As we gathered for our 2026 Annual Meeting, we found ourselves doing what every community does at moments like this — pausing to reflect on this past year, to share our gratitude, and to ask what comes next.
It is fitting that the meeting fell during the week we begin reading B’midbar. The parsha opens with the Israelites in the wilderness, organizing themselves before journeying forward together. That feeling is familiar at Ohev Beth Sholom. So much has changed at OBS in the last year — and yet, when we look around, what stands out is not the new flooring or the renovated bathrooms or even our beautiful sanctuary. What stands out is each of you. The relationships. The conversations. The volunteers who said yes. The families who keep showing up. The quiet acts of care that hold this congregation together.
Last year, we celebrated what we built. This year, we are asking who we are becoming — and we are doing it together.
A Year of Sacred Community
From Shabbat every week to the holidays that anchor our calendar, OBS has remained a vibrant community, continually growing. Friday nights and Saturday mornings now reflect the multi-generational congregation we have become — children waiting and training for their b’nai mitzvah, families with young kids running between the playroom and the kitchen, longtime members, and brand-new faces. As one new member recently said when she walked in and saw her grandfather’s name on the Sharon veterans plaque: this is home.
We celebrated themed Shabbatot built with love and care — Shabbat Shira, MLK Shabbat, Women’s Herstory Shabbat, Simchat Shabbat each month, and our upcoming Pride Shabbat the first weekend of June. Sammy Winick and Mandy Medvin expanded our social justice work into both RAC Ohio and RAC Pennsylvania, recognizing that nearly half of our congregants live across the state line.
Sisterhood and Brotherhood have been the steady pulse of so much of what we do — mitzvah meals, the oneg and kiddish each Shabbat, latke making, hamantaschen baking, Passover candy, the soup sale, program support, and financially underwriting the new dishwasher, freezer, and our new Saturday morning prayer books. Thank you to every volunteer who poured themselves into this year.
This year, our congregational membership continued to grow. But the headline is not the number — it is the depth. Our membership chairs, Mary and Rich, did not just welcome new members; they invited congregants to their own table. Beverly Nathan continues to make daily birthday calls even after she and Alan moved to their new community. This is OBS.
Spotlight: A New Era in Technology
This year, we made two major investments in technology that will change how you experience OBS.
Our Digital Archive in the Schwebel Lobby, donated in memory of Amy Post by her family, is now home to our photos and historical information. Confirmation and consecration photos from our legacy congregations have been digitized and uploaded, our yahrzeits are searchable on a touchscreen, and we have built a space where you can share your own memories and your own why, the stories of why you are here and how you are connected to our congregation. Please come share yours.
We are the first congregation in the country to launch Benevolate, a modern, cleaner, more user-friendly platform, which will be replacing ShulCloud. Included in this transition is our new website, which is now live! You will be able to register for events directly, view and pay open balances (in full or in installments), save a credit card, update your own profile and ritual information, and even add your own household connections— so families can be linked to one another. The leadership of Benevolate spent two days here at OBS, working with our security team on the law enforcement module, mapping our cemeteries, and building a custom module just for our Super Bowl fundraiser, getting to know our team and hearing their concerns about the new system, and so much more. During this visit, we invited executive directors from around the region to visit our congregation and see our renovations while also learning about Benevolate. Leaders from Cleveland, Erie, and Pittsburgh attended. Congregants will have received a link to their personal accounts before the end of the month.
Spotlight: Lifelong Learning, Pre-K Through Grade 12
This was a transformative year for education at OBS. In November, we welcomed Rabbi Jesse Locketz as our rabbi educator, and the positive impact has had a ripple effect felt throughout the congregation — in religious school, parent feedback, adult learning, and ritual. Rabbi Berman also completed her executive master’s in Jewish education this spring, an accomplishment that is already deepening her work as our spiritual and educational leader. Mazel tov to them both.
