Dear JFS Friends,
Thanksgiving is a time to reflect and be grateful for the many blessings in our lives. We pause to do this, even as the war in Israel continues and acts of hate and antisemitism are on the rise in our community. As we prepare to gather with friends and family, we are thankful to spend time with the ones we love and to take time to express gratitude.
During the Thanksgiving holiday, we also reflect on the history of the land on which we live and the indigenous people that once held it. In October, JFS led the coordination of the third annual Indigenous Peoples Day celebration, which highlighted the languages, music, contributions, and resilience of Native American people. During the event, members of the Nipmuc Nation (The Fresh Water People), the people who once inhabited Framingham, most of Metrowest, Central Massachusetts and parts of Rhode Island and Connecticut, shared their traditions and invited attendees to participate in an honorary stomping of the land. The importance of fostering relationships, both with the Nipmuc Nation as well as the land on which we live, was the call to action shared with those in attendance. We give thanks for the impact the Nipmuc Nation has in our community. Let us neither forget nor omit from discussion at our gatherings that Thanksgiving, while a celebration of that which we value in our lives, is also a day of mourning for our Native American community.
Top right: Rosemarie Coelho Chief Learning, Performance and Strategy Officer; Bottom center: Lino Covarrubias CEO and Brett Lubarsky from CJP’s Jewish Teen Initiative stand with members of the Nipmuc Nation.
At JFS, we continue to be so grateful for our staff, volunteers, board members, supporters, collaborative partners and clients. We are also grateful to welcome our newest community members (some war evacuees and some asylum seekers) from Central America, Cuba, Haiti, Israel, Ukraine, and Venezuela. As was the case in 2016 when Syrian families arrived during the Thanksgiving holiday, many families are now arriving to a new land with unknown and different customs and traditions. We remember our responsibility and tradition of welcoming the stranger as we have all been strangers to a new land at some point in our family history. We look forward to welcoming them into our community.
With much to be grateful for, all of us at JFS wish you a safe, joyous, and meaningful Thanksgiving.
Lino Covarrubias
Chief Executive Officer