By Albert Stern / BJV Editor

“STOP THE PRESSES!!!”

Those of you who enjoy vintage Hollywood movies will no doubt recognize that line from innumerable hoary newsroom dramas – a plot twist has occurred that is so shocking and unforeseen that someone bursts into the newspaper office crying for the printing presses to stop rolling. The big story has suddenly changed.

At the Berkshire Jewish Voice – a Jewish community paper put out nine-times a year by this Federation – we don’t have stop-the-presses moments. Or at least we didn’t until October 8, 2023, when I came into the office after the end of a melancholy yet uplifting Simchat Torah service in order to figure out how we could change the cover of the newspaper set to go to the printer the next day. The cover we’d designed featured a colorful image that went along with the cheerful article I’d written about the reimagination of the Yiddish Book Center, which was accompanied by another fun story I’d written about the lost synagogue mural in North Adams that might someday be moved to Amherst as a centerpiece of the reinstalled galleries. That image had to go.

I spent a few hours combing through the pro-Israel images that Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) had just started to disseminate and swapped out the Yiddish image with the one you see here. When the paper was published later in the week, it was a little disconcerting to leaf through its pages and see only the everyday goings-on of a small Jewish community in the hinterlands represented. The cover image was all that offered even the merest suggestion that the big story for Jews everywhere had suddenly changed.

Nevertheless, I was pleased that in every home the paper was mailed to, that every rack upon which it was displayed across Berkshire County, the first thing people saw would be the Israeli flag and the message of unequivocal support for the Jewish State. Given our publishing schedule, we would never be able to keep pace with the news cycle and so, going forward, we had to figure out how to keep the paper relevant to our community during this difficult time. As this is our yearly appeal for your support as voluntary subscribers, let’s get this bit of business out of the way:

This publication’s revenues do not cover all its costs. Your financial help as voluntary subscribers is essential in our efforts to bring you meaningful, positive, and entertaining stories both by and about your neighbors, as well as about Jews around the world. Your generosity as voluntary subscribers last year was phenomenal, and your support remains vital to sustaining this publication. Please see the insert in our latest paper or click this link for more on how you can support the Berkshire Jewish Voice.

Those words are BJV boilerplate by now, but the work evolves. As I began hearing the stories of community members who had traveled to Israel after Oct. 7, I expanded our Berkshire Jewish Voices section to feature stories written by those intrepid and vital volunteers. In our first essays, Roy Kozupsky shared his experiences in the southern desert packing rations for the troops and then working the laundry detail at Tel HaShomer army base; Rabbi David Weiner recounted his three-day Rabbinical Assembly mission that brought he and his colleagues to Jerusalem and also to the hellscape of Kfar Aza. Dr. Fred Landes was able to offer his skills to alleviate the workload of medical staff in Israel, and gave us an incisive portrait into how civilians were coping just a month after the attacks – his vignettes were some of the best written and most revelatory that I’d read at the time. Our former Federation colleague Rabbi Mark Cohn recounted how his one-time fantasy of a farming career came to an end on an Israeli farm, and about his experiences working with Sar-El, as well. And to see how my dear friend Dr. Joshua Yurfest fared with Sar-El, click here..

Ruth Kaplan shared her interview with released hostage Adi Sagi, and we also heard from Israeli artist Shulli Goitein, who made a stop in Great Barrington in July as part of her pivot to sell her creations outside of Israel, where the market has been decimated post-Oct. 7. In an email thanking us for the story, Shulli said lots of you turned out to support her, which was gratifying to find out.

Covering how we, as American Jews, are coping with the antisemitism on the home front has also been essential. Community members Zach Fluht, Rabbi Jodie Gordon, Jilly Lederman, Marc Rudolz, and Elisa Snowise captured the energy and Jewish unity they experienced at November's March on Washington. Closer to home, Steven Miller and Ralph Hamman wrote about their efforts to combat an antisemitic ceasefire resolution brought up before the select board in Williamstown. It was the first such effort made by anti-Israel Jew-haters in Berkshire County, one that was defeated owing to the principles and persistence of citizens like Steve and Ralph and the community mobilization efforts of Federation. And in the most recent issue, Secure Community Network CEO Michael Masters shares Federation’s efforts to ensure the safety of Jewish institutions through national programs and the local Berkshire LiveSecure Initiative.

It has also been important to share information about how our partners are using the more than $800 million raised by JFNA’s Israel Crisis Fund – each month, we try to show you how your dollars are making an impact through the Federation system and our partners JDC, Jewish Agency for Israel, and World ORT.

Overall, however, the focus of the BJV this year has been what it has always been. In the past, I might have termed it “ordinary Jewish life in the Berkshires,” but now I think of it more as “resilient Jewish life in the Berkshires.” While the twin specters of war abroad and antisemitism at home preoccupy us, the everyday business of the community also continues.

The makeup of the local clergy changed in 2024, and the BJV has provided the community with personal reflections from the departing rabbis. In our last issue, Rabbi Neil P.G. Hirsch contributed his final Rabbi Reflection column before leaving to take the senior rabbi role at Wise Temple in Cincinnati, a fond farewell to the community that provided a springboard for he and his wife Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch (formerly of Temple Anshe Amunim and now executive director of Women of Reform Judaism) to assume important roles in the national Reform movement. And for this issue, the Berkshires’ longest-serving spiritual leader Rabbi Barbara Cohen talked to us about stepping down from the pulpit at Congregation Ahavath Sholom to focus on her spiritual listening practice with individual clients – her insights into how Jewish life in the Berkshires has evolved constitute a valuable contribution to our communal history. And all of our rabbis are fine writers and thinkers – in every BJV, readers also learn a serious bit of Torah.

