Embracing Jewish Education and Endowments to Ensure Jewish Continuity

The Jewish Federations of North America F a ll 2 0 1 0 / 5 7 7 1

Volume 7, Issue 1

the Star of David Society Mark Lainer: Embracing Jewish Education and Endowments to Ensure Jewish Continuity Starting a Jewish day school from scratch is no easy feat, but since l972, Mark Lainer has achieved the remarkable. He has helped launch not just one but three Jewish day schools. Together, these schools have made Jewish education more accessible to children across the religious spectrum in the greater Los Angeles area.

Currently, Mark serves on The Jewish Federations of North America’s Board of Trustees and chairs its Endowment Committee.

In 1972, Mark and his wife, Ellie, spearheaded the creation of the non-denominational Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School in Northridge, California, where Mark served as founding president. Their son, Jeff, now an officer of the school’s board, was a student in its first kindergarten class. Their other children, Lisa Lainer Fagan and Steven, also attended Abraham Joshua Heschel’s lower school. Today the school encompasses kindergarten through eighth grade, and Ellie and Mark’s five grandchildren are among its students.

“Jewish education is one of the most important ways we can ensure Jewish continuity.”

“Our efforts were designed to benefit the entire Jewish community, but our involvement has also benefited two generations of our own family—our children and grandchildren,” says Mark.

Several years after Heschel was established, another group of parents fulfilled their dream of starting Heschel West Day School in Southern California’s

Conejo Valley, thanks to Ellie and Mark’s involvement and generosity. Today, Heschel West serves 130 Jewish children from nursery school through fifth grade.

In addition, more than a decade ago, Ellie and Mark helped to marshal the efforts of community leaders to launch a Jewish high school. As a result, the New Community Jewish High School in West Hills, California, recently celebrated its 10th anniversary.

Mark and Ellie continue to serve as founding members of its board. Now educating more than 400 students in grades nine through 12, the school is currently seeking a permanent location that will best serve the needs of the students and the community.

Launching a school is difficult, but sustaining it is a long-term effort. To that end, Mark has made both education and endowments focal points of his communal involvement. “I like the concept of endowments, which enable organizations to plan ahead, providing funds that grow every year,” he says. “When invested for long-term growth, the endowment’s principal can increase each year, can support the annual budget and provide funds for new initiatives.”

Believing that “Jewish education is one of the most important ways we can ensure Jewish continuity,” Mark has held many other leadership positions in Jewish education throughout the years, including serving as chair of Los Angeles Bureau of Jewish (Continued on page 2)

endowments

Farewell to a Man of Lasting Vision

With their lasting, generous commitment, Star of David Society members play a pivotal role in sustaining vital institutions and programs—here, in Israel, and throughout the world. A leader among endowment donors, Lester Rosenberg profoundly inspired us and so many others.

Lester, who passed away in October, was a visionary philanthropist and activist.

He served the Jewish community in many leadership roles, including as longtime chair of the UJC Planning Giving and Endowments Committee. Lester educated, encouraged and moved so many of us to create an endowment, during our lifetime or as part of a bequest. He also raised awareness about the value of endowments, putting them on the Jewish radar screen so that they have become part of an integrated approach to supporting the agencies and services that embody our cherished values.

Lester was not only courageous and creative in his thinking, he was also a knowledgeable, compassionate, kind and gentle human being, and we will greatly miss him. Our thoughts are with his wife, Norma Rosenberg, sons Steven and Lee, and grandchildren.

Lester’s vision infuses many programs that The Jewish Federations of North America’s Planned Giving and Endowment Department has launched in recent years. He helped to inspire Create a Jewish Legacy, our five-year-old endowment initiative, which has raised more than $100 million in commitments and funds since its inception. Within these pages, you can read more about CJL—as well as about Star of David members who, like Lester, have taken steps to help ensure that their children and grandchildren build on their legacy of communal involvement and support.

