All right, good evening, everyone.

My name is Matt Stern.

I'm a city council member here in New Rochelle.

First, I just want to quickly thank the committee that is really responsible for making tonight a success.

Mark Klee, Heidi Sisfeld, thank you.

Sarah Kay, fellow city council member, and Sammy and Sam, thank you both so much for all your help in making the event, too.

Want to quickly acknowledge Mary Adoramos Herbert here, County Legislator Drudel Holstein, thank you for coming as well.

So thank you all for coming out tonight.

It's thrilling to see such a strong showing for an event that won't have any food.

Just kidding, we will get to eat.

There'll be some gnashing from seasons.

I'm really grateful to see you all here tonight.

This is our third ever Jewish American Heritage Month celebration.

And every year it feels so timely, so important that we come together to confidently celebrate what it means to be a Jewish American, but also to acknowledge that yet again, we didn't really feel comfortable promoting this event too publicly.

And what does that mean for Jewish people today?

It was somehow just a few years ago when for the first time I heard the description of almost every Jewish holiday as they tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat.

And it's all true.

I have a lot of pride for our contributions in music and movies, journalism, literature, politics, some sports, science, and so much more.

There's no doubt that we punch above our weight, and the fact that our ancestors have achieved this while also facing thousands of years of discrimination that forced us into exile after exile and nearly wiped us out.

Well, I think that's worth eating a good meal over.

But here we are again in 2026, and I cannot walk my son into his daycare at Temple Israel without being so grateful for the security guards out front and our new bulletproof doors.

I participate in a group of leaders uh from the Jewish and African American communities in Westchester who are engaging in four weeks of dialogue together.

We're having uh conversations about our upbringing, how our identities have shaped us, the struggles that we've had, and what it means to be allies for each other.

And when some of the Jewish folks in the room shared renewed fears that uh we feel today of being subject to violence or discrimination, like we've seen in Minnesota or Pittsburgh, or even from some of our neighbors here in Westchester, the honest reaction that we got from our peers was well, that's what we've always felt.

And sometimes it's different.

In the Jewish community, I think we have largely felt comforted by the police presence at our synagogues, whereas that might not be or might not land the same way in the black community.

I heard stories of some who don't feel comfortable shopping at certain stores, people who track family members on that find my phone app constantly to make sure that they're getting home safe.

Um, and a dozen little ways that we've all started to modify our behavior to protect ourselves from acts of discrimination.

Does that feel familiar to you?

In the study last year, more than half of American Jews said that they had had experienced anti-Semitism in the last 12 months.

Forty-eight percent have taken actions to increase their personal security and sense of safety, and 14% of those people had even considered plans to leave the country.

Do our neighbors, our friends and colleagues know this.

I don't know about you, but I I think with pride of our Jewish American heritage, partly through the lens of justice that we fought alongside the black community for civil rights, march beside Dr.

King, and I think of those who were killed in the pursuit of that justice.

Yet twice in the last month, both in that black Jewish dialogue group and on a podcast that I heard with Van Jones and uh who's speaking with an Israeli journalist, it was clear that as much as those stories may be part of our identity, they're not widely known outside of our community.

I strongly believe that for us to thrive, we must try.

We have to try to do it together.

And there are so many many other celebrations just like this one being hosted here, whether it's Haitian American heritage, Asian American, Arab American, Irish, German, LGBTQ, so many other great celebrations.

And while fortunately everyone may not feel such a palpable sense of fear for this moment, many still do.

So I invite you all to join me and join the leaders of events outside of our own to listen and learn, share a meal, and hopefully make a new friend and find some common ground.

We never know when a friendship can change the community.

So tonight we are very fortunate to hear from Barbara Davis, our city historian about the fascinating history of Jewish New Rochellians.

And we'll also hear an exciting update about how our libraries will be sharing more about the Jewish components of our Jewish identity, and we're so grateful for their attendance here tonight, too.

It's now my special honor to welcome our mayor, who's been a great ally, your dear Ramos Herbert.

Sorry.

You were taking pictures of each other.

Um really hard to, Matt, that was really good.

Um I was like, oh dear.

Um, but yeah, really, really, really beautifully put and written.

So I'm perpetually humbled to serve in this role, in particular on a wonderfully diverse council like this.

And I'm really just so grateful that in New Rochelle, uh, this this is what we do.

We come together as a community, we celebrate our diversity, but also know how to celebrate and step up for one another when when we need to.

And events like this remind me of all that I learned by serving in this culture in this community, rather.

You know, I see my children growing up here.

I was just mentioning my my son is 12 on going on 13, so it's the bar mitzva circuit for him based on the calendar of events.

Um, but as a little boy who's growing up, you know, African American Latino boy from a Methodist church, he's celebrating Bar Mitzvahs with his friends, and he came back Saturday.

He's like, Ma, what's Mazotov?

And we look it up and we you know, and when it's to quote my kids understand the outdoor celebration and the festival and just the different ways that they are growing up, just aware that we can still celebrate our own cultures while being in community with others, and that we don't have to fight that.

We can care for each other, we can celebrate each other, we can celebrate our families, and we can be there when times are hard.

And so, as mayor, I want to thank our community for doing that.