Religious school had 36 students this year — a beautifully Jewish number — spread across pre-K through teens. Highlights included hanging out in the sukkah, the chocolate Seder, Havdalah at the planetarium in partnership with PJ Library, a birthday party for Israel, and ending the year baking challah together. Next year, we are restructuring the classes for better developmental fit, launching a Madrichim teen leadership track, refining our spiral curriculum so students do not repeat the same material year over year, and creating targeted High Holy Day programming for our youngest learners.
Adult learning has taken on its own weekly rhythm. Online Torah Study meets twice monthly on Thursday mornings at 10 a.m. Tuesday adult learning runs from noon to 1:30 p.m. nearly every week of the year — we just wrapped a deep dive into Pirkei Avot. This summer, we move into learning about Psalms (June and July) and Elul preparation (August). This May we will host a Tikkun Leil Shavuot with Rabbi Jesse teaching on radical rest in a 24/7 society and Rabbi Berman sharing from her rabbinic thesis on manna in the wilderness. And keep an eye out for our new “Round the Town Coffee and Conversation” — casual, no agenda, just learning together over coffee.
We are also transitioning to Siddur Lev Shalem for Saturday morning and morning festival services. Our beloved Sim Shalom has served us well, but Lev Shalem offers more modern translations, beautiful poetic adaptations, and the transliteration so many of our congregants need to fully participate. Rabbi Berman is available to talk through this transition with anyone for whom it carries emotional weight — ritual is deeply personal, and your voice matters.
Spotlight: Strategic Visioning — Who Are We Becoming?
Sarah shared that she began in her role April 2019. Since that time, we have lived through COVID-19, a merger, a move, multiple clergy transitions, and a complete building transformation. The question now is not whether we can survive change — we have proven we can. Instead, the question is who we want to be on the other side of the changes.
Last November, under the leadership of Strategic Visioning Chair Richard Epstein, we launched a congregation-wide strategic visioning process. The board now meets every other month so that the alternating months can be devoted entirely to this work.
We have organized our efforts around six pillars — ritual, education, membership, auxiliaries, governance, and finance — grouped into three larger themes: the Lived Experience, Community & Connection, and Structure & Sustainability. We have completed our SWOT analysis, and have named what we do well and where we need to grow. Now we are turning our efforts into SMART goals — a small number of measurable commitments we can carry forward over the next several years. If you have not yet participated, please come to the next visioning meeting. This is your congregation, and your voice belongs in this conversation. As Rabbi Berman reminded us, the Israelites in B’midbar had to organize themselves before they could journey forward together. That is exactly what we are doing.
Gratitude, Leadership, and L’dor Vador
We close with our deepest thanks to Jason Bostocky for two extraordinary years as president. Jason inherited a congregation at a pivotal moment and led us through a capital campaign, construction, and rededication with steadiness and grace. We will miss him in this seat — but as he reminded us in his farewell, he leaves the role, not the family.
We welcome Bob Rawl as our incoming president, along with our new executive committee: Josh Hill (vice president), Bill Trachman (treasurer), Jessica Lev (secretary), and at-large members Hannah Anderson, Sam Bernstein, and Richard Epstein. We also warmly welcome new trustees Mandy Medvin and Maggie Henderson, and thank Dick Shapiro for his years of devoted service as a trustee. Dick acted as a Rodef Sholom representative through our merger, a steady hand during the sanctuary renovation, and will now serve as a Brotherhood representative on our board.
Thank you to our incredible staff — in the office, in the classrooms, on the bima, in the kitchen, and across our entire security team. Thank you to every volunteer, every chairperson, every congregant who said yes this year. Our financial picture is strong: we are running ahead of budget on revenue and beating our deficit plan by nearly a quarter million dollars; thanks in part to grants we have been blessed to receive, our annual Super Bowl fundraiser, and to your continued generosity. The capital improvements are 3/4 complete and the campaign is 2/5 through its collection period. The work — bathrooms, the new quiet room sponsored by Alan and Beverly Nathan, the back stairwell, new bollards, and replaced doors throughout the building — continues.
L’dor vador. None of us is a permanent caretaker of this sacred institution. We hold it for a time, strengthen it, and pass it forward. What a privilege it is to do that work with each of you.