Good evening everyone and thank you for being here tonight to show your support for Temple Shir Tikva. This has certainly been a challenging year filled with exceptional highs and lows. In fact, as I perused last summer’s issue of Hineni, I found a note of thanks from our former Executive Director, David Passer, of blessed memory. He wrote to let us know how much he appreciated the love, friendship and support of our community. David left this earth far too soon, but he knew our community well, and we will honor his memory each year with the David Passer Lecture in Social Justice. The first one was held in November, and Idit Klein, the Executive Director of Keshet, spoke with us about LGBTQ inclusion in Jewish life. David would have been so proud. So, despite the difficulties we’ve experienced, I’d like to turn our focus now to the significant progress we’ve made in many areas of temple life this past year. When I spoke at last year’s Annual Meeting, I talked about the importance of building personal relationships with one another as a priority for ensuring the future of our congregation. Continuing to be relevant in today’s world requires TST to adapt to meet members’ needs. You told us through Chazon that you wanted a sense of belonging and connection at Shir Tikva. You’ll hear tonight about many of the ways we are moving forward with Chazon initiatives. And my favorite part of being president of Shir Tikva has been meeting so many of you while working together on these issues that matter most to our congregants. 2 In an effort to become a more relational community, our Leadership Development Committee led by Phil Benjamin and Trudy Sonis hosted a Kallah for our Board of Trustee members focused on this topic last fall. We read Relational Judaism by Dr. Ron Wolfson and identified ways that each of us could take more ownership for creating a culture of connection and engagement. Susan Altman put tables and chairs in the foyer to make it more comfortable for us to have impromptu conversations. Our Ritual Committee organized a Kabbalat Shabbat Greeter’s program so that everyone entering our synagogue feels welcome. And while wearing name tags might seem like a minor step, I’ve heard from many of you that it does help us get to know one another better. We are making progress. And our Strategic Planning committee led by Marilyn Newman and Dick Rossman has also provided support to our board of trustees by facilitating goal-setting that is aligned with this relational model. This year has been filled with inspirational programming for all ages in our community. Rabbi Gubitz has shared with you the innovations happening in education. Our family and adult learning opportunities are extensive, and we are very excited about Dr. Jacob Meskin’s course on anti-Semitism being offered in the fall. One of the highlights of this past year has been our participation as a host congregation for Family Promise, the interfaith initiative to help families in transition. We hosted multiple families for a total of four weeks this year. This initiative led by Rabbi Gold, Karen Miller, Cindy Lombardo and Wendy Neuman, along with their sub-committee co-chairs and so many contributors, 3 couldn’t have happened without the overwhelming support of our entire community. During the first 2-week stay, we had more volunteers sign up to help than we had slots available. Bringing members from multiple faith communities together to help those in need was a powerful experience for all who participated. As part of our Chazon initiative we learned of your desire for deeper, more spiritual connections. The creation of the Temple Shir Tikva Center for Jewish Spirituality has been an entry point to temple life for many who wouldn’t otherwise participate. Led by Cantor Schachner, Jeff Maimon and Jay Gainsboro, participants read Rabbi Yoel Glick’s book, Living the Life of Jewish Meditation, which culminated in his visit and a Shabbaton in December. Study has continued with Rabbi Gubitz’s class this spring on Mussar which is about Jewish ethics and personal growth. Another highlight from this year includes the creation of a set of guiding principles to help us discuss the complexities of temple life for interfaith families, who represent approximately 25% of our members. Our ritual committee under LeeAnn Yolin’s guidance and led by Matt Langweber and Evelyn Neumeyer conducted a detailed study of what is happening in synagogues around us and asked our congregants about their unmet needs and desires. This work led to the recommendation to amend our bylaws and add an Interfaith Families Committee as a voting seat on the Board of Trustees. I’m gratified that the amendment passed with overwhelming support this evening. Discussions will continue as we explore the many ways 4 we can help diverse families make Temple Shir Tikva an integral part of their lives. Our Technology Team led by Mike Cohn, with Roy Lurie, Yuval Zukerman and Richard Kaye have been working on Video Streaming Shabbat services for those unable to physically attend. In concert with our Communications cochairs, Joan Blair