June 6, 2025

Dear JCC Community,

This is one of the busiest and most beautiful times of the year at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan. In just the past ten days, we hosted two of our biggest annual events: our Annual Benefit and our Tikkun Leil Shavuot. Each one represents the best of what we strive to be—joyful, community-centered, and deeply rooted in Jewish life.

These events are also among the most complex and demanding things we do, requiring tremendous effort from nearly every member of our JCC team. Staff members work late into the night, anticipate every detail, and go above and beyond to ensure that our community feels inspired, seen, and welcomed.

And yet, as proud as I am of those remarkable events, I’ll tell you a secret: my very favorite day of the year is…TODAY.

Why?

Because our Annual Staff Community Day is coming up on Friday, June 13, and today is the day I get to ask you to write to me about why you love the JCC’s staff.

As soon as you start sending your amazing messages about which staff member brightens your day (or your life!) I will begin reading them. Each note, story, and word of gratitude reminds me of the special role that our staff plays. Every member of the JCC staff shows up with talent, warmth, and wisdom for everyone. More than anything, they make the JCC feel like home.

On Friday, June 13, we will close the building from 6 am to 4 pm to hold our third annual Staff Community Day—a full day of learning, laughter, and connection for our entire staff. It’s our way of celebrating them, as they so richly deserve.

If you would like to express your appreciation to an individual staff member or to our staff as a whole, please click here. Your kind words mean more than you can imagine, and I can’t wait to read them and share them with my colleagues.

With heartfelt gratitude,

Rabbi Joanna Samuels
Chief Executive Officer

April 10, 2025

As we approach Passover, I am reflecting on the significance of this holiday amidst the challenges we face today.

At the center of Passover is the act of speech. At our seder tables, before we dig into the matzah balls and the brisket, we narrate a story about our ancestors’ enslavement in Egypt and their redemption to freedom. The importance of telling this story to ourselves, our children, and our community invites us to explore the power of speech and how we use our voices.

Chasidic thinkers alighted upon this, reinterpreting the word Pesach (the Hebrew word for Passover) as peh (mouth) sach (speaks), or “The mouth that speaks.” The Chasidic rabbis imagined that during slavery in Egypt, the Israelites’ voices were silenced. The Israelites’ liberation, then, was not only a physical escape from slavery but also a spiritual liberation: they were finally able to reclaim their voice and tell their story.

Today, we live in a world flooded with speech, so much so that it feels like we are drowning in it. Yet, despite being bombarded by constant information streams, many of us cannot find the words to explain what swirls around us. It is as though, like the Israelites in Egypt, our speech is in exile. We do not yet know the redemption story that we are meant to tell.

Passover provides us with an opportunity to reset. We were slaves in Egypt, and we were redeemed into freedom, we will declare at our seders. This is a statement about our past, of course. But it is also a core truth of our present and our future. We are forever living and reliving the story of Passover, toggling between the narrow constrictions and limitations and the wide expanses of perspective and liberation.

By being “peh sach”—a mouth that tells the story—we imprint it’s truth in our hearts and in our collective consciousness. In doing so, we will quiet the barrage around us, and find the words to describe this challenging moment, literally and figuratively. And therein, may we discover the unique liberation story that will guide us forward.

Wishing you a meaningful and joyous Passover.

Rabbi Joanna Samuels
Chief Executive Officer

March 13, 2025

Happy Purim!

It is hard to believe that Purim begins this evening because here on 76th and Amsterdam, it feels like we have been celebrating for a month. The JCC loves Purim, and the Jewish people, for the most part, love Purim, too. Perhaps the holiday appeals to us because it is a holiday of humor, masquerade, and baked goods. Perhaps it is something more.

The Book of Esther, the text at the core of the holiday, is a campy melodrama where, in true novelistic fashion, life’s twists and turns create suspense, fear, and, ultimately, salvation. As we learn in the Book’s chapters, someone bows or does not bow (Mordechai), someone appears or does not appear before the King (Esther), and someone sleeps through the night unaware (Haman) while someone else is coincidentally up checking the history books (King Achashverosh).

These are the tiny moments in which the fate of a person, and the fate of an entire people, are decided. The Jewish people survive because an alchemy of odd events happens in the proper order. God is hidden, so humans enact a successful but fairly imperfect story of redemption. When the victory comes, however, it is eclipsed by a spate of violence. Even the happy ending is not exactly what we bargained for.

