On Sunday, June 7 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., celebrate Jewish heritage, culture, and identity at Jewish Federation of the Berkshires’ annual Jewish Community Day at High Lawn Farm.
We are living in a moment when the needs of our Jewish community are growing and changing faster than ever before. What has not changed is the essential role of donors like you in ensuring that our community remains safe, supported, and strong.
Together we are building meaningful and joyful Jewish journeys at every stage of life through education, community programming, and shared celebration.
In these challenging times, your support has allowed us to expanded our investment in helping young people find connection, pride, and resilience in their Jewish identity.
Our support of Jewish education at local religious schools has increased by 41 percent and demand for Jewish camp scholarships continues to grow.
Because of you, we are helping students on campus navigate complex environments and build resilience in being proudly Jewish. We have expanded and strengthened young adult and young family engagement here in the Berkshires.
The needs of our community have grown in other urgent ways, too.
Your generosity allows us to take essential steps to protect our community. Security at events, training for staff at congregations and camps, professional assessments, and facility upgrades are all possible because of donors like you. These are not extras. They are the foundation that allows our community to gather with confidence and peace of mind.
Federation is there to lead when it is needed most. At a time of rising antisemitism and uncertainty, Federation is called upon to convene, coordinate, and respond. Your support ensures that we can stand as a steady, visible presence, advocating on behalf of our community, addressing incidents, and strengthening the relationships that help keep us safe.
Your gift also extends far beyond our local community. It allows us to remain steadfast in supporting humanitarian relief for those under attack in Israel and for vulnerable Jewish communities around the world. In moments of crisis, your support ensures that help can be immediate, meaningful, and sustained.
At the same time, your support is meeting rising needs across our community, expanding social services, increasing assistance to individuals and families in crisis, and serving a growing number of participants through our kosher meals on wheels program.
This is what your partnership makes possible.
This year’s expanded $1.6 million Annual Campaign goal reflects the true scope of this increased responsibility.
Your gift today is an investment in safety, in resilience, and in creating the vibrant and strong Jewish community we want for ourselves, our children, and for generations to come.
Now is the moment to step forward and make a meaningful gift to the 2026 Annual Campaign.
Every gift matters, and your past support has made a meaningful difference. Today, the scope of need requires even more. We invite you to consider increasing your commitment this year if you are able, so that together we can meet this moment with the strength it demands.
If you are new to our community or considering your first gift to Jewish Federation of the Berkshires, we warmly welcome your support and your involvement. Your participation helps strengthen and sustain Jewish life here in ways that are immediate, meaningful, and lasting.
Together, we will ensure that Berkshire Jewish life continues to be filled with purpose, compassion, and joy.
Open Doors All Along the Journey – Chris and Molly Meador, Super Tzedakah Week Co-Chairs
“Federation has played such a meaningful role in our family’s life,” says Chris Meador, “and being part of this is our way of giving back.”
Chris’s wife and Super Tzedakah Week co-chair, Molly Meador, was for three years Federation’s coordinator of PJ Library and volunteers, a job that helped the family relocate to the Berkshires during the unsettled days of the Covid-19 pandemic. When they arrived, they toured homes for sale while “dressed in hazmat suits. ” As for himself, he says, “You know, I'm a Jew named Chris — @AJewNamedChris on Instagram — so I didn't come into this tribe by accident. Federation is the reason I went to Israel in 2022 for the first time coming out of my conversion and really getting to experience that piece of my Judaism.”
Chris cites how his sons, Theo and Benny, have been educated at Hevreh of Southern Berkshire’s religious school, one beneficiary of the $90,000 Federation directs to Jewish education in the Berkshires. This summer, both will be going to Eisner Camp in Great Barrington and, Chris asserts, “I want to say it out loud, full stop – they wouldn’t be going to camp without Federation.” This year, Federation has allocated $80,000 to help ensure that every child from our community who wants to go to Jewish summer camp can have this powerful and transformative experience.
“At every turn,” says Molly, “Federation met us where we were at. The doors are open wherever you are in your Jewish journey, and that is really important to us as a family that was interfaith, and that is now fully Jewish.”
In fact, this summer Chris will be making another stop on that journey when he celebrates his bar mitzvah at Hevreh. When asked what compelled him to take that next step, Chris answered: “So – I love a hora.” Even more than that was the acceptance his family has felt from the Berkshire Jewish community as a whole, and he adds that: “A continual source of strength to us is that there are resources here, many of which are established by Federation or funded by Federation, that allow us to feel seen as the Jews that we are and want to be seen as.”
