Monthly Archives: November 2010


When every breath counts

Corey Gradin needs new lungs. It’s not the usual thing to find on a 14-year-old’s wish list, but through the genetic luck of the draw, this is Corey’s lot. I only became acquainted with Corey recently, through Facebook, then email. She is funny and opinionated and writes like someone wise beyond her years. She shares […]


Building community from Y to J

by Marla Cohen It’s been through several names, and many homes, but after 22 years JCC Rockland has become a center and fixture in the Rockland Jewish community. And perhaps no other organization is as closely associated with the Jewish Federation of Rockland County, which founded it, as is the JCC. The Federation started 25 […]


A helping hand for those in need

Founding RJFS gave Federation a way to change lives by Masada Siegel November 12, 2010When Rockland Jewish Family Services began in 1987, it was as a committee of the Jewish Federation of Rockland County. Forming it was a way to help meet community needs, which at that time focused on resettling Jewish immigrants from the […]


Founding a Federation, building a community 1

After 25 years, organizers reflect on work Marla Cohen  Along the way, it founded and funded an Education Center and a newspaper. And it gave support to the Holocaust Museum and Study Center and local day and Hebrew schools and a campus Hillel at Rockland Community College.It may sound like putting the cart before the […]


All the news that’s for the Jews

by Sara Gilbert  From the outset, the founders of the Jewish Federation of Rockland County wanted a newspaper as a way of informing and connecting the community, and giving Rockland what no other Jewish newspaper was doing – a steady diet of local news. They gave the community just that five years after forming the Federation […]

The Rockland Jewish Reporater

Hillel at Super Sunday

Connecting youth through Hillel

by Sara Gilbert  When the need to establish a Jewish presence on the campus of SUNY Rockland collided with Rockland Jewish Family Service seeking to do outreach work with student populations, a new beneficiary of the Jewish Federation of Rockland County was born. The youngest of the philanthropy’s agencies, Hillel/The Center for Jewish Life at […]


Promoting a core Jewish value

Education Center provides Rockland with learning opportunities by Masada Siegel A little learning can go a long way, and the Jewish Federation Education Center of Rockland shows that to be true. Created in 1986 by the Jewish Federation of Rockland County, the Education Center, then known as the Jewish Education Resource Center, was to provide […]

Rabbi Craig Scheff

A glimpse back at the past

By the time you read this, the Federation’s Executive Director, Diane Sloyer, two co-Presidents Carol Blau and Beth Dubas, and I will have returned from the Jewish Federation’s of North America’s General Assembly, where the Jewish Federation of Rockland County will be honored for reaching its silver anniversary. The Jewish Federation of Rockland County was […]


These five days

This September, on the second day of Sukkot, JCC Rockland did something it had never done before. It opened for business. The way in which it did business was qualitatively different than a normal weekday. No money changed hands. The Fit Café was closed. The vending machines didn’t operate. There were no art programs, classes […]