Purim holds a mirror to us and to our world. The holiday celebrates how to live when God’s motives are unknown and when human beings, in our complexity and limitation, encounter events beyond our control. And yet, as the Book of Esther ends, the people are commanded to celebrate their fragile victory in perpetuity. How? Not by reliving their fear and vulnerability but, instead, by feasting, sending gifts to each other, and giving tzedakah to the poor.

As we navigate a confusing and sometimes painful world, we can learn from this. When we feel helpless or unmoored, we can do what the Jews of the Purim story did: gather in community for meals, be generous to friends and neighbors, and give tzedakah to the needy with an open hand. These acts will carry us and ennoble us. They will be the true victory.

Purim Sameach,

Rabbi Joanna Samuels
Chief Executive Officer

January 17, 2025

“One who saves a single soul,” the Talmud teaches, “the Torah regards them as if they had saved an entire world.”

These words echo through our collective conscience as we follow the news of a hostage deal and ceasefire. What will be? Who will be alive? And, as we cast our vision outward: What will it take to rebuild broken societies and broken souls? Do we dare to imagine? Are our imaginations eclipsed by all that we have seen in these fifteen months?

An answer comes from the Book of Exodus, which we begin reading this week. The book opens with the ancient Israelites in a time of fear and constriction. The Egyptian Pharaoh has enslaved the Israelites and, distressed by their growing population, decreed that all Jewish boys be killed at birth.

The ensuing chapters, however, tell the story of humanity at its most resilient and imaginative. The midwives Shifrah and Puah (whom most Biblical commentators understand to have been Egyptian) refuse to carry out the orders and ensure that all of the Israelite babies live. Yocheved heroically hides her son, Moses, before setting him in a wicker basket on the Nile. This basket is then picked up by the daughter of the Egyptian pharaoh, who cares for the child. Moses’ sister Miriam watches over Moses to see that he reaches safety.

Each of these women—some Israelite, some Egyptian—brings about the redemption of the Israelite nation. Each one, through her discrete action, brings a new world into being. Each one can imagine a different future, and each one deploys herself to bring it about.

These coming weeks will be challenging. The news cycle will lift our spirits and also break our hearts. We are living in history, with its unanswered questions as our constant companions. Within all of it, we, like the women of the Exodus story, have agency. May we use it to find a path toward imaginative action, and may we merit to bring a new and better world into being.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Joanna Samuels
Chief Executive Officer

November 1, 2024

Dear JCC Community,

We are living through times of uncertainty. As we approach the end of a fraught election season, unease and dread have become our steady companions, while hope and unity may feel unattainably distant. Grappling with the unknown can feel all-encompassing as apprehension weighs heavily on our hearts and minds.

This week’s Torah portion, Parshat Noach, offers some insight into how we might navigate this journey of uncertainty. As we know, God commanded Noah to build an ark and reside there along with his family and pairs of every animal, while a massive biblical flood destroyed the Earth. After many weeks, the rains stopped, and the water began to recede. Disembarking from the ark after the flood, Noah emerged to a desolate, empty world without instruction on how to renew life.

One of Noah’s first acts on dry land was to plant a vineyard. A beautiful Midrash, or rabbinic legend, teaches that Noah did so with vine branches and shoots of fig trees that he had saved from the ark. This small detail suggests something profound: Noah gathered the roots and seeds of trees while gathering the animal pairs, even though these plants likely served little purpose on the ark. Why, then, were they brought on in the first place? Perhaps Noah had hope all along that the flood would end and that these roots and seeds would one day be planted. Perhaps, as he schlepped these bits of greenery onto a closed ship, he thought to himself, “Unlikely…but you never know!”

What can we do in times of uncertainty and fear? We can hope—not the passive hope of daydreaming and nostalgia, but the active work of articulating our hopes for the future, speaking them out loud, and sharing them with others. This way, we may be more likely to move our fears and anxieties closer to constructive action. This way, we may find that our community is a source of strength and encouragement. This way, we are planting the seeds and cultivating the future that we wish for.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Joanna Samuels
Chief Executive Officer

October 2, 2024

Dear JCC Community,

On the cusp of this New Year, we find ourselves in a markedly different world than this time last year. Questions abound, and answers are elusive amidst a tumultuous confluence of fear and uncertainty. We are living in history.

In this moment of instability, we each face a profound spiritual question: What is my role in this perplexing new world?

