As the scale of the devastation caused by former Hurricane Harvey begins to emerge, the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago is responding with $100,000 in grants to partner agencies, the first round of distributions from its Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund.

The funds include $50,000 to the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston, for its local relief efforts; $30,000 to the Emergency Committee of the Jewish Federations of North America, which will go to JFNA’s national collective fund supporting relief efforts in Louisiana and Texas; and $20,000 to NECHAMA: Jewish Response to Disaster, to help it establish its Texas relief and rebuilding operation.

Further grants will follow as specific needs and responses are identified. Distributions are reviewed and determined by a committee that includes JUF Board Chair Michael Zaransky and Board Members Andy Hochberg and Ann-Louise Kleper. Kleper also serves on the JFNA Emergency Committee.

In its first five days, the Federation’s Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund has raised $236,440 from 943 gifts. All administrative costs are covered by Federation, so 100 percent of the money donated goes to those impacted by the disaster and the agencies aiding them.

Contributions to the Fund can be made at www.juf.org/HurricaneHarvey, by calling (312) 444-2869, or by sending a check payable to the Jewish Federation Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund to 30 S. Wells Street, #3015, Chicago, IL 60606.

In addition to Federation serving as a conduit for financial support, counselors at Jewish Child & Family Services are helping the Jewish Family Service in Houston staff its “warm-line,” which provides support for those dealing with the emotional stress of the storm’s impact. And the Federation and its TOV Volunteer Network are preparing for likely volunteer missions from Chicago that will provide relief and support on the ground in Louisiana and Texas.

Theodore F. Perlman will receive the 54th annual Julius Rosenwald Memorial Award — the Jewish Federation’s highest honor — at the Annual Meeting on Monday, Sept. 18. It is presented each year to an individual who has demonstrated a lifetime of outstanding dedication and service to the Federation and the entire Jewish community. The award is named for Julius Rosenwald, the iconic Chicago business leader and philanthropist of the early 1900s.

Perlman is a former JUF General Campaign Chair and vice chairman of the JUF Board of Directors. He has served as JUF’s Major Gifts co-chair; the Trades, Industries & Professions co-chair; the JUF Briarwood Country Club Chair; and on numerous JUF committees and commissions.

The award presentation will take place during the noon luncheon portion of the Annual Meeting at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, 151 E. Wacker Drive. Register at www.juf.org/annualmeeting.

In addition to his work with JUF, Perlman serves in a number of Jewish and other non-profit leadership capacities: Anti-Defamation League Foundation Executive Committee Member; Ronald McDonald House Charities International Board of Trustees; Vice-Chairman Emeritus of B’nai B’rith Beber Camp; President of The Perlman Family Foundation; B’nai B’rith Youth Organization International Board of Directors; The Weizmann Institute of Science; and College Bound Opportunities. He is also a past treasurer and Board of Trustees member of North Shore Congregation Israel in Glencoe.

Professionally, Perlman is the founder of The HAVI Group, LP, which provides distribution, purchasing, logistic services, premiums & promotional services to the McDonalds restaurant system, both in the U.S. and worldwide. Other leading companies who are major clients are Taco Bell, British Petroleum, Nissan and T-Mobile.

Perlman graduated from the University of Michigan, receiving a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with minors in Political Science and History.

Rabbi Alex Felch presented the Rabbi Mordecai Simon Award to Rabbi Shoshanah Conover at the Chicago Board of Rabbis Sermon Seminar Monday, Aug. 28. Here were his words during the presentation.

Each year at the Sermon Seminar we present the Rabbi Mordecai Simon Award to a deserving colleague. Many of us remember Mordy as the longtime director of the CBR and for the warm, gracious and caring colleague that he was. We are delighted that his daughter Rabbi Ora Simon Schnitzer is herself a member. Rabbi Simon was the face of the CBR and well known in our community across all religious lines.

Chicago is blessed with an extraordinary rabbinate. One of the characteristics of our community is that we have many wonderful associate rabbis who stay, work and contribute in many ways.

Rabbi Shoshanah Conover is an associate rabbi at Temple Sholom of Chicago. She earned a B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing with honors from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her love of the Jewish people and Jewish texts as well as a strong commitment to social justice led her to rabbinical school. Rabbi Conover’s responsibilities at Temple Sholom of Chicago reflect her passions: serving as pastoral counselor, learning and teaching inspiring (and challenging) texts, leading dynamic and engaging spiritual experiences, and finding ways to improve our world through the guidelines of our faith.

Rabbi Conover is a Senior Rabbinic Fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute and is a leader in the pioneering work of the Central Conference of American Reform Rabbis’ Rabbis Organizing Rabbis. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Chicago Board of Rabbis as well as the Union of Reform Judaism’s Commission on Social Action. She is a vice-chair of Chicago’s Jewish Community Relations Council and received AVODAH’s Partner in Tzedek Award.

Shoshanah has been a wonderful voice in our community. In 2016 at the JCRC Martin Luther King celebration, Shoshanah spoke about Martin Luther King’s sermon delivered in February 1968 — the Drum Major Instinct. She used some of his words but transformed what was a powerful and correctly so, Christian sermon of King’s into a powerful drasha by a rabbi. Shoshanah is one of our drum majors able to call us out to work for justice.

The most recent “Sanctuary” show produced by JUF and the CBR featured both our Executive [Vice President] [Rabbi] Michael [Balinsky] and Shoshanah. Shoshanah was the last voice of the show and concluded that now we are both, “primed to repent and primed to forgive, if we don’t use the time, we lose the time.” To our colleague Shoshanah, who has used her time so well on behalf of our people and the greater community, we are honored to present you with the Rabbi Mordecai Simon Award.

As Hurricane Harvey cuts a path of destruction and flooding across Texas, Louisiana and surrounding Gulf Coast areas, the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago is collecting funds to aid those affected by the devastating storm.

As always, the Federation will absorb all administrative costs, so that 100 percent of funds collected will provide relief for the thousands impacted by this disaster.

The Federation is in touch and working with the Jewish Federations of North America, NECHAMA: Jewish Response to Disaster, and local Jewish communities in the storm’s path to gauge the scope of the damage as it unfolds and to quickly address specific needs of the Jewish and general communities.

Contributions to the Jewish Federation Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund can be made online at www.juf.org/HurricaneHarvey.

Donations also can be made via hotline, (312) 444-2869, or by sending a check payable to the Jewish Federation Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund to 30 S. Wells Street, #3015, Chicago, IL 60606.

Award-winning author and columnist Dr. Daniel Gordis will keynote the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, to be held Monday, Sept. 18, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, 151 E. Wacker Drive. He will speak on the topic: “Beyond Our Wildest Dreams: The State of Israel a Century after Balfour.”

Issued 100 years ago by the British, the Balfour Declaration was the first substantial endorsement of the idea of a Jewish State. Gordis will discuss the century of progress that ensued and explore the ways Israel has exceeded what its founders ever imagined.

Gordis is senior vice president and the Koret Distinguished Fellow at Shalem College in Jerusalem. He writes a column for the Jerusalem Post , and is a regular contributor to the New York Times , in print and online.

The author of numerous books on Jewish thought and current events in Israel and a National Jewish Book Award winner, Gordis was the founding dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism. He joined Shalem in 2007 to help found Israel’s first liberal arts college, after spending nine years as vice president of the Mandel Foundation in Israel and director of its Leadership Institute.

Gordis is widely cited on matters pertaining to Israel. During the Gaza War of 2014, Bloomberg View asked him to become a columnist explaining Israelis’ views of the conflict to the world at large. In 2014, the Jerusalem Post listed him as one of the world’s 50 most influential Jews. Since moving to Israel in 1998, Gordis has written and lectured throughout the world on Israeli society and challenges facing the Jewish state.

The Business Meeting and Members’ Forum begins at 10 a.m.; Gordis will speak at the luncheon session, which follows at noon. Register at juf.org/annualmeeting.

In the wake of last weekend’s white nationalist march and violence in Charlottesville, Va., the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago has made an $18,000 emergency grant to provide the Charlottesville Jewish community with extra security funding.

The first allocations from these funds will enable the city’s Reform synagogue, Congregation Beth Israel, to provide more stringent security during the upcoming High Holy Days, as well as for regular Shabbat and celebrations of Bar and Bat Mitzvahs; and will provide an upgrade to the University of Virginia Hillel’s security system on campus.

The move comes amid a larger grant cycle in which JUF has awarded nearly $1.2 million in security funding to 61 Chicago-area Jewish sites through its JUF Security Grant Program, in response to a sharp uptick in anti-Semitic incidents last spring. The funds will enable security enhancements ranging from surveillance systems, to facility access control, to security personnel, and other site improvements and measures.

According to FBI reports, Jews and Jewish institutions are the single largest targets for religion-based hate crimes in the United States.

JUF Chairman of the Board Michael H. Zaransky said Federation leaders felt making an extra grant to Charlottesville was an important way to stand in solidarity with the Jewish community and other potential targets there at a time when hate-fueled unrest has gripped the city.

“Nazis murdered 6 million Jews in Europe. The KKK terrorized and murdered an untold number of African Americans in this country. Since then their hateful rhetoric has targeted other minority groups, and their public, violent reemergence is a threat to us all,” said JUF/Federation President Dr. Steven B. Nasatir. “We stand with the Jewish community of Charlottesville, and people of good conscience everywhere, in denouncing this evil, and reaffirm our commitment to creating an America free of all forms of hate and persecution.”

“This gift will do a tremendous amount of good and is very, very appreciated,” said Jeffrey Fowler, a Charlottesville native who grew up at Beth Israel and now resides in Chicago. “The events of last weekend were tough to witness, even from a distance, but one of the hardest parts was knowing how nervous, even scared, that many in the congregation were, both for their safety and that of their historic synagogue.”

JUF’s swift response is part of a decades-long tradition of working with communal institutions on security preparedness, and supporting Jewish communities worldwide. The local grant program was the result of a special Security Summit that JUF convened in March, which drew more than 180 participants from over 70 area Jewish organizations and facilities.

Locally, the new JUF security grants will help protect more than 22,000 vulnerable people at 61 sites in the greater Chicago area, including: 25 synagogues, 17 day schools/ preschools, 12 agency locations, 3 camps, 2 colleges and a radio alert system for synagogues and security coordinators located in West Rogers Park, Peterson Park, Albany Park, Lincolnwood, Skokie and Wilmette areas. Awards were also made in Elgin, Naperville, Lombard, Oak Park, River Forest, Wisconsin, as well as the city, and near North, North and Northwest suburbs.

During a week of heightened racial tension and division, JUF’s Jewish Community Relation Council held a Dinner & Dialogue series that brought together nearly 150 Chicagoans of all backgrounds for 10 intimate conversations that addressed many of the critical issues facing our city and country.

Held at private homes, churches and community-based organizations throughout the city, the dinners served to further strengthen relationships between the Jewish community and partners in the African-American, Latino, LGBTQ, Christian and Muslim communities. Topics discussed ranged from community violence, to racism, anti-Semitism, and Jewish-Muslim relations.

“These conversations provided an opportunity for Chicagoans from diverse backgrounds to connect with one another on areas of mutual concern.” said JCRC Chair David T. Brown. “We know that these conversations will inspire further collaboration and action.”

Partner organizations in the series included Fierce Women of Faith, the Jewish Women’s Foundation, Chicago Urban League, Sinai Health System, Stone Temple Baptist Church, Progressive Community Church, The Chicago Board of Rabbis, The Resurrection Project, Fourth Presbyterian Church and Base Hillel.

“The conversation last night was a model of what should be taking place throughout the city, state and, quite frankly, country,” said Paula Thornton Greear, Senior Vice President of External Affairs at the Chicago Urban League.

Although the series is only in its first iteration, plans are already under way for follow-up conversations and action, including visits to other faith communities, joint volunteering and advocacy initiatives.

Prior to the Jewish Federation’s Annual Meeting at noon Monday, Sept. 18, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, 151 E. Wacker Drive, the Federation will hold its Business Meeting and Members’ Forum at 10 a.m., which will feature the presentation of the Samuel A. Goldsmith Young Professional Award and the Davis, Gidwitz & Glasser Young Leadership Award.

Michael Oxman and Rachel Stein will receive the Davis, Gidwitz & Glasser Young Leadership Award, presented to volunteers age 40 and under who have demonstrated exemplary dedication and have made significant contributions to Chicago’s Jewish community.

