Ellen, a commercial real estate attorney at Shatz, Schwartz & Fentin PC since 1988, has found time to serve on many boards– Jewish Federation, Jewish Family Service, Hillel at UMass Amherst — and was also president of Heritage Academy, attended by both sons. Recently she joined the board of LYA. As a leading woman professional and volunteer, Ellen has received numerous awards as one of our region’s Difference Makers, a Top Woman Lawyer, and, just announced, the 2012 Professional Women’s Chamber of Commerce Woman of the Year. Richard, a University of Massachusetts professor of audiology for the past 29 years, has served on the boards of Jewish Geriatric Services, the Jewish Community Center, the Willie Ross School, and Congregation Sons of Zion, where he chairs the Religious Committee.

Now a junior at the University of Maryland and musically talented, Neal is a member of Rak Shalom, an a capella group that recently completed a successful entertainment tour in Western Massachusetts. Stephen, a junior at Longmeadow High School, is active in B’nai Brith Youth and enjoys attending LYA’s high school program. Both have attended Camp Yavneh in New Hampshire since the age of ten. Neal will be returning again this summer as a 4th year counselor. Stephen will be spending the summer in Israel as a participant of Camp Yavneh’s Na’alah Program.

The Freymans’ Create a Jewish Legacy commitments to Congregation Sons of Zion, Heritage Academy and Jewish Family Services reflect a deep desire to pass along traditions and help maintain a vibrant community for their children if they decide to settle in the Valley – as well as for the children of others. Richard and Ellen appreciate the fact that when they arrived in 1983 and settled first in South Hadley before moving to Longmeadow in 1995, Congregation Sons of Zion welcomed them with open arms and became their “chosen family.” The Freymans continue to be active members.

“The richness of the Valley is the product of all the groups that are here,” said Ellen. “I tell our Somali family, ‘Don’t forget your heritage.’ We all have to be cognizant of the culture we come from and actively strive to sustain it.”

You can read more about Create a Jewish Legacy families on the Jewish Endowment Foundation’s Book of Life page.

Photo 1: Conference organizers overlooking Kansas City from the patio of the Boulevard Brewery, site of a gala dinner celebrating Create a Jewish Legacy as well as the legacy donors of Kansas City.

From left to right: Joslin Lebauer, JFNA; Sue Kline, Western Mass; Diane Azorsky, Kansas City; Deborah Rothstein, Hartford Jewish Community Foundation; Lauren Hoopes, Kansas City; Linda Sander, Kansas City; Scott Kaplan, Western Mass.

Photo 2: Harold Grinspoon, Mark Gold, and Jerry Silverman confer at the Kansas City Forum.

Photo 1, click to expand.

Photo 2, click to expand.

You will see that, while we didn’t always achieve consensus, there was a strong feeling that the way an organization thanks and recognizes donors has to be an appropriate fit with its culture and style.

Front row (l to r): Debbie Rubenstein, Sue Polansky, Susan Goldman, Evie Glickman, Sue Donnelly, Joan Rosner

Back row (l to r): Melissa Dane, Amy Nee, David Steinberg, Rabbi Max Davis, Klara Grape, Michael Rosner

At a recent  gathering at the Springfield Jewish Community Center, Create a Jewish Legacy of Western Massachusetts presented incentive award checks to six local organizations for outstanding efforts to ensure a healthy future by securing  planned gifts from their  loyal donors: Beit Ahavah (the Reform Synagogue of Greater Northampton), Congregation Sons of Zion (Holyoke), Congregation B’nai Torah (Longmeadow), the Greater Springfield Chapter of Hadassah, the Lander~Grinspoon Academy (Northampton), and Rachel’s Table (a program of the Jewish Federation of Western Massachusetts).

The Legacy program is funded by the Jewish Endowment Foundation and the Harold Grinspoon Foundation. It is linked to a broad national initiative to encourage people, regardless of age or income, to make after-their-lifetime gifts to a Jewish organization or several organizations they feel passionate about. Since the launch of Create a Jewish Legacy locally in June 2008, a total of 19 Jewish organizations have secured 522 legacy pledges with an estimated future value of $13 million. The 3-year program provides incentives each year to organizations actively seeking bequests and other after-lifetime gifts from their constituents.

“We anticipate that the tremendous energy being invested to secure bequests from loyal donors will help all our organizations be sustainable and thrive long into the future,” said Sue Kline, who manages Create a Jewish Legacy at the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.

(l to r): Gail Littman, Carol Katz, Susan Goldman, Seymour Frankel, Joe Dorison, Peg Epstein

At the Create a Jewish Legacy training session on February 14, five panelists, all Legacy donors, discussed “How Donors Like (And Don’t Like) To Be Thanked”: Joseph Dorison, Peg Epstein, Seymour  Frankel,  Susan Goldman and Carol Katz. The discussion was facilitated by Gail Littman, the program’s adviser and consultant from the San Diego Jewish Community Foundation.  A lively, insightful and often surprising exchange provoked many questions and comments from the audience. A summary of the discussion will be posted on the Create a Jewish Legacy website: www.jewishlegacywesternmass.org.

Anyone interested in making a bequest or other type of legacy commitment should contact Scott Kaplan at the Jewish Endowment Foundation: skaplan@jewishwesternmass.org.

For all Create a Jewish Legacy team members who are or could be engaged in Legacy conversations with loyal constituents, please make it a priority to attend this enlightening and personally gratifying session at one of two convenient times: Sunday, February 13 at 4 p.m., or Monday, February 14 at 10:15 a.m.

The Art of the Legacy Convention

Please take advantage of this special opportunity to network, gain new ideas, and boost Legacy giving in Western Massachusetts.

Bagels and Legacy

The choice of Rabbi Katz is particularly apt since she served as associate Rabbi of Congregation Beth Shalom in Kansas City before coming to Springfield two years ago as Temple Beth El’s first female rabbi. Both communities have been actively involved in promoting bequest giving. In Western Massachusetts alone, 450 bequest commitments have been made to 19 organizations since June 2008 through Create a Jewish Legacy, funded by the Jewish Endowment Foundation and the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.

“The Jewish Legacy Forum will provide a terrific boost to every nonprofit seeking bequests from their donors – gifts that are critically important for sustainability long into the future. During the 3-day forum, attendees will become more knowledgeable, comfortable with the topic, and inspired to help their own organizations thrive,” said Sue Kline of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, who manages Create a Jewish Legacy of Western Massachusetts along with Scott Kaplan, Director of the Jewish Endowment Foundation.

The 2011 Jewish Legacy Forum comes 18 months after the first convocation in Tucson in December 2009. Three leading “Legacy” communities are collaborating with the Jewish Federations of North America to fund the 2011 event: Hartford Jewish Community Foundation; Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City; and the Harold Grinspoon Foundation and the Jewish Endowment Foundation of Western Massachusetts. The San Diego Jewish Community Foundation and the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona are also collaborating on the program.

Rabbi Katz received her ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary. She holds an undergraduate degree from Barnard, master’s degrees from Northwestern and the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, and a doctorate in education from Michigan State. As a Rabbi, she is keenly interested in adult Jewish learning and interfaith outreach.