Judaism does not offer an easy answer to this struggle for purpose, but our faith affirms that this question is worthy. Our tradition teaches that during the High Holidays, each of us stands before God to be judged on the merit of our deeds. The solitary nature of this yearly ritual is a moving reminder of how Jewish tradition sees us: as unique individuals with free will, responsible for our actions, and worthy of great aspirations. Like the new year that’s about to begin, each of us is full of possibility.

Finding our purpose in a troubled world and seeing possibility amidst upheaval is by no means obvious. But the New Year reminds us that neither the past nor the present is the sole determinant of the future—neither the world’s nor our own. HaYom Harat Olam (the world is born) we proclaim on Rosh Hashanah, and so too are we born anew.

In this liminal moment of possibility, let us each ask:

What is my purpose in this new year?
What is my unique gift, and how will I share it with our world?
Amid chaos, how will I hold hope and optimism?

During these High Holidays, please join us for any number of meaningful programs. Directly after Rosh Hashanah, on October 5 at 7:30 pm, our community will gather for Havdalah for the Hostages as we commemorate a year since October 7, a year in captivity for 101 hostages.

We invite you to hear from our Upper West Side community of spiritual leaders and view our Rosh Hashanah video on Facebook or Instagram, affirming the power of community, the power of song, and the power of hope.

May we find purpose and agency as we greet this New Year of 5785, and may we each find ways to be agents of healing and holiness.

Shana Tova,

Rabbi Joanna Samuels
Chief Executive Officer

September 6, 2024

Dear JCC Community,

This past week has been a difficult one. The news from Israel about the murder of six hostages is devastating. Our collective longing for a resolution to these eleven months of war and anguish fills every waking hour. Answers seem elusive.

In the split-screen nature of life, this was also the back-to-school week for many children and parents. How wonderful to see the “first-day” pictures of children of all ages dressed and ready to greet a new school year. How full of optimism, how full of hope.

Amidst these low lows and high highs, earlier this week, we also marked Rosh Chodesh Elul, the first day of the month of reflection and soul-searching in preparation for the New Year.

This year, I am particularly drawn to the words of Psalm 27, which many have the custom of reciting throughout Elul and the fall holidays. The Psalm ends on an optimistic note, “Hope in the Divine One! Be strong and courageous. Hope in the Sacred!”

Hope holds a special value for the Jewish people. Throughout Jewish history, during times of great suffering and pain, hope was often the only thing our ancestors had to grasp to sustain themselves. Hope remains a core value, something to aspire to even when we have a hard time finding it. Hope is mandatory as we prepare for a new year.

This past Wednesday night, hundreds gathered in our lobby to stand together in sorrow and solidarity. As we prepared to sing HaTikvah (The Hope), our national anthem of hope, I shared these words:

Hope is our birthright.
Hope is our engine.
Hope is our muscle.
Hope is the blood that courses through our veins.
Hope is what we inherited from our ancestors, and hope is what we give our children.
Hope is what we try to marshal in these complicated days, and hope is the gift we can give each other.

May we find hope, celebrate hope, and share hope in these coming weeks.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Joanna Samuels
Chief Executive Officer

August 9, 2024

Dear JCC Community,

This coming week, we will mark Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the month of Av, commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem and other tragedies in Jewish history.

There is a story in the Talmud about a group of Jews who decided to refrain from eating meat and drinking wine as a sign of how deeply they mourned the loss of the Second Temple. One day, Rabbi Yehoshua, a rabbinic sage, asked for their reasoning. They told him that because meat and wine were used in the Temple, they stopped partaking in both. Rabbi Yehoshua reminded them that bread, too, was used in the Temple, and the group answered that they would stop eating bread. But when Rabbi Yehoshua told them that, by their logic, they should stop drinking water, they fell silent.

Rabbi Yehoshua gently eased the group out of their distress. “Come, my children,” he says. “To not mourn at all is impossible. But to mourn excessively is also impossible.” Instead, he taught, a person can mark her continued grieving in more subtle ways: leaving a portion of the plaster of a home unfinished, removing one dish from a festive meal, or omitting one piece of jewelry on a festive outfit.

These are practices of mourning, suggestively and wisely inserted into the forceful mandate of continuing to live. They serve as a tool of collective memory, affirming a connection to ancestors who witnessed destruction and rebuilt from it. They offer a sense of peoplehood across the expanse of time.

