
By Carl Zebrowski
Editor
Super Sunday 2025 was appropriately super. The JCC started bustling around 9 a.m., with community members showing up for this full day of philanthropy, fun, and learning, to make fundraising phone calls and to attend the Maimonides Society of healthcare professionals morning presentation on “Men’s Health.”
The fundraising effort for the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley’s day of events wrapped up with 150 volunteer callers having closed more than 70 gifts to the Federation’s 2025 Campaign for Jewish Needs for a final tally of over $40,000. Volunteers also made 400-plus calls thanking donors for previous gifts.
After the Maimonides presentation (full story on page 1), elected representatives began arriving. U.S. Representative Ryan McKenzie, State Senator Nick Miller, and State Representative Mike Schlossberg talked with community members about concerns they had related to government.
McKenzie worked the phones and reported closing a gift. “As somebody that grew up in Parkland and had a lot of Jewish friends, I’ve actually been coming here (to the JCC) my entire life,” he said. “I’m always happy to come out and make phone calls to help raise money for the Jewish community locally and across the country.”
Members of Women’s Philanthropy and other volunteers soon filled the Kline Auditorium for a Women’s Philanthropy Dignity Grows mitzvah project filling 155 tote bags with essential items such as soap, shampoo, toothpaste, and women’s hygiene products. Participants in this charitable event cochaired by Miriam Zager, Fay Kun, Ilene Ringold, Gia Jones, and Rachel Levin also wrote kind notes to the anonymous recipients of the totes and made bracelets for themselves as reminders of some of the Jewish values that guided the event. The filled totes were given to Jewish Family Service for distribution to local women in need.
About a dozen students and Hillel staff from Muhlenberg College, including director Ira Blum, were among those packing the tote bags and also were generally mingling with community members. “I think our community is only as strong as the ways that we show up for one another and how we take care of one another,” he said. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to strengthen our community and broaden it and to do so with the next generation of Jewish student leadership.”
After a lunch of falafel, hummus, eggplant salad, and other Israeli-style favorites prepared by Around the Table catering, representatives of the local Jewish agencies and synagogues moved into the JCC boardroom for a security training session led by the Federation’s community security advisor, Tim Brooks. The group learned how to be proactive with synagogue and school safety, and how to recognize suspicious behavior and threats.
In mid-afternoon, PJ Library and Jewish Family Service hosted the Sights for Hope organization for a presentation to kids and their parents about what it’s like to live with vision impairment. Sights for Hope client activities manager Rita Lang, who herself has vision impairment, talked to the group about tools she uses to help her through daily life situations that most people don’t usually have to think about.
One app on her phone, for example, will quickly scan a photo she has taken and tell her what’s in it. To demonstrate, she photographed the group, and the phone immediately told her out loud about “the little boy sitting on something red on the floor” and the rest of the scene with remarkable accuracy.
Super Sunday ended with the unveiling of the new Wings of Hope mural in the JCC lobby. Volunteers and Muhlenberg Hillel students had assembled multicolored plastic, wooden, and metal toys donated by community members to create two large wings on the rear wall.
Connor Hayes, the Federation’s director of community programming, and Simon Katz, JCC membership and program associate, had lead roles in making the project happen and spoke at the unveiling. Hayes told the crowd, “This project has required a lot of hands in its making.” Katz added, “It’s really touching that this is part of all the people who helped.”
The mural, versions of which appear in locations all over the globe, is a memorial to the Kutz family of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, who were murdered in their home by Hamas attackers on October 7, 2023. The wings and the brilliant, uplifting colors are reminders to keep hope heading into the future.