Uplifting Lives

JFS supports the social, physical, and emotional wellness of all people. Accepting every individual and embracing all aspects of their identities is crucial to ensuring that every member of our community feels a connection and belonging.

JFS has started a process of improving policy and practice around equity, access, and inclusion. With the help of local consultants from Bakau Consulting and the new JFS Access & Diversity subcommittee consisting of people with different lived experiences, this working group will focus on building a plan around equity education and policies and ensuring that values of inclusion and justice are put into practice.

Madison Slobin has taken on the role of leading this new subcommittee. A 29-year-old Queer Jewish woman who grew up in Vancouver, Madison is the Lifelong Connections Coordinator at Vancouver Aboriginal Child & Family Services.

When she’s not at work, she leads several local initiatives, including HaMakom, Shiva Delivers:

Jews in Solidarity with Black Grief, and YVR Yenta: A Modern Matchmaking Collective. Madison is passionate about building a new Jewish community that reflects her and her peers’ passions and values.

She has been a JFS Board Member since 2021 and sees this committee as an essential next step in JFS’s trajectory.