Presented by Todd Sugarman, October 3, 2024
Good morning
I would like to start off by saying we might live here in the safe borders of the United States, and although my president’s speech has some predictable subjects, our hearts are with the people of Israel and the soldiers who have lost their lives this past Year and especially these past few days.
My speech on Rosh Hashanah is to give you an idea of How we are doing (the state of the temple speech as It is called) and I realized after writing so many of These speeches. That we have really grown over these 12 years. So please bear with me as this speech might be longer than usual as I have a lot of people to thank and have a lot of things to talk to you about. So, with that said i want to start by thanking our spiritual leaders.
It starts at the top with Rabbi Alex and Cantor Frank.
I say this every year and I’m going to say it again, Cantor Frank amazes me, she is always coming up with new and innovative ideas that she encompasses in all our services. She always seems to be rehearsing. She works extremely hard, and it shows in all the work she does.
I’ve been around many rabbis in my 25 years of Temple life and Rabbi Alex is one of a kind, he is either at Temple meeting with people in need, or out in the community helping people in need. Whenever there is a Jewish issue in the world or in the community you notice the first person news people come to, it’s our rabbi, Rabbi Alex. I told this to congregants at one of our Friday outdoor services this year. Rabbi Alex was on a 6 week sabbatical this year, and normally clergy just don’t want to be disturbed during that time. Well, our rabbi is not like that. Rabbi Alex will always answer our phone calls, no matter if he is on sabbatical or vacation. We can always get in touch with him. There is no do not disturb sign on his door, ever. This demonstrates to me, how much he cares about this congregation. We thank him for that commitment.
Joanne Marquisee, our executive director, continues to be the hardest working person in this congregation. I’m going to tell you something that very few know. Those Friday night and Saturday Services that you see her at, and you even see her on Sunday mornings during religious school. Well, those are way above her job title. She is there on those days because of her commitment to you, my fellow congregants. She is also, another person who no matter if she is away for a few days, or taking a well-deserved vacation, she will always answer the phone. This year I presented Joanne with the highest award this temple has, the President’s Award, so thank you Joanne for all you do.
I want to thank Nancy Mcgory our administrative Assistant. Nancy will be retiring next month. We all wish her well. We will miss her.
Thank you to Renae Gatozzi our Temple bookkeeper.
Thank you to our Temple counsel Barry Radlin, who is that voice always saying, “slow down Todd, we need to think this thru.” Barry is always protecting our temple. On behalf of the entire board of trustees and this congregation. Thank you.
Thank you to Dan Kester for continuing to be the longest tenured Men’s group president. His speaker series is highly successful, and Dan is always willing to contribute Men’s group funds for supplies or items we might need.
By the way his wife, Gunillea Kester, has created the Buffalo Corner Reading series. It meets once a month here at Temple. The series is highly successful and features accomplished poets throughout our community. Thank you Gunillea for creating that program.
I want to thank the Women of Shir Shalom. Probably the most active group we have in the temple. Everything they do is successful. They to contribute funds for supplies or items the Temple might need as well as a very generous contribution to our annual giving campaign. So, thank you.
I want to thank the Chivetta’s crew. This has now come to be our largest fundraiser creating over $30,000 in revenue yearly. It also has a created something that every religious organization needs. Volunteers. We have over 30 people volunteering for this event and people have realized they like volunteering and meeting new people and that has contributed to more people volunteering at other events we have.
As for other events we have at this temple, it has become so numerous that at a board meeting during the summer, I expressed to the board members how proud I was that 12 years ago we only had a handful of programs, now we have programs and events monthly. An example of one of those monthly programs is Jews of All Hews. This program was created by Evie Weinstein and Ronnie Dubrowin. With Michael Bergerproviding all the financing for the program. So, thank you Evie and Ronnie and a special thank you, to you Michael.
I also want to thank a special person who I thanked during our annual meeting, but I want to thank him gain. So, all of you know what he does. As most of you might know, my other job in this congregation Is head maintenance worker. However, there is always a second in command and we have one here as well. Larry Posses, our VP of Finance, and the one of best VP’s of Finance this temple has ever had, has taken on that role of maintenance worker, without anyone asking him to do it. Larry has a very difficult and time-consuming daytime job. As most of you might not know that to prepare for the Community Religious School on Sunday mornings, we must put all the desks and chairs that are stored in the Ganeinu room back into the classrooms, because the daycare rents that space during the week. It takes 3 guys to make this switch starting on Saturday morning for 4 hours. Then changing it back Sunday afternoon for another 4 hours. Larry has taken on that that job of supervising those 3 guys every weekend for 26 weeks. He not only supervises these guys, he also works as well. He cleans the floors, the bathrooms and anything that needs to be done to make that change over work. During the 4 winter months when I’m not here, he becomes the head maintenance guy. During the winter months he will voluntarily drive over after a snowfall and make sure the sidewalks are shoveled and cleared, and if they are not, he will shovel and salt them himself. Larry and I talk almost every day and during the winter months. We joke that he is counting the days when I get back so, he can go back to his daytime job. I point this out to you so that you can all thank Larry for all the work he does to make sure this building is taken care of. And if you don’t know who Larry Posses is, please stand-up Larry. Thank you, my friend,
I want to thank all the lay leaders who help me do my job. Starting with the board of trustees who trust me when I spend our Temple money. And so you know every board member is an active participant in our Temple. This year we invited two younger congregants (under 30) to join our board of trustees, Aliza Bergerand Michael Swartz. and yes they are children of 2 of our prominent members. Aliza is the daughter of Michael and Joanne Berger, and Michael is the son of Blaine and Jonnie Swartz. So, yes we are planning on being here a long time and hopefully these two young adults will be here to lead this congregation.
