A Note from Board President, Gary Gilbert

What are Jews?  Often, we are referred to as the people of the book.  Not a bad moniker.  We did, after all, write the Bible (and a few other things since).  But there is another part of our identity that is equally old and equally representative of who we are as a people.  We are builders.  After all, we helped build the pyramids (granted not willingly, but we did a pretty good job).  We built the First Temple in the 10th century BCE, and when that building was destroyed, we built a second one that lasted another 600 years.  In virtually every community we lived, from Toledo to Tashkent, from Buenos Aires, to Boston, to Bialystok, we built synagogues and schoolhouses and ritual baths and hospitals.  We built the first synagogue in North America around 1700 and have not stopped.  Why do we build?  Certainly, part of the answer is very pragmatic.  We need spaces in which to worship and study and be healed.  But there is more to it.  Buildings announce our presence.  They demonstrate to us and the world that there is a Jewish community here.  They also create our legacy.  They provide an opportunity for us to leave something of ourselves for the future.

Please join me and my family in supporting the Ohr Chadash campaign.  This is your chance to do that most Jewish of things: to enter that long line of builders.  Previous generations came together to establish our congregation, to build the first synagogue on Orange Grove Avenue, and then to build our current structure.  As a result of their efforts, Temple Beth Israel has served as the center of Jewish life in the Pomona Valley for almost a century.  Now it is our turn.  We build for ourselves.  We build for the generations to come.  We build to combat hatred.  We build to create a new light, an Ohr Chadash, that will guide us, inspire us, and allow us to be a beacon of strength for us, for all Jews in our community, and throughout the entire region.