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November 24, 2000/Heshvan 26, 5761, Vol. 53, No.9
All together nowEditorialIn the past four weeks, our community has come together three times to show our solidarity for Israel: 300-strong at Wesley Bolin Plaza in downtown Phoenix, 800-strong at Temple Chai and 500-strong at Temple Beth Israel. We expressed our commitment, emotions and passions, and our connectedness to a land 10 time zones away but intimately close to our hearts.The time is perfect for a fourth rally to express our connection to a place much closer to home. The time has come for a community rally for the Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus to be built at Scottsdale Road and Sweetwater Avenue. Years in the dreaming and planning, it now is nearing realization thanks to a Jewish federation task force, volunteers, community leaders, and more than 900 financial contributors. Parlor meetings, phone calls and newsletters have been admirably successful in building support to date. A communitywide meeting, perhaps on site, would give hundreds of community members a chance to hear directly from the people who have worked to make a vision a reality, to view a model of the structure, to envision the place that will produce Jewish memories, create Jewish friendships and mold our community for decades to come. Imagine: Here is the front door. There are meeting rooms. Behind us is the gymnasium. Glance over there to see the swimming pool and the baseball diamond. Now is the time to come together to discover where our young athletes will score a game-winning soccer goal or free throw; where our grade-schoolers will make Jewish friends; where our parents will study Jewish history; where our grandparents will volunteer and play duplicate bridge. The Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus represents an effort to create a Jewish focal point in our Valley, representing our shared mission and purpose in igniting the flame of communal growth and vitality. Now is the time to build on the momentum we've demonstrated, to share the mission, spread the purpose, and fuel the warm spark of communal connectedness. |
