By: Ben Lusher
Outgoing Board Chair, JEWISHcolorado
When I first stepped into this role, I thought I understood the work.
Build community. Strengthen our programs. Deepen our bonds with the people of Israel. Help this organization become stronger, clearer, and more sustainable.
But on October 7th, everything changed — and so did our role as leaders of JEWISHcolorado. The community we serve changed overnight — in its fear, in its grief, in its urgency, and in what it needed from us.
From that morning forward, the work of these past three years became an answer to a question none of us chose: how do you lead a community through history when history arrives at your door?
Thankfully, our tradition gives us stories that can help us navigate moments like this.
Nearly two thousand years ago, Jerusalem was under siege. Roman legions surrounded the city. Inside the walls, some believed the only path forward was to fight to the last breath for the Temple — for the building, for the symbol, for the center of Jewish life as they had always known it. And they fought with courage to defend what was theirs.
But after months of devastation, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai saw something others could not yet bear to see: the Temple would fall. And he understood that Jewish survival could not depend only on saving stones already under fire.
So he made a choice. His students smuggled him out of Jerusalem in a coffin. He came before the Roman general, and when granted one request, he did not ask to save the Temple.
He asked for Yavneh. A small town. A handful of sages. A place to build a school. He had the courage to build what came next – and to see that Judaism was more than just Jerusalem.
You defend what is sacred. And you prepare what will carry the community forward. That, to me, is leadership in a time of crisis. You run toward the fire. And with the same hands, you build for the future.
That has been our work.
After October 7th, this community ran toward the fire. Together, we raised more than $14 million in emergency funds — for Israel, for security here at home, and for those in need. We trained 15,000 people to help protect our schools, synagogues, and gathering places. We secured more than $4 million in security grants. And we rebuilt our community relations work to meet a political moment none of us had seen before.
That was our community’s version of defending what is sacred. But a community that only defends itself is still waiting for the next blow. So even as we responded to crisis, we also started building for the future.
We strengthened the foundation of this organization. We grew the annual campaign by nearly 40% from $6.8M to $9.4M – the strongest in this community’s memory. We brought our finances and our activities into honest alignment. We resolved the DJDS loan that had hung over this community for years, clearing the way for the partnership our children and our community deserve.
We sent more than 400 children to Jewish summer camp. We sent more than 250 teenagers on Jewish heritage trips, even when staying home would have been easier. We grew PJ Library, sending nearly 5,000 books a month into Jewish homes. We added Jewish Student Connection clubs in high schools across the Front Range. We built Atid to raise up the next generation of leaders and givers.
This is what we built while the walls were under siege.
And none of it was built by one person alone.
This community has been held by an extraordinary professional team — people who gave more than the job required and more than anyone had the right to ask. It has been held by a board and lay leaders who showed up with steadiness, courage, and faith when the path was not always clear. It has been held by donors who gave as though the future depended on it — because it did. That is what made this chapter possible: not one person carrying the weight, but many shoulders beneath it.
Yochanan ben Zakkai never saw all that Yavneh would become. That is the quiet truth of this work: we plant what others will harvest. We carry the burden for a season, and then we place it carefully into other capable hands. And now, as I prepare to hand this role to Neil, I do so with deep confidence — in him, in this professional team, in this Board of Directors, and in the community that has carried this work together.
Serving this community has been one of the honors of my life.
Thank you for letting me carry this work for a while. And thank you to every person who carried it with me.
The fire did not consume us.
Jerusalem endures.
Yavneh is being built.
And the future — atid — is in very good hands.
Please email JEWISHcolroado at marketing@jewishcolorado.org with questions or comments.