This year’s National Young Leadership Cabinet recently returned from a mission trip to Greece, where they learned about its Jewish history and celebrated the Jewish community there today. This year’s mission trip included 126 Cabinet members in 37 Jewish communities across North America, according to the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA). Cabinet is a leadership program of JFNA, designed to empower and equip emerging leaders ages 30-45 in the Jewish community.
“The mission of the program is to accelerate the leadership capacity and trajectory of volunteer leaders,” said Ben Schindler, associate vice president of Cabinet. Members of Cabinet have the opportunity to attend retreats, national events, International Study Mission trips, and more. Cabinet’s 5-year program has upheld this mission of supporting emerging Jewish leaders since its founding in 1963.
“We support them to learn,” said Schindler. “We support them to build their skills, specifically on how to support and serve the Jewish community, and we help them connect with each other, because it is a network that becomes of tremendous value.”
This past year, the Cabinet took a mission trip to Greece, a country bearing the deep memory of one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world.
“The trip was extraordinary,” said Rachel Whitney, a Cabinet member from Nashville on the Greece trip. “We started in Thessaloniki, then visited Athens, covering major monuments of Greek culture, learning about the Greek Jewish community, and the impact of the Holocaust and its aftermath.”
The group had the privilege of visiting a memorial at the train cars in Thessaloniki and participating in an impactful Yom HaShoah commemoration. They also visited what was left of the old Jewish cemetery and learned about the work the city was doing on a new Holocaust museum, in addition to an established Jewish museum.
While in Athens, their group met with the local Jewish community and got to see firsthand the work their Federation does. Whitney talked more about institutions like the Warm House in Athens, and the services it provides for the seniors and children of their community.
There were also more lighthearted moments, including getting to play some games in the Olympic stadium with a few local Israelis.
“We sang lots of karaoke, broke some plates, and even got to run a mile around the Olympic track,” Whitney said. “Judaism was part of almost everything we did. Even an art tour we took was hosted by an Israeli art expert from Tel Aviv.”
Greece was chosen as this year’s destination because of the deep history of the Jewish people there.
“The Greek people we met with were clear, the Jews of Greece were not visitors, they were Greek and had been there for thousands of years. Greece was also a safe haven for the Sephardic Jews during the Inquisition,” Whitney shared. “This population growth led to Thessaloniki’s reputation as the Jerusalem of the Balkans, hosting the largest Jewish community in Western Europe with upwards of 70,000 members.”
Towards the end of WWII, the Nazis swept in and quickly devastated the Jewish population of Thessaloniki. Whitney described how the community bears witness to this difficult history. “We learned so much about how the Jewish and non-Jewish Greek community has come together around commemorating this difficult history and celebrating Jewish culture today.”
Cultivating a network of local and global connection within Jewish communities is a core focus of Cabinet. Cabinet Member and Nashville resident Erin Coleman described the relationships she made in Cabinet as a support system she would continue to lean on after the program ends.
“For me, it's the relationships that I've been able to cultivate that have been the most meaningful part of the experience,” said Coleman. “[Cabinet has been] one of the most formative things that I've done in my adult career—from a Jewish standpoint and a giving standpoint, with networking, exploring new friendships, and exploring the world.”
Similar to Coleman, the most impressive part of the Cabinet trip experience for Whitney was the relationships she made.
“From the Federation staff to my fellow cabinet members, this is such a unique, diverse group of smart and kind people who are committed to community and philanthropy,” Whitney concludes. “I’m so grateful to have been a part of this group and the Cabinet class of 2021.”
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