A German, a Frenchman and a Jew walk into a bar.

Did you chuckle? Roll your eyes? A bit of both?

That is just the reaction Rabbi David Wolpe wanted to elicit from his audience at the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland’s recent annual Cornerstone event Thursday, Sept. 11. It’s the launch pad for a year of giving to, hearing from and providing for Portland’s Jewish community, Israel and other communities in need around the globe.

The event featured the introduction of Federation’s first Israeli shlicha (emissary) since 1990, and Wendy Kahn, Federation’s chief development officer, defining community as a verb. 

“Community isn’t something we just talk about,” said Kahn, the event’s main organizer. “It’s something we do.” 

Cornerstone serves as the opener for JFGP’s Annual Campaign for Community Needs – this year’s campaign theme is “Together, We Turn Oys to Joys.” In his remarks, Rabbi Wolpe noted both Oys and Joys – and the Joys came out on top.

“Look at us,” he said to the crowd of more than 100 of Federation’s most generous donors assembled in the garden of Diane and Herb Rankin. “Our ancestors in their wildest dreams couldn’t imagine the community we have today.”

Rabbi Emeritus of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, former visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School and a cancer survivor, Rabbi Wolpe is considered one of America’s most influential rabbis. He is the author of eight books amid a litany of accomplishments and notoriety, including his December 2023 resignation from a university advisory group on antisemitism assembled by then-Harvard President Claudine Gay. 

Sticking to the Joys over the Oys, the rabbi related another joke. The one about our ancestors who, if alive today, would gawp at our accomplishments and ask incredulously, “There are Jews at Harvard?! There’s an Israel!?”

Rabbi Wolpe invoked the importance of Israel, the horror of Oct. 7 and the ongoing rise of antisemitism, but he focused more on the importance and influence of the Jewish diaspora and community.

“Here on the streets of Portland, you’ll never meet a Canaanite or a Hittite ... But there are Jews. We’re a miracle,” he said. 

“Strengthen the Jewish community,” he urged his audience. “That’s better than posting your thoughts about it [antisemitism] on X.”

How? Embrace friends rather than identify enemies. Learn to ask for help. Don’t cut off people for political reasons. 

“Don’t demonize those who aren’t like you,” he continued. “We’ve been demonized over history, so don’t do it to each other.”

Federation – which supports 53 local and overseas organizations – is a key place to begin and continue the work of community-building, the rabbi emphasized.

Doing so includes providing for its main needs, Federation Board Chair Leslie Beard said in advance of the kick-off event. 

“Our community’s needs are greater than ever, and the more we raise, the more programs we can support,” Beard said.

Marc Blattner, Federation President and CEO, specified that initiatives like mental-health support, combating antisemitism and Israel-hate and emergency interest-free loans are in need of additional funding. Every dollar raised goes toward these and many other programs, agencies, organizations and security.

Already Jewish Portland has demonstrated that one of its main Joys is supporting community: “...[W]e have raised $643,000 toward the campaign with a donor-for-donor increase of 13 percent,” Blattner reported just days after the event. That number has ballooned to over $1.1 million as of press time.

Dr. Yosef Rosen, Federation’s Director of Jewish Life and Learning, concluded the evening with a Q-and-A with Rabbi Wolpe. They explored some nuance between Oys and Joys, for example via Hillel’s famous musings from Pirkei Avot, often translated as “Ethics of the Fathers,” that includes the question, “But if I am only for myself, what am I?”

Rabbi Wolpe said that Judaism – and Jewish community specifically – believes so strongly in caring for and lifting up those in need that we lack an identity if we don’t do this work. 

“If I only care about myself,” the rabbi said, “what am I?” 

Event attendee Dr. Mark Zeitzer said the rabbi’s messages were “spot-on.” 

“I appreciated them and their positive uplift, especially with what’s going on in the world.”

Said Kahn: “At the heart of Jewish values is joy.”

And that’s no joke.

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A self-described dinosaur who still keeps a hand-written daily calendar, Jenn Director Knudsen has published work in The Boston Globe, The Oregonian, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Forward and HuffPost, among other outlets. Her most recent personal essay is available at The Mother Chapter. Find her on Substack.