Please join our community to recharge with these "Healing Through Chesed" events. These opportunities showcase the ways in which Jewish Cleveland cares for one another through hands-on activities and opportunities for our community to come together in mind, body and spirit.

The times in which we live are critical and constantly changing around us. In the past few years, we have faced a global pandemic and a war in Ukraine. Over the last 12 months, Israel has been drawn into a war with Hamas while defending itself from other terrorist groups. At the same time, the Jewish people have been targeted with a level of hatred and violence not seen in generations.

More than 2,500 people united in solidarity to show their support with the state of Israel at the Jewish Federation of Cleveland’s 10-7-23 Commemoration on Oct. 7 outside its Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Building in Beachwood.

Combating the hatred faced by the Jewish people has always been a top priority for the Jewish Federation of Cleveland. In the months following the October 7th attacks on Israel by the terrorist organization Hamas, antisemitic incidents surged by 388%, making Federation’s mission even more critical. From advocating against discriminatory resolution proposals at council meetings across Northeast Ohio to ensuring Jewish college students are getting the support they need from school administrators to empowering our community to combat online hate and more, Federation has been a driving force in the ongoing fight against antisemitism.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of Hamas' attacks on Israel that resulted in the killing of more Jews in a single day since the Holocaust.

A two-state solution is the “only way for Israel to have security and the Palestinians to have dignity,” Nimrod Novik, the former senior adviser on foreign policy to the late Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, told the Cleveland Jewish News in an interview on Sept. 17 at the Jewish Federation of Cleveland’s office in the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Building in Beachwood.

We hope to see you at our October events, including a community-wide gathering on the one-year anniversary of 10-7-23, a special in-person-only episode of the hit podcast Call Me Back featuring host Dan Senor with Alana Newhouse, and more.

October 7, 2024 marks the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ attacks on Israel. As Jewish groups on college campuses across Ohio plan activities that day to remember those who were killed and pray for those still being held in Gaza, there are plans being made by others who want to use this occasion to glorify the crimes of Hamas, intimidate the Jewish community on campus, and further fan the flames of hatred.

I am writing this Rosh Hashanah message a month before the actual holiday knowing there is a chance that something significant (and potentially negative) will happen before this is published. Between the time I write this – and you read it – it’s possible that haters will be unmasked in disappointing but not surprising ways. That there will be more tragic loss of innocent life. That a politician or celebrity will say something offensive. This is not to minimize any such incident, but rather to recognize the world we live in right now.

Oct. 7, 2024 marks one year since Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing more than 1,200 people, kidnapping more than 250 others and drastically changing the Jewish world.