
Annual Report 2020
A Message from the President and Executive Director of The Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati
Shalom! It is our privilege to be sending you this 2020 Annual Report from the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati.
We would cherish the opportunity to have a live annual meeting, as we recognize the importance of our community connecting in person with one another. Although it’s not possible this year due to the ongoing Coronavirus Pandemic, we are eager – when it is safe to do so – to return to hosting live events.

Bret Caller

Brian Jaffee
In this year of unprecedented public health, economic and social crises, our goal has been to serve as a trusted resource to support our community as we weather the storm. Through our connections with our closest institutional funding partner, the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, along with our community’s agencies and congregations, we have focused on keeping our finger on the pulse of local needs, and this report documents how we used our grant funding to buttress our community while continuing to advance the Foundation’s strategic initiatives.
Looking back more broadly over the past three years, it was a primary goal to build collaborative relationships with existing and new partners, and to foster a culture of openness to both small and large grant recipients in our growing network with an eye towards expanding the base of engaged Jewish community members.

Michael R. Oestreicher

J. David Rosenberg
In the service of that goal, we have worked with our friends at Rosov Consulting to develop a more strategic approach to these new ways of investing. With expert guidance from Wendy Rosov and her team, our Trustees and staff have refocused efforts on establishing clearly defined goals and outcomes so that we can then explore and employ evidence-based strategies to achieve those objectives. This will require grant funding, of course, but also the kind of technical assistance in the field of measurement and evaluation, as well as facilitation of communal learning that will keep us all moving forward together towards shared successes and even greater collective impact.
Until very recently, a huge missing piece of that puzzle was relevant data about our Jewish community. With that in mind, one of the most significant developments of the past year was the completion and rollout of the 2019 Cincinnati Jewish Community Study, which provides us with an exciting opportunity to learn more about the changing Jewish engagement and human services needs of the members of our shared community. While it will be an ongoing process to understand how different segments of our Jewish population seek to connect to our community, we are committed to a continuation of our support for the programs and initiatives that are already engaging so many people, even as we invest in new ideas and experiments intended to broaden and expand the base. We are confident that under John Stein’s astute leadership, our shared work with so many important partners will continue to thrive, and we will look forward to reporting on our progress in the term ahead.

Walter Solomon

Sandy P. Kaltman
As we conclude our work in 2020, and look ahead to 2021 and beyond, we acknowledge and pay tribute to two luminaries retiring this year from the Jewish Foundation Board. Mike Oestreicher and J. David Rosenberg came on the board during the final months before the sale of the Jewish Hospital, which means their two terms as Trustees span the entire new era of the Jewish Foundation. As President, Mike helped establish a new culture and new principles for how the Foundation could best serve as a trusted, high-impact investor in the Jewish community, and his leadership helped set the tone for an entire decade of dynamic activity and accomplishment. As Vice President of Investment and Finance, David skillfully stewarded our community’s most precious resource through volatile financial markets, and made a lasting contribution with his focus on excellence – within the Foundation, and throughout our grantee community. We are grateful for both of them, and we will sorely miss them around the Foundation table. In equal measure, we are excited to welcome Sandy Kaltman and Walter Solomon, two accomplished community leaders, onto the Foundation Board as our newest Trustees. We are confident that Sandy and Walter will honor the legacy that Mike, David and their predecessors leave behind, and that they will also inspire new thinking and fresh ideas around the Board table.
It has been an honor to work with our entire Board of Trustees and professional staff team. These individuals are not only bright and thoughtful, but they invest countless hours to understand and care for the needs of our community. A sincere thank you to each board member for their commitment of time and talent on behalf of the Jewish people. And, thank you to our partners for sharing our vision and values for the future Jewish community. It will continue because of all of you.
Inaugural Message – John Stein