Those are wise practices for us to remember today. Over the past ten months, tragedy and pain have been our companions. But they have also reminded us that we are connected—across oceans, history, and circumstances—to something larger than ourselves. Anchored in the knowledge of this connection, may we meet all challenges with strength, optimism, and hope.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Joanna Samuels
Chief Executive Officer

July 3, 2024

Dear JCC Community,

There is a beautiful Jewish tradition that when travelers reach a new home, they must say a blessing of thanks. My grandparents and great-grandparents who made their way to America were decidedly secular, unlikely to utter a blessing. Despite this, I imagine that they must have felt deep gratitude upon reaching these shores. Fleeing antisemitic persecution, poverty, and political turmoil, America was for them a place that represented freedom and possibility.

My ancestors, and perhaps yours, as well, were correct that America would be a place of welcome for the Jewish people. Nearly one hundred years before large waves of Jewish immigrants arrived from Russia and Eastern Europe, the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island sent a letter to President George Washington thanking him for the safety that the community felt in the new nation:

“Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free Citizens, we now (with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty disposer of all events) behold a Government, erected by the Majesty of the People—a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance—but generously affording to All liberty of conscience, and immunities of Citizenship.”

In response, President Washington wrote this message: “May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

Indeed, for many in the Jewish community, our nation has lived up to this great promise. We are an integral part of this land of diversity while continuing to practice our faith predominantly in peace and security. For perhaps the first time in Jewish history, our community became a thread woven into the intricate fabric of a country.

May our celebrations this July 4th remind us that we belong here. Though these last months have been challenging, we must affirm our place, with pride. Here at the JCC, we are devoting our summer to celebrating the beauty of our identity. After nine months of darkness, the JCC’s Summer of Light creates an opportunity for us to take a moment to be boldly, mindfully, inclusively, and optimistically Jewish together. We are proud to be Jews. We are proud to be Americans. Let’s shine our light as brightly as the summer sun.

Happy 4th of July, and an early Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Joanna Samuels
Chief Executive Officer

June 7, 2024

Dear Community,

This coming week we will celebrate Shavuot, a holiday commemorating the day the Jewish people gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai to receive the Torah 3,000 years ago. Our tradition holds numerous theories about what our ancestors experienced at the foot of that mountain. One ancient rabbinic legend teaches us that the voice of the Holy One that emerged from Mount Sinai was magically split into seventy voices speaking seventy languages so that everyone could understand the wisdom that was shared. Yet another rabbinic legend teaches us that there are seventy faces to the Torah, and thus seventy ways to interpret its teachings. Receiving Torah, according to these sources, must be accessible to all and meaningful to all.

On Shavuot, we at the JCC take this quite literally.

Our annual Paul Feig z”l Tikkun Leil Shavuot has seventy—and more—ways to learn and experience Torah. This most exceptional JCC event, beginning June 11 at 9 pm and concluding on June 12 at 5 am, will be a full and joyous night of community and conversation. Highlights include sessions with award-winning lyricist/composer Benj Pasek, Tony-nominated actor Steven Skybell, and best-selling author Dan Senor; conversations with city council member Gale Brewer, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, Rabbi David Wolpe, and Columbia University professor Shai Davidai; movement classes including Israeli dance and silent disco; music and comedy events with MusicTalks, The Bible Players, and Liz Glazer; and much more.

Over the course of the festive night that is Shavuot, may we together unite the myriad ways to celebrate our Judaism in a sacred space of learning, connection, and joy.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Joanna Samuels
Chief Executive Officer

May 10, 2024

Dear JCC Community,

Over the next few days, we will commemorate two deeply emotional days for Israel and the worldwide Jewish community. As the sun sets this Sunday, we will enter Yom HaZikaron, a day of memory and mourning for all those who fell in defense of the State of Israel and for civilian victims of terrorism. In line with Jewish tradition, Yom HaZikaron is observed from sundown to sundown. As the sun sets on Monday, we commence with Yom Ha’atzmaut, a celebration of the founding of the State of Israel 76 years ago.

