Dear Friends,
As the first night of Chanukah approaches this Sunday, and 2021 edges toward a close, it is a good opportunity to look back on the past year to acknowledge and celebrate the successes of our community. When thinking about 2021, as an optimist, I try to look at it as a glass-half-full. Finally, life is slowly getting back to “the new normal.” Our kids have gone back into classrooms, in-person events like the SJCC Sports Dinner were able to resume, gym and fitness classes at the Soloway JCC have reopened, and once again, the Bess and Moe Greenberg Family Hillel Lodge is open to caregiver visits. Our community has started to figure out how to best deliver services, whether virtually, in-person or in a hybrid fashion, to try to connect as many people as possible. Over the year, I have gained a much greater understanding of how important real connections, especially face-to-face, can be. As Joni Mitchell once said, “you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.”