Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest celebrates its centennial
It’s fair to say that it started in Newark.
The growing, bustling organization that’s celebrating its centennial now was born in that growing, bustling city in the teens of the last century. It was formalized in 1923, went through some changes for the next few years, and emerged as the United Jewish Appeal in 1926.
It represented a community mainly of immigrants and their children, struggling to assimilate in the exciting but odd new world they’d chosen, at great personal risk, to make their own. They faced the Depression, World War II, the increasingly horrifying news of the Holocaust and the decimation of the culture they’d left. They also drew from the Jewish culture of giving, of sharing, of helping, and of community to create an organization that embodied their values, helped the community members who needed help, and strengthened the bonds that tied them all together.
Over the last century, the federation — which incorporated other Jewish organizations, including the one centered around another great center of later Jewish immigration, Elizabeth — changed names to reflect those mergers, and has emerged as the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ. It has faced such challenges as natural disasters, both here and in Israel, wars affecting Israel, culminating in October 7 and Gaza, and rising antisemitism, from both the right and the left.
It has faced those challenges by continuing to grow.
Now, the federation is closing out its centennial year with its centennial campaign.
“This campaign is historic,” Kim Hirsch, the executive director of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater MetroWest NJ, said. “It is the largest in the history of the entire community.
“Our goal is $250 million. It’s a very big goal — and we’ve already raised 90 percent of it.”
That’s a lot of money — and it can meet a lot of needs. But it’s not unprecedented for the federation, Ms. Hirsh said. “In the early 1990s, before we were Greater MetroWest” – it was just plain MetroWest then — “we raised $100 million. So we have done it before. And now, all these years later, we have set a lofty goal.
“We are a wealthy and very, very generous community.”
The federation is unusual in that it is not centered around a city, except in the historic, maybe almost mythic sense. It all began in Newark and Elizabeth, but now the federation encompasses the suburbs that became home to many of the families that can trace its roots there.
“A majority of what we’re doing is building endowments for the future, for the next 100 years and beyond,” Ms. Hirsh said. “The other piece of the campaign is targeted for today, to support the community and its needs now.”
The campaign has three major areas. The Perpetual Annual Campaign Endowment — PACE, for short — welcomes both legacy giving and more immediate gifts; targeted endowment and giving for today, which as its names suggest allow donors to designate where their gifts will go and allow recipients to reap the benefits immediately; and 100 for 100, aimed at donors who are 50 or younger.
“The majority of the campaign is building endowments for the future, and the other piece is targeted to support needs today,” Ms. Hirsh said. “We developed the Wilf Leadership Program to help leaders in our second century, and we have the Holocaust Survivor Fund,” which provides aid to the people who lived through the nightmare at the center of the last century.
Israel isn’t mentioned here because “we don’t count the Israel emergency campaign” — which has allocated more than $454 million by June — “as part of the centennial.” On the other hand, “some people have made endowment gifts for Israel, and that does count toward the centennial fund.”
The campaign is structured not only to value major gifts from its wealthiest donors — of course it does that — but also to widen its scope to include people who have less to give but the same desire to give what they can. “One of the really important pieces of the campaign for us was to be as broad-based as possible,” Ms. Hirsh said. “We want to build a big tent.
“That’s because the community is about all of us. So we created the New Century Fund, which enabled people to become centennial donors for legacy gifts under $100,000. We’d never done that before, although we’ve been doing big legacy programs, of $100,000 and up, since the 1990s. But there are people who give us $500 or $1,000 a year who care about federation.”
The campaign is looking both for legacy giving and for gifts that are available to the federation now. Endowments from legacy giving are crucial to the federation’s long-term success, and people often are more comfortable with them. And, of course, gifts that can be used right away are immensely valuable.
“We know that to give cash today is much more difficult, but it is very impactful,” Ms. Hirsh said.
The campaign welcomes both kinds of gifts, she added.
“We also focus on young people,” Ms. Hirsh continued. “When you think about endowments, you think about 80-year-olds, but we want young people in their 30s and 40s, who move here from New York or Hoboken. We want that generation to step up and join the people who came before them and built the community that now they enjoy.
“So we created 100 for 100, to get 100 donors under 50 to make centennial gifts at some level. We’ve gotten 98 donors; we’re closing in on the goal.
“Some of those younger donors grew up here, and some are new to the area. They understand now, more than ever, in this post-October 7 world, that the people who came before them built this community, and they want to be part of it. And it’s been inspiring and uplifting for the older generation to see the younger ones stepping up.”
Targeted endowments are a good way to ensure that donors’ money goes to the causes about which they care the most, while still keeping it in the federation system. “For example, one of the major gifts we got was $10 million to secure the future of the security initiative.” PJ Library, the initiative that sends Jewish books to new readers and their even younger siblings, “is another way to secure the future of the Jewish community,” and it attracts much targeted giving too, Ms. Hirsh added, as do Jewish camps and the federation’s extraordinarily generous day school initiative. “And we offer donors the opportunity to name parts of federation departments and programs,” she said.