and Jon Siebert, we now have the system in place and will finish testing before assigning passwords for logging in from the website. Our Building Improvement Committee, which evolved from the Physical Space Chazon working group (and led by Carole Bellman and Ed Perlman), has been hard at work all year exploring options for how we might proceed with plans to enhance our space. They have selected an architect to help us and are ironing out the logistics. Perhaps one of the greatest accomplishments this year has been the transition of the JCC Early Learning Center which will become the Temple Shir Tikva Preschool as of July 1, 2015. When we learned that the JCC would not be renewing its lease with us we had two choices – one was to let the preschool close, or two – take a chance that we could make it work even better ourselves. We assessed our options, and decided that not offering a Jewish preschool to our community was far more detrimental than not even trying. Rabbi Gold, Susan Altman, our Executive Council, Board of Trustees, and Preschool Transition Team led by Amanda Sonis Glynn and Stefanie Janoff worked tirelessly with JCC leadership to turn our dream into a reality. We 5 have hired Sandy Gold to be the Director, and look forward to introducing her to all of you. This synagogue simply could not run without the ongoing committed work of our custodial staff, professionals, clergy, and volunteer leaders. I honestly don’t know how we would have survived this winter without Steve Dannin and Dan Kaplan who miraculously found time to help our Executive Director whenever there was a building emergency. A huge thank you to Steve, Dan and our facilities team! There are so many others to thank –our Development co-chairs Susan Benjamin and Laurene Sperling along with Annual Fund co-chairs Susan Garfield and Mike Schreiber, who have helped us reach our goal for this year’s Annual Fund; and to our choir for bringing us such beautiful music all year long, but particularly at the Spirituals on Broadway concert last month. It was a much needed lift for us all. Finally, it is impossible to name everyone, but many, many thanks to all of our committee members and chairs who have contributed to the vibrancy of our congregation. So, where are we headed? In a few moments I will introduce Jay Gainsboro who will lead the Transition Team, which is just being formed, over the coming months. Our goal is to ensure that all congregants continue to experience the richness of Jewish life and all that Temple Shir Tikva has to offer, and we want to celebrate the gifts that Rabbi Gold has brought to our community. As Rabbi Gold has said, he will be leaving us next year which gives 6 us ample time to plan how we will honor his work and say good bye with the dignity and kavod, or honor, he deserves. I’ve heard a lot of questions about whether or not we will hire an interim rabbi. At present, we are working with the Union for Reform Judaism’s head of Transitions, Rabbi Jan Offel, whose role is to guide congregations through periods of transition. There are many reasons why hiring a rabbi who is specially trained in helping congregations heal after a difficult separation makes sense. Nothing has been set in motion yet, and there are a lot of factors to consider. Our goal is to listen to you, our membership, about your priorities for rabbinic leadership going forward. A lot has changed in the ten years since Rabbi Gold first came to us. When I am asked about our vision for the future, I refer to the information we collected during our visioning exercise, Chazon, although it will be important to ask some of those questions again - perhaps by having a series of “Community Conversations.” The themes of connection, community, a welcoming space, and partnership are clear. We will be seeking a rabbi who shares our vision for building a vibrant, inclusive and adaptable congregation. In closing, I’d like to thank our clergy – Rabbi Gold, Rabbi Gubitz and Cantor Schachner for all that they do to teach Torah and help us along our Jewish journeys. And as some of you have heard me say repeatedly, I have been blessed this year to have worked with an Executive Council that has demonstrated such grace under fire these past few weeks. Not only has this group of volunteers contributed thousands of hours of their time this year, 7 they have done so with dedication, integrity, compassion and ethics unlike any I’ve experienced ever. It is impossible to find words capable of expressing my gratitude to this team. I am so thrilled that Robin and Lee Ann will continue on with us and am proud to welcome Matt, Steve and Roy into their leadership roles as we begin our work together to achieve our goals for the coming year. And now I’d like to introduce Jay Gainsboro who will talk a bit about what to expect during the transition. Jay has been a member at Shir Tikva for more than 20 years and is deeply devoted to his personal spiritual growth. Jay is a serial entrepreneur who has built and led several companies as the Chief Executive Officer and Founder and knows a lot about growth and change. Jay?