Paul Bass Photo
Mark Schwartz Sunday night with Sydney Perry.
Some 675 well-wishers rose Sunday night to applaud an inspiring era in communal life.
“This era in New Haven Jewish history,” an earlier speaker, Rabbi Benjamin Scolnic had told the crowd, “will always be known as the ‘Era of Sydney Perry.’”
Scolnic and the crowd marked the occasion with an event called “Celebrate Sydney!” It toasted Sydney Perry, the beloved CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven, who is stepping down after three decades of communal leadership.
At first 300 people bought tickets for the dinner event. Then 500. Then the total grew too large to hold the event in its original location, the Jewish Community Center. A bigger hall was secured, at B’nai Jacob Synagogue in Woodbridge. Even there, the event sold out.
The outpouring was a testament to the tireless work Perry, a graduate of Hillhouse High School who lives in Westville, has performed not just for the Jewish community but for the community at large.
Perry rose through the Jewish institutional ranks promoting Jewish education for young people and adults alike. Thanks to her, an event called “Taste of Honey” has drawn hundreds of adults out on winter nights to take mini-courses in subjects ranging from Talmud and Kabbalah to the ethics of tattooing. She developed an evening Hebrew high school called Makom for teens. She organized public events to mark religious and cultural holidays, host authors, tackle hot-button issues.
Rev. Eldren Morrison, Dr. Julia Perry, Avi Perry, Sydney Perry, and Sandra Morrison.
Along the way she navigated the mine field of the Jewish community’s secular-religious and liberal-conservative divides. A homegrown leader, Perry promoted “klal yisrael,” making everyone feel part of one community rather than members of “in” or “out” factions. She drew on an ability to confront rather than ignore controversy through unity rather than factionalization.
Her incisive weekly emailed derashes, commentaries on the Torah portion in the context of today’s world, made many people feel about Perry the way E. B. White’s Wilbur felt about the spider Charlotte: “She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. [She] was both.”
Perry spoke for the Jewish community when tragedy struck, drawing on relationships she has developed over a lifetime. A self-described “child of the Sixties” who grew up steeped in the Jewish tradition’s ethical values, she has made local Jews proud to be New Haven Jews when she served as our public face and voice to the community at large. With the United Way, she spearheaded a “Neighbor-to-Neighbor” emergency shelter drive. She joined Muslim and African-American Christian leaders in denouncing law-enforcement profiling of Muslim students. Under her leadership, local Jews turned out to a memorial service at Varick AME Zion Church on Dixwell Avenue for the victims of the racist church massacre in Charleston, S.C.
Among her many honors in this final lap of her leadership, Perry was named Business New Haven’s “Citizen of the Year.”
“She’s the door into this community,” Rabbi Scolnic said in his remarks at Sunday’s event. “You go in the door — and you’re home.”
He spoke of how Perry has set a high bar as the Jewish community’s role model.
“I haven’t cursed since the fifth grade. I try not to shoot from the hip. I try to filter everything I say. But compared to Sydney,” Scolnic quipped, “I’m Donald Trump.”
At the close of her own remarks, Perry looked out at the 675 people showering her with applause.
“That’s our community,” she said.