I am honored to serve as the next President of the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati. It is a great privilege to work with the Foundation’s committed board, talented staff, and many excellent agency and congregational partners to sustain and build a vibrant Jewish Cincinnati. It is humbling to follow in the footsteps of Bret Caller, Beth Guttman, Mike Oestreicher, Gary Heiman, and all that they and the other trustees have accomplished to strengthen this community.
I want to particularly thank Bret Caller for all that he has accomplished over these past three years as the President of our foundation. He has been an inspirational leader whose love of Judaism, passion for philanthropy, and optimistic vision of the future has inspired both our board and the broader community. Under his leadership, we have made tremendous progress in better understanding who we serve in Cincinnati, and we have continued to expand our funding to benefit more of our community. He has been both a friend and a mentor for me, and I look forward to working with him as we go forward.
My family’s roots in Cincinnati go back over 150 years. My parents and grandparents were all deeply involved in our community organizations. I grew up in Amberley, attending JCC pre-school, Yavneh (Rockwern), Wise Temple, Camp Livingston, and NFTY teen programs. Through these experiences, I came to believe strongly that Judaism is a great operating system for modern life. Learning and engaging with Jewish tradition and history, while living in community and relationship with other Jews, and working with them to create a relevant and meaningful Jewish future improves all of our lives and the world at large.
When I moved back to Cincinnati some 25 years ago, the community was quite different than the one I left as a teenager. Most of the same institutions were here, but they had all evolved and changed to meet new challenges and needs. Broader geographic spread, wider diversity of religious practice, changing composition of families, and changing lifestyles all required continual changes in Jewish life and institutions. Fortunately, our leaders recognized this, and our institutions adapted. We built new schools, a new JCC, formed new congregations and social service programs, and left behind some good programs and institutions whose time had passed.


The result has been a community which continues to welcome and include new members and provide support for a wide range of needs, while honoring our traditions. My own family represents some of the changes; my wife Jen was raised Catholic in New Jersey, my niece was adopted from China, but both have felt welcomed and supported by the warmth and strength of this community. Diversity can be one of our great strengths, and I hope the Jewish Foundation can continue to support and welcome a wide range of Jews into the process of creating our community.
While we can all be proud of what has been accomplished so far, much work remains to be done. New challenges, like the COVID pandemic, have emerged; and old challenges, like virulent Antisemitism, have reemerged. Meanwhile, our community continues to change and evolve. Cincinnati has been welcoming new members and building on its strengths for nearly 200 years, while always addressing the challenges of the day. As we look to the future, we are fortunate to have a community blessed with talented professionals, committed and generous lay leaders, strong institutions, creative individuals, and substantial financial resources.
2019 Cincinnati Jewish Community Study Overview
We began this year of so much change with an important project: the 2019 Cincinnati Jewish Community Study. This study was commissioned by The Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati and the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati to provide a fresh portrait of our local Jewish community.
A diverse group of volunteer and professional leaders who served on the Community Study Advisory Committee helped select the Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies (CMJS) and the Steinhardt Social Research Institute (SSRI) at Brandeis University to conduct the 2019 Cincinnati Jewish Community Study. The Cohen Center is a renowned research institute that has worked with more than a dozen Jewish communities to develop studies like ours, using its cutting-edge methodology illustrate the characteristics, attitudes, and behaviors unique to Jewish Cincinnati.
Since the rollout of the study earlier this year, the Foundation, in coordination with Federation, has engaged in further analysis of and reflection about the results. The data indicate that many people in our community seek greater connection to Jewish life and practice. We also know that people experience different barriers to connection. While these trends are relevant to the entire community, they play out in meaningful ways with particular populations, including interfaith families with children, families with young children ages 0-5 and young adults without children.

