President’s Report: The Year in Review by Jonah Markowitz

(The following is an excerpt from Jonah’s remarks at the May 21 Annual Meeting/ Town Hall.)

We had a really great year here at MCJC. I’d like to take this time to reflect a bit.

The kids had a wonderful school year, thanks to the hard work of our teachers Davina Kelly and Paula Eskoz. Thanks also to Rabbi Donni, Ilene Kaye, and our wonderful teachers’ aides Andrew and Sienna Kelly, as well as our guest teachers over the year.

We also got to enjoy coming together for worship with inspiring and meaningful services by Rabbi Donni and our lay leaders Lou Dolmon, Muriel Pick, and Ilene Kaye. Thank you to the Ritual Committee including Ilene, Lou, Muriel, Linda Trachsler and Sunshine Roth, for coordinating these services.

We had several great social gatherings with speakers like Charles Troy and Steen Metz, thanks to the efforts of Bruce Weiss. We had a fantastic turnout for our Chanukah party. The Purim celebration with the Magillah reading was a blast. Lots of folks came out for our Chinese Dinner at Christmas. Bingo night was a lot of fun thanks to Paula and Bruce and their coordinating efforts.

We continued our tradition of making a positive impact on our community this year by engaging in social action and volunteering. We had a crew who participated in the Food Pantry drive-thru each month, and we also had participants in the Crop Walk for Hunger, the Adopt a Highway program, and more.

We had really fun and successful fundraising events, like our bowling party at Gene and Sandy Lindow’s Glo-Bowl in Marengo (thanks to Sunshine for coordinating it). Our fundraisers at Portillo’s and Panera Bread were great as well thanks to Gail Frank who served as coordinator. Linda Trachsler did a fabulous job with the Chanukah sweaters and shirt sale that proved popular.

In addition to these events, I am happy to say that we met our goal of $10K for our matching funds challenge. Thank you all so much for making this possible by making generous contributions. With these donations as well as membership dues, we are in a financially sound position to enter the new fiscal year.

We do face challenges here at MCJC in a postpandemic world. I’m sure we all have moments when we look around and realize that things aren’t quite the same at MCJC, with fewer school kids, fewer members, and fewer familiar faces we were accustomed to seeing. I’m so grateful to those of you who are still here, active, and committed to seeing MCJC continue as a place of Jewish community here in McHenry County.

I want you to know that we are not alone in facing these challenges. MCJC Vice President Linda Trachsler and I recently attended an online brainstorming session with JUF and JCC as well as a dozen or so presidents, VP’s, and rabbis from area congregations to discuss ways to engage the community and see more involvement at shul. We discussed collaborative efforts with these congregations like rotating hosting of services so we can have increased turnout and participation. We also discussed having community events at the Lake Zurich JCC.

Before signing off, I’d like to recognize and thank Robb Tadelman and Ilene Kaye for their years of service to the MCJC Board. I’d also like to welcome Scott Schwartz to the Board and to thank Linda, Iza Celewicz, Dale Morton, Sunshine Roth, and Howard Frank for continuing their commitment to serving on the MCJC Board.