The Jewish Community Foundation

In 1954, in the wave of prosperity following World War II, a small group of visionary Jewish leaders joined forces to lay the framework for the future needs of the Jewish community in Los Angeles. The result was the creation the Jewish Community Foundation (JCF).

In the previous two decades Los Angeles' Jewish population had tripled in size. Anticipating further growth and a greater need to establish a permanent pool of community resources, 14 people met one summer afternoon in 1954 in the Los Angeles home of the organization’s founding chairman judge Isaac Pacht.

The Foundation's mission, by-laws, and articles of incorporation were all focused toward the goal of building a substantial reserve of capital other resources for any special needs that might arise within the community.

Overt the years, the Foundation has grown with the times, but still remains true to its original goal of supporting the larger Jewish community of Los Angeles. The Jewish Community Foundation of today is a multi-faceted institution that assists individual donors in all aspects of charitable giving, both within the Jewish community and beyond.

Pioneer Donors

One of the early pioneers in supporting the efforts of the Jewish Community Foundation was Anaheim native Sarah Federman Hersh Kuttnauer, whose 1962 gift of 1.1 million dollars was the largest individual gift to the Foundation to that time.

The Foundation's Capital Grants Committee has honored Mrs. Kuttnauer’s wishes by directing the income generated by her gift for the construction and improvement of Jewish community buildings.

Mrs. Kuttnauer was a member of two respected California Jewish families. Her father, Samuel Federman, was among the founders of Cedars of Lebanon Hospital and the Jewish Free Loan Association. Her husband, Sam Hersh, was one of the original founders of Temple Emanuel, the oldest Reform synagogue in Los Angeles.

Because of the generous gifts of Mrs. Kuttnauer and others, along with the support of so many kind and giving people, the Foundation has made a lasting and substantial impact upon the infrastructure of the Jewish community of greater Los Angeles.

In the last 10 years alone, they facilitated the acquisition, construction, renovation or expansion of more than 25 schools including Emek Hebrew Academy, Heschel Day School, Valley Beth Shalom Day School and Yavneh Hebrew Academy; and high schools including Shalhevet, Milken Community, Valley Torah, and Yeshivah University.

The Foundation

The capital projects underwritten by the Foundation have touched nearly every corner of Jewish life and culture within the greater Los Angeles area. Projects include the Federation Building at 6505 Wilshire Boulevard, the Bernard Milken Jewish Community Campus in the West San Fernando Valley, the Valley Cities and North Valley Jewish Community Centers, the University of Southern California and Los Angeles City College Hillel Centers; Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles' Valley Storefront, the Freda Mohr Center in Beverly-Fairfax, the Jewish Home for the Aging's Menorah Village, the youth facilities at Camp JCA Malibu, Camp Ramah, Camp Max Straus and the Wilshire Boulevard Temple Camp Hess Kramer.

Promoting Justice

In the late 1960s, when there was almost no low-cost legal assistance available in Los Angeles, a small clutch of lawyers, rabbis and community activists crafted a plan to bring free legal services to poor citizens.

The Jewish Community Foundation raised the funds to help these activists to lay the framework for what evolved into Bet Tzedek Legal Services, and became known as the "House of Justice."

JCF continued to nurture the service, and what began in 1974 as a once a week operation working from a storefront grew into a successful community legal service with more than 50 staff members and over 400 volunteers.

Bet Tzedek serves the legal needs of low-income workers and tenants, advocates for rights for consumers, the elderly, and the disabled, and works to attain justice for Holocaust survivors.

In 2002, the JCF provided initial start-up funds for the Jewish Community Justice Project (JCJP). The project is a facet of the JCF’s commitment to ‘restorative justice,’ and works to promote t'shuvah, a practice of contrition and reconciliation, by arranging face-to-face meetings between non-violent juvenile offenders and their victims.

JCJP is part of a cooperative effort between the Progressive Jewish Alliance, Centinela Valley Juvenille Diversion Project and Beit T'Shuvah.

Compassionate Action

The Jewish community is prone to the same problems that face individuals, couples and families within the larger community.

For many years, the Jewish Community Foundation has acted as a leader in the in shaping an effective community response to pressing problems like AIDS, divorce, drug abuse, domestic violence, and end-of-life spiritual needs.

In 1986, the JCF provided seed funds to the congregation Beth Chayim Chadashim to begin Nechama, the first Jewish AIDS program in America, with the mission of educating the Jewish community about AIDS. ‘Nechama’ is a Hebrew term meaning ‘comfort’ or ‘compassion.’ With funds provided by the JCF, Nechama was able to expand their initial educational mission to include offering support services to people suffering from AIDS, their families and their caregivers. The program was so successful that in the 1990s, it became a part of the Jewish Family Service.

In 2002, the JCF provided initial funding to the Jewish Hospice Project Los Angeles, which provides spiritual care and guidance to dying individuals and their families.

In 1975, the Temple Adat Ari El created the program called ‘Making Marriage Work,’ which offers premarital and newlywed counseling services to the synagogue’s congregation. The Foundation’s grant to the program made it possible for the program to expand.