Our work is now focused on gathering more information through qualitative research. The goal is to develop an unvarnished diagnostic of what these population segments are experiencing in their lives holistically—where they find meaning and challenge—and overlay this with how they view the Jewish community and opportunities and barriers to connection. This research is part of a broader learning agenda that over time, will include more diversity in age and life stage. Our learning will build on the work of the Federation’s Beyond 2020 focus groups which previously engaged many of these segments.
The Foundation seeks to leverage this information and use it to inform its development as a strategic funder. This includes defining its goals and outcomes and pursuing new funding opportunities inspired by the learnings from this fresh research. At the same time, the Foundation remains committed to core communal institutions and the individuals who frequent them, and will apply a strategic lens to this work, as well. Taken together, with the new initiatives in tandem with the current grant portfolio, the Foundation intends with respect to these new areas of learning and investment, the Foundation will be guided by the following focus areas:
- Create a broader connection to the Jewish Community for individuals with diverse expressions of Jewish life and practice.
- Create an expanded delivery system of services that is relevant to the plurality of the Cincinnati Jewish community; this will involve thinking creatively about the delivery mechanisms that currently exist along with those that can be newly designed or reimagined.
- Act where significant investment of capital makes a difference. The Foundation is in a unique position to allocate time and distance to think strategically, long term and holistically and commit financial resources to make scale-level investments intended to bring about extraordinary impact – and evolution when needed.
We look forward to continuing to discuss the Community Study with you. A high-level overview of the basic findings in the study can be found on the next page.


The Jewish Foundation’s Grantmaking in 2020
As the extraordinary year of 2020 began, prior to any indication of how much the world would change, the Foundation made or renewed several grants intended to explore new areas of community support and engagement. These included grants funding second Cincinnati cohorts of the acclaimed Wexner Heritage Program and Honeymoon Israel experience, as well as a second round of funding for the groundbreaking ish Jewish & Israeli Arts and Cultural Festival. The Foundation also awarded first-time or pilot grant funding to the JCRC’s Leaders in Light fellowship, Chabad of Blue Ash’s Friendship Circle program and the Jewish Fertility Foundation’s expansion to Cincinnati.
In addition, the Foundation continued to fund its signature operating grant initiatives, including the Annual Campaign Match and six community services programs run by its partners at the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, Programming & Engagement at the Mayerson JCC, Engagement and Education grants at 11 local Congregations, vital services and aging services initiatives at Jewish Family Service, capacity building grants at JVS Career Services, Cincinnati Hillel, Miami University Hillel and Chai Tots, as well as community engagement and service learning initiatives at HUC-JIR’s Cincinnati Campus.

