Having grown up in Milwaukee as a third-generation Jewish Milwaukeean, the more I work in our community, the more I see just how vibrant and interconnected it truly is.
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of doing a food tasting with a couple from the Congregation Beth Jehudah / Rabbi Twerski community. Sitting and talking with them reminded me of so many meaningful parts of Milwaukee’s Jewish story — and my own story within it.
My family lived in that neighborhood for generations. I personally lived there until I was seven. The current building of that shul was my childhood synagogue. It’s where my brother was bar mitzvahed. My baby naming was done by Rabbi Twerski. I even have a vivid memory of a Shabbaton there as a teen with my middle school class.
Those layers of connection are not unusual here — they are what make Milwaukee special.
What it shows is the size and closeness of our community. We are linked in beautiful ways, no matter where we fall religiously. We share families, friends, spaces, memories, and traditions.
In larger Jewish communities — New York, Israel, even Chicago — the size allows people to cluster into their own circles in a different way. There is beauty in that too. But here in Milwaukee, the richness comes from overlap. From history. From shared experience. From respect across different levels of observance.
We are a small minority in the world. Connecting and respecting one another matters. Recognizing that we are different tribes of one people — each with distinct traditions expressed through food, ritual, and culture — is powerful. Learning from each other and sharing with each other is one of the greatest ways to build connection.
People create community in many ways: through synagogue, through school, through family origin, through friendship. For me, I love finding new ways to bring those threads together.
There is something incredibly meaningful about a week where I see food going out to Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox synagogues. To families who keep kosher and families who don’t. To people who connect deeply to Judaism and to those who connect more quietly — perhaps just through food, through memory, or through tradition.
And then there’s the greater Milwaukee community — non-Jewish friends who have fallen in love with Jewish food through neighbors and family, who bring a Jewish treat to a Jewish friend as a way of connecting. That matters too.
Finding ways to highlight how special this is in Milwaukee feels important to me. And figuring out how to help newcomers see it — and feel it — feels even more important.
Last Sunday, I hosted my fourth or fifth annual hamantaschen-making party. It’s an open invitation. Every year, I add new names and hope people tell me who else to include. It’s the kind of joyful chaos that only someone who loves a full house would host — and I love it.
We make mountains of dough and filling. Everyone rolls and cuts. My oven is overwhelmed. I serve lunch or dinner depending on the timing. People stay and talk. Some years the kids take over. Some years the adults are the most enthusiastic. This year, the adults were fully in it, and the kids drifted in and out.
The first year, we thought people would take the hamantaschen home. Instead, most were eaten right there at the party.
This year, I made Persian lamb stew, sweet-and-sour meatballs, and sides. The kids played. The parents talked. New friendships formed. Connections deepened.
That’s what community is about.
Not perfection. Not sameness. Not uniformity.
Connection.
To a great community — and to continuing to find new ways to connect with even more parts of it.
