By Rabbi Will Berkovitz, Schocken Family CEO I have a broken oar mounted on my wall at JFS. Beneath the oar, a small plaque reads: When Fear Turns to Focus. It was a gift from my family. I shattered it against a massive boulder while rowing through the Grand Canyon several years ago. I had…
An Important JFS Leadership Update
Please read the letters below from our CEO Will Berkovitz and our Board President Eric LeVine. A Letter From Schocken Family CEO Will Berkovitz Dear Friends, After twelve years with Jewish Family Service, I plan to step down in September 2025. It has been an incredible privilege to serve our community as the CEO of…
Seeking a Common Fire
By Rabbi Will Berkovitz, Schocken Family CEO The full audio of this letter can be found here. This may surprise you, but my family is not big into animal husbandry. Let me explain. My son, Idan, worked at a rodeo in rural Oregon earlier this summer. To my knowledge, he has never been close to…
Looking Up: Jewish Values in Action
By Rabbi Will Berkovitz, Schocken Family CEO The text below is edited from remarks given by our CEO, Rabbi Will Berkovitz at our 2024 Community of Caring Luncheon. The full audio of his remarks can be found here. This has been an extraordinarily troubling time, with increasing division and polarization on so many fronts. It can…
In Times of Uncertainty We Need More Humanity
By Rabbi Will Berkovitz, Schocken Family CEO Our world has transformed, and it feels like our humanity has been hijacked by extremists. Everything is off its axis. People are not thinking clearly. These are very painful and difficult days with no easy answers or simple solutions. It is a time of uncertainty. Many in our…
Rising Above the Darkness
By Rabbi Will Berkovitz, CEO I have been hearing from many, many people in the Jewish community over the past few weeks and the words most repeated are sadness, fear, and isolation. I feel this as well. I have been fighting the urge to harden my heart. It is easy to do as a way…
A Worthy Legacy
By Rabbi Will Berkovitz, CEO Hear Will’s Message A reading of this message is available here. I am feeling nostalgic these days. It may be because I turned 55 this year or I am reflecting on my ten-year anniversary at JFS. I feel it in my bones. It has me thinking of the word “legacy.”…
Ten Spins Around the Sun
By Rabbi Will Berkovitz, CEO Ten years ago, I started as CEO of Jewish Family Service. When I think back on the past decade I think primarily of people. What better way to measure time than through relationships? Their ebb and flow seemingly pulled by the gravity of some unseen celestial object orbiting our lives….
Each of Us Has a Name
By Rabbi Will Berkovitz, CEO “Each of us has a name given by God and given by our parents. Each of us has a name given by our stature and our smile…Each of us has a name given by the sea and given by our death.” – Zelda Michael* died at the end of December…
Writing Love Letters to Our Kids and Learning to Let Go
By Rabbi Will Berkovitz, CEO Our oldest son, Nativ, left for college last weekend. The house is quieter, somehow a bit bigger now. As a friend once shared, “The nights are long, but the years are short.” I feel that acutely today. I remember the day Nativ was born. The first words I said to…
Beyond a Grain of Sand
By Rabbi Will Berkovitz, CEO The first image from NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope made me think of Bob Dylan. More precisely, it made me think of the lyrics to his song, “Every Grain of Sand,” which is like a prayer sung by a nail file. And then I thought of Psalm 147: “Who heals the…
The Stories We Tell
The Jewish tradition is built on passing along our collective memories. Our hard-learned values encoded in the stories we tell are just as important.
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