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Earlier this week I met with CEOs of other Federation communities that are similar in size to ours to learn from each other about best practices in areas that range from succession planning to recruitment and retention of top talent to achieving buy-in for strategic change. Since this series of meetings was in Houston, whose Jewish community was hit especially hard by Hurricane Harvey, we also discussed how to lead and support other leaders when disaster strikes.

During a break between meetings, a few of us caught a Lyft and started talking to the driver. He asked if we were in town for a convention, and when we explained about our meetings we discovered he was Jewish. We started talking about how the Jewish community took a direct hit from Harvey and the toll it has taken on individuals, institutions and organizations. He told us that his parents’ home was flooded, and that the help they received from Jewish Federation and their local Jewish Family Services helped them get through the ordeals of loss, displacement and rebuilding. Our Federation Board is proud to have directed $10,000 from our emergency relief fund to support the immediate and long-term needs of Houston’s Jewish community.

In Houston many Jewish communal professionals dealt with their own personal losses while trying to help people like this man and his parents. Teachers helped students and families deal with the loss of their classrooms while simultaneously dealing with the loss of their own homes. Rabbis displaced from their flooded homes led congregations who were displaced from their flooded synagogues. It presented a particular set of challenges for these leaders, as you can imagine, and one of our sessions was focused on this.

Learning how to be a more effective leader never ends, and for the group of CEOs I was with – and surely for many of you – that journey started with opportunities offered in our Jewish communities when we were children and teens. One of the skills we have all developed over the years is the ability to speak effectively in public, so it was wonderful to see so many children demonstrate those same skills last night at our JCC.

This year marked the 30th anniversary of the Public Speaking Contest, which was created by Larry Barzelai in memory of his father and presented by Jewish Federation and State of Israel Bonds. The event encourages students to explore their Jewish identity, their relationship to Israel, and how their lives relate to Jewish teachings and history.

Fostering skill in public speaking is really about giving children the opportunity to find something they care about, and then stand up and be heard. Through doing so, they gain skills that will not only serve them as they grow to take their places in our community, but that they can keep building on so they can make as big an impact as they can dream of. In helping them learn how to speak up effectively in front of their peers and teachers, we help them gain the confidence they will need to speak up more broadly as teens and adults.

We see this kind of display of courage of conviction in Jewish university students who have found themselves confronting difficult situations on campus, even in our own backyard. Just yesterday our advocacy partner, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), issued this action alert in response to an incident at UBC. I encourage you to take this opportunity to speak up and express your concern to the UBC administration. Click here to add your name to the letter.

Great things can happen when individuals speak up. One of the most significant examples in our lifetime is undoubtedly that of Natan Sharansky, former Soviet dissident and outgoing chairman of our partner on the ground in Israel, the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI). I want to leave you with something uplifting this Shabbat, and I can think of nothing better suited to close today’s message with than this video that celebrates Natan Sharansky’s life and the incredible work JAFI does every day to build Jewish connections, to strengthen Israel, and to combat anti-Semitism.

Shabbat shalom,

Ezra S. Shanken
CEO, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver