Women’s Philanthropy Spring Luncheon

May 25, 2023

On Wednesday, May 24, the Jewish Federation of San Antonio’s Women’s Philanthropy hosted a Spring Luncheon centered on “Building Community by Bringing the Jewish Women of San Antonio Together.” The event, held in the Holzman Auditorium at The Barshop JCC, saw almost

150 women gather to enjoy a beautiful lunch curated by Linda Wolfe and hear from various speakers. Kelly Petlin Beaty, JFSA Board Member, welcomed everyone to the event, explained the importance of helping the community, and invited Lauren Stanley, JFSA Board Chair, and Rhonda Gurinsky, Women’s Philanthropy Chair, to light a candle to honor those who passed. Following lunch, Rhonda recognized the outstanding women who became Lions of Judah ($5,000+) and Pomegranates ($1,800) through their 2022 Annual Campaign gifts. Kelly then returned to introduce the featured speaker, Jessica Chait. Jessica is a native of San Antonio and is the Managing Director of Food Programs & Food Policy at the Met Council of Jewish Poverty, which houses the largest kosher food pantry in the world.  The beautiful event finished with Alice Viroslav, who has been an investor in the San Antonio Jewish community for over 25 years. Thank you to the incredible women who attended and all those who helped make this event possible.

Jessica Chait’s Speech

“Hi y’all.

Coming from New York, I don’t get to say that all that often — at least not without a few weird looks. So let me do that once more — just for fun!

Good morning, y’all!

What a pleasure to be with you — to see so many familiar faces, and to be among so many friends, teachers and mentors. It is an honor to be here joined by JFSA Board Chair, Lauren Stanley and Women’s Philanthropy Chair, Rhonda Gurinsky, and, of course, Federation’s President & CEO, Nammie Ichilov, and Director of Development & Impact, Jill Jacobs. Each are incredible leaders, deeply devoted to ensuring a thriving, caring, and connected Jewish community here in San Antonio.

For those who don’t know me, I’m Jessica Chait. I grew up here in San Antonio, and graduated Clark High School before going to UT Austin. That was all longer ago than I care to admit and I haven’t lived here in over 20 years, so it’s very possible there are many here I don’t know.

But if you don’t me, you may well know my mom, Beth Keough.

My mom has dedicated so much of her career to the Jewish community of San Antonio — but she’s also given so much more than just her professional time and talents. She is an advocate and a champion. Find someone even thinking of moving to San Antonio, and you’d think she gets a relocation fee —she immediately locks into extolling the values and strengths of this community and, frankly, of all of you in this room. You’d think she gets a cut — but then again, as a fundraiser, maybe she does I’m kidding…I’m kidding…In all seriousness though, I’m not going to give a speech about my mom – but rather what she counts among her favorite things – the Jewish Federation of San Antonio and what it means to this community. But before we get too far along, let me first offer some quick clarity as to why I am here and, for those who may not be familiar, what is the Jewish Federation?

As for the first part: My childhood — into young adulthood — was so impacted by the Jewish community and the Federation in particular that I’ve spent my career devoting my time and talents back to it. And for the really important part – particularly for those newcomers here- what is this Federation and why are so many veteran communal leaders here today?

Jewish Federations have existed across North America to support and organize the Jewish community for over 100 years. They are multi-faceted, community-based organizations and historically they share three defining characteristics:

• First, a community campaign that asks members of the Jewish community to express his or her responsibility for the entire community by providing an unrestricted gift.
• Second, communal planning, which assumes that members of the community — this community – come together, pool expertise, experience, and intelligence to determine how funds ought best be used to respond to the urgent needs and opportunities facing the Jewish people and the communities in which they live.
• Third, a partnership with a network of agencies – like the JCC, this Campus, SAJES, and so many others — that receive annual unrestricted support to provide critical activities that nurture Jewish life, communal responsibility, and ensure that the needs of the community are cared for.

I moved to San Antonio from Miami just before I started fourth grade — and I went to school not far from here, at Locke Hill Elementary. Transferring from a school where we had the Jewish holidays off and Jewish and black students filled my public-school classroom, it’s an understatement to say that life at Locke Hill Elementary was pretty different from what I had known. For starters, while I have little doubt the crucifix hanging in the classroom was meant to encourage not startle, when we told Ms. Garcia that we weren’t Christians, she didn’t know what to do with that information or why, the cross hanging in the corner, might be problematic. And when in sixth grade a teacher compelled us to identify as Texans above all else, I also felt, well, uncomfortable.

But something else began to happen during this time. As a result of confronting the questions presented by my teachers and classmates about why my being Jewish impacted how I experienced these overt displays of identities that didn’t quite fit me, my Jewish identity was really rooted. These roots were then nurtured by the experiences of participating in all that this Jewish community had to offer me —my early days learning to make a change at NCJWs thrift store, and then Hebrew and Sunday school at Temple Beth El, BBYO, NFTY, Beth-El’s excellent confirmation program, onto JCC summer camp and the leadership opportunities it offered me. All of this — and more — combined with the impact of my parents — produced an absolute passion for community engagement, seeking common bounds through service, and what is often referred to as a responsibility to tikkun olam.

Meanwhile, Federation scholarships allowed me the opportunity to travel to Israel when I was 16 with NFTY and Greene Family Camp – and then classes offered by this Federation to help students like me prepare for the life changing experience – also subsided by this community – of me participating in the March of Living in Poland and Israel. But it wasn’t just the experiences — both of which were utterly transformative – but I always had a strong understanding that you all, this federation, and its long history and legacy of communal support, were investing not just in my ability to have these experiences, but specifically investing in me.

And, it wasn’t just by providing me access to programming that ultimately allowed me hang out with my friends and meet interesting people or travel the world — who wouldn’t love that?

In high school, I also had the opportunity to volunteer at Golden Manor, the nursing home then funded by federation – which led me to intern with Community CareNet – an organization also funded by federation but as importantly, informed by this Federation’s community study which pointed to the growing need for supportive services for people as they age while embracing modern models of service that emphasized a strengths-based approach to maintaining independence. This experience – working with Suzanne Huber who is here today – informed how I thought about educational pursuits and professional aspirations for many years to come.

In college at UT Austin, I was active in Hillel and AEPhi.

Some of you know that I spent a semester volunteering in Zambia living with catholic nuns. My mom’s biggest complaint – not that I didn’t have access to regular use of a telephone, certainly no internet, and of course the general parental concerns about her daughter and best friend living in a remote village in literally the middle of nowhere – was that she wished I could have been deployed with federation so if g-d forbid the worst, she knew I would be cared for.

Not to worry, I was cared for.

But when I had the opportunity to live and serve a community abroad again, I decided to do with the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), Federation’s overseas partner in supporting Jewish life around the world, and there I lived and worked with what was then, the often-forgotten Jewish community of Warsaw.

It was there that I really internalized the investment Jewish communities like this one were making not just in Poland, but in Jewish communities around the world. And it was then that I felt even more committed to ensuring others had the experiences I had, and that working at a federation was the best way I could help ensure that.

Attending graduate school was an important next step in my ability to do so, but I couldn’t have done it without the scholarship I received from the Jewish Federations of North America, of which this federation is a member organization, investing yet again in my education, helping me to go to New York University and earn a degree in public administration and Jewish studies.

This opportunity was different. Whereas previously, scholarships came with an implicit commitment, this one was explicit. I was to work at a Federation for three years post-grad school.

While for some that might have seemed like an obligation, for me that was truly a gift — and one that kept giving for over 10 years, during which time I worked at UJA Federation of New York, not only the largest federation in the country but also the largest local philanthropy. During my tenure there, I oversaw a nearly $10M portfolio of grants to help low-income people living in New York and in Israel, in another role, I secured more than $4M in communal support for holocaust survivors living in poverty and then ultimately, I served as chief of staff, where I got an all-encompassing, front row seat to the day to day work of ensuring that needs are assessed, and all voices considered, but also — and this is really what makes federation unique — that ultimately each investment, each agencies work, each asset, is leveraged to strengthen not only the individual threads but ultimately the fabric of communal life. And truly this hard, specialized, and critically important work is what makes the Federation unique.

My decade at Federation not only shaped my career — not surprisingly it had an enormous impact on me personally. I saw firsthand communities advance new and innovative ideas to long held problems. I also saw time and again during local and even national tragedies — from flooding to violent attacks here and abroad – federations — communities like this one — rally in support.

But as former CEO of UJA Federation John Ruskay has so often said, the way to ensure a federation is there to respond to crisis — say 9/11 — is because it was strong on 9/10. Strong, connected Jewish communities – frankly strong connected anything’s – don’t spring up overnight. They are the reflection of investment, continual process improvements, diverse communal involvement, and deliberate design. THAT IS WHAT FEDERATION STANDS FOR AND WHY YOU ARE SUPPORT IS SO IMPORTANT.

It was with this approach and appreciation to intentional planning that five years ago I sought out a new challenge.In New York, with the high cost of living, there are nearly 500,000 people associated with the Jewish community who struggle to make ends meet. 15,000 of them are holocaust survivors, many of them elderly or immigrants from the former Soviet Union. And many, frankly, are public servants, schoolteachers, and social workers who simply can’t raise a family on $60,000 a year.

To ensure that no one has to worry about where their next meal should come from, or the difficult decisions that come with whether to pay a grocery bill or rent, acknowledge their child’s shoes are too small, or that they would benefit from a tutor. I left Federation to oversee the work of one of Federation’s largest funding recipients, a city-wide provider of emergency food for kosher-requiring New Yorkers.

