Thank You and Shalom

Thank you.

My time as the Anti-Defamation League’s Boulder Office Community Director has been the most rewarding professional experience of my life. You, the Boulder Jewish Community, are extraordinary. It is with profound gratitude and sadness that I leave after nearly five years here and after nearly a decade with ADL in lay and professional capacities.

Thank you to all of you who have supported ADL’s work and mission with your time, your commitment and your investment. Thank you to Rose Community Foundation, the Jared Polis Foundation, Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado, the Boulder Jewish Community Foundation, Sloat and Nicholson, and Ball Corporation—our Boulder Office has been a reality all of these years because of your seed money and your belief in us. Thank you, also and especially, to every donor who trusted us to do this work.

Thank you to a simply outstanding cadre of Jewish communal professionals: you do G-d’s work every day and have been the best colleagues one could have. Thank you to Haver, the Boulder rabbis, for all you do to set a shining example of pluralism and respect in this community: you help make ADL’s work easier with your spirit of openness and cooperation.

Thank you to ADL’s Boulder Steering Committee: a more committed, hard-working, talented group of volunteers could not be found. It has been an honor to work with you and learn from you. I am so proud of what we have accomplished together, and I am humbled by the manner in which you continue to step up and pledge to continue our work here. You are tremendous leaders, and I will miss you all.

Looking back, I could not be prouder of the ways that you in this community have allowed ADL to work with you: from standing up against hateful voices when the North Boulder eruv was being debated, to working with the University of Colorado-Boulder to make the campus safer for Jewish students and all students, to working with OutBoulder to move Boulder Pridefest from Shabbat to Sunday so we all could participate with our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, to bringing our No Place for Hate® program to Boulder County schools so that all students and staff will be respected and feel welcome… and so much more.

It has been an honor to serve this community and speak as a Jewish voice for fairness, equity and justice for all. My fervent hope is that you will continue to stand with others, to speak up when anyone is hurt, and to share with and learn from our neighbors. We have achieved a great deal here through dialogue and education; the work continues. A truly equitable community, one where our differences are seen as assets and never as liabilities, can only be achieved through vigilance; we have come far, but we are not yet there.

ADL’s work in Boulder will continue through the leadership and expertise of our Boulder Steering Committee and with the strong support of ADL’s Regional Office in Denver, including Regional Director Scott Levin. You may continue to reach Boulder ADL at Boulder@ADL.org or 303.449.2607.

I am excited to move to Boston for the opportunity to serve as Political Director for J Street in New England. I look forward to working with elected officials to secure our beloved Israel as both the Jewish State and the bastion of democracy that it is by advocating for a two-state solution.

And I really look forward to coming back to Boulder and seeing how this beautiful Jewish community continues to thrive and grow: to visit the new Boulder JCC when it is built, to see our shuls continue to blossom, to see Jewish education here continue to flourish, and, of course, to see all of you. You have extended so many hands of friendship, so many useful conversations and questions, and so much blessing in my life.

From the bottom of my heart: thank you.