FAREWELL NOTE FROM MERYL
Today concludes my term as Interim Education Director at Shir Chadash. It has been an honor and a pleasure to serve you for the past year in this role! We- the staff, Board, parents, and kids of Shir Chadash- all pulled together to make this past year better than we could have possibly imagined in July 2020. I spoke to the incoming Education Director, Nomi Kornfeld, on the phone today and assured her that the families of Shir Chadash are wonderful, kind, supportive, and engaged. I believe you are in good hands with her, and she with you!
I want to give special thanks to the following individuals who really helped me out over the past year: Shintee Boykins, Emily and Evan Dvorin, Julie Finger, Ken Klein, Jennie Lavine, Sarah Lustig, Danny Mintz and Sarah Allison, Ricardo Totah, Will Samuels, Rabbi Deborah Silver, and Ali Simon- you are all rock stars and I appreciate all of you so much! I also want to thank everyone on the Parents Committee, everyone on the Health Committee, everyone on the Board, all of the parents who brought their kids to services and events (both virtually and in-person) and registered their kids for Virtual Shul School and offered their feedback and ideas and answered all 5,000 polls and surveys I sent out over the past year. And of course, thank you to the children of Shir Chadash, without whom this job would be much less fun!
To be clear, I am NOT leaving New Orleans (God forbid)! I will be around, resuming my music career that was put on hold due to the pandemic. I would be thrilled to see y'all at a show! One of my first post-Ed Director items on my agenda is to finally update my gig calendar on my website, so if you want to know where I'm singing next, visit www.merylzimmerman.com (I'll have it updated by next week!). You can also follow me on Instagram at @merylzimmerman and Facebook at Meryl Zimmerman Music.
You will also see me on Saturday mornings leading services for our youngest members, and even in adult services every now and then as a regular ol' congregant! Shir Chadash is not just a place I work- it's my shul, my Jewish home in NOLA, and y'all are my mishpacha. You haven't seen the last of me!
Shalom chaverim! Until we meet again,
Meryl Zimmerman
