Hello friends. I hope you all are enjoying the start of summer and looking forward to the longer days and hopefully, a vacation. As of this writing, I am preparing to attend my first in-person American Jewish Press Association conference, to be held in Atlanta. Fingers crossed my flights remain on schedule!

In the meantime, I want to share some exciting news about expanded content from The Observer. For the next three months, I will be producing several podcast episodes to enhance our regular news coverage. These podcasts are designed to delve deeper into the people and issues affecting our community and to provide an opportunity to further engage our regular readers, while also reaching those who do not typically consume their news in print. For those of you who are not familiar with my background, I began my journalism career as a news reporter and anchor at a public radio station in my hometown of Los Angeles. After relocating to Nashville, I hosted public affairs programs on two local commercial radio stations and produced news stories for a nationwide public radio wire service. So, I am no stranger to the audio world, and find it to be an exciting and creative way to tell stories. Be watching for announcements about the episodes as they are released on Spotify, The Observer website, and in your weekly Federation newsletter. I hope you enjoy this new addition to our services, and please don’t hesitate to contact me with your ideas, thoughts, and feedback. I can be reached at barbaradab@jewishnashville.org.

Cheers to a safe, healthy, joyful summer!