Federation Impact Spring 2021

FEDERATION

IMPACT

You give our Jewish community a better future

SPRING 2021

jewishcincinnati.org

HOW YOU HELP:

Scholarships Allowed Gifted UC Student to Graduate Cont’d on page 2

“I really don’t know where my support system would have come from if JVS Career Services didn’t exist.”

—Eli, UC Student

YOU HELPED ELI SUCCEED DESPITE SEVERE FINANCIAL HARDSHIP

Eli graduated from the University of Cincinnati last spring. When he was in sixth grade, his father unexpectedly passed away. After that loss, financially, he was on his own. “Paying for school, paying for housing. It’s all very difficult,” he said. But the scholarships, administered by JVS Career Services, helped him succeed. JVS Career Services is funded in part by your gift to the Federation.

Thanks to the Hilb Scholarship, and other resources from JVS Career Services, he was able to focus on his classes instead of his next meal.

Eli studied neuroscience, “I love genetics and psychology,” he said. When asked what drove him to this difficult degree, he offered a shy smile. “I always knew I wanted to succeed.”

When he started at UC, he wasn’t sure how he was going to pay for it. Then his mother suggested he apply for the Hilb scholarship.

Mazel Tov to Eli for his success and graduating from UC with a degree in neuroscience.

“I really don’t know where my support system would have come from if JVS Career Services didn’t exist...”

Thanks to you, his future is incredibly bright.

You Helped Single Mom Through COVID Crisis Job Loss Stressed “Supermom” with Three Children

“As a single mom with a challenged child, we were already on the edge.

I cannot say enough about Erin’s help. It saved my mental health.”

—Ayalah

A single mother with three children, the eldest with anxiety disorder, can easily feel pushed to the wall. But Ayalah (identity changed for privacy) managed with “definitely full super-mom status,” said her care manager at Jewish Family Service (JFS), Erin McNew. But when, last April, she lost her administrative job due to COVID, she was scared. How was she going to provide for her children?

Thanks to the Federation’s safety net, you were there to help.

Ayalah’s ex-husband contributes almost nothing, and is only minimally involved in his children’s lives. By May 2020, the financial pressures had become overwhelming. Ayalah said, “Just from being Jewish in Cincinnati I knew about the food pantry. I never thought it would be me though.”

“You know the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child?”said Ayalah. “Right now, Jewish Family Service is our village.” JFS supported the family, which lives in Pleasant Ridge, through Jewish Family Service Heldman Family Food Pantry, three intermittent rent payments, and ongoing wrap-around support.

“I am so grateful,” Ayalah said.

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YOUR FEDERATION

Interest Free Loans Help Financial Stability During Cancer Care

Runs Program Offering Interest Free Loans

“It truly rescued me at a most difficult time” “After my wife’s cancer surgery, we had a sudden need for 24/7 in-home care,” said Cincinnatian Robert Bass. “It was going to be several months before our long-term-care insurance would begin reimbursing us, which left us in the red.”

Bass isn’t alone. For example, many in the Cincinnati Jewish community struggle with financial burdens from the current pandemic.

That’s why the Cincinnati Jewish Interest Free Loan (CJIFL) program provides interest-free loans to Jewish borrowers in the Cincinnati area.

“I applied for, and promptly received, a generous loan,” said Bass. “It truly rescued me at a most difficult time.”

Robert Bass and his late wife, Sophie.

CJIFL loans money, interest-free, and as the loans are repaid, those payments are recycled to provide more loans.

of Cincinnati offers the CJIFL program as my husband and I would not have been able to afford our IVF treatments without their help,” said the first recipient of a CJIFL loan for infertility.

Learn more at jewishcincinnati.org/CJIFL.

RISE UP DO GOOD

The pandemic provided a reason to extend the scope of the loans, including for adoption and infertility. “I am so grateful the Jewish Federation

Through Camp Szarvas, you help teens from all over Europe and the US learn more about Jewish life and be trained as Jewish leaders.

Strong Safety Net of Funding Helps Our Community Fight COVID. The COVID-19 Relief Fund, administered by the Jewish Federation, has raised over $1.7 Million, with $1,141,475 allocated.

The remaining will be allocated on a rolling basis until the fund is depleted.

You fight antisemitism in Cincinnati schools.

Along with the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust and Humanity Center, the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC)* is working to educate teachers and students after an antisemitic incident at a Mason City school this March, when a swastika was found on a playground.

“To me being Jewish means to stay loyal to what my fathers and mothers have been through.”

—Teen at Camp Szarvas, JDC’s international Jewish youth camp in Hungary *The JCRC is the Federation’s public affairs arm.

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jewishcincinnati.org/GIVE

“Cincinnati Is My Home” Dear friend, I want to share Idit Moss’s story with you. Her love for Cincinnati, and for volunteering, inspires me: Idit moved to Cincinnati for a one-year job as an au pair after she left the Israeli Defense Force. That was nearly thirty years ago. She’s been teaching at Rockwern Academy ever since. “I’m teaching the kids about our country. I’m showing them Israel is not just my country, but it’s theirs too,” says Idit.

In addition to her full-time job at Rockwern, Idit is the Director of Education at Northern Hills Synagogue.

She has also been involved with the Mayerson JCC, Camp Livingston, Adath Israel, Wise Temple, Cincinnati Hebrew Day School, and the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati. She says: “I like to find ways to grow programs or do something new. Whatever I take on, I give one hundred percent.”

“It is truly my honor to be part of this wonderful community and help others by volunteering,” she says.

Volunteering was never a conscious decision for Idit: “It just comes from my heart and from my love to help our Jewish community. When you volunteer, you’re part of the community.”

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Volunteering is a way of life for me.” —Idit Moss

Idit has lived in Cincinnati longer than she lived in Israel. “I will always see myself as an Israeli. But Cincinnati is my home,” she says.

Just having celebrated the Yoms, as well as Opening Day, I feel, along with Idit, so proud of the multiple traditions and diverse people that make this community who we are.

Hope you are enjoying this precious spring, as I am.

Warmly,

Danielle V. Minson President Jewish Federation of Cincinnati