Jay Schottenstein0:42
Okay, thank you. Well, it's so wonderful to see everyone here, to see how this group has grown. You know, for many years we used to host this event in Mian Genie's home, and I don't think we could fit everyone in now. Inola Hillis said to me, he said, 'Maybe you want to have everyone, you know, instead of doing here, we'll do it at the house,' but it wouldn't work. It just wouldn't work. You know, we started this over 30 years ago. We had a meeting at my office, and I remember, blessed memory, Rabbi Stansky was there, Rabbi Senior in Columbus was there, and Counter Shipman was there, and we talked about the creation of a Kollel. And the first item on the agenda was, 'Where are we going to get the Rosh Kollel from? Where are they going to come from?' And we interviewed different places, and I'll never forget, they sent us Rabbi Morris. That was 30 years ago, even though we were 29 years, but it was 30 years ago. And one of the heads of Ner Israel Baltimore, blessed memory, was Rabbi Herman Neuberger. And Rabbi Neuberger was one of the great rabbanim in the world. He did things quietly, in a quiet manner, and got things done. He saved Jews from all over the world. He sent people on missions at midnight to Iran, to Russia, whatever it took, it got done. And he said, 'Jay, I'll promise you one thing. I'll guarantee you the success of the Kollel. You take Rabbi Morris. I personally guarantee the success.' And here we are, 29 years later, Rabbi Morris is still leading us for the last 29 years. And you know, when we started this, someone said, 'What makes a city?' And what came down to be a city by Jewish standards is you have to have full-time learners. And here we established a Kollel. Columbus became a major city. When you see cities our size around the country and you see shrinking Jewish communities, Columbus is a growing Jewish community. And to see how the Kollel has really integrated itself into Columbus, you look at some of the synagogues. You know, we've had the Kollel rabbis fill in for certain synagogues, step up and become the rabbis. The day school, Torah Academy, they came from the Kollel. So it's been a good investment. And the ones who don't go into that stay in Columbus and become businessmen and become part of the community, and they help the community grow. And we just see, even by the numbers here, if 30 years ago we'd say 30 years later we'd be sitting here in a room like this with all these people, we'd be very impressed. Now today, I have the honor of introducing our speaker. And when I mentioned Rabbi Stansky, I think of a couple of times he used to introduce this speaker. The speaker used to run the NCSY region years ago, right, Gary? And he used to introduce Gary as the mayor of Detroit. That's why I used to introduce you. And Gary's become a great friend, even though he's from Michigan, and he's sitting on the highest state university campus. He's really become a great friend of the Jewish community here in Columbus. I remember a few years ago, my son used to go visit you, and he used to talk about how can we make Columbus stronger and greater, and they go up to Detroit to meet with him, and he gave them good advice, and then they come down to Columbus and examine what it would take. And he's always friendly with Columbus. He had one of his best friends that used to live here, and that was Michael Weiss of blessed memory. And he became such a good friend of Columbus, he became the major banker in Columbus too. Detroit or Columbus, Gary's very active with us with ArtScroll. There's not an ArtScroll major event that Gary's not the major speaker there either. And he's a great speaker. I've heard him speak many times, and he's really a special person, and we're very fortunate to be able to call him our friend. And also, one other person I want to recognize. He's a very shy individual. He makes things happen behind the scenes. Rabbi Kapenstein. He wanted to make sure that I arrived on time, so how does he do it? He says, 'Well, we're serving brisket, we're serving chicken marsala.' He sends the menu. But he's a really great friend, and Columbus is very fortunate to have him. So without any further ado, Gary, I'll turn it over to you.
