Henry Bloom, CBI President: High Holiday Campaign

Shalom Congregants,

In my remarks to you on Rosh Hashanah, I described how each generation over CBI’s 100-year history invested to secure and grow our congregation, to ensure its continuity for the next generation. Our founding families found a way to pay off CBI’s first mortgage in the midst of the Great Depression. In the late 1940s and early 50s, as the community grew, the membership stepped up again to raise the funds needed to construct the building we now occupy at 160 Millburn Avenue, and again in the early 2000s, in the midst of the Great Recession, our members invested in the future of our congregation by contributing to the Capital Campaign that expanded and enhanced the beautiful building we have enjoyed for the past 15 years.

Our generation has faced its own challenges brought about by the pandemic and demographic shifts in our area, plus we continue to carry a mortgage from the building expansion of the early 2000s. Nevertheless, I continue to believe in the future of our Congregation, as I know so many of you do as well. CBI continues to be an active and vibrant synagogue community with clear strengths and great potential. We have outstanding clergy, an exceptional staff, highly engaged lay leaders, a strongly committed established membership base, and a dedicated and growing cohort of young families. The level of volunteerism in support of programming, operations, and strategy is as strong as ever, and speaks to our shared commitment to this congregation.

Equally important, we are committed to understanding the diverse needs of our members and prospective members and implementing bold changes to meet those needs.

Looking forward, we will eliminate our debt and invest in our community.  To achieve this goal, we have begun a Centennial Campaign. We are asking you to invest in Rabbi Isenberg, to invest in Cantor Wallach, to invest in the future of our congregation. The target is $2.5 Million. I am thrilled to report that the lay leaders of our community have stepped up and made their commitments to this campaign. Thank you to all our dedicated and generous officers and trustees! Those commitments together with several others secured during the early “Quiet” phase of the campaign have brought total commitments to over $900,000, more than halfway to the amount needed to pay off the mortgage. This total reflects the commitments from less than 30 families, just 10% of our members. I have full confidence that we can achieve our goals for this campaign, but we will need everyone’s participation.

We are grateful to all the generations of CBIers who believed in this community and who invested in this community so that we could be here today. Now it is our turn, it is our time, there is no one else to do it. Future generations of CBIers are depending on us. I am sure we will not let them down.

Henry Bloom

President

Congregation B’nai Israel