Sima Jelin has been on the job for close to four decades.
Photo by Ron Kaplan
July 31, 2008
Closing in on nine decades, Sima Kislak Jelin, accomplished real estate broker and philanthropist, shows no signs of slowing down.
At 87 years old, the Maplewood resident serves as vice president of the Kislak Company, Inc., an investment real estate brokerage firm founded by her father, Julius Kislak, in 1906. Jelin is the broker of record at Kislak’s Woodbridge office, the brokerage division of The Kislak Organization, which is headquartered in Miami Lakes, Fla.
A 1941 graduate of Mount Holyoke College, with a BA in economics, Jelin was prompted to join the family company by her father and inspired by her own interest in working with people. She joined Kislak in 1969 after taking night classes at Rutgers-Newark to get her real estate license.
“My father had always wanted me to get involved in the business, even though there were very few women in the field at the time,” said Jelin, who recalled being mistaken for a secretary during one of her first meetings with a property owner. After rotating through several departments, she discovered that she enjoyed working with investment properties and has been doing so ever since.
In 2006, the Kislak family established the Kislak Real Estate Institute at Monmouth University in West Long Branch through a $2 million donation to the university — the first and only undergraduate real estate degree program in New Jersey and one of 60 or so in the nation — to mark the 100th anniversary of the establishment of The Kislak Company.
Despite serving the company for nearly half its existence, Jelin said she is a long way from considering retirement. “I no longer work full-time and I do go to Florida for part of the winter,” she said, but for the still physically, socially, and professionally active woman, retiring to the Sunshine State is not an option.
Brokering real estate deals is not all Jelin does. She serves as board chair of Karnak Corporation, a manufacturer of coatings, cements, and sealants started by her first husband, Martin Jelin, and now run by her daughter, Sarah Jane Jelin.
Her commitment to business is matched only by her charitable work and support of the Jewish community. She remains involved in the oversight of the Kislak Adult Center, a NJ YMHA-YWHA summer camp for seniors started with a gift from her father; is a trustee of the nonprofit Newark Emergency Services for Families; and is an honorary life member and patron of Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology.
She has also served on the boards of the Jewish Community Housing Corporation and United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ.
Jelin has been a generous supporter of the Jewish Community Foundation of Metro
West, JCC MetroWest, Jewish Federation of Palm Beach, and other Jewish organizations.
A staunch believer in the importance of Jewish education — “always a part of our family and my growing up” — she was instrumental in the 1996 establishment of Rutgers University’s Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life, serving as vice chair of the center’s campaign.
Her other main philanthropic focus has been the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey, which provides healthcare grants to serve vulnerable residents of the greater Newark area and at-risk members of the MetroWest Jewish community.
Jelin joined the board of the Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in 1989, a year after the death of her first husband, Martin, who had been a trustee of the hospital; her second husband, Cecil Lichtman, who passed away in 1999, had been vice president of the board. When the hospital was sold in 1996, Jelin continued to serve as a board member of the Healthcare Foundation, which was created from the proceeds of the sale.
“We do a lot of different things in Newark, in the hospitals and schools and family services,” said Jelin. “I like being able to help people.”
Jelin is married to Sidney Weinstein, a former president of the Jewish Community Council of Essex County, a forerunner of UJC MetroWest. Martin Jelin was also a former president. She had six children and has 15 grandchildren and one great-grandchild and is an active member of Congregation Beth El in South Orange, where she lived for 53 years before moving to Maplewood in 2001.
Throughout personal and professional highs and lows, Jelin said, “I’ve always felt I’ve been lucky.”
When asked if she had anything to add, Jelin said she encouraged those interested in real estate to join the Kislak Company: “We can teach them to be successful real estate salespeople, and then they can make a lot of money and give to UJA.”
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