An Urban Hub FOR JEWISH LIFE ALAN AND MARCIA LEIFER

“100 years ago, our grandparents made the trek as youngsters from Russia to America. They were unable to complete an elementary school education and lived most of their lives in poverty and with limited choices.

Our parents also had limited choices. They came of age during depression and world war and during a time when many doors were shut to Jews in America. Elite colleges, the corporate ladder, country clubs, and neighborhoods were restricted. Holding onto Shabbat, holidays and kosher food came at the cost of restricting your job choices and your livelihood.

What a contrast to today.

The ability for a Jewish American to fulfill their human and Jewish aspirations is unprecedented in our 2000-year history.

Although we are not a family who shares the Boston Jewish immigrant story, we appreciate the importance of educating everyday Bostonians and tourists about the common refugee experience of the vast majority of American Jews in overcoming poverty and discrimination and joining our new neighbors to build a better America, free of the racism, xenophobia and antiSemitism that our grandparents faced every day.

We are excited by the possibility of a renovated Vilna Shul with restored folk art murals becoming Boston’s foremost Jewish cultural center and serving both as an educational and tourist center for Bostonians at large and a thriving center of Jewish life for the tens of thousands of Jewish millennials and Gen Z-ers that are making the Boston/Cambridge urban core their home.”