What does it all mean?
"It means a lot of last-minute phone calls asking 'What will we do if? And what if that?' And reminding people of this . . . " said Schneirov, 49, the first woman president of the Federation of Jewish Agencies of Greater Philadelphia.
The Elkins Park native officially began her term Tuesday as president of the federation - a central, fund-raising organization with a network of agencies offering social and cultural services to many of the 250,000 Jews and others living in the Philadelphia area, including Montgomery and Delaware Counties.
It is the Federation's Soviet Jewry Council that has led the drive to recruit Jewish synagogues, community groups and people to participate in the march and rally today - one day before Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev is scheduled to visit President Reagan for a summit meeting.
"I can't think of a more wonderful occasion for beginning a term," said Schneirov, who plans to attend today's march with her three daughters and husband.
While most of the planning for the rally was well under way before Schneirov took office, there are still many last-minute preparations.
"We had barely six weeks to coordinate this," she said. "Just the logistics of trying to keep it under control is a problem."
Schneirov said the federation estimates that nearly 1,000 buses of Jewish groups from around the country will converge on Washington, D.C.
Indeed, there seems to have been little time for her to bask in the accomplishment of being the federation's first woman president - a position she earned through years of working first on fund-raising campaigns, then serving on the board of trustees and later chairing the budget committee.
