g so much bigger’
r of ‘we’ at annual reception
bove, JFLV Executive Director Mark L. Goldstein with eaker Jerry Silverman, President and CEO of JFNA.
Above, Iris Epstein.
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onel in the Israel Defense Forces.
education and experiences for the next generation. With all the unpredictability in the world, “I think there is something we can predict and that is that we’re going to be needed more and more and more,” Bobby Hammel said. Hammel sees the immense benefit that Federation provides at home, from the family life educator at Temple Beth El, where he and his wife, Bonnie, are members, to the JCC, where his grandson is in kindergarten and takes a “mom and me” swim class, to the PJ Library books his grandson receives at home. “This is strengthening our lives,” he said. “I’m not just a donor, I’m a recipient, and our Jewish life would not be anywhere near as vibrant as it is if not for the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley.” The occasion of the Oct. 6 meeting was not lost on the speakers or the attendees. Miri Eisin, a retired colonel in the Israel Defense Forces, first noted the 40th anniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur War and how much Israel has changed in the years since. Its population has more than doubled. With an intense focus on education, more than 80 private colleges have been built. The economy has completely
453 Northampton St., Easton, PA w 610-252-3132 w 1-800-999-STATE Order online at www.statetheatre.org transitioned from social welfare to liberal capitalist, she said. “We’re not what we were on Oct. 6, 1973, when Syria and Egypt attacked,” Eisin said, but also noted how the internal strife in countries like Syria and Egypt still directly affects Israel every day. Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley Executive Director Mark L. Goldstein spoke of another Oct. 6 anniversary – one in which, in the ‘40s, a group of rabbis held a march in New York to protest the treatment of Jews in Europe. It barely made a blip in the newspaper and did nothing, he said. But the continued growth of the Federation movement since has allowed us the influence and power we didn’t have then -- to rescue Jews all over the world, from the former Soviet Union to Ethiopia to Yemen. Dr. Mickey Ufberg, in fact, had watched a video of one of those rescues -- of the last flight of Ethiopians landing in Israel -- on YouTube before coming to the event that night. It only served to solidify his desire to increase his gift. “It’s all part of a big ‘we’ that I am very happy and proud to be a part of and support,” Ufberg said.
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