As I mentioned in an email last night, in the middle of the Jewish Federation's Annual Meeting we learned about Israel's strike on Iran. I hope you will join Jewish Federations from across North America for a special briefing at 10:00 a.m. this morning. Please know we are following everything closely and will help keep our community informed.

Last night's 105th Annual Meeting was the Jewish Federation's opportunity to share about our accomplishments from this past year. We presented the Laurie Rogoway Outstanding Jewish Professional Award to Sarah Rohr and gave out college scholarships from the Sussman-Shenker Scholarship Awards to Anouk Cohen and Noah Zeitzer. We thanked our outgoing board members: Rochelle Abitz, Lauren Goldstein, Hank Kaplan, and Stuart Kirschner -- and welcomed three new board members: Elana Hutter Davey, Kyle Prosen, and Robin Weinstein. We also expressed our gratitude to Mindy Zeitzer, who just completed her three-year term as our Chair of the Board. To say Mindy did a remarkable job would be an understatement. Finally, we welcomed our new Chair of the Board, Leslie Beard, who brings a family legacy of Federation leadership with her as she steps into this role.

You can watch a recording of the meeting here.

Here are a few highlights from our “Year in Review”:

• Collaborated with college administrators to implement changes on campus to ensure the safety of Jewish students.

• Provided $340,000 in security grants to 31 different Jewish organizations across the state.

• PDX Pathways, a young adult mentoring and leadership program, had its largest mentee class in the program’s history.

• Federation has been recognized nationally for our work in responding to the multiple incidents of antisemitism in our K-12 schools and the creation of our “parent advisory” group.

• Expanded women’s programming, including a new professional networking group that has already involved 130 women.

• The Jewish Review started a bi-weekly podcast talking with leaders from around our community.

• Launched “Student to Student,” to train Jewish teens to present at area high schools about what it means to be Jewish.

Trust me – this is a very short, abbreviated list.

It is important to note that our work and support of Jewish community organizations are based on the success of our annual Campaign for Community Needs. This has been both the most successful and challenging annual campaign in my 15 years here at the Jewish Federation.

On the positive side, 68% of all donors to our campaign increased their gift by 10% or more. We have never seen that type of response before from such a large segment of our donors. In addition, we expanded what we call the “belly of the campaign” with more people than ever contributing between $5,000 - $15,000. We created the Ben Gurion Society for young adults who donate $1,000 or more, and in our inaugural year we have 49 members. And, perhaps most importantly, we brought in over 200 new donors.

Despite these successes, we lost over $430,000 in gifts due to people moving from Portland or passing away. It was an impossible task to make up that difference. It equaled 11% of our annual campaign.

The losses do not just impact the Jewish Federation – they impact each agency in our Jewish community ecosystem. This reinforces the need for a targeted endowment campaign.

Despite the lost contributions, our community raised $3,961,000 – an incredible achievement and only $55,000 less than last year’s annual campaign. Thank you to all of our donors for supporting the work of the Jewish Federation in Greater Portland, in Israel, and beyond.

We also announced a special new initiative. Several years ago, we were scheduled to take over 400 people to Israel, but COVID hit. When it was safe to travel, we took over 200 people.

Jewish travel is important. It provides education about Jewish communities around the world. Jewish travel creates special relationships and bonds. It is also a wonderful personal experience for people to see places they may never go – and with a Jewish group.

I am pleased to announce our new Global Travel Experiences program. A three-year calendar of destinations starting in February 2026 through November 2028, open to anyone in our community.

Destinations will include:

• Mexico City (women only) -- February 11-15, 2026
• Poland -- May 25-31, 2026
• Argentina and Uruguay -- November 4-12, 2026
• Costa Rica -- February 3-7, 2027
• Uzbekistan -- May 31 - June 7, 2027
• Prague and Budapest -- October 28 - November 3, 2027
• Berlin and Belgium -- April 19-24, 2028
• Israel (80th anniversary) -- summer 2028
• Morocco -- November 6-14, 2028

We hope you will join us! You can click here to express your interest and more information will be coming in the next few weeks.

On a separate Israel issue which deserves to be mentioned, on Tuesday, at the Knesset, there was a subcommittee hearing about additional Jewish content in Israeli school curricula, including allowing time for students to put on tefillin. MK Rabbi Gilad Kariv wanted to ensure the measure would include all students, not just males. Likud parliamentarian Galit Distel-Atbaryan made a “joke” about Kariv inviting her “to a bar mitzvah for a dog” and then called the ushers to “get the enlightened Reformi out of here, we Jews wish to continue.”

Distel-Atbaryan’s remarks sparked outrage from the Reform movement, and many others, who rejected her insinuation that Reform Jews are not Jews. Sadly, she later put out a statement insisting that she would “prevent Reform organizations from overrunning the Israeli education system.”

Divisive and ignorant remarks like this against any stream of Judaism, whether it is the Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Haredi or any other, are unacceptable and inexcusable!

To be clear, in the Talmud, there are women who put on tefillin. Even Maimonides believed there was nothing barring women from wearing tefillin, despite being officially exempt from this commandment.

Funny story, when we lived in Atlanta, my children’s Jewish day school had female teachers wearing tefillin at morning services. My daughter was in kindergarten and I remember her asking at the dinner table, “When do I get to put on “teflon?”

This Sunday is Father’s Day. It is widely accepted that Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane started the holiday on June 19, 1909. Her father, William Jackson Smart, was a single parent who raised Sonora and her five brothers, after his wife, Ellen, died giving birth to their youngest child. While attending a Mother’s Day church service in 1909, Sonora came up with the idea.

However, the first known Father’s Day services occurred in Fairmont, West Virginia on July 5, 1908, after hundreds of men died in the worst mining accident in U.S. history. Grace Golden Clayton proposed a service to honor all fathers, especially those who had died in the mine.

Shabbat shalom, Happy Father’s Day to all the dads and father figures out there, and let us stand together with the people of Israel.