5777 / FALL 2016
Legacy NEWS Your Year-End Giving Guide
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JEWISH COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF LOS ANGELES
Janet and Jake Farber: Seven Decades of Devotion to Jewish LA & Israel Even before they got married, Janet and Jake Farber joined forces to help the Jewish community. The year was 1948. Swept up in the excitement of Israel’s new statehood, the pair volunteered to help the fledgling country by walking Highland Avenue to knock on doors and raise funds. “If we spotted a mezuzah on the door, we knocked,” Jake recalls. “We’d collect three or five dollars—ten was a lot back then.” Nearly seven decades later, the Farbers are still knocking on doors—and opening them—for the Jewish community, supporting a wide range of causes through their leadership, engagement, FROM THE and philanthropy. DESK OF MARVIN I. SCHOTLAND Longtime community leaders and Foundation donors, Janet & Jake Farber. “From their early years as young grassroots fundraisers to PRESIDENT & CEO, JEWISH COMMUNITY FOUNDATION the current day as pillars of our community, the humble dedication that Janet and Jake have to ensuring the Jewish future locally, nationally, and in Israel is both remarkable Among the questions I am asked most frequently and inspiring,” says Marvin Schotland, the Jewish Community Foundation’s is a fundamental one: how community foundations president and CEO. “They set the gold standard for Jewish philanthropy.” work and the myriad of ways they facilitate—and enhance—our donors’ philanthropic goals. Invariably, my replies include that one of the great benefits afforded by the Jewish Community Foundation is flexibility. We offer what I call “a big tent” under which our donors can fulfill nearly all of their philanthropic ambitions and passions. Each year, our 1,200 donor families support thousands of Jewish and general community nonprofit causes locally, nationally, and in Israel. If The Foundation provides the big tent, then donors themselves are the steadfast tent poles. Two of these families—the Farbers and the Katzes— are featured in this issue, and you will find their selfless commitment to the precepts of tzedakah and chesed inspirational.
The Early Days The couple both learned the importance of tzedakah from a young age, though in different ways. Jake Farber grew up poor, in an orthodox family in Boyle Heights. After his father died tragically when Jake was just eight years old, his mother—then pregnant with Jake’s sister—found work as a seamstress to support Jake, his brother, and the new baby. Despite those hardships though, she never failed to put change in the pushke (donation container).
The humble dedication that Janet and Jake have to ensuring the Jewish future locally, nationally, and in Israel is both remarkable and inspiring. They set the gold standard for Jewish philanthropy.”
— Marvin Schotland, President & CEO, The Foundation
What is particularly interesting is that these families display both contrasts and profound similarities to each other. Consider several distinctions: Janet and Jake Farber have been pillars of LA Jewish life since the late 1940s, whereas Rachel and Alex Katz, along with their five young children, left Los Angeles last year to make aliyah to Israel.
“Even when we had no money, she always wanted to make sure that if somebody had less, we could help him or her out,” says Jake.
Through their Donor Advised Fund at The Foundation, the Katz family ardently supports multiple programs benefitting Colel Chabad, the oldest continually operating charity in Israel. For decades, Janet and Jake Farber have been mainstays of our local institutions: the Jewish Federation,
After serving in the US Army Air Corps, Jake returned to study accounting at USC. He married Janet soon after graduation, landing a job in her father’s recycling business, Alpert & Alpert Iron & Metal, Inc. Janet’s father encouraged Jake to play an active role in the community and took him to a Jewish Federation Metals & Machinery Division dinner at which Mr. Alpert made a pledge so large that it exceeded Jake’s annual salary. “Her family did whatever possible to help Jewish causes,” says Jake.
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Janet’s parents were ardent Zionists who routinely hosted gatherings to raise money for the emerging Jewish state. “Our living room was always filled with chairs for family and relatives—their landsmen (fellow Jews)—who would get together to discuss how to support the Jews in Palestine,” says Janet. “And I picked it all up by osmosis.”
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