I want to thank my closest friends in this Congregation. That is the exec committee (our
Temple officers) Shari Jo Reich, Tara Cross, Marina Finkelstein, David Safir, Joe Glickman, Larry Posses, Bruce Corris and our newest member Evie Weinstein. Between us all we have over to 250 years of temple experience. That’s a lot of experience. This isn’t a once a month committee, these people touch this Temple on almost a daily basis. I don’t believe I have ever gone a week without some kind of communication with at least one member. We are always talking about how we can make this temple a better place or what different kinds of events we can run, either it be a fundraiser, or just a fun event. You know I have always said that one of the reasons for our success has been our continuity. Over these 12 years most of us have been together and have trusted one another. So, thank you.
I would now like to take you on our 18 month renovation journey. Last year I stood before you and at that time we had just begun our renovation. The Ungerleider family had just given us a substantial gift to start the renovations in the foyer. At that time, we only had the foyer competed, new foyer drywall, carpeting and lighting. I explained to you what we wanted to do, well we did it all. Every room from the religious school double doors to this room has had a makeover. The open area was completely overhauled with new flooring, new ceiling tiles, and a new fresh coat of paint. We gutted the old bathrooms down in the open area and now we have new toilets, sinks, and new floor and wall tile, we even changed out all the old water faucets and hand and toilet dispenser in all the bathrooms. We painted and put new ceiling tiles in the Ganeinu room. As we worked our way down the hallway, we installed new flooring and new bathroom fixtures in the handicap bathroom. Which was paid for by Ed and Debra Fine. So, thank you Debra and Ed.
We installed new crown molding along the ceiling and floor. After waiting 6 months we finally had our doors. Not just these beautiful sanctuary doors, but all the hallway doors. At that point as we were about to start the office renovations, and I remember it was a Sunday morning during religious school, Mitch Rubin was here with his grandkids, I hadn’t seen Mitch in a while, and I went up to say hello to him and asked him how he liked what we were doing with the inside of the Temple. He was impressed, and after talking for a while, he turned to me and said, “Todd it is time our family does something for this temple” I just happened to be right by the sanctuary and I said to him, “How about this room? I would love to install new windows, carpeting, chairs, and lighting.” He asked me what I thought that number would be, I told him what I thought that number would be. He said, I think I can help. As you can see, he did help, the Rubin’s gift was extremely generous and was enough to take care of these new chairs and carpeting. Thank you, Vicki and Mitch.
That was a dramatic turn in our renovations, we were already planning on doing the office and finishing up the foyer, but now I had another room to work on. And of course, I had to get it done by high holidays. The race was on, because now we couldn’t just put new chairs and carpeting in a room with bad lighting and bad windows.
We knew we would have to change out the banquet chairs and our bimah chairs to match the new carpeting and sanctuary chairs. We also needed to order new windows and install new lighting. Well, during that process of picking out colors and styles of the new furniture and windows, David Safir approached me and said that he and Dianne wanted to pay for the new bimah chairs. Folks this was very generous, because as you can recall, David and Diane paid for the new foyer furniture last year. So, thank you David and Diane
So, as we were waiting for the furniture, carpeting and windows to come in we came across a very big problem, how do we get rid of our old sanctuary chairs. 232 of them and our old black metal chairs and red banquet chairs about. 400 of them. Well with the help of Keith Birzon and Amy O’Donnell we were able to sell all those banquet chairs. What’s amazing is the monies received from of all those chairs ended up offsetting the cost of 275 new banquet chairs. Good deal, right?
Folks I’m so proud of this temple family, this 18 Month renovation process has brought out new volunteers and many people and families who saw what was happening and helped us offset the cost by writing a check.
Are we done? Not quite, but almost.
We need a new sign out front, hopefully replace
Those burgundy drapes and wouldn’t it be nice to go into our future, debt free. It would be nice to pay off that mortgage. I can only hope.
So next week when Walter and Dianne Gordan give their annual appeal speech, please think about all the new improvements we have made here in the last 18 months and maybe give a little more than you have in the past.
One last thank you. I thanked her during my Annual meeting speech but I owe her another one. And that is to my wife Pam, who puts up with all the Temple phone calls during dinner and the many Temple meetings during a single week. I would like to Publicly apologize to my wife for spending more time at Temple than with her at times. Furthermore, I want to thank her for understanding how important this work is to me. I love you.
It’s an honor representing this synagogue. I love this job. The good and the bad. So thank you my temple family for trusting me and letting me do my thing.
L’shana tova
Last updated on October 5th, 2024 at 10:30 am