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September 24, 2004/Tishri 9 5765, Vol. 57, No. 4
Organization gets new leader
MICHAEL MIKLOFSKY
Staff Writer
There has been a changing of the guard at one of the Valley's largest Jewish organizations.
The Jewish Community Relations Council, an organization under the umbrella of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, has hired Michelle Steinberg as its executive director after Cathy Wolf left the position in August to move out of the country.
The JCRC works to mobilize the Jewish community to educate the larger and more secular community about issues affecting Valley Jews.
Among the many tasks of the JCRC are to oversee several committees that relate to specific issues, educate current community members and bring nonpracticing or unaffiliated Jews into the Jewish community.
Steinberg started Sept. 7 with the JCRC and says that she sees the new position as a great opportunity to make a strong and lasting impact.
She recently served as chairwoman to the Joint Task Force on Religion in Public Schools, a committee of the JCRC, and has otherwise held many community service or volunteer positions in the Valley.
For 10 years, she was with Kids Voting Arizona as both education and executive director, and also served as the director for the Jewish Association of Singles Services (JASS), in addition to lobbying within the state and nationally for education, health and child welfare issues.
"The opportunity to be able to do professionally what my true love was as a volunteer was an opportunity I just couldn't pass up," Steinberg says.
But beyond mobilizing the community, she wants the JCRC to be an organization known and respected for increasing action and decreasing indifference.
"One of the things I would very, very much like to see ... is helping to energize and increase social action within our congregations," Steinberg says. "I think there's a great energy that can be sort of harnessed within the Jewish community when it comes to educating people to issues and concerns that the Jewish community has."
Steinberg would like to seek out Jewish people in the community who are not affiliated with either Jewish community center, the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, or a synagogue and supply them with the literature to learn about the Jewish community around them.
However, she does not think it is a problem that Jews are unaffiliated; rather, it is a service that the JCRC can provide to those that might not know about all of the community organizations and services available to them.
"If they don't get the Jewish News, if they're not affiliated with any organizations necessarily, they're pretty much cut off from what's going on in the Jewish community," Steinberg says. "To say 'we're here and we'd like to be able to provide you with information,' not (to) necessarily ask for anything, but (to) give them some tools, give them some information, educate them to what's going on in their Jewish community, offer them opportunities to get involved at whatever level they see."
The JCRC works with the Anti-Defamation League to supply Jewish Valley organizations and congregations with information on how to deal with threats and provide security, especially surrounding the High Holidays.
The JCRC distributes three-year calendars with dates of Jewish holidays to all schools in the Valley so events are not planned on those days. JCRC's Israel Affairs and Immigration committees work toward receiving and interpreting information, then disseminating that information to the public, often in the form of a resolution or call to action.
Also, the JCRC works with the American Jewish Committee and American Israel Political Action Committee toward their efforts.
Contact the writer here
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