2020 has also been a year in which the Foundation has challenged itself and its partners to consider new ideas and different modalities for broadening the impact of some of its grants. The congregation-based Supplementary Education programs, Jewish Teen Education & Engagement initiative and Rockwern Academy are all in the midst of efforts – with grant support from the Foundation – to build on innovation efforts to date and further “re-imagine” ways to meet their respective missions, and to possibly serve even more of the community.
The Civic & Cultural Fund received a number of exciting requests this year, and the Foundation was proud to fund arts and culture initiatives with Jewish themes at the Cincinnati Ballet, Cincinnati Museum Center, Playhouse in the Park, as well as the Cincinnati debut of the InHEIRitance Project’s “Exodus in America” production. Although several of the performances were put on hold due to the pandemic, we look forward to their presentation, hopefully sometime next year. The Foundation also made several COVID-related grants from its Civic & Cultural Fund, including participation in relief funds run by the United Way of Greater Cincinnati, Jewish Hospital of Cincinnati, Freestore Foodbank.
Finally, as the contours of this pandemic began to take shape this year, COVID Response comprised a significant amount of the Foundation’s time, support and funding in the Jewish community. Its first response, back in March, was to listen to what its partners were experiencing and to try to understand their needs as they navigated new imperatives for serving individuals and families in our community. The Foundation then offered tangible ways to extend that support, while keeping lines of communication open throughout the year. The Foundation joined the Jewish Federation and Jewish Home of Cincinnati, in partnership with generous individual donors contributing to the Federation’s COVID Relief Fund. The Foundation, Federation and the Mayerson JCC also partnered together to ensure safe operations with minimum disruption to the J’s programming this year. In partnership with Jewish Family Service and Havayah, the Foundation helped launch a new Mental Health First Aid Training initiative. And in a year in which so many overnight Jewish camps were forced to cancel their summer programs, the Foundation made an emergency grant to Camp Livingston to help weather the storm.
The full list of distributions can be found here.
Charitable Purpose Awards Made Against Spend 2019 and 2020
GRANTS | TOTAL | 17,319,915 | 17,090,869 |
---|---|---|---|
American Jewish Committee | Simon Lazarus Awards Program | 27,500 | 2,500 |
Camp Livingston | COVID Emergency Grant | – | 190,000 |
Camp Livingston | Scholarships, Operations and Capital Improvements | 90,000 | 40,000 |
Camp Livingston | Health Center/Infirmary | 33,750 | 101,250 |
Chabad Center of Blue Ash | Friendship Circle | – | 37,500 |
Chai Tots Early Childhood Center | Scholarships and Capital, Operating, and Marketing Support | 150,000 | 155,000 |
Cincinnati Ballet | Ohad Naharin’s Bold Moves Performance | – | 36,000 |
Cincinnati Children’s | Israel Fellows Community Engagement Program | 195,000 | 205,000 |
Cincinnati Community Kollel | Capacity Building | 100,000 | 50,000 |
Cincinnati Hebrew Day School | Operating Support for 2018/2019, 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 School Years | 1,604,992 | 1,519,842 |
Cincinnati Hillel | Campus Superstar 2019 | 25,000 | – |
Cincinnati Hillel | Engagement Initiatives | 50,000 | 100,000 |
Cincinnati Museum Center | You Are Here Permanent Exhibition | 36,000 | 36,000 |
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra | Artist in Residence | 25,000 | – |
Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber | REDI – Cincinnati/Israel Economic Development Partnership | 105,000 | 25,000 |
Congregations | Educational Programming | 310,000 | 313,600 |
Congregations | Congregational Excellence, Engagement and Sustainability | 875,650 | 1,205,159 |
Freestore Foodbank | COVID Response | – | 25,000 |
Havayah | Out of the Bayit Initiative | 25,000 | – |
Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion | Jewish Foundation Rabbinic Fellows Program and Office of Recruitment/Community Engagement | 808,975 | 742,825 |
Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion | Movement of the Klutznick Collection to the Skirball Museum | 50,000 | – |
Hillel at Miami University | Director of Student Life and Capacity Building | 47,500 | 27,500 |
In”HEIR”itance Project | Exodus in America: Cincinnati | – | 10,000 |
ish | 2019 festival and 2020 off-season programming | 18,000 | 25,000 |
Jewish Family Service | AgeWell Cincinnati | 400,150 | 452,529 |
Jewish Family Service | Barbash Family Vital Support Center Operating | 107,000 | 110,000 |
Jewish Family Service | Private Duty Home Care Business Division | 70,700 | 76,000 |
Jewish Family Service | Strategic Plan and Capacity Building | 146,620 | – |
Jewish Federation of Cincinnati | Annual Campaign Matching Contributions | 1,500,000 | 1,457,920 |
Jewish Federation of Cincinnati | Cincy Journeys – Israel Travel and Overnight Jewish Camping | 1,451,931 | 673,500 |
Jewish Federation of Cincinnati | Community Property and Maintenance | 802,000 | 810,490 |
Jewish Federation of Cincinnati | Emergency Relief Fund | – | 250,000 |
Jewish Federation of Cincinnati | Honeymoon Israel | 70,000 | – |
Jewish Federation of Cincinnati | JCRC, Leaders in Light Initiative | 12,500 | 95,000 |
Jewish Federation of Cincinnati | SAFE Cincinnati Community Security Initiative | 542,760 | 619,147 |
Jewish Federation of Cincinnati | “Strengthening Individual Giving” Fundraising Capacity Building Initiative | 1,294,837 | 1,194,717 |
Jewish Federation of Cincinnati | Shared Business Services | 1,036,000 | 961,000 |
Jewish Federation of Cincinnati | Talent Management Plan Development and Software System | 129,000 | 129,602 |
Jewish Fertility Foundation | Cincinnati Pilot Program | 25,000 | – |
Jewish Hospital | Cincinnati Regional COVID Relief Fund | – | 7,200 |
JVS Career Services | 2019 & 2020 Capacity Building | 573,676 | 629,628 |
Mayerson JCC | Operating Support | 1,176,190 | 1,106,000 |
Mayerson JCC | Cincinnati Jewish Teen Collective | 564,248 | 551,025 |
Mayerson JCC | COVID-19 Emergency Support | – | $250,000 |
Moishe House | Cincinnati House – Programming | 25,000 | 25,000 |
Music Hall Revitalization Company | Music Hall Revitalization | 20,000 | 20,000 |
Playhouse in the Park | Production of Becoming Dr. Ruth | – | 30,000 |
Rockwern Academy | Operating Support for 2018/2019, 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 School Years | 2,573,059 | 2,457,508 |
Shomrei Olam | Cut-a-ton Toolkit, Energy Saving Program | 1,500 | – |
Union of Reform Judaism | Regional Coordinator for NFTY | 36,877 | 41,427 |
United Way | 2019 and 2020 Annual Campaigns | 36,000 | 36,000 |
United Way/Greater Cincinnati Foundation | Emergency Response Fund | – | 25,000 |
Wexner Foundation | Wexner Heritage Leadership Development Program | 87,500 | 175,000 |
Xavier University | Public Policy Student Leadership Trip to Israel | 60,000 | 60,000 |
PROGRAMMING | TOTAL | 484,322 | 288,783 |
Community Study | 186,606 | 95,427 | |
Congregational Outreach | 61,034 | 41,598 | |
Adult, Day School and Supplemental Jewish Education Research and Facilitation | 8,000 | 52,500 | |
Jewish Community Building Assessment, Maintenance and Insurance | 220,790 | 99,258 | |
Senior Services/Aging 2.0 | 7,892 | – | |
GRAND TOTAL | TOTAL | 17,804,237 | 17,379,652 |
The Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati
Board of Trustees
John Stein
President
Edward Frankel
Vice President of Investment
Sandy P. Kaltman
Treasurer of Finance and Audit
Committee Chair
Guy Peri
Secretary
Bret Caller
Immediate Past President
Robert Brant
Trustee
Arna Poupko Fisher
Trustee
Beth Guttman
Trustee
Gloria Lipson
Trustee
Leslie Newman
Trustee
Walter Solomon
Trustee
Staff
Brian Jaffee
Executive Director
Mike Boberg
Director of Impact Assessment
Mike Boberg
Director of Impact Assessment
Eric Dauer
Director of Operations
Teri Haught
Director of Finance
Kim Newstadt
Director of Research & Learning
Lauren J. Seal
Executive Assistant
Honoring Pandemic Responders

