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JFGSB Blog

Explore news and featured stories about Jewish Federation programs, volunteers, donors, special events and updates from our partners in Israel. Learn how you can become more in engaged with the Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara.

Mar 26, 2021

A Sabbath Message: The Passover Holiday – A Lesson in Humility & Gratitude

“On Passover, we recall that as a people we were all enslaved – and we forever remain only one small march away from that state of bondage – so we must always feel gratitude for our redemption. And gratitude is the overflow of a humble heart.”

– Rabbi David Wolpe

To my dear Feder…

Mar 19, 2021

A Sabbath Message: Spring Moves Us Forward – Preparing for Passover

“There’s a crack in everything – that’s where the light comes in.” 

– Leonard Cohen (1934–2016), singer and poet inspired by the words of author Ernest Hemingway

With the arrival of Sabbath this week, we also usher in the first day of spring – and with it, the season of ne…

Mar 12, 2021

A Sabbath Message: One Year into the Pandemic – The Compassion Chronicles

“Compassion is a breakdown of all of the barriers between us – A heart-to-heart bonding. Your pain is my pain. It’s mingled and shared between us.”

– Nomadland filmmaker Chloe Zhao, quoting nomad, Bob Wells

As Sabbath approaches this week, I reflect back upon this unusual year …

Mar 1, 2021

A Sabbath Message: Purim Part II – Hidden Heroes Behind the Scenes

“If you keep silent in this crisis, relief and deliverance may come to the Jews from another quarter, while you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows, perhaps you have attained your royal position for just such a moment.”

– The Book of Esther, 4:14

As you read this mes…

Feb 22, 2021

A Sabbath Message: Purim Part I – Remembrance Before Celebration

“To be a Jew is to be a link in the chain of the generations, a character in a drama that began long before we were born and will continue long after our death. Memory is essential to identity – so Judaism insists. To be a Jew is to know that the history of our people lives on in us.”
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