Sukkot on The Hill

SUKKOT ON THE HILL

MAKING SOMETHING OLD, NEW

On Sukkot, we grapple with contemporary paradigms of wandering, the impermanent nature of our world, and our responsibility to safeguard and celebrate the land we inhabit and the joy and nourishment it provides us.

This year, we invited community leaders from Greater Boston to reflect on the meaning and importance of home. We are grateful to all those who opened their hearts to the project and shared their reflections with us.

WHAT DOES HOME MEAN TO YOU?

Home is a sanctuary, surrounded by love and support. It is a place filled with warmth, where the laughter of children and now grown adults live in the walls, creating lasting memories. On Shabbat, and other holidays, home becomes the heart of family traditions where generations come together to share meals, stories, and blessings, fostering a strong sense of connection and belonging. - Barbara

Litwin

Home for me is a connection to people and place, a sense of security and safety that is intangible but felt very deeply. Home has a deep sense of history, place, family and loved ones. -

Caron Tabb

Home is the community I live in, sharing with family and friends, and where I sleep and eat. - Gary Greenfield

Home is wherever your family and loved ones are. It’s where you feel safest and where you always want to be. -

Dan Kurzberg

I am so grateful for the abundance of dwellings where I feel safe: home shared with family and friends, home among the Jewish community, and babayit - at home within the stanzas of poetry and song. - Rabbi

Jen Gubitz

The sukkah strikes me as a potent metaphor for the travels of Jews across history Any location in the world becomes home as long as we set it up intentionally, and, at the same time, every place has a sense of impermanence. This temporary nature does not undermine the sense of home, nor does the hominess create a sense of permanence. We are forever entwined with both qualities of the sukkah: shelter and ephemerality. We are always both in exile and at home. - Geo Poor

Home is the place where I can find band-aids after a fall and milk to dip my cookies. It’s the place where I am most often found lounging in pajamas or hosting a holiday meal. Home is the place I chose to raise my children and where my family and friends know to find me. -

Dalit Ballen Horn, Executive Director, The Vilna

Shul, Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture

Where hugs are shelter and familiar voices provide warmth. Wherever family is, that is home. - Stephanie Davis

Home is where you feel safe and welcomed. - Zach Wainwright

Home is where I feel safe, loved, and feel connected to the ones that I love most. It is where I am cared for, and where I can best care for my family and loved ones. - Gavin

Andrews, Chief Strategic Program Officer, JCC

Greater Boston

Home is the place we find peaceful and quiet refuge. Home is the place where we happily gather family and friends. And home is the place of return after each of life’s adventures. - Barbara and Michael Eisenson

For us home has always been a sanctuary for love and caring and kindness and learning. It is tied to a place and can be our home or the Gallery. Both are refuges and safe places for the spirit. - Sue and Bernie Pucker

Healthy place to evolve

Optimistic about opportunities

Meaningful reason for being

Equanimity of mind and spirit - Liz Sunaby

Sanctuary - Maxine Goldberg

Home is sitting around a table with the people you share roots with and leaning in because this is the space where you are comfortable, understood, and loved. - Nikki

Stewart, Executive Director,

Old North Church

Home is a place of comfort and joy, where you know you belong, and you can be your authentic self.

-Cindy

Rowe, President & CEO, Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action

Home is a place and a feeling that evokes emotions of comfort, family, safety, warmth, acceptance, and love. - Wendy Perlman

Home is where you can enjoy the rain. - Rabbi Elyse Winick

Warm, fuzzy and safe

A small family of three

Where peace radiates. - Christen Hazel

Home is where I live. Home is where I am free and safe, welcomed and valued and protected by my neighbors, and where I am obligated to them in kind. Home is where I plan to always live. Home is where I can and do imagine my future, my family’s future, and my community’s future. Home is here. Home for me is and remains the United States. -Jeremy Burton,

Chief Executive Officer Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston

Home to me is a safe and loving place, where I can be myself and not worry about the stress of everyday life, it is a place of comfort and peace. - Josh Kraft

Home to me is a place of safety and love. It is where I feel the most connected to my community and family. - Sophie Krentzman, Director of Arts and Culture, Strategy & Impact, Combined Jewish Philanthropies

Home is a place of comfort, safety, familiarity and joy because of the shared sense of family, experience, memory, and love that consistently takes place there. - Julie Somers

Home can be any place where I feel a sense of welcome, comfort and belonging. I’m so fortunate to have found a home at the Vilna. - Robert Thurer, Board President, The Vilna Shul, Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture

HOW DO YOU TAKE SHELTER?

I find both physical and spiritual shelter with my community and in nature. - Caron Tabb

I take spiritual shelter in God and the people I love most—my family, friends, and faith community who offer support, encouragement, and sometimes challenge. They keep me safe and help me to be my best self. - Reverend Matthew Cadwell, Old North Church

I take shelter by surrounding myself with those I love the most. - Marilyn Okonow

In a shared space that is made my own. - Gary Greenfield

Home and/or with people I love. - Maxine Goldberg

I take shelter by finding a place, either physical or emotional where I can feel protected. - Debbie Kurinsky

I take shelter where I am loved and where I feel secure. - Lay Lee Ong

Our true shelter is the love and support and togetherness of our family. In the context of Sukkot, being long apart from one another feels like we are walking alone in the desert for forty years. Home and/or with people I love. - Karen and Gilbert Winn

In our country of plenty, we have taken home for granted. Today that is no longer true. Here and around the globe, we pray that every man, woman and child should feel embraced by shelter and inclusion. - Anonymous

We take shelter in each other, in music , in spirituality, in learning, in our family and friends . We are so fortunate that we can share our abundant space with others . by offering others “shelter” we offer ourselves a gift. - Judi and Larry Bohn

WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT THE SUKKAH, WHAT ARE THREE WORDS IT EVOKES FOR YOU?

Shelter. Family. Tradition. - Deborah Feinstein

Harvest. Vibrant. Abundance. - Maxine Goldberg

Hope. Freedom. Life. - Reverend Matthew Cadwell, Old North Church

Spiritual. Dwelling. Tradition. - Debbie Kurinsky

Community. Home. Bounty. - Judi and Larry Bohn

Nature. Sky. Shelter of peace. - Marilyn Okonow

Adaptive. Autumn. Dwelling. - Pam Friedman

Transition. Gathering. Adornment. - Eva Heinstein, Director for the Cultural Leadership Program, Mandel Foundation

Family. Feast. Fellowship! - Jayne and Harvey Beker

Welcoming. Community. Space. - Dan Dain

Physically ethereal, Spiritually enduring. - Jeremy Burton, Chief Executive Officer

Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston

Joy. Connection. Tradition. - Gavin Andrews, Chief Strategic Program Officer, JCC

Greater Boston

Judaism. Longing. Belonging. - Caron Tabb