Fighting to Preserve the Center of Civil Society

Next week, Amy Spitalnick—JCPA’s new CEO, who formerly led the legal charge against the organizers of 2017’s deadly neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville—will visit Cincinnati. This is a huge opportunity for our community, and I’m so excited to tell you more about it.

Amy will arrive late Wednesday night, so that she can spend almost all of Thursday educating our new cohort of Cohen Family Leaders in Light fellows. She, and our own local Rabbi Ken Kanter, will be the first scholars in residence for this exclusive program. They will set a tone of urgency for our fellows, whom we want to realize that this “isn’t a drill,” but instead that we are in an “all-hands-on-deck” moment fighting to preserve the center of civil society, against extremism and antisemitism.

Afterward, Amy will lead three other programs: at Wise Temple, at the JCC with Jewish Federation of Cincinnati leadership, and at Café Alma with a cross-section of Jewish leaders from across the city. She will also join Cincy Jewfolk and the American Israelite for an interview (stay tuned for those articles to come out soon!)

Suffice it to say, the Cohen Family Leaders in Light Institute doesn’t just impact the 20 individuals who sit in a room together and learn during their fellowship experience. Instead, we share the resources—the amazing people we bring to Cincinnati—with everyone else. I can’t wait for this all to get started, and I hope you’ll be able to make it to one of the opportunities we have available with Amy—or, if not, with a future Cohen Family Leaders and Light scholar in residence coming soon to a program near you.