A large “family” of volunteers have worked for the Jewish Federation of Madison over its 75-year history. All will be celebrated this month at the 75th Diamond Gala, an event planned for 7-10 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 17 at the Marriott West, Middleton.
When Sasha Kerlow accepted the Miriam Singer Sulman Young Leadership Award at JFM’s annual meeting in 2013, she represented one Madison family’s fourth generation committed to volunteering for JFM. Kerlow is the great-granddaughter of Max Weinstein, a founder in 1940 of the Madison Jewish Welfare Fund that evolved to become today’s JFM.
“He was a strong-willed person who set the bar very high and got other people involved,” said Weinstein’s grandson, Joel Minkoff, 64, in a telephone interview Aug. 11.
“It was just natural that his kids [daughter Evelyn and sons Arvin, Laurence and Bernard] got involved.” The second generation — Max Weinstein’s daughter, Evelyn, and her husband, Ben Minkoff (Joel Minkoff’s parents); and son Laurence Weinstein — served in leadership roles of the Madison Jewish Community Council (MJCC), the new name adopted by the Madison Jewish Welfare Fund in 1974 and changed again to JFM in 2009. Kerlow is the daughter of Laurence Weinstein’s son Daniel and his wife Joanne Weinstein. Joel Minkoff recalled the creation of Camp Shalom, the organization’s day camp, in 1954 as among his parents’ major contributions to the community. At the time, he said, his mother had three young children to keep busy during the long summer months.
“My mother said to my father, ‘If you don’t find a program for your kids, I’ll go to work and you can stay home and take care of them. You were an Eagle Scout, so you know how to work with kids.’ So, my father went right ahead and started Camp Shalom,” which for years operated in Madison’s Olin Park. A scholarship fund for children whose families could not afford to send them to Camp Shalom was created at the same time the camp itself was established, Joel Minkoff said. “Money for scholarships was built right into the budget,” he said, recalling his father’s commitment to “never sending away a kid who wants to come and be part of a safe environment.”
As an adult, Joel Minkoff, representing the third generation, played a key role in relocating and greatly expanding Camp Shalom. “I’d ride my bike around Dane County, looking at sites,” he recalled, adding that his own formal training in architecture and landscape architecture was a great asset in identifying an appropriate location. He then helped secure a sizable donation from well-known Madison philanthropists Irwin and Robert Goodman to purchase and improve a 154-acre site in Verona, which became JFM’s first community recreational facility. Beginning in 1999, the Goodman Campus vastly increased the number of children Camp Shalom could accommodate, including many from non-Jewish backgrounds.
A subsequent decision, under Joel Minkoff’s leadership, to welcome swimmers from throughout the community to use the Goodman Aquatic Center (opened in 2002) came to be “a tremendous asset,” he said. “People come from all over, and that gives us the ability to work with the secular community.” Joel Minkoff still chairs JFM’s Goodman Campus committee, and is involved in exploring and implementing new uses for the campus.
He said he believes “a master plan is never done — the next generation should be free to dream and to build anew.” From his perspective, he said, “this is just the beginning for the (Goodman) campus and the camp; I feel privileged to have been in the right place at the right time” to help lay the groundwork, and “I hope that it will serve the community for a long time.” For more information about the 75th anniversary celebration, visit JewishMadison.org or call 608-2781808.
Freelance writer Lynne Kleinman, Ph.D., is a retired teacher and journalist.
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