Why should people support their local Jewish federation, instead of donating to whichever causes that move them most deeply? “Because your one gift covers the whole community,” Ms. Hirsh said. “We can respond to everything in the Jewish world, at home, in Israel, and anywhere else. People who are building endowments know that in 50 or 60 years from now, there will be a huge crisis — we don’t know what — and that the federation will be there to respond to it.
“People understand that they are supporting the Jewish future.”
Michael Goldberg of Livingston is the president of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest.
The federation “is important because I am a generation-to-generation type of person,” Mr. Goldberg said. “I always look forward to the next couple of generations, to my kids and my grandkids. Moving forward, I want them to live in a community that not only empowers them but is safe.
“I have been a very lucky person. The Centennial campaign provides funding to ensure that they can have the same things that I have.”
He and his wife, Terri, have three children. Their son Brett, and their daughter-in-law, Allie, have a daughter, Leni, “and another one is on the way,” Mr. Goldberg said. “My daughter Lauren is getting married to Ilan in November, and her twin brother, Marc, is in a serious relationship.” So the family is growing.
“Terri is the chair of the women’s division at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and I am on the board at Birthright Israel, and also of CASA of Essex County.” CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates; it provides children caught in the justice system with advocates who care about them and stay with them throughout the process. “It’s not Jewish,” Mr. Goldberg said. “It’s important to remember that we live in a diverse community. My premise is that we must let people reach their full potential, no matter what their circumstances are.”
Mr. Goldberg’s spent his life in MetroWest. “My father, Robert, grew up in East Orange, and my mother, Diane, grew up in Maplewood. They’ve both passed away,” he added. “I grew up in Orange, and then my parents moved us to Livingston in 1966.
“But my grandparents came from Poland. They talked about how people there would throw rocks at Jewish kids. They just weren’t welcome there. That’s why it’s important to have a Jewish community that stands by each other, and also has to relate to all individuals in the community. We each have our own stories, and our own plights.”
The Goldbergs have been enormously generous to the federation. Their gifts, of well over $5 million, have created funds that provide huge support to the community.
Steve Levy of Mendham Township is the federation’s interim CEO — a job title whose full name is important to him. He wants the word “interim” given its full weight. He’s a former lay leader and longtime active federation member whose obligation to the organization impelled him to take on the challenge of becoming CEO as its leaders search for a permanent replacement for Dov Ben-Shimon, who left earlier this year, needing new challenges after covid, October 7, and the war in Gaza, and now is the CEO of the Community Security Service. “I’m tickled to do this job,” Mr. Levy said. “And every morning, my wife asks me how the search is going. The ‘interim’ in my title is very real.”
Mr. Levy’s many roles in the federation have given him a full understanding of its complexity, and of its centrality in the community. He can talk about it as a lay leader, a communal professional, and, with his wife, Beena, as a donor recognized for giving at least $1 million. (There have been 32 such gifts made to the Centennial Fund so far.)
“To me the importance of the centennial campaign is that we were able — we’re wrapping it up now — to secure the financial future of our community in general, and of many of its institutions and programs,” Mr. Levy said.
“About half of the commitments were cash donations, and the other half were planned gifts. All of that helps us in the future.
“We are blessed with some amazing donors, who have vision and commitment.
“I’m really proud of how we set the campaign up to maximize the numbers of people who could participate in it. We set up a new fund, the New Century Fund, where you can participate by just giving us a commitment of a $10,000 gift when you die. That’s a legacy gift that allowed us to get many more young donors. Our hope is that once we get them as donors, they will be even more committed, and our goal also was to use the campaign to expand our donor base.
“As in any major campaign, about half the money came from a handful of big donors — we had several million-dollar gifts and up, but we also have a lot of smaller gifts, which is awesome.
“As a result, not only did we secure the future of the federation and the work that it can do, but we also helped endow several programs and organizations. We have a $2 million plus gift for scholarships to our JCCs. We raised tens of millions of dollars for our four Jewish day schools, and we got a beautiful gift of $4 million for PJ Library. We were the first community to have a PJ Library program involved, and there are 3,500 children who benefit from it.
Abbi Halpern and Jeff Feinstein are the cochairs of the 100 for 100 fund that targets what it calls the NextGen, defined here as people 50 or younger. Mr. Feinstein and his wife, Alexandra, both are NextGen leaders, Ms. Feinstein is particularly active in the federation in general, and they have contributed to the centennial.
Jeff and Alex Feinstein are driven by their concern about children, both theirs and the community’s. “The future of the Jewish community in greater MetroWest has never been more important than it is today, Mr. Feinstein said. “We think not only about our kids’ future but about our kids’ kids’ future.
Mr. Feinstein grew up in North Caldwell; now he, his wife, and their children, Gemma, 8, and Casey, 5, live in Short Hills. He’s second-generation MetroWest on his father’s side; his father grew up in Verona. He and Alex came by their commitment to the federation naturally. “My mother-in-law, Elaine Juster, and my parents, Marjory and Norman Feinstein, all still are involved.”
That commitment is something that he and Alex try to pass on to others, he said. “We have done our best to encourage other people to get involved, not only financially but volunteering or going to events.
