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September 2020 Brotherhood Message

IT’S ALMOST FALL AND TIME FOR CHANGE
This is my last Brotherhood article for the Voice. For health reasons, I decided to step down as Brotherhood president. The Brotherhood Board of Directors elected Bob Olshan as president to serve until our election of officers in December. 
I’d like to thank all the men of the Brotherhood for their support. The Brotherhood does an incredible amount of work to bring our men together to create a bond, as well as to enhance the quality of life at Kol Rinah. What the Brotherhood has done for me? I don’t have the space to list everything, but here are a few ways the Brotherhood has impacted my life.
Through the World Wide Wrap, our religious schoolers learn the significance of laying tefillin and have an opportunity to experience the ritual. This has underscored for me the importance of passing Jewish ritual and tradition l’dor v'dor, from generation to generation.
The Yom HaShoah Yellow Candle Program reminds me that the distance from the horrors of the Holocaust becomes greater with each generation. Each year as we lose more survivors to tell their first-hand stories, we must take on the responsibility to keep each new generation informed so that they can work to insure it never happens again to Jews ‒ or to any group. Because of this involvement, I became a docent at the St. Louis Holocaust Museum and Learning Center.
Brotherhood programs provide enrichment for Jewish men. Hearing Men’s Voices provides an opportunity for Jewish men to come together in a confidential, informal atmosphere to discuss topics that men typically do not talk about. One night the topic was My Father, My Self. That night, for the first time, I opened up ‒ it was cathartic and helped me deal with issues.
Brotherhood doesn’t only do serious stuff. We have the annual Steak and Scotch in the Sukkah, Lag B’Omer bonfire, annual religious school pancake breakfast, Mazon HaOlam dinner and many more ‒ all drawing the members of Kol Rinah and me closer together.
To top things off, Kol Rinah Brotherhood participates in the bi-annual International FJMC Convention and the off-year FJMC Midwest Region Retreat.
In closing, the answer to the question what has the Brotherhood done for me is… it has made me a better man and a better Jew.
Shalom Aleichem,
Max Brown
Outgoing Brotherhood President
Fri, March 29 2024 19 Adar II 5784