Young: Staff Leadership

Leslie Phillips: Mental Health Professional 

Mike Gordon: Ritual/Daily Minyan

Erica Wohlstadter: Youth Liaison 

Shirley Goodman/Becca Levy: Nursery School

Layne Behrens/Ellen Vellensky: Kulanu

Andrea Goldberg/David Kellogg: Communications 

Elaine Merker: Social Justice 

Erin Kuflik Davis/Nancy Fried-Tanzer: Caring Committee 

Jody Klayman: College Liaison

The Task Force will meet regularly and will keep the congregation informed of new initiatives. We will be adding a new section to the website where all Israel-related communications and information resources will be collected for easy access. And as always, the Weekly and the Message will keep us informed of what’s happening.

If you have any suggestions, including ideas for new programming or information resources that we should be sharing, please reach out to Israeli Affairs Chair Carol Haber-Cohen, at Israeliaffairs@bettorah.org. As Task Force co-chair along with Jill Ratner, Carol will be the point person for collecting congregant feedback to share with the Task Force.

Like all of you, we pray that the hostages are safely released and that we will soon see peace and security return to Israel.

Signed,

Aaron Brusso, Rabbi

David Simonds, President

Jill Ratner, Executive VP

Carol Haber-Cohen, Israel Affairs