Warren Buffet once said, “Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” Right now, JGSI has just finished planting a whole forest! After reaching - and then exceeding - our June goal of offering Jewish programming and community to over 100 grad campuses across North America, I’ve found myself thinking lately, Where to next?

I think I have an answer, and I’d like to hear yours too.

This past year we were focused on breadth, and achieved all our expectations and beyond -- even throughout the insane pandemic year that was 2020-2021. But, looking to the year ahead, my instinct tells me the JGSI family needs to focus on depth. How to deepen our roots and strengthen our impact through infrastructure development, to meet the Jewish needs of our growing base of thousands of graduate students across the country as best as possible.

Turns out Buffet’s quote is actually an old Jewish legend: before Jacob's 12 sons went down to Egypt, he puzzlingly instructed them to plant acacia trees when they arrived. Jacob foresaw that many generations later, the Jews would be freed from slavery and need a supply of wood to build the Tabernacle, our traveling Jewish infrastructure in the desert.

After planting our saplings, JGSI now needs to nurture them and think about the long term, strengthening their roots to provide that shade -- that safe place where Jewish connections and Jewish pride can grow strong -- to generations of graduate students in the future.

My wish is that the fruits of our labor, the results of digging deep roots, will lead to the building of permanent infrastructure for the Jewish grad student and alumni community.

And now, I need your valued voice and opinion: How do you think JGSI can grow this year? Do you believe digging deep is the right way to go?

I'm excited to move onwards to the next step of our story and I look forward to hearing from you.

Let’s do this!