President's Message

This is an historic time for our congregation as well as for the St. Louis Jewish community. Last month we broke ground on our new Maryland Avenue facility in Clayton. Every one of you reading this message has played a part in getting us to this milestone. The past few years have been filled with anticipation, trepidation, and passion on the part of everyone in our Kol Rinah community. Those years were also marked by the dedication and hard work of our Facilities Committee, Capital Campaign Committee, Coordinating Committee, Board of Directors, Rabbinic leadership, and the many volunteers who have worked so hard to bring us to this point.

You have spent many hours, including late nights and weekends, and made many other sacrifices so that we are able to reach this day. I am very grateful for your persistence, your vision, and your advice and support. One of the benefits of serving as President is that I get to see up close how much so many of you care about our community and how much talent and energy you provide. You have inspired me and you have made my job easier. Most importantly, you have made this project a reality. I hope you feel as much pride as I do that we are breaking ground on our new home.

But while we should be pleased to have reached this point, and can look forward to watching construction proceed, we have much more work to do. Our new facility will be the center for a traditional, egalitarian, and inclusive Jewish presence at the crossroads of our region for decades to come. The extent to which we can make our building honor the legacy of our past while creating a home for our future will depend on how dedicated we continue to be and how successful we continue to be in our capital campaign.

If construction proceeds as currently scheduled, next month will be our last Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in our legacy Shaare Zedek building. Like many of you, I have many happy memories of that building and our other legacy BSKI building on Linden Avenue. I hope I will be able to see as many of you as possible during the High Holidays to share memories and look forward with excitement and anticipation to our future home. We have made it to this day because of you, and we will have a beautiful new home because of you.

With gratitude,

Randi Mozenter