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Author & poet Erica Jong inspires Jewish Women"s Foundation

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By FJN Staff

Trustees of the Jewish Women’s Foundation (JWF) of South Palm Beach County continued to prove they have no "fear of flying" as these cutting edge, hands-on local philanthropists announced their second successful cycle of grant awards to improve the opportunities, choices, and status of Jewish women and girls, both locally and world-wide.


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More than 100 women were the first to hear about the awards at the recent "Granting Wishes" program and cocktail reception at The Old Course at Broken Sound in Boca Raton. They also heard award-winning and best-selling novelist, essayist and poet Erica Jong place their work in the latest chapter of Jewish women’s social justice leadership, and issue them a further challenge.

"The turnout demonstrates how excited the Trustees are about their work with JWF, and that it continues to grow as more women learn about it," said Event Chair Carol Winig.

From a handful of pioneering women in 2003, the group has grown to a true foundation with 58 Trustees of diverse backgrounds, interests and age.

"JWF is clearly an idea whose time has come in South Palm Beach County," added Founding Chair Roxane Frechie Lipton. "We are witness to commitments of $580,000 and two years of sophisticated grant-making. Our goal was to add 10 Trustees this year, and we’re on track to surpass that."

Carol Winig described this year’s decision-making among twenty-three applications, "They were all important programs, and it is astounding to learn about all the unmet needs to be addressed. We are very different women, some with passionate preferences, but we worked together in sisterhood through an exciting and interactive process."

JWF Chair Francine Cole explained that While their pledges vary, from a minimum of $10,000 over five years, all Trustees have an equal vote in selecting the grantees.

Trustees Lori Berman and Barbara Feingold, along with Federation Associate Foundation Director Jill Hagler, announced awards of just over $21,000 to three projects, all directed toward teens and young women: a renewal grant for the community’s Jewish Education Commission’s J-GIFT – Jewish Girls Inspired for Tomorrow; and first-time funding to Hillel of Broward and Palm Beach for Hillel Haverot – Bringing Jewish Tradition to Today’s Young Women, and to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s Tel Aviv-based Girls-for-Girls Mentoring Training.



J-GIFT – Jewish Girls Inspired for Tomorrow, a Jewish Education Commission of South Palm Beach County program, will receive $8,275 to renew this already successful project and expand it to reach more girls. The program involves Jewish teens in monthly discussion/activity sessions that connect real life issues with Judaism within a female perspective, as well as mother/daughter programs and a "Tikkun Olam" volunteer project. The renewal funding will also enable development of a "How to Manual" and two "train the trainer" workshops for other organizations to initiate their own J-Gift programs. In addition, a "Girl Empowerment Community Wide Day" for all local Jewish teenage girls will take place this autumn.



Hillel Haverot – Bringing Jewish Tradition to Today’s Young Women, a project of Hillel of Broward and Palm Beach, will receive $2,800 for a series of six weekly programs for Jewish women ages 18-26 to find personal meaning in Shabbat and Havdalah, and develop leadership. These student-led sessions will focus on both traditional and contemporary interpretations and observances, leading to a special Shabbat experience. Participants will make ritual objects, experiment with Shabbat recipes, and create personalized siddurim.



Girls-for-Girls–Mentoring Training , a new component of American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s Girls on the Map, will receive $10,000 for participant stipends. This grant will enable young women ages 16 ½ to 20, who have overcome their difficulties through Girls on the Map, to learn to use their past experiences by becoming mentors and intermediaries to at-risk girls ages 12-17 who have not been successfully helped by traditional health and social services. The young women will receive training over nine months at Tel Aviv University School of Social Work, learning to help younger girls in distress to confront and resolve their problems. Through this process, the older youth will transition from program participants to staff members.



Jong began her keynote speech by lauding JWF for its philanthropic goals as well as its diverse membership and groundbreaking decision-making structure, "One of the mistakes of the 70s’ Second Wave of feminism is that we didn’t teach women the importance of helping each other. The next wave will have women helping each other, older helping younger and vice versa, not unnecessarily divided by politics, background, or socioeconomic status. The next stage of feminism will have women helping women; women healing women, women supporting women, and women learning to be happy coexisting and collaborating in groups."

Jong also commented on the important roles of Jewish women in social change: "In the big immigration of Eastern European Jews to America, at the foundation of all the philanthropic and service organizations were Jewish women. Since then, Jewish women have been there behind all the great struggles improve lives and help the underdog, fighting for reasonable work weeks, civil rights, and early childhood education, and feeding the poor of all religions."


The Jewish Women’s Foundation is an initiative of The Jewish Community Foundation, the planned giving and endowment arm of the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County, which serves the Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Highland Beach area, raising funds to help Jews locally, in Israel and more than 60 countries. For information, visit: jewishboca.org or contact Jill Hagler, Associate Foundation Director, at 561 852-5015 or email: jillh@bocafed.org.


Posted by FJN Staff on 04/27 at 02:00 AM • Hits: 165



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