News from Middle Tennessee's Jewish Community |
Wednesday, April 1, 2026
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
It feels like Germany in the 1930s again. But this time it's in Nashville and it's 2023.
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.