With seed funds from the JCF, the program was able to expand and, in 1980, to move to the University of Judaism, where it has since served thousands of couples in learning the skills that will help strengthen their marriages and to help contribute toward the development of robust family life.

One interesting statistic is that 9 out of 10 couples that utilized the program are still married. Also, the program has spawned many similar programs across the country.

Another program worth mentioning is the Jewish Family Service Orthodox Counseling Program. The program provides licensed Orthodox counselors and interns for people facing domestic violence and related issues.

The JCF also provided funds that helped the Gindi Family to develop and fund an after-school pilot project delivered through the Orthodox Counseling Program, called the At-Risk Youth Prevention and Intervention Program.

The program has proven so effective in curtailing high-risk behaviors among students at several Orthodox high schools that the schools have begun to offer financial support. The program has also been mimicked across the country.

Emergency Relief

In times of natural disaster, political upheaval and to offset the impact of war, the Foundation is often tapped to offer resources to meet urgent needs, both locally, in Israel and worldwide.

Thankfully, the Foundation and its supporters are ready, eager and prepared to meet the call for such generosity with much needed resources.

One such emergency arose in the 1980’s, when the Jewish community worldwide was called upon to help with the large-scale resettlement of Jews from other countries, especially, but not limited to, Ethiopian Jews, who had endured persecution and violence in the wake of the death of Haile Salassie. In the end, 2,500 Ethiopian Jews lost their lives, and many thousands were left without homes.

The Foundation

In 1985, with the support of a $500,000 dollar grant from the Jewish Community Foundation, a clandestine operation with the code name Operation Moses was mounted in an effort to alleviate the suffering of the Ethiopian Jews. Operation Moses resulted in the airlifting of 8,000 Ethiopian Jewish refugees to safety and resettlement in Israel. In the years that followed, thousands more were similarly helped to escape persecution in Ethiopia.

In 1989, with the U.S.S.R going through glasnost and perestroika, U.S. President Ronald Reagan commenced a new era of Soviet emigration to the U.S. By the end of 1989, over 60,000 Jews had emigrated from the Soviet Union, many of whom found their way to Los Angeles, which took in more Jewish emigrants that it had in the previous 10 years. This influx carried with it serious demands for social and medical services, along with other community support systems to meet the pressing needs of these immigrants.

The Foundation was the first organization to meet the request from the Los Angeles Jewish Federation to offer financial and other assistance to these new immigrants. Ultimately, the Foundation provided a $1.5 million grant that made possible the assimilation of thousands.

Visionary Leadership

In 1989 Marvin I. Schotland was appointed as the Foundation’s President and CEO, followed by Simone Savlov as Chief Operating Officer. These appointments ushered in a dynamic age of previously unknown expansion for The Foundation.

The seeds planted by the organization's founders and their successors yielded a bounty of energetic new professional and lay leaders, who gave rise to a n expansive new vision for the 21st century.

Despite the fickle economy over the last 15 years, The Foundation has managed to cultivate substantial growth. It has enjoyed a substantial increase in the value of its international holdings, in addition to expanding its impact within its target community

Much of this new success is the result of the tremendous efforts of an unusually productive harmony between volunteer staff and the professionals.

Chair Cathy Siegel Weiss has worked with Schotland and his staff to generate major new initiatives that include expanding Donor Services, creating the Family Foundation Center, creating multi-year strategic initiatives, and adopting a cautious, yet robust investment strategy.

The Foundation is the biggest manager of charitable funds and the largest provider of planned giving solutions for Southern California's Jewish philanthropists. The Foundation has long functioned as a safe repository for the community's charitable resources. But, today the Foundation has adopted a more hands-on role in community leadership, gathering donors and acting as a force for the launch of visionary projects.

By leveraging its grant-making, as well as its early funding for new projects, the Foundation has created a robust new matrix for creative problem solving and community outreach and support.

This era has also been blessed with unprecedented levels of commitment from supporters. For example, Werner and Ellen Lange and Harry and Belle Krupnick gifted the largest parts of their sizable estates so that the Foundation can create enduring legacies in their names. By supporting The Foundation's annual Legacy Grants program, their endowment funds will benefit the community for years to come.

About the President & CEO

The current president and chief executive officer of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Los Angeles is Marvin I. Schotland.

A native of Youngstown, Ohio, Mr. Schotland is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati, where he earned his B.A. and J.D. degrees. He has worked for the state of Ohio as an assistant attorney general, and also as a private attorney in Tucson, Arizona, where he focused on income and estate tax planning.

He also has been co-adjunct professor at the University of Arizona and at Rutgers State University.

Mr. Schotland served four years as the executive director of the Jewish Community Foundation of Metrowest, New Jersey.

He started his tenure at the Foundation in May 1989, when he assumed the position of executive vice president. Previously, he served for two years as executive director of the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona. Under his direction, the Foundation’s assets have increased from $90 million to nearly three-quarter billion dollars, a growth-rate of over 800%.

He is also a member of the Board of Advisors of the University of Southern California's Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy.

He also sat on the Board of Directors of the Jewish Funders Network and also sits on the Board of Directors of over two-dozen family foundations. Mr. Schotland also speaks often on matters of philanthropy and charitable gift strategies.