Co-President Update

Shalom and warmest greetings to our beloved Kol Ami community. As your board co-presidents, we would like to share our monthly updates. As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions to our Kol Ami email addresses: leonard@kol-ami.org and rebecca@kol-ami.org.

 

Strengthening Our Security: With increased incidences of antisemitism in Los Angeles, protecting our sacred community is a top priority. We are in close communication with the Jewish Federation of LA’s Community Security Initiative (CSI), which provides us with daily security briefings and alerts. On November 1st, we participated in CSI’s Personnel Resiliency Training along with Rabbi Lutz and Adam Rotenberg. This training focused on developing advanced situational awareness skills for identifying and reporting suspicious activities. 

 

 

Membership Renewal Update: Thank you to everyone who renewed their membership for this year. Membership dues are the top funding source for the year-round operations and programming of our vibrant community, making up more than 50% of the budget. We anticipated a small decrease in membership associated with Rabbi Eger’s retirement and projected a reduction in dues income as part of our budget. For the 2022-2023 fiscal year, we had 181 households. Presently, for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, we have 130 households. We are pleased to share that we have welcomed 5 new households during the High Holy Day period, all in the 20s/30s demographic. We have reinstated the Membership Committee, chaired by Dan Blatt and including Gideon Murphy, Rachel Larson, and Max Weinstein. The Membership Committee is developing specific strategies to retain existing members and attract and welcome new people to Kol Ami. If you’re interested in helping with membership or know someone who may be interested in Kol Ami, please let us know. 

 

Maintaining Operations Behind the Scenes: As your co-presidents, we have been working on many projects and initiatives behind the scenes. We supported the staff through Devorah Servi’s departure as Executive Director, have begun working with Rabbi Lutz on a strategic planning process, and have collaborated with synagogue members on our programming. We meet weekly with the Rabbi and Adam to advise and assist, along with our monthly Board meetings. We and our fellow board members regularly receive feedback and ideas from our members. Mark Cohen is chairing our New Revenue Committee, which is working to diversify our income to include synagogue rentals when we are not using spaces. 

 

Lots of Programming Ahead: There are many ways for you to get involved in the Kol Ami community and we hope to see you at these upcoming events. Check our website, eKoleinu, and Instagram account regularly for the latest updates: