News & Impact

Jewish Family and Children’s Services (JFCS) is pleased to announce that its Board of Trustees member Joyce Newstat and her spouse, community and business leader Susan Lowenberg, recently established the Seymour Newstat Endowment Fund at JFCS to benefit Holocaust survivors who participate in the agency’s social and educational program called Café by the Bay. Specifically, the fund will support Café by the Bay’s annual Passover seder, which attracts many Holocaust survivors throughout the Bay Area. Remaining distributions from the fund will be used to educate young people about the Holocaust and to advance moral courage, tolerance, and social justice. The… Read More

J Weekly by Dan Pine She was only 14. A sensitive Jewish girl with a flair for writing, trapped in the maelstrom of the Holocaust. The only repository for her deepest feelings: a diary, found abandoned soon after the war. Her name was not Anne. Her name was Rywka. Read More from J Weekly… Read More

Mitch P.’s demanding job requires long hours and significant travel. Though mild-mannered and congenial during the day, “I undergo a huge transformation once I walk through the door at night,” he admits. “I turn into this big grouch. I turn away from my 2-year-old’s hugs, and I snap when my 4-year-old starts jumping up and down and squealing. I know they’re excited to see me, but sometimes I feel like a gay Archie Bunker. “All I want,” Mitch adds, “are dinner on the table and a little peace and quiet. Of course, I feel guilty about it—and a little scared,… Read More

The JFCS Holocaust Center in partnership with Lehrhaus Judaica today announced the publication of The Diary of Rywka Lipszyc. After more than 70 years in obscurity, the diary of a teenage girl that was found at Auschwitz in 1945 will be revealed for the first time to the public on March 10, 2014. Accompanied by rich background materials and edited by National Jewish Book Award recipient Alexandra Zapruder, the diary is destined to become an important source of inspiration for students of the Holocaust around the world. In 1940, the Nazis forced young Rywka Lipszyc (pronounced Rif-ka Lip-shitz) and her… Read More

When JFCS friend, Board and Committee member, and Fammy Awards Gala co-chair Tammy Crown became involved with the agency 10 years ago, she did so after determining through extensive research that JFCS was exactly the type of organization she and her husband, Bill, wanted to support: JFCS takes a holistic approach, focuses on human services, fulfills its mission to a tee, and spends most of its fundraising dollars on essential services. “JFCS hires and trains great people, and it is constantly looking at itself to see how it can be even more effective,” says Tammy, a former business strategist with… Read More

An outstanding student with a knack for business, Mark Khavkin was accepted into MBA programs at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and Northwestern. As pleased as he was by his choices, he remained concerned about financing his education in a way that would allow him to go to school full-time without falling into debt. Fortunately, he knew about JFCS’ Educational Loan and Grants Program. JFCS provided Mark with a generous deferred-interest loan for his two years at Harvard, where he excelled academically. “The MBA program was an amazing, transformative experience,” says Mark, who now works at eBay. “It developed… Read More