Prior to coming to JFS/Ometz I was the Executive Director of the Farha Foundation and we had awarded a grant to JFS to deliver AIDS education workshops. I got to know the agency in this way, liked what I saw, and so, when I started thinking about moving on from the Farha Foundation, I decided to apply for a senior management position at JFS. When I came for the morning interview, I arrived early and sat in the reception in order to observe people coming and going. I wanted to see what the atmosphere was like and how the staff felt coming to work. Again, I liked what I saw. That’s how I started at Ometz, as a senior manager in 1997 and I am still here albeit in another position. And I still like what I see.

In the early 2000s I left JFS and went to work at Federation CJA as the Director of Community Planning for a short time. When the Executive Director position opened up at JFS, I knew that that was where I really wanted to be. JFS was my home and my family.

One of the highlights from my executive directorship is the merger of JEM, JFS, and JIAS. It was an incredible, ambitious project and it required much foresight and courage (Ometz) on the part of both the lay and professionals to make the merger happen. Given that we know from literature that most mergers don’t work, we obviously all did something right because here we are today, a very strong, important and vital organization in the Jewish community, with a very talented staff and board.

My wish for the future is that our community no longer requires a social services organization like Ometz. That would mean that Jewish poverty was not as prevalent as it is today, that families were strong and able to raise healthy and resilient children, and that jobs were easy to come by. That’s a very ambitious wish – one that I know will unfortunately not be achieved in my lifetime. So for now, our role at Ometz is to be constantly in touch with what our community members need from us, to be able to adapt and reinvent ourselves according to the needs of the community, and to continuously forge partnerships with organizations both within the Jewish community and within the greater community of Montreal.