Honoring a Civic Champion: JCRC’s Jeremy Burton Wins Inaugural Grinspoon Amber Award

JCRC CEO Jeremy Burton reflects on the honor—and why partnership, perseverance and civic engagement matter now more than ever.

Boston, MA (December 10, 2025)—Last month, at the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly, the Harold Grinspoon Foundation named five inaugural winners of the Grinspoon Amber Awards, created to recognize Jewish communal professionals whose exceptional contributions strengthen Jewish life in meaningful and enduring ways. 

Among the honorees was Jeremy Burton, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston (JCRC). Since 2011, Burton has been a leading civic voice for Boston’s Jewish community, steering JCRC’s work to promote a society rooted in both American and Jewish values. Under his leadership, JCRC brings together more than 40 organizations to advance shared priorities through advocacy, coalition-building, service and partnerships across faith, cultural and civic lines. JCRC’s mission centers on strengthening democracy, fighting antisemitism and showing up for the broader community—work Burton has helped define on the local and national stages. 

Burton took home one of the inaugural awards for “promoting a society that reflects the best of American and Jewish values, in Greater Boston, Israel, and around the world. Through advocacy, organizing, service, and partnerships, JCRC pursues social justice, ensures a vibrant Jewish community, and builds a network of support for Israel.” He and I caught up about what the recognition means to him and what he envisions for Jewish life, civic engagement and perseverance in turbulent times.

Congratulations on your award! What does it mean to you? 

This award was created by the Harold Grinspoon Foundation in 2024. It recognizes and celebrates Jewish communal professional leadership. I’m really excited and honored. 

Why do you think you were chosen for this honor? 

You know, this group of awardees are all amazing people who are just so dedicated to building Jewish community, strengthening who we are as an American Jewish community in various different ways, whether it’s in education, youth programming or fighting antisemitism. 

I’m very proud of this: The Commonwealth of Massachusetts’s 19-person Special Commission on Combatting Antisemitism approved its final report. We’re first in the nation to have a legislative commission to combat antisemitism, and we’ve been involved from the get-go when the legislature was considering establishing it. 

I think it’s a testament to the kind of allyship we’re getting from our civic partners and our state’s political leadership in Massachusetts. And it’s something I’m very proud to say to our community: Our state’s highest leaders are our allies. They take us seriously, they hear our concerns and our pain, and they are stepping up and offering a road map forward. That’s been a big chunk of my personal work and JCRC’s work over the last year-and-a-half. 

For those who don’t know: What does JCRC do? 

Simply put, JCRC is a broad network, in terms of 40-plus organizations, with their representatives and community leaders coming together. We externally focus on how the Jewish community shows up and advances our priorities and interest in civic spaces, whether that be in state and local government or interfaith neighbors with whom we share this city and share this community. 

We come together to be a productive, positive actor in civic space for ourselves and for others. For me on a day-to-day basis, that’s lots of showing up with partners. It’s lots of conversations with civic leaders about the needs and concerns of our community. It’s a lot of sharing our hopes, our fears. 

Tell us what you’re looking forward to in the future. What do you envision in your role going forward?

We have an amazing roadmap for [antisemitism] interventions in K-12 education, higher ed, public safety and law enforcement, and now the work is going to be about working on the implementation in partnership with state government and state agencies, engaging with school committees and school superintendents, on the recommendations from the commission. 

It’s really on all of us as a community to do that, and we have an important role to play in making that happen—asking real questions about: How do we reinvest in and double down on our civic relationships? 

What encourages you and gives you optimism about the future?  

What keeps me awake at night also gets me up and going in the morning. What motivates us at JCRC is: There are challenges in the world. And we, individually, organizationally and as a community, have a role to play in addressing them. Hard stop. There’s something we can do about it, and we prove that time and again.  

There are things I lie awake at night about. One thing I don’t lie awake at night about is the future of the Jewish people. We have not only endured but thrived for thousands of years. We have seen hard times. We have experienced great pain and suffering in other places and other times, and we never forget that. We are people of memory. But I have incredible confidence that 500 years down the road, we will be having thriving Jewish communities with thriving Jewish institutions and gatherings and celebrations. 

I worry more about the future of the United States, the experiment that is the United States. This was always an experiment: the idea that you could have a healthy, multi-ethnic democratic project. Experiments require reinvestment, recommitment and reaffirmation. 

Follow Jeremy Burton’s ongoing reflections and JCRC’s work at the JCRC blog and social channels for updates on advocacy, community partnerships and civic engagement.