It All Started With a Simple ‘Y’all’

It only took a “y’all” to bring me back to my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama this week.

Alison Leibovitz, a fellow Birmingham native, was speaking at the Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis’ Life and Legacy program. Her familiar Southern expression caught my attention, but her reflections on the intention required to sustain Jewish life in a community of about 5,000 Jews stayed with me.

Alison and I grew up at the same JCC, the one I later had the privilege to lead. Growing up Jewish in Birmingham was special, though it was not always easy. Our JCC offered a place to feel comfortable in your own skin, surrounded by people who understood a part of you that often required explanation elsewhere.

In any Jewish community, particularly a smaller one, you learn early how much your participation matters. Keeping Jewish life vibrant requires people to make room for it in their lives and take responsibility for its future. Listening to Alison, I thought about the people whose choices had shaped my childhood. The belonging I felt at our JCC grew out of the time, care and resources they had invested in creating a place for us.

Now, I’m watching my seven-year-old son Max grow up at our JCC here in Indianapolis. He’s forming his own understanding of community, just as I did in Birmingham. He doesn’t yet understand everything required to sustain the place he enjoys, and at his age, I didn’t either. As his mother and our JCC’s CEO, I think often about the choices we make today that will shape his experience and those of everyone who comes through our doors.

We want people to feel welcome here, which means paying attention to what they need and taking action to help them participate. A connection to Jewish life, a friendship in a fitness class or a place where a family feels comfortable can become an important part of someone’s life. Making those experiences possible takes a community willing to invest in them.

This week, I’ve seen that willingness in the gifts people have made as we kicked off our Hand in Hand Annual Campaign’s Meet the Match. Each contribution is a choice to care for our J and the people who depend on it. I’m grateful to everyone who has made room for our JCC in their giving and considered what their support could make possible for someone else.

Glick Philanthropies has given us a powerful opportunity to build on that generosity. Through a grant, gifts made during November will be matched dollar for dollar, up to $18,000 in matching funds. Membership and program fees help sustain much of what we do, though not all. Philanthropy helps us meet needs we could not otherwise support, including helping people participate when cost would otherwise stand in the way.

If our JCC has made a difference in your life, I hope you’ll consider a gift to Hand in Hand. Meet the Match gives each of us an opportunity to act on what we value, with our gifts going twice as far. To everyone who has already contributed, thank you for helping sustain a community so many people call their own. Donate today!

Shabbat Shalom,

Sam Dubrinsky

Chief Executive Officer