The Meadors were part of the great Covid migration to the Berkshires from large cities in 2020. “We left Brooklyn knowing we needed to leave the city,” remembers Molly, “but not knowing where we were going to go. It was very important to us to find some place with a strong Jewish life, with a cultural life and politically like-minded life in a place was vaguely equidistant from New York and Boston. That is the Berkshires. But we had no connection to the Berkshires, unlike many people who moved here at that time. The fact that we ended up in place that is so clearly the right place for us to be at this moment was really providence, really bashert.”
At previous stops in Seattle and New York, the Meadors, “whose guiding star has always been raising a Jewish family and cultural and community connection,” were active in Jewish life and cultivated close friendships among other parents. Although their Berkshire move was a bit of a journey into uncharted waters, they found unexpected connections to many members of our Jewish community, including having been next-door neighbors in Brooklyn to Hevreh’s Rabbi Jodie Gordon, although they did not know each other then.
Hevreh has been central to their Jewish lives since they arrived, but Molly observes that within the Berkshires, “whatever way you choose to be Jewishly involved, there is a way to be involved. And I think that that happens through programming by Federation and within the congregations. The congregations in the Berkshires are disparate, and Federation really is the glue that holds everyone together.”
As a Federation employee, Molly’s role allowed her to develop relationships with PJ Library families and our stellar volunteers. When she started, “we were coming out of Covid, and there was this beautiful movement of people and families who were new to the Berkshires. PJ Library activities became a great entree for people to get to know each other and to get out in the world. Those months of coming out of isolation and quarantine provided such a great opportunity for people to come together again, especially for the really young kids who had not gotten to participate in group events because of what was going on in the world.”
She adds that the essence of PJ Library is “doing fantastic activities around this shared love of Judaism, of the culture and of the books. In a place where our kids are truly minorities in their school environments, to have this opportunity to be in a place to come together and say, ‘you know, I'm in a room full of people all celebrating Purim, and I might go to school tomorrow and nobody knows what that means. But here today, celebrating Purim together is an amazing thing.’ It bolsters their Jewish identity for them to look around and say, ‘I am among people for whom this is a shared experience.’”
In terms of volunteers, Molly says, “what sticks with me is the Rosh Hashanah and Purim care packages delivered to people who may not be actively participating in Federation programming, just to let them know that they are not forgotten, that they are still part of our community. Being able to do that brings back people who volunteer every year and also brings in new people who want to be a part of that.”
Molly now works in development at Barrington Stage Company, which aligns with her background in theater. Chris worked in marketing before arriving in the Berkshires, and now is an AI and leadership consultant and founder of Yes And Thinking (yesandthinking.com). Both acknowledge that the Berkshires can be a challenging place for people in mid-career, not only because of the realities of the local economy but also because a lot of people work remotely from their homes. Folks are spread out across the county, and those who aren’t raising families may have a harder time meeting people. Federation is addressing that need by establishing “connection points” like the Berkshire Jewish Collective for younger adults in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.
Molly recalls how during her time at Federation, she appreciated the opportunity to “program throughout the county. It’s easy to get focused on South County if that’s where you live, and if you live in Pittsfield, everything you do is around Pittsfield, and North County is the same.” By bringing people together in different parts of the Berkshires, Federation provides “the opportunity to open our eyes to what exists around us and what are the hidden gems all across the county that we can take advantage of.”
She adds that with the wealth of online programs offered year-round, “Federation doesn’t let your location stand in the way of your being connected and involved. Federation offers so many amazing opportunities to connect in different ways whether you are here year-round or only during the summer months.”
Both Chris and Molly will be traveling around the county in May and June to meet with the different congregations to share their story and support for Federation’s Annual Campaign. The highlight this year, as it is every year, will be Jewish Community Day at High Lawn Farm on June 7.
“Jewish Community Day stands out as one of the best programs we do because it brings families together to show the multigenerational aspect of the Federation community and the Berkshire community,” Molly says.
Their overarching message, as Chris puts it, is that “Molly and I feel really lucky to have this Federation in the Berkshires. Not every Jewish community has this kind of support, and it has had a real, lasting impact on our family. Being part of this has also helped me see just how much Dara and this small but mighty Federation team do for all of us.”
In the photo: The Meador family - Chris, Theo, Benny, and Molly.