“When Alex went on her first mission to Israel after October 7, we hosted an event at Livingston Bagel. People brought their kids, ranging from 4- to 9-year-olds, and we wrote cards to give to the IDF. There were about 40 or 50 kids there.
“It has been rewarding to see how many people have stepped up to give something. It is remarkable to see all these young families think about the future.
“Legacy giving is making a commitment to give in the future, but also to stay involved. It is to realize that you are part of a cohort of people who have given legacy gifts over the last 100 years.”
His friends are becoming the most recent link in that long chain.
James Shrager of Somerset “is a Union County boy,” he said; he traces his long connection to the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest back to the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey, which joined MetroWest in 2012. But even more than that, “We were a JCC family.
“I grew up in Plainfield,” Mr. Shrager said. “I spent an awful lot of time at the JCC; my father was president when I was in high school.” His father, David, was active on the JCC’s board for many years, he said, and his mother, Ruth, similarly was active in the JCC’s women’s division. “I was brought up at the JCC. I was a gym rat. When I was in high school, basketball was my life. I have always appreciated all that was provided for me, and I want to be part of making that available for others.”
The MetroWest federation now supports three JCCs — in West Orange and Scotch Plains, and the YM-YWHA of Union County in Union.
Mr. Shrager and his wife, Bonnie, have supported the federation, as well as many other local Jewish institutions, for more than 40 years, and he’s been president of many of them. “I inherited from my father, who was president of everything, the view that as past president I get to hang around for one more year, and then get out of the way and let someone else do it,” he said.
But that doesn’t apply to philanthropy.
He now works with his own cohort — older people — and encourages them to make legacy gifts, he said.
“We are responsible for the continued success of the Jewish community, and to support Israel and local institutions,” he said. “One way of expressing that support is to make a legacy gift. That way, you’re supporting not just one Jewish agency, but all of them.
Michelle Landau and her husband, Jeff, live in Livingston. They moved there from Manhattan so that their children, Rebecca, Ally, and Ethan, could go to day school. “Even though we hadn’t gone to day school ourselves, we wanted to start by trying one,” she said.
She felt secure in the knowledge that if it didn’t work, she could pull her kids out and send them to public school in town, and they’d do fine there. “It was a true leap of faith for us,” she said.
But there was no need. Her kids flourished at the Golda Och Academy. “They’re all in their 20s now, and my twins, Ally and Ethan, both were on campus last year. It gave them the confidence to speak out in support of Israel.
Ms. Landau was very active at GOA, and soon she became active in the federation as well. “I’m a former president of women’s philanthropy,” she said. “When you give to the federation, you are giving to those in need — but you’re also a recipient. My kids went to the JCC, and they went to day school.” Those are agencies supported by the federation. “When my father was diagnosed with Alzheimers, I called Jewish Family Service” — another recipient agency — “to get advice. And the federation has amazing programming for teens — the Diller Teen Fellows program to teach leadership, and Linda Scherzer’s Write On for Israel program. There are a lot of tangible things that kids can do, and they find out about them through federation.
“You don’t know when you’re going to need it,” she concluded; when you do need it, it’s there. And that’s why she and Jeff have donated to the Centennial Fund, along with many other federation-sponsored organizations.
Melissa Feldman and Ariel Nelson of Livingston have been involved with the federations since they were children. “I have been on the board and the executive committee of the Jewish Community Foundation for a long time,” Mr. Nelson said. He was a leader in the development of its strategic fund, which helped develop the Centennial Fund. “I was involved since the beginning, so it was natural to me.”
“I have a different perspective,” Ms. Feldman said. “The federation has been such an important part of our lives, for so many years, from the early days, when we made calls on Super Sunday, until now.
She’s from Pittsburgh, and he’s from Passaic. “I remember my parents going to Super Sunday, and us going with them,” Mr. Nelson said “I remember my dad being involved in Jewish Family Service. So it seemed natural, when we moved to Livingston more than 20 years ago, to keep up our involvement.
“I have a similar story,” Ms. Feldman said. “My mother was the vice principal of the Hillel Academy, the day school in Pittsburgh. It was a recipient agency of the federation there. Volunteering was a key part of my parents’ lives, and I would go to Super Sunday with them.”
The couple has three adult children — Jacob is 26, Mollie is 23, and Gabe is 20. “We would bring them along with us, and now they are involved in different ways in their own communities.”
Mr. Nelson is a leader in the federation’s New Century Fund. “It is a way for me to leave a legacy,” he said.
The family belongs to the Synagogue of the Suburban Torah Center in Livingston. It’s an Orthodox shul. “For me, one of the key parts of the federation is that it recognizes that we’re all in this together,” Mr. Nelson said. “We’re one Jewish community — Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, unaffiliated — it’s a place for all Jews”
That feeling, and its intensity, have changed since October 7, he said. “The sense of unity is even stronger. We went to B’nai Jeshurun” — the Reform synagogue in Short Hills — “on October 8 last year, and then again on October 7 this year for the anniversary. There were thousands of people there, all together, from all those communities.
“That’s where federation can play a unique role,” he said.
Learn more about the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest at www.jfedgmw.org; read about the Centennial Fund, or contribute to it, at www.jfedgmw.org/centennial-campaign.
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