Serving as the Executive Director of Jewish Family Service lets me see over and over how our amazingly special Jewish community comes together so often to support one another, in good times and in bad.
Are you looking for a Mah Jongg game? Come solo or with friends to join Mah Jongg guru Michelle Tishler and the Gordon JCC in partnership with Asian and Pacific Islanders of Middle Tennessee for the Flower Power Mah Jongg Tournament happening May 10 from 11am-3:30PM. The fun-filled tournament day will include noshes, coffee, lunch, prizes, and some surprises.
Welcome to the Observer's monthly Newcomer Column! Every month, we will be featuring one of our Nashville Jewish Newcomers so you can get to know them and their dynamic, engaging stories. One of my favorite parts of my job as the Federation's Newcomer Engagement Associate is connecting with the newcomers and bringing them into Nashville's Jewish community through our Newcomer Shabbat dinners, Newcomer Welcome Receptions, and connecting them with community members and organizations who can help them feel like they belong here. We hope you enjoy reading these and give every newcomer you meet a smile and a warm Nashville welcome!
Sharon Benus, Gordon JCC Adult and Community Wide Programs Director
Recently, Observer editor Barbara Dab and I were interviewed by a local television station to discuss the rise in antisemitic activity locally and around the country. Dedicating an entire hour to this topic is an indication of how serious and far reaching this situation has become, and the concern it has caused not only to us in the Jewish community, but also to our friends and neighbors. When the hour program was over, we had only scratched the surface of what is happening and how we are responding.
Art on the West Side Returns April 15-16 at the JCC
To celebrate Israel’s upcoming 75th anniversary, executive members of the Jewish Agency for Israel hosted a webinar Feb. 26 to discuss the agency, the Jewish people, and the commitment to advance pluralism in Israel.
On April 23, 2023, West End Synagogue will celebrate Israel's 75th Birthday with a concert by a multi-generational band - Dor L'Dor - from Knoxville that bills itself as "Not Your Father's Klezmer Band." The band is making its Nashville concert debut.
Nonprofit organization provides community for breast cancer survivors who meet in Gordon JCC
Students from the Jewish Middle School and Akiva School joined together in mid-March to take part in a local adaptation of The Butterfly Project, a national campaign to fuse arts education with Holocaust study as a means of cultivating empathy and social responsibility in children. The Butterfly Project began in 2006 at the San Diego Jewish Academy as a way of memorializing the 1.5 million children murdered during the Holocaust. Inspired by “I Never Saw Another Butterfly,” a collection of poems, letters, and drawings by children imprisoned at the Terezin Concentration Camp, the program hopes to have contemporary children from around the globe create and install 1.5 million ceramic butterflies in memory of those lost children.
Big Night Out 2023 was an entertaining evening and a great success. Over 200 people attended as Broadway came to Nashville. Guests entered through the Backstage door to an auction room to bid on interesting auction items and feast on appetizers and our own hummus board display. They enjoyed mingling as they strolled through Central Park, on their way to Broadway and the Pargh Theater. After an introduction and thank you’s from Board President Cindee Gold, and Hamotzi led by Rabbis Danziger and Strosberg, guests enjoyed a seated dinner catered by Chef Burke Conley from Takeaway Catering. Munching on black and white cookies from Stren’s bakery in Brooklyn, attendees settled down for the show, a musical review of songs written by Jewish composers and their mentees. Broadway stars Brandon Contreras, Morgan Karr, Marina Kondo, Anthony Lee Medina, and Alisa Melendez wowed the audience with their selections from musicals including Oklahoma!, The Sound of Music, Sunday in the Park with George, The Little Mermaid, Hamilton and Tick, Tock…Boom!.