The interstitial moments that divide a day of mourning and a day of celebration are complex. In Israel, these moments are acknowledged by a Tekes Ma’avar, a unique transitional ceremony held at sundown between Yom HaZikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut. The sun sets on a national day of sadness and grief; with the night sky, the celebration begins, with music concerts and fireworks. The Tekes Ma’avar helps ease the jarring shift from remembrance to rejoicing, helping each of these two days to mirror the other. Yom HaZikaron, the day of remembrance, ends with the affirmation that terrible sacrifices enabled the State of Israel to be born and survive. Yom Ha’atzmaut, Independence Day, begins with the reminder that freedom and sovereignty come at a desperately heavy price.

Much like the past seven months, this week, we will navigate through intense and often contradictory emotions. As we remember and mourn on Yom Hazikaron and seek to celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut, we walk a well-trodden path. Holding pain and joy, happiness and despair, sadness and hope, we connect deeply to our history as a people. And like our ancestors, we look forward, always and forever, with tikvah—hope.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Joanna Samuels
Chief Executive Officer

April 19, 2024

Dear JCC Community,

As Passover begins on Monday night, families around the world will sing these words:

Mah nishtana ha-laila ha-zeh m’kol lailot?
What is different tonight from all other nights?

We will ask and answer in words and actions. We will eat matzah, maror (bitter herbs), charoset, and parsley dipped into salt water, and we will recline in our seats. We will drink four cups of wine or grape juice and sing familiar songs. We will gather around tables, telling the story of the enslaved Israelites journeying to freedom, a story that begins with our lowest point and ends with praise. Those things we know, and we will do them.

Mah nishtana ha-laila ha-zeh m’kol lailot?
What is different tonight from all other nights?

Why is this Passover different?

In past years, perhaps some of us felt that the story of our ancestors was just that—a story from a long time ago. Or maybe we saw the Exodus story as a metaphor for our internal struggles, or maybe we saw in the story a universal message: who in our world needs to be liberated, and how do we deploy ourselves to be agents of freedom for others?

But this year, we enter this holiday of redemption in a most bewildering time. The story feels, uncomfortably, more literal. When will the 133 hostages return to their homes? When will the suffering in Israel and Gaza end? How and when will there be peace? When will things calm down?

Mah nishtana ha-laila ha-zeh m’kol lailot?
What is different tonight from all other nights?

Perhaps the answer is that we are living in our own Exodus story, and we do not know how the story will end.

Our ancient Israelite ancestors also did not know the story’s end while living it. Unsure of what would come next, their only tools were the instructions they received from God and Moses: eat together with the community; gather in your homes for safety; remember this story so that you will be able to tell it to your children; believe with a full heart that you are in a story that ends in a better place than the place where you currently are.

May these divine instructions guide us, too. May we have beautiful festive meals with our communities. May we gather in homes that affirm our safety. May we share stories with the next generation that connect us to the past. And may we have faith that freedom and redemption will come.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach,

Rabbi Joanna Samuels
Chief Executive Officer

March 15, 2024

Dear JCC Community,

This Shabbat, Jewish communities worldwide will read the closing chapters of the Book of Exodus, which describe the completion of the building of the Mishkan. The Mishkan, a portable sanctuary created during the children of Israel’s journey in the wilderness, was an enthusiastically communal DIY undertaking. As the Torah describes in great detail, artisans of all types contributed their talents: skilled community members spun yarn, embroidered linens, cut wood, and carved stones. Serving as a spiritual center for the whole community, the Mishkan led the people through uncertainty and travail. Its presence reminded them of God’s presence.

I thought about the Mishkan while visiting the Hostages Square in Tel Aviv last week during my trip to Israel with a wonderful group from the JCC. Hostages Square has become the central gathering point for supporting the 134 Israeli hostages who remain in Gaza and their bereft, grieving families.

It, too, has been a communal DIY enterprise. There are tents set up where hostage families can receive visits of support. There is a kiosk with paper and markers where one can write notes of comfort and prayer. There is a portable synagogue and, dramatically, a recreation of a tunnel in Gaza that visitors can walk through. At the center sits the Shabbat Table, a beautifully set dining table with a place setting for each person being held hostage. In seeking to support a community through the unbearable pain of this crisis, Hostages Square has also become a wellspring of human creativity and lovingkindness.

Hostages Square, like the Mishkan, was built lovingly by the community. And like the Mishkan, the presence of the Holy indeed dwells there.

Thousands of miles away, we will continue to connect ourselves to the sacred work of longing and prayer. Please join me this Saturday night at 7:30 pm in the JCC lobby to sing and pray at our weekly Havdalah for the Hostages.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Joanna Samuels
Chief Executive Officer