Jewish Community Heroes

The first annual Jewish Community Heroes campaign has been launched. The campaign will honor one Jewish Community Hero of the Year, who will receive $25,000 to put toward his or her community work, and will recognize four finalists.

The campaign is being conducted by United Jewish Communities-Jewish Federations of North America, the umbrella organization that includes UJC MetroWest. In addition, more than 60 partner organizations are supporting the initiative, along with national UJC.

Any individual or group can nominate a hero through the UJC MetroWest website: www.ujcnj.org. Any resident of the United States or Canada age 13 or older is eligible to be a nominee, provided his or her work affects a Jewish community in North America.

After screening, each nominee is posted on the Jewish Community Heroes website, where people can vote for their choice. Nominations and voting will be accepted through October 8. National UJC will honor the five nominees who receive the most votes at this year’s General Assembly, which will take place November 8 – 10 in Washington, DC. A panel of judges will select the Hero of the Year from among the five finalists.

Max Kleinman spoke about the importance of recognizing the heroes among us.

“UJC MetroWest is proud to recognize and honor some of the unsung heroes who devote themselves as volunteers in the community and work tirelessly to support the MetroWest Jewish community.”

The work so many “unsung” heroes do goes on all around us. It is the heart and soul of community spirit, and the very essence of the highest of Jewish values — tzedakah, repairing the world.

Here are a few examples, taken from the Jewish Community Heroes website, of MetroWest heroes who have been nominated for this year’s award.

“Naomi started the Good People Fund a little over a year ago. It is a fund dedicated to helping people who have been forgotten by life and the community. For example, she has just returned from a trip to Appalachia where she met with educators and food bank operators to arrange for truckloads of food, school supplies and clothing for the residents of two towns in Kentucky. She has dedicated her life to helping others.”

“Gabrielle founded S.O.S. Save Our Soldiers, in January 2007. S.O.S. gave Gabrielle the opportunity to truly develop a grassroots Jewish teen group that reached 1,000 of Jewish youth in the U.S., Israel, and the U.K. S.O.S. partnered with many national and local Jewish organizations including National UJC, the Jewish Agency, AIPAC, URJ, URJ RAC, URJ Eisner Camps, One Family Fund, MetroWest Federation and many others. They were the force behind many of the international letter writing campaigns, rallies and national youth initiatives focused on raising significant awareness of the plight of the three Israeli soldiers kidnapped in the 2006 Lebanon War.”

“Nancy has dedicated her life to the concept of tikkun olam. She is indeed a social worker, helping those who need help in all sorts of ways. It is apparent that Israel and Jewish youth were two issues that have topped her list over the last 25 years. Nancy chose to be a religious school teacher, a hobby she said, when her girls were young. Somehow it did not interfere with her role as Adjunct Professor, her private practice, and raising her family. The religious school kids became her second family. Nancy spent 15 summers serving as the Inclusion Coordinator at Eisner Camp, helping special needs children thrive at camp.”

For every Jewish hero who is recognized for the work he or she does, there are dozens who go unnoticed but whose works do not – their works affect the lives of people throughout the Jewish community. If you know a Jewish hero, be sure to nominate him or her through UJC’s website, at: www.ujcnj.org.

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