By Rhys McVann-Henkelmann
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The annual Jewish American Heritage Month (JAHM) luncheon was held May 19 on Capitol Hill, bringing together bipartisan members of Congress, foreign ambassadors, and civic, business, and religious leaders in the historic Kennedy Caucus Room of the Russell Senate Office Building to honor the enduring contributions of Jewish Americans to the United States.
The event was co-chaired by Malcolm Hoenlein, CEO Emeritus of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and Eric J. Gertler, Executive Chairman of U.S. News and World Report. It honored Nobel Prize-winning physician Dr. Harvey J. Alter with the Dr. David Nassy Award, entrepreneur and philanthropist Elliott Broidy with the Visionary Award, and Rabbi David Baron of Temple of the Arts in Beverly Hills with the Creativity in the Jewish Community Award.
Various U.S. Senators participated in the program, including Richard Blumenthal, John Fetterman, John Hickenlooper, Elissa Slotkin, Ron Wyden, James Lankford, Jacky Rosen, Pete Ricketts, Jeff Merkley, and Tim Sheehy. U.S. Representatives Randi Fine and Ken Calvert also delivered speeches.
In accepting the Visionary Award, Broidy reflected on the values his parents instilled in him — his father a decorated World War II veteran, turned schoolteacher, his mother a nurse — and the lesson they passed down: that success carries with it a responsibility to give back to family, community, and country. He praised Dr. Alter as an embodiment of tikkun olam for identifying a virus that was silently claiming millions of lives, and recognized Rabbi Baron’s work building curricula around altruism and empathy in young people as among the most consequential being done in America today.
Broidy described the luncheon as more than a celebration of JAHM, calling it a reaffirmation of the shared responsibility to confront hatred and protect the values of tolerance, democracy, and human dignity at a moment when antisemitism has risen sharply both in the United States and around the world.
Rabbi Pini Dunner of Young Israel of Beverly Hills delivered remarks on the honorees, as did Rabbi Mordechai Suchard of The Gateways Organization and Rabbi Levi Shemtov, Executive Vice President of American Friends of Lubavitch.
The celebration traces its roots to the early 1980s, when Jewish Heritage Week was launched following discussions between Malcolm Hoenlein, President Ronald Reagan, and author and humanitarian Elie Wiesel, later evolving into the month-long observance recognized today.
