A Message from CEO Tamar Davis
You might think that everything in the Purim story is based on a game of chance—even the word Purim means lottery! It happened to be the Hebrew month of Adar that Haman picked out of a lottery to be the month to kill the Jews. It happened to be a young Jewish woman named Esther whom King Achashverosh decided to make his queen out of all the women presented to him. It happened to be that Mordechai walked past the castle at the right time to overhear a plot to kill the king, and that he was in a position to pass the king a warning through his niece Esther. And so on, and so on.
Of course, what the Purim story is actually teaching us is that nothing is coincidence. And as hard as that can be to see during a time of so much upheaval and agony for our people, I also can’t really believe that this is all just coincidence. I was living in NYC when my cousin set me up with my husband, who happened to live in the Boston area. It happened to be that we lived a mile away from one of the country’s top medical facilities, Boston Children’s Hospital, when we needed it most during our child’s diagnosis. It happened to be that my aunt introduced me to a Gateways board member and parent, thinking my child could benefit from Gateways. It happened to be that when I joined the Gateways board, my predecessor announced her retirement and created an opportunity for me to apply to be CEO. I am right where I am supposed to be, advocating for my child and for all of our community’s children who seek access to Jewish life and learning.
Even during this time of “V’nahafoch hu” – a phrase used in the Purim story meaning “turned upside down,” we are living lives of meaning and purpose, we are being intentional about how we bring goodness into this world, and we are all Esthers and Mordechais – heroes of our own stories.
Thank you for being my heroes, for listening and supporting and advocating in your own meaningful ways.
About the Author
Tamar Davis
As a person born with a disability and parent of a child with a disability, Tamar is keenly aware of the ongoing need for advocacy and accessibility for disability inclusion and education for children and families in the global Jewish community. In August 2020, Tamar became CEO of Gateways: Access to Jewish Education, after having served as the Chief Development Officer for the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of Greater Boston. Before that, Tamar had worked for over a decade at Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America and Hadassah International, most recently as Hadassah’s National Director of Annual Giving. Tamar is an active volunteer in the Greater Boston Jewish community, having previously served as a member of Gateways’ Board of Trustees and as Board Chair of Young Israel of Brookline. When she lived in Manhattan, Tamar was a Vice President of Congregation Ohab Zedek, a member of JNFuture’s Leadership Ring, and co-founded ViZion, a growing network of professionals working for Jewish, Israel and Zionist-related non-profits (now managed by the American Zionist Movement). Tamar has a Bachelor of Science in marketing from Yeshiva University’s Syms School of Business. A proud stepmother and mother to five children, Tamar lives with her husband, Allan Galper, in Brookline, MA.