We look forward to sharing more news and insights with you at the General Assembly in New Orleans. Please join us at the Prime Minister’s Council/Star of David Society dinner reception on Sunday evening, November 7th at The National World War II Museum. The event will feature a noted guest speaker, as well as provide you with an update on current events in Israel and how your enduring commitment continues to make a difference.

Lori Fritz and Chuck Cohen Chairs, JFNA Planned Giving & Endowments Committee

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Mark Lainer: Embracing Jewish Education and Endowments to Ensure Jewish Continuity (Continued from front page)

Education (BJE), now known as Builders of Jewish Education; the first chair of the board of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University; and chair of the Jewish Education Service of North America (JESNA). Mark has also chaired the Los Angeles Jewish Community Foundation and has served in many capacities at the Los Angeles Jewish Federation.

At the start of his tenure as JESNA chair, Mark sought to strengthen the organization. He joined with his late parents, Sara and Simha Lainer, in adopting an existing program that recruits young people for careers in Jewish education. Renamed the Lainer Israel Interns for Jewish Education, the program includes workshops and mentoring, as well as a special course for college students spending their junior year studying in Israel. In order to accomplish the program’s goals, his parents established an endowment at the Los Angeles Jewish Community Foundation, and Mark and Ellie continue to support the program while its endowment grows.

As BJE chair, Mark encouraged his parents to create the Simha and Sara Lainer Fund for Jewish Education, which was also established at the Los Angeles Jewish Community Foundation and is administered by the BJE. Since its inception 21 years ago, the Lainer Fund has provided hundreds of scholarships to needy students. It also recognizes the efforts of teachers in Jewish religious schools and in early childhood programs with an annual program that includes monetary awards to teachers.

“Jewish educators are on the front lines of building Jewish identity, and deserve to be acknowledged and honored for their efforts,” says Mark.

Mark and his two brothers, Nahum and Luis, are contributors to the Simha and Sara Lainer Day School Endowment Fund, which is also supported by other donors. Based at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, the fund, with a large matching grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation, supports five local Jewish high schools, including the New Community Jewish High School.

Mark credits his own early education at a 2,000-student Yiddish day school in Mexico City with showing him what a community can achieve when it pulls together to educate its children. He applauds his parents for inspiring him and his siblings to make a difference in the Jewish community. Mark’s father, Simha, who hailed from the Ukraine, and his mother, Sara, born in Poland, met and married in Mexico City, but moved to Caracas, Venezuela, for Simha’s textile business.

In 1941, two years after Mark was born, the family returned to Mexico City, but his parents sought to resettle in the United States to maximize educational opportunities for their children, and in 1951, the Lainers

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moved to Los Angeles. They bought a home in Beverly Hills, where his father had already invested in real estate to help secure his family financially.

Mark attended Beverly Hills High School, pursuing his Jewish studies at Los Angeles Hebrew High School, and he was a counselor at Camp Ramah in California, where he was able to practice his Hebrew language skills.

“Our efforts were designed to benefit the entire Jewish community, but our involvement has also benefited two generations of our own family— our children and grandchildren.”

“I’m grateful that my parents sent me to Jewish institutions for my education, and I’m committed to following in their footsteps,” says Mark.

Mark received his undergraduate degree in accounting at UCLA, where he and Ellie met at the UCLA Hillel Foundation. They have been married since 1962. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Mark worked for an appellate judge and as a California deputy attorney general before joining his family’s industrial real estate business.

Ellie and Mark continue to support the BJE and Hillel, including establishing endowments to benefit the Los Angeles Hillel Council, Hillel at Pierce and Valley Colleges and the BJE. “We hope to create additional endowments in the future to ensure the longevity of our Jewish institutions,” says Mark.

Through his enduring, active leadership and generous support, Mark has enriched Jewish life in Southern California and beyond. Today, after nearly a half-century of involvement, Mark Lainer continues to play a vital role in the Jewish community, securing its future through his vision, passion and generosity.

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