At annual meeting, federation looks to the future

by Marilyn Silverstein
NJJN Bureau Chief/PMB

Even as the United Jewish Federation of Princeton Mercer Bucks brings its 2006 campaign year to a close, it is a time of beginnings, said Donald Leibowitz.

“This year was a beginning — a year of beginning to look at some of the strategic issues we face,” the federation president said as he stood in the social hall at Adath Israel Congregation in Lawrenceville just before convening the federation’s 2006 annual board of directors and membership meeting.

It’s been a year of challenges, according to Leibowitz — working to grow an annual campaign that has essentially been flat for a number of years, wrestling with the challenges faced by the Jewish Community Center of the Delaware Valley as it decided to close its facility in Ewing, and invigorating the capital campaign for the proposed new Jewish Community Campus of Princeton Mercer Bucks.

“It was also a year in which we purchased the land for our campus, which is a tremendous step — but we still have a lot of dollars to raise for the campus,” Leibowitz said. “Personally, I enjoyed myself,” he added. “I like dealing with challenges — trying to take difficult situations and turn them into successes. We’re not there yet, but I feel we’re on the way.”

The 2006 Annual Campaign, which was still in its final stages at press time, has so far raised some $2.2 million, representing about 2,200 gifts, according to federation executive director Andrew Frank. About 33 percent of that figure was raised by the Women’s Campaign.

Some 70 members of the community turned out for the annual meeting, which included the election of officers and board members; reports by Lisa Lieberman, president of the Women’s Campaign, and Mark Merkovitz, outgoing chair of the Annual Campaign; remarks by Leibowitz; and accounts by Leibowitz’s daughters, Mara and Jenna, of their recent Taglit-birthright israel trip.

Highlighting the evening were two presentations: the Community Service Award, the federation’s highest honor, to Jerome Kurshan of Princeton for his 55 years of volunteer service to the community, and the Young Leadership Award to Seth and Emily Josephson of West Windsor. Introducing the honorees, respectively, were Jerry Neumann, a member of the federation’s executive committee, and Merkovitz.

Seth Josephson, who was recently named to the board of New Jersey Jewish News, is now serving as the federation’s associate vice president for administration and personnel, and Emily Josephson, cochair of federation’s Outreach Committee, has just been elected associate campaign chair of the federation’s 2007 Annual Campaign.

Merkovitz was also cited during the evening for his extraordinary three years of service as chair of the Annual Campaign.

The 856 pledges that made up the Women’s Campaign’s contribution to the Annual Campaign this year surpassed last year’s figures by three percent, noted Lisa Lieberman, president.

“It’s been a spectacular, really great year,” she said in an interview before the meeting. “We’ve got some really dedicated people doing great work.”

Year after year, the Women’s Campaign in Princeton Mercer Bucks consistently raises more than 30 percent of the overall campaign, although across the nation, women’s campaigns typically raise about 25 percent of federations’ general campaigns, Lieberman noted.

“We’re a very event-driven group, but what we’ve been able to do is to give the women of our community a voice and an opportunity to make a difference and to show our children what giving back really means,” she said. “It’s been a very rewarding experience — really a labor of love for me.”

Despite the relatively flat Annual Campaign, Frank described the past year as a positive one.

“It’s been an absolutely wonderful year — a year of a lot of exciting challenges, a year when the campus project has moved forward, a year when we strengthened the campaign division,” he said. “Don Leibowitz has been an absolute inspiration, a tireless and dedicated president, and all the officers have been extraordinarily dedicated to moving this federation forward.”

Something that’s been particularly exciting over the past year, Frank added, is the fact that individual donors have given generously both to the capital campaign for the new campus and to the general campaign.

“What that says to me,” he said, “is that we have a committed group of people in this community who believe in the core mission of the federation and who believe in the vision of the campus to help us move forward in the coming decades.”

In addition to Leibowitz and the Josephsons, the federation’s officers for the coming year are Nancy Dince, campaign chair; Robert Davidson and Merrye Shavel Hudis, associate campaign chairs; Daniel Brent, Morton Cohen, Jennifer Millner, and Daniel Valentine, vice presidents; Andrea Dedrick, treasurer; and Deborah Freedman, secretary.

Officers of the Women’s Campaign, in addition to Lieberman, are Darlene Paszamant, campaign chair, and Stacey Wasserman, associate campaign chair and Paula Heller, secretary.