Rabbi Asher Lopatin: Reflections on my first 10 months as JCRC Director and the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor’s Director of Community Relations
To all the members of the Greater Ann Arbor Jewish Community:
It has been a fascinating, rewarding and fulfilling ten months on the job. I began my adventure on this job just five months after the October 7 massacre and just about two months after contentious cease-fire resolutions were passed by the Ann Arbor School Board and the Ann Arbor City Council. There were some important primaries for Washtenaw county sheriff, for State Rep and for Ann Arbor School Board which were of great interest to the Jewish community. We faced parents of children in Washtenaw County public schools who were frustrated that their children’s Jewish needs – and even safety – were not being met. The community, in general, felt a sense that Jews were alone in facing antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment that was both on campus and all around.
With the experienced and passionate leadership of Decky Alexander and Wendy Lawrence, our JCRC moved rapidly to meet these needs. We organized three candidate forums: two featuring candidates for State Rep and Sheriff, and another a few months later with all the candidates for school board. I was delighted that Jews and non-Jews – including members of the Arab American and Muslim American community – came to these respectful and substantive forums and all felt welcome. We organized a general parents meeting – with representatives of the Ann Arbor Public Schools as well as Josh Herst of “Stop Hate in Schools” – which led to the creation of four parents working groups focused on different needs of our Jewish K-12 students. I spoke before the U-M Board of Regents and the Ann Arbor City Council about various antisemitic incidents, both on campus and in our community, and soon after, several City Council members showed up at Beth Israel on Shabbat in solidarity with the synagogue who face a regular group of protestors.
What I am most proud of is the foundations our JCRC is laying for interfaith and inter-community support for our community, which, as mentioned above, frequently feels alone. We have already celebrated Hanukkah and Diwali with the Hindu community – 250 Jews and Hindus of all ages gathered – and we have co-sponsored a lunch on MLK weekend for those with food insecurity at the Metropolitan Memorial Baptist Church in Ypsilanti. In December, I took Pastor Ed Fride of the Catholic King David Church along with other Christians to Israel on a mission of solidarity and connection, and we are in the midst of planning a Freedom Seder with the local Black community as well. We are working hard to connect with the Muslim and Arab American community, and we are discussing events with the JCC to help us connect to the Chinese American community and the Japanese American community in the area. We are not alone – and we do not want to be alone!
So thank you for welcoming me to Greater Ann Arbor and for re-envisioning and reinvigorating the JCRC to be the engine of connection and relationship building within the Jewish community and between the Jewish community and the broader world we live in.