When I started this work in 2018, we were serving 50,000 people each month. I was hired with the express goal of growing the program to better meet the need of vast unmet needs across the city. Using all I learned in strategic planning from my time at Federation — and with the benefit of their financial support — I began putting plans in place to grow our operation. We deployed an online ordering system so clients in need of food can get exactly what they want and don’t have to wait in line, wasting time or facing shame and stigma. We secured a mobile pantry to go directly into communities without sufficient pantry infrastructure. And most importantly, we started getting access to more donated kosher products so we could get more food out into the communities who needed it. This was 2019.

You likely then remember that New York City was quickly the epicenter of the covid outbreak in early 2020. Thankfully, those early wins in 2019, and all plans we had spent time making, offered a blueprint for how we would respond to the vast need enveloping the city. With unemployment quickly nearing 12% and briefly reaching 21% — the lowest wage earners were the hardest hit – and or course the elderly, the disabled, the vulnerable most at risk.

We quickly opened a second warehouse and expanded our fleet. Federation authorized emergency funds, resulting in an immediate infusion of $1M so we could scale despite being in a period of tremendous collective uncertainty. Thankfully individual donors and only later the city, state and federal governments followed — as did the ongoing support from Federation.

New York is lucky to have hundreds of food pantries and density which often supports hyper local action in the form of community-based organizations which can spring into action. And so it was in late spring 2020 when New York was still in a lockdown, that we came together with other major providers across the city – catholic charities, United Way, Food Banks, etc. to review a list of nearly 1,000 food pantries and neighborhood groups. Our goal was to divide and conquer the list to ensure everyone had access to food, PPE and the other supports their communities would need.

In dividing up the list among these large providers, we experienced a bit of horse-trading if you will. Who had worked with this group before, which group was closest to our warehouse or the food bank, and who had the right kind of food to meet the needs that were being presented. In our case, we initially assumed responsibility for everyone who was affiliated with the jewish community and those who had the closest proximity to our warehouses. But as we did this work — essentially aiming to divide and conquer — we began to notice a trend. Among the list, were some thirty organizations with names that sounded, well, unfamiliar, different you might say. With greater reflection, they were Arabic names, groups affiliated with the Muslim communities of New York. And no. one. Knew. them. They had no natural partner, no advocate at the table. Recognizing the opportunity – and frankly, the stark reality that had we not been at that table, so too may the Jewish groups with unfamiliar, perhaps even seemingly peculiar names, have gone “unclaimed”. We immediately leaned in and took responsibility. And while we still specialize in kosher food, today serving over 200,000 New Yorkers each month, we now have a growing cohort of halal pantries that we support. In doing so, we accomplish that which is most important – that no one should have to worry about where their next meal comes from, even if they maintain a religiously informed diet. But we also did something else – we acted in a way that actively and affirmatively strengthened the bonds among our communities and of our city. Lessons I learned from my lifetime of involvement with federation.

Today, we are the only emergency food network in New York – and perhaps the only Jewish one in the country – that has a full-time halal coordinator focused on not only getting food into those communities but offering capacity building and other technical assistance to ensure their success. Met Council, where I do this work, is a key partner in Federation’s fight against poverty in New York. And in San Antonio, you can look no further than JFS and see this important work and the potential it has to shape the bonds among communities here.

Going beyond direct service, I am proud to say that we are now working with USDA and food pantries across the country to help support these same efforts. I personally feel so privileged to do this work. To lead an amazing team, folks that ran into the equivalent of a burning building to ensure their neighbors’ needs were met, and ultimately to help hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers every year.

But it is more than just a job that feels good. I see that I am also a steward of communal dollars — not only of the dollars which are invested into the programs I benefited from and now run, but also as a result of the consistent, generous investment this community made directly in me. Said bluntly, with each scholarship, each class, each leadership training program — and yes, each trip, I not only received financial aid which enabled my participation, but I received a fundamental and enduring vote of confidence in my role as a leader and shaper of our community.

In conclusion, the critical role federation plays has always been clear to me – and while it is often seen as counter cultural these days – federation is about being funded by the whole community and serving the whole community, and leveraging the diversity and strength of that community to nurture the opportunities and respond to the crisis that lay before us. But they can only do that with support from each of you.

Thank you all for being here to help ensure that this Federation continues to be able to do this work now and for future generations.

And so as to do my part, l’dor v’dor if you will, and in an effort to thank all of you and those before you, I am pleased to share I have established an endowment to be funded by my estate – in what will hopefully by many many years to come —to ensure future generations get the opportunities afforded to me, just like those before me ensured I would. Additionally, I am pleased to seed that fund with a $5,000 contribution so it can get to work – because as much as it to be used for the financial aid and scholarship of today’s young people, I don’t want to wait to offer that vote of confidence in the future leaders of the San Antonio Jewish community.

Thank you all for having me here today and for your investment not only in me, but in each other, and in the other Jessica’s who will be shaped by your generous support.

THANK YOU.

Want to learn more about Women’s Philanthropy? Visit jfsatx.org/womensphilanthropy