Rabbi Yonah Is Our Hero!
Those of us from Jewlicious who have attended the Jewlicious festivals over the past five years know what a success they are in terms of reaching out and captivating hundreds and hundreds of young Jewish men and women. They go even farther and encourage others to pursue their own projects both in the virtual and real worlds.
Jewlicious Festivals was founded by Rabbi Yonah Bookstein and his wife, Rachel. They partnered with the founder of Jewlicious.com, David Abitbol, about 6 years ago and from that first year when about 120 people showed up to last year when almost 1000 people participated, the festivals have only gotten better. R. Yonah also blogs on our site sometimes, when he is not busy hosting people for shabbat dinner, encouraging Jewish students to learn more about and participate in Jewish life or finding other ways to help young Jews connect to their heritage.
Rabbi Yonah has been nominated for the Jewish Community Heroes award. This is a $25,000 award and I wasn’t surprised earlier today when R. Yonah informed me that he is committed to donating all of his winnings (I’m assuming he means after paying the taxes on the prize) on Jewlicious Festivals. That I was entirely unsurprised is a testament to the generous and kind spirit of Rabbi Yonah.
Needless to say, we are proud that he has been nominated and believe many of the other nominees are well deserving of their nomination. It’s just that R. Yonah is family! I encourage you to vote for him. You can vote once daily, so if you want to bookmark this post, the link to voting directly for Rabbi Yonah is here. Then vote again tomorrow and the next day.