Howie Beigelman

Lobbyist & Public Policy Entrepreneur

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Sep 12, 2021, 7:00 AM

The forgotten lessons of 9/11

Police officers help rinse a man's eyes after the fall of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, in New York City. (AP Photo/ Shawn Baldwin)

After the attacks, we Americans came together as one, sharing in the American ideals and values that our enemies hated, with the unity that we sorely need today

Mar 15, 2021, 10:20 PM

Shemos Sans Sacks: Chief Rabbi’s Beyond the Grave Lessons Are Hope for Democracy

It was in reading Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks’ teachings weaving lessons in legitimate self-government applicable to the 21st Century from passages in Exodus that I first realized I counted myself as a student of his. Sacks has powerful teachings...

Jan 27, 2021, 7:25 PM

What Holocaust survivors teach us

Today on International Holocaust Remembrance Day I offer this personal lesson that I learned from one survivor in particular, my dad, z"l. It is cross-posted from Thin Edge of the Wedge where it originally appeared. For more...

Sep 24, 2018, 12:00 AM

What I Learned from Ari Fuld, z”l

Author's Note: This is essentially the note I sent to an internal leadership group in my weekly newsletter. I was inspired by Moshe Kinderlehrer sharing his own thoughts publicly, and thought this too might have wider appeal, so I...

May 7, 2018, 8:59 PM

Lessons from Mendy

Sometimes, all the news in the world, no matter how important, doesn't matter. Today is one of those days. Tragically, Jewish community lay leader Robert "Mendy" Klein passed away Thursday evening. In lieu of a traditional Monday Mirror, Executive...

Apr 12, 2018, 9:38 AM

Holocaust Memory in the 21st Century: A Way Forward

Six million murdered. The number is so staggering that it’s hard to comprehend. The Nazis and their collaborators across Europe wiped out six million men, women, and children. Millions more were hunted and harassed, and if caught, were either to be killed...

Sep 29, 2017, 10:54 PM

A Lobbyist’s Yom Kippur Prayer

The hardest thing to say sometimes is I was wrong. The liturgy has us doing it quite a bit over Yom Kippur. So I wanted to take a moment and reflect on that, from the perspective of the organization...

Aug 19, 2017, 2:23 AM

Charlottesville, a Jewish View

"History repeats itself. That's one of the things that's wrong with history." This famous, if possibly apocryphal, attribution to Clarence Darrow is for Jews, a real life groundhog day. The events this past week in Charlottesville, are jarring. They did not...

Jun 17, 2017, 8:28 AM

What Lessons of Alexandria?

Once again, unfortunately, events overtake us. What happened in Alexandria this week is unacceptable in any truly civil society. We have been taught a difficult lesson. Whether we have learned anything remains to be seen. Of course the Jewish tradition is one...

May 6, 2016, 6:49 PM

The Timeless — & Timely — Lessons of Holocaust Memorial Day

Growing up, I was unique among my peers, the child of a Holocaust survivor. For most of my friends and classmates, it was grandparents or distant cousins who provided any direct family connection to the Nazi Genocide. But my...

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About Me

Howie Beigelman is Executive Director of Ohio Jewish Communities, the statewide government advocacy, public affairs, and community relations voice of Ohio's eight Jewish Federations and their 150 nonprofit agencies, leading lobbying efforts in Columbus & issues advocacy in Washington.