With great joy, gratitude and nachas ruach (“pride of spirit”), RUACH launched its website in August of 2010.  The launch is enabling RUACH to share its message and news more extensively and more frequently with the public.

During its first six years of existence, RUACH (“spirit” in Hebrew) has made substantial strides in its efforts to provide creative arts opportunities to various segments of Milwaukee’s Jewish and at-large communities, particularly the underserved and those with limited accessibility to the arts.  Recent evidence of these strides has come from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Wisconsin Arts Board  through their sponsorship of the Milwaukee Jewish Arts Festival, scheduled for late March and early April of 2011.  Our progress is further evidenced by our recent move to quarters on the second floor of the Helfaer Building, home of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation and the Jewish Museum Milwaukee.

RUACH was conceived as and remains an initiative which infuses participants and audiences with new levels of appreciation for the arts within the context of Jewish perspectives and contexts.  Music and the arts occupy a significant yet often-unheralded role in Jewish tradition.  RUACH endeavors to fuse these worlds and share their complementary joys with a diverse palette of populations.

Having experienced early success and without abandoning the populations it has served, RUACH has been expanding its objectives incrementally over the past several years in pursuit of several goals, including: offering a more varied range of creative arts media, including dance and theater; broadening its efforts within the diverse Jewish community, as well as working to build bridges with the at-large community; and, ultimately, working to share its vision and unique model with other communities.

Special thanks go to all of RUACH’s sponsors and donors, some of whose documentation is outlined in the “Our Sponsors” page.  Grants from the Nonprofit Management Fund and the Helen Bader Foundation have provided the impetus and support for this website which, along with RUACH’s logo, were beautifully designed with great investment of time and patience by Adria Willenson.

Finally, among the many volunteers and staff members who have lent their time to this endeavor, great thanks are due to RUACH’s Board President, Rachel Eixenberger, who has worked tirelessly and diligently to see this site, among many other RUACH initiatives, come to fruition.

Please enjoy the site, including the written and visual documentation of RUACH’s creations and contributions over the years!