Days before Stephen H. Hoffman was due in Jerusalem for the 2003 General Assembly of United Jewish Communities, truck bombs detonated in front of two synagogues in Istanbul, Turkey.

The Jewish Federation of Cleveland’s Community Relations Committee will host their 75th Annual Meeting and Sidney Z. Vincent Memorial Lecture on Tuesday, March 8 at 7 pm. The event will feature Dara Horn, author of People Love Dead Jews: Reports From a Haunted Present. Both virtual and in-person options are available for this free community event.

Today, Amnesty International UK issued a report that makes egregious claims against Israel, referring to it as an “apartheid” state and completely demonizing and delegitimizing the Jewish and democratic State of Israel. This type of rhetoric fuels worldwide antisemitism and cannot be accepted. Please see below for a statement from Jewish Federations of North America, who together with several other Jewish organizations, strongly condemned the report.

Gather up gently used books your children are no longer reading or purchase new books to ensure that all kids growing up in Greater Cleveland have books of their own to read and cherish. A book in the hands of a child is a magical thing!

Local police departments in the eastern suburbs of Cleveland credited the Jewish Federation of Cleveland for alerting them to a live hostage crisis in Colleyville, Texas, Jan. 15 just before noon and stepped up their response immediately.

The Jewish Federation of Cleveland’s Young Leadership Division (YLD) announced that Ryan Levine will succeed Abbie Pappas as the division’s board chair, effective January 2022. YLD connects Jewish young adults, ages 22 – 45, to each other and the community through social, volunteer, leadership, and philanthropic activities.

Help keep houses of worship for all faiths in Cleveland and across the country safe. Contact your members of Congress now and urge them to double NSGP funding this year!

This is not the message we had planned to send.

Kim Pesses is chair of the Federation’s Population Study Committee. We had the opportunity to chat with Kim about the population study, its significance, and how it will help Jewish Cleveland moving forward.