The heart of giving
The community’s philanthropists have devoted themselves to causes for decades
By Debra Gelbart
T he history of Jewish philan-
thropy in Greater Phoenix is
so extensive that it would be
impossible to profile all the players and
organizations without writing a book.

This short review is not intended to
be at all comprehensive and includes
very few specific names from among
the thousands who have so generously
helped build the Jewish institutions
that are the bedrock of this community.

In this article, we focus on four organi-
zations whose missions center on help-
ing the less fortunate: Jewish Family &
Children’s Service, Jewish Federation
of Greater Phoenix, Jewish Free Loan
and Kivel Campus of Care.

The beginnings
The earliest known organized effort to
help those in need in the Phoenix area
was the Welfare Committee of the Phoe-
nix chapter of the National Council of
Jewish Women. The committee was the
first iteration of what is today the Jewish
Family & Children’s Service (JFCS). In
1935, the committee dedicated itself to
alleviating the suffering of those in the
Jewish community who were ill, home-
less and penniless, according to a com-
memorative book produced for the 75th
anniversary of JFCS in 2010.

Among the early members of the
Welfare Committee were (according to
the naming etiquette of the time) Mrs.

Joseph Shapiro, chair, and Mrs. Gus
Greenbaum, co-chair. In 1936, what
was known as the Junior Council of the
National Council of Jewish Women, held
a luncheon in Phoenix to raise funds for
the Welfare Committee’s efforts.

An enlarged photo from the event
hangs today in the JFCS boardroom.

In the photo, about 50 young, well-
dressed philanthropists are seated at
three long tables in an elegant ball-
room in the Westward Ho in down-
town Phoenix. Frank Jacobson, JFCS
vice president of marketing and devel-
opment, pointed out how impressive
the group is, especially considering that
the luncheon was held in the midst of
the Great Depression.

Nationally, the United Jewish
Appeal (UJA) was formed in 1939 as
an umbrella fundraising organization
for federations across North America.

In October 1940, the Phoenix Jewish
Community Council – the forerunner
to the Jewish Federation of Greater
Phoenix – was established. Phoenix
and the Jewish Community Council
were part of a network of communities
across the U.S. that raised money for
the UJA to distribute throughout the
country and in Israel.

Post-World War II
The Jewish Community Council
and the Jewish residents of Phoenix
in the 1940s and ’50s enthusiastically
embraced the UJA. In March 1947, for-
mer First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt deliv-
ered the keynote address at a UJA fun-
draising event held in Phoenix, possibly
at the studios of what then was called
KPHO Radio. The UJA likely offered
Roosevelt as a speaker to the Jewish
Community Council in Phoenix as part
of her tour on behalf of the UJA. This
would have been “during the period of
key debates over United Nations Parti
Members of what was known as the “Junior Council” (younger members) of the Na-
tional Council of Jewish Women’s Phoenix chapter attend a fundraising luncheon at
the Hotel Westward Ho in 1936.

Photo courtesy of the Pearl and Cecil Newmark Memorial Archives at the Arizona Jewish Historical Society
tion of Palestine,” said Lawrence Bell,
Ph.D., executive director of the Arizona
Jewish Historical Society.

The Welfare Committee of the local
National Council of Jewish Women
(NCJW) chapter became Jewish Social
Service, a standalone agency, in 1946.

In 1949, according to a retrospective
preserved by the Arizona Jewish His-
torical Society and written about the
inception of formalized geriatric care in
Phoenix, “The Phoenix Jewish Com-
munity Council Kivel Nursing Home
… was built in answer to the anguish
and desperation of the unfortunate
elderly … who, without family or
friends, suffered in agony in converted
garages and warehouses that passed
for nursing homes.” Before the facility
was built, Jewish Community Council
leaders diligently searched for a way to
finance the project.

Someone discovered that in the will
of a deceased man named Himann
Kivel, a substantial sum of money was
earmarked “for the purpose of cre-
ating a shelter for itinerant, elderly
Jews.” Kivel himself had been visited
by a worker from Jewish Social Service
before he died because he was ill, and
no one in the community knew he had
any financial resources, according to
the retrospective. Once his $105,000
donation was secured to initiate the
nursing home project, others in the
Jewish community made signifi-
cant contributions, as well. Another
$120,000 became available through
the U.S. Department of Health, Edu-
cation and Welfare, as it was known at
the time. The project came to be called
the Kivel Nursing Home. Today it’s
the Kivel Campus of Care.

In 1950, Jewish Free Loan was
established by Sam Block and Joseph
Rabinowitz, who invested $930 to
set up the organization and file incor-
poration documents with the state of
Arizona. When the board members
met monthly at the Jewish Community
Center offices at Fourth and Roosevelt
streets in Phoenix, they recorded their
meeting minutes not in English, but
in Yiddish. Yet with limited funds, and
in some cases limited English-speaking
skills, they were determined to perform
the mitzvah of g’milut chasadim, “acts
of lovingkindness.”
See ‘Heart’ on Page 8
BEST OF JEWISH PHOENIX 2017
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