And speaking of communal history, our Super Tzedakah Week chair Josh Cutler told us the story of his family’s century-plus involvement in the Jewish Berkshires, along with his intentions of staying right here to shape its future. (His son James was this year’s winner of our ‘Best Cover Model’ award, as well.) Major Donor Celebration chairs Penny and Claudio Pincus have held leadership roles in major national and international Jewish organizations and in sharing their story, stood up as exemplars of the importance of showing up to support the necessary work in one’s local community, as well. Finally, it was my pleasure to share the stories of the ‘you can’t take it with you crowd’ who signed on this year as Legacy Circle members – native Pittsfielder Laurie Sukel (who has long lived in Florida, but who wanted her legacy to be felt at home), Robert and Harriet Miller (who realized their gift will do more to sustain Jewish life here than in a larger community), and Larry Frankel and Elisa Schindler Frankel (who in a short time have become among the most dynamic leaders of our Jewish community).

Again this year, our director of community engagement and programming Rabbi Daveen Litwin booked a lineup of speakers to keep us connected and intellectually stimulated throughout the year. For the BJV, it means we got to bring you original interviews with scholars like Joseph Sassoon (The Sassoons) and Ari Joscowicz (Rain of Ash). Avi Dresner conducted an enjoyable interview with Natasha Lance Rogoff about how she brought the Muppets to Russia. And I got a chance to test my mettle as an interviewer with subjects as diverse as Mark Ludwig of the Terezin Foundation, Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstadt, cellist Maya Beiser (our Major Donor Celebration performer), and Cindy Bell-Deane, who in retirement leaves our kosher meals program in the capable hands of Susan Levine. I also had the opportunity to talk to Yehuda Hanani, whose Close Encounters With Music brought a retelling of the Purim story (from a feminine perspective) to the Berkshires - Stacy Garrop's composition "For Such a Time as This" helped open my mind to aspects of the Purim story that would be incredibly resonant this year on a cold Shushan Purim in Williamstown.

I was thrilled to be able to interview Carol Goodman Kaufman about her newly-published mystery novel, The First Murder. As her editor and friend, I knew about the long process of getting her work out there, and am so happy to see her success with the book. She is the BJV stalwart, whose food history writing remains fresh after years of her penning our “Traveling With Jewish Taste” column. And I also have been so happy to be able to share the work of writers new to our stable of contributors, Linda H. Davis (who covered the MAD exhibit at the NRM - I wrote my own appreciation of it) and Howie Steir, the former NYT journalist who reflected on Rambam’s menorah and interviewed newsmaker Shai Davidai of Columbia University.

We also had the chance to share excerpts of two acclaimed books with Berkshire connections, Ellen Kanner and Annie Zeybekoglu’s I, Teresa Lucena and Judith Monachina's Days of Memory  And how about Harold Grinspoon – a poet in addition to everything else he accomplishes, who allowed us to reprint poems that included my favorite line of verse encountered all year: “Perhaps you have a chance to look back over your shoulder / And see how you spent your life. / Does that bring tears to your eyes? / Hold on. Not so quick.”

Thanks, too, to the artists who let us use their work: Jewish comic art illustrator Steve Marcus, painter Pattie Lipman, the multi-talented super couple Karen Chase and Paul Graubard, and Siona Benjamin, who presented for us around last Purim and whose drawings from the Book of Esther graced our Purim issue.

And thanks, too, to our advertisers – in addition to this being a record-breaking year for voluntary subscribers, we also had a very good year of support from businesses that recognize the impact Berkshire Jewish Voice readers can have on their bottom line. Our loyal audience looks forward to reading the Berkshire Jewish Voice, even if sometimes we have to publish boilerplate like this:

Please see the insert in this newspaper for the different funding levels available. An honorary publisher gift of $360 allows us to provide four pages of color. Due to popular demand, we are printing more copies of each issue and printing costs have escalated in recent years. Your support will allow us to reach more people wishing to connect with all our Jewish community offers to full-time residents, part-time residents, and the estimated 150,000 Jewish vacationers who visit the Berkshires each year.

Nearly ten years ago, I took over as editor of the BJV – I wanted to live in the Berkshires and work in a Jewish space, and this job enabled me to do just that. This has been the hardest year for me professionally, but also the most gratifying. The Federation system’s response to this crisis has been unequivocal, mobilizing effectively to provide resources and support for Israel and acting with moral clarity in combatting antisemitism in the United States. So many of my friends’ views of the world and their place in it as Jews have been upended by the behavior of cherished institutions, leaders, and even family and friends in the post-Oct. 7 reality. I’ve seen their confusion and distress, and feel all the more grateful to be working for an organization that is also able to mobilize to protect the civil rights of the Jewish people at a perilous time.

At FedPro, a November confab in Chicago for hundreds of Federation professionals, I watched this Federation’s executive director, Dara Kaufman, receive the honor of delivering the opening address to the gathered – recognition of all our small Federation, punching above our weight, is able to accomplish. Hearing the applause from the audience in that packed ballroom– from a group of committed people with shared values and who together had, at that early stage of the conflict, already raised $600 million in emergency funds – was a highlight of my time working for Federation. That the excellence of our work here in the Berkshires is being recognized at the highest strata of the Jewish philanthropic world is something this community should feel proud of.

And our work should be supported as generously as possible. The Berkshire Jewish Voice is an essential way of communicating what our Federation does in this community and how it connects to the important work being done across the Jewish world. I hope you will consider giving what you can as a voluntary subscriber to support your local Jewish community newspaper.