Milwaukee is home to an amazing Jewish community.
It’s well organized; provides much needed and high quality services delivered by highly qualified, committed and passionate professionals and volunteers; operates in beautiful state of the art facilities; and attempts to be open and reach out to its members, users and even, where possible, the unaffiliated.
I know this to be true, as I’ve been blessed to live and work here for more than 25 years.
And that’s a drop in the bucket: Jews have populated Milwaukee for more than 160 years, and we have agencies and synagogues that have operated for more than 100 years, including the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, the organization I’m privileged to help lead.
Sounds like nirvana doesn’t it? A generational community simply committed to doing the best for and by its members.
While that’s certainly true, today, and, more importantly, for tomorrow, it’s just not enough. There are still many real and important needs within our community that go unmet.
For many, the desire for meaning, for others, the desire for connection is not being fulfilled. Often, and in spite of the best intentions, we’re not in touch with your realities, not meeting your personal needs, not addressing your aspirations.
We’re finally recognizing that, “What helped get us here won’t get us there.” In many respects we’ve rested on our well-deserved laurels and success, wrapping that around us as protection against the many and dramatic changes occurring in our Jewish, philanthropic and volunteer worlds.
For these reasons, the Milwaukee Jewish Federation is undertaking a process we call “Reimagining.” Our volunteer leadership and professional staff are committed to nothing less than transformational change.
We do not underestimate the challenge — or the power — of real change. We know it will require us to openly, honestly, and seriously consider who we are and how we can and will best serve you, respond to your interests, meet your personal needs, and together build and rebuild the vibrant Jewish community that we all deserve and want.
We accept this challenge, and we are committed to change that is real, profound, and truly transformational.
To accomplish this we have dedicated ourselves to hearing the voices of everyone who is willing to participate. It’s about hearing your personal stories, your dreams, why being Jewish is so meaningful to you and your hopes for tomorrow.
There are two ways that you can help us make this real:
• First, we’re conducting personal interviews throughout the community. East Side, West Side, 18 or 80, religious or non-observant, committed friend or uninvolved skeptic — all are welcome to share your stories, providing rich, valuable content to where we head.
• Second, we invite you to join us, and hundreds of other Milwaukee Jews, on Sunday and Monday, June 26-27, for our first ever Milwaukee Jewish Community Summit. Together, over two days, we will chart the course of our Jewish community future.
I can promise that all of us involved will openly engage with you, listen and work as hard possible to make your Jewish dreams our community reality.
Finally, I want to explain that the Reimagining Project is about much more than conventional strategic planning. This is a step into our future, building on what we appreciate from the past and appreciating even more what we can become.
We have the will to evolve as an organization; we have the capacity to not only dream of a stronger, more vibrant future, but the ability to make it happen.
The summit and the interviews will provide the crucial first steps by teaching us to hear the voices of our community, in all the richness of their strength and diversity. That is why your engaged participation carries so much weight and import.
I’m going to the Jewish Community Summit, and I really hope you’ll join me there!
Richard H. Meyer is executive vice president of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.
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