The Jewish Community Foundation, the endowment development program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, will hold its second annual Celebrate the Legacy dinner on Wednesday, Sept. 12 at Brynwood Country Club. A 6 p.m. reception will be followed by dinner at 6:45 p.m.
The Louise and Ralph Eder Family will be presented with the foundation’s prestigious Legacy Leadership Award. The award honors the memory and dedicated efforts of Louise Eder and the commitment her family has made to continue her legacy.
In addition, all JCF donors will be recognized for their efforts to secure the future of Milwaukee’s Jewish community. The foundation, committed to building for future generations, has accumulated assets of more than $91 million.
Donors are dedicated to the foundation’s mission to involve the next generation in the family’s tradition of philanthropy, passing on its values, connecting the younger generation to their Jewish faith and the Jewish community, and perpetuating their Jewish heritage.
Of the legacy award, Gerald Stein, JCF chair said, “Louise Eder was the very heart of a five-generation passion of philanthropy. Her parents and grandparents taught her the importance of helping others. She believed that carrying out this legacy through her own actions and passing it on to her children and grandchildren was the greatest gift she could give.”
On receiving the award, Ralph Eder said, “The Eder family thanks the Jewish Community Foundation for this honor. It is really our wife and mother, Louise, who was the continuous inspiration for our philanthropy.”
According to Bert Bilsky, JCF executive director, “It was her vision that helped make the Jewish Community Foundation a reality. She believed in the concept of planned giving, and she and her brother were among our original donors. She was one of the charter trustees and the first female chair. Under her tenure, she inaugurated the Harvest Gift Endowment effort, which has since raised more than $10 million.
“Following her example, her husband and sons created the Eder Family Fund with the foundation, carrying the family tradition of philanthropy into future generations.”
Until her death last April, Eder immersed herself in Milwaukee’s Jewish and secular communities, the arts, politics and international welfare. She was a board member of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, one of the federation’s two overseas partners, whose projects range from providing basic services to elderly Jews in the former Soviet Union to creating a computer cafe for Jewish youth in Bulgaria. She was also involved in Jewish Family Services, the Milwaukee Jewish Day School and the Zink the Zebra Foundation. And, she founded a kindergarten in Israel.
Stein added, “Not only did she make a lasting impact on the world, she motivated others to do the same. Her legacy is more than passing a family tradition of philanthropy on to future generations. It is the example she set for those who knew her, in her words, “to consider the well-being of those less fortunate, and follow through in your heart and in your deeds.”
Program speaker will be Lee Meyerhoff Hendler, a lecturer on intergenerational philanthropy, leadership and Jewish identity. She resides in Baltimore, where she is actively involved in her family’s philanthropic activities, which support local and national initiatives in Jewish education, Jewish communal relations, Israel and other cultural, educational and medical institutions.
A volunteer, philanthropist and nonprofit leader, Meyerhoff Hendler has sat on several local and national boards, including the newly formed Renaissance and Renewal Pillar of the United Jewish Communities, the umbrella organization of North American Jewish Federations.
She is the author of “The Year Mom Got Religion: One Woman’s Midlife Journey into Judaism” (Jewish Lights Publishing, 1998).
Cost is $50. Dietary laws will be observed. For reservations, due Aug. 31, call federation office, 390-5700.
Joseph Bernstein and Judy Bluestone are event chairs. M&I Marshall & Ilsley Corporation is an event sponsor and the Jewish Women’s Endowment Fund is a co-sponsor.
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