Prayer for the Caregivers
May the One who blessed our ancestors
Bless all those who put themselves at risk
to care for the others during this pandemic
Physicians and nurses and orderlies
Technicians and home health aides
EMTs and pharmacists
Hospital social workers and
respiratory therapists
Meal-delivery volunteers and
those who prepare that food
Mental health counselors and case managers
Teachers and day care providers
Who navigate the unfolding dangers
of the world each day,
To tend to those they have sworn to help.
Bless them in their coming home and
bless them in their going out.
Ease their fear. Sustain them.
Source of all breath, healer of all beings,
Protect them and restore their hope.
Strengthen them, that they may bring strength;
Keep them in health, that they may bring healing.
Help them know again a time
when they can breathe without fear.
Bless the sacred work of their hands.
May this plague pass from among us,
speedily and in our days.
The Board of the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati would like to wish a resounding “Kol HaKavod!” to all those on-the-ground and the many who have gone above and beyond during the pandemic to ensure continuity of Jewish life and the safety and wellbeing of all Jewish Cincinnatians. We are forever in your debt.

Photo Captions:
1. The JCC offered a safe location for students to participate in their classes virtually when they were unable to attend school in-person.
2. Volunteers drop off donations at the Heldman Family Food Pantry during JFS’s Sukkot food drive.
3. Members of Temple Sholom’s Social Action Project team partnered with Avon-Miami Charities to prepare over 50 meal kit boxes, which totaled 1000 lunches, that were distributed to a number of community service agencies.
4. JFS has experienced a 25% increase in requests for food assistance through its food pantry since the pandemic began.
5. Rabbi Pirate David Burstein delivered a “treasure trove” of holiday education items to students in Beth Adam’s Our Village program.
6. Since March 13th, the J’s Meals on Wheels team has prepared, packed and delivered over 55,000 meals to 416 unique clients, which is twice as many as the same time period last year.
7. JFS received donations of fabric masks from a local business owner, who is the daughter of Holocaust survivors. JFS staff distributed them to local survivors and older adults to help keep them safe during COVID-19.
8. While they may not be able to gather in person, the students from Cincinnati Hillel continue to virtually connect with each other for both fun and support, including a Harry Potter-themed Shabbat event.
9. Wise Temple volunteers helped pack diapers to benefit the Sweet Cheeks Diaper Bank, one of many donation drives run by the temple throughout the spring and summer.
10. Camp Livingston staffers offered virtual programming, from crafts to sing-alongs to shabbat to their campers this summer.
11. Students attending programs at Rockwern, CHDS, Camp Chabad, and Jewish day camps came masked, ready to protect the teachers, staffs and each other from the virus.
12. The groundskeeping crew of Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati prepare the final resting place for a loved one.
The Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati
In a year during which our community lost so many of its luminaries, the Jewish Foundation mourned the passing of two of our Founding Trustees, as well as a dedicated member of our professional staff. Our hearts are full as we reflect on the impact they had on our shared work, and the immense legacy each of them leaves behind:


Philip T. Cohen
One of the longest-serving Jewish communal leaders in Cincinnati’s history, Phil Cohen was also an original Trustee of the Jewish Foundation. Phil helped establish the modern Jewish Federation that we know today, and he was also involved in leadership roles at the Jewish Hospital, Rockdale Temple and Camp Livingston and Jewish Vocational Services, among many other agencies and causes. Phil was a veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces and served in World War II before returning to Cincinnati where he and his wife, Helene z”l, raised their family. As a Trustee of the Jewish Foundation, Phil was instrumental in the development of the current Mayerson JCC property and helped the Foundation transition into its new era following the Jewish Hospital sale. Phil was a keeper of memory for our organization and our shared community, and we are grateful for his many contributions.

Bernard Dave
Bernie Dave was the first Chairman of the Jewish Foundation Board of Trustees, and a tireless leader with an unfailingly positive vision for the Cincinnati Jewish Community. Like Phil, Bernie served our country during World War II, and he and wife, Roz z”l settled in Cincinnati and made a home here while Bernie built his business. Bernie took great pride in the work of the Jewish Hospital and Jewish Foundation, and was a devoted member of Rockdale Temple, as well as a supporter of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives. Having benefited from the Cardiac Rehab Unit at Jewish Hospital, Bernie became one of the unit’s most enthusiastic volunteers. Bernie attended every meeting that he could and loved engaging in discussion about the priorities and outcomes of the Foundation’s grants. His voice continues to resonate around our Board table.

Beth McKinney
Beth McKinney was one of the first employees hired by the Jewish Foundation following the Jewish Hospital sale and in her eight-year tenure served as Director of Finance and Senior Financial Advisor. Beth brought an extraordinary mix of expertise, professionalism and commitment to her work and her dedication to learning about – and contributing to – the Jewish community were hallmarks of her time with us. She worked with all our grantee organizations and cared deeply about helping to make them as strong as possible. To that end, Beth was particularly involved in the development of the Shared Business Services initiative, and advocated for their work throughout her time with the Foundation. Beth took great pride in her children, grandchildren, and extended family, and always wanted to hear stories about the loved ones in her colleagues’ lives. She will be greatly missed.
May we remember Phil, Bernie and Beth – and all those we’ve lost – and may their memories always be for a blessing.