Rabbi Dov Linzer, one of the speakers at our event last night, is the president and rabbinic head of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT). Rabbi Linzer gave a shout-out to YCT’s executive director, Ruthie Strosberg Simon, a Schenectady native. Of the 200+ rabbis who graduated from its program, three of them or approximately 1.5% grew up in our community.

To put this in perspective, the ~25,000 Jews in our community represent ~.16% of the ~15.7 million Jews worldwide, suggesting a statistical anomaly. Anecdotally, our community has produced many more rabbis, Hebrew-school principals, lay and professional Jewish leaders, and Israeli olim than one would guess for a community of our size. Some of these very talented people have remained in our community, while others have shared their talents with other communities around the world.

One Albany native, my friend Rabbi Sam Shor, is the director of Torah Initiatives for OU Israel, where he oversees a vast network of educational initiatives, including Torah classes, tours and experiential educational programming for the Anglo community across Israel. For the past three decades, Rabbi Sam has gained acclaim for his inspirational teaching and his work in adult education.

For the past 11 years, Rabbi Sam has been Jewish Federation’s Jerusalem-based scholar-in-residence for all our trips to Israel including our teen missions. Together, we experientially learn about how Jerusalem prepares for and celebrates Shabbat, and we walk the streets of the Old City studying her history.

And now for the exciting news: Rabbi Sam is in town this weekend and will be learning with us Monday morning (10:00) at Federation. His topic will be “Asking Questions – A Pesach Seder Primer.” If you’ve studied with Rabbi Sam before, you’ll want to come and catch up with him. If you haven’t yet had the pleasure—Come. Please register here to ensure that I pick up enough bagels.