During her eight-year tenure as Executive Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), Maharat Rori Picker Neiss regularly scheduled coffee meetings as a way to forge relationships, cultivate partnerships and build bridges. This week, her final coffee meeting was attended by dozens of colleagues from the Jewish and interfaith communities to wish her well, as she begins a new journey.

In November, Picker Neiss announced she was leaving her position at (JCRC) to become Senior Vice President for Community Relations at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA).

“Over the past eight years, she has deepened the St. Louis Jewish community’s roots in both the interfaith and intergroup communities,” said JCRC’s Board Chair Joel Iskiwitch in a Tu B’Shevat- inspired anecdote. “Just as different varieties of trees grow next to each other, we bear different scars, our branches carry different fruit and reach in different directions. But below the surface, we grow together.”

Others who honored Picker Neiss included Anna Shabsin, JCRC board vice chair; the Reverend Rodrick Burton, senior Pastor of New Northside Missionary Baptist Church, and Javier Orozco, the ecumenical and interreligious officer of the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

In speaking of Picker Neiss’ leadership qualities, Orozco said, “To be in her presence is to know that who you are and what you bring to the table will be respected and appreciated. To collaborate with Rori on a project is to experience inclusion, respect, a challenging voice, and a creative imagination—sometimes pushing us to grow and see things differently.”

As part of the leadership transition, Cheryl Adelstein is serving as interim executive director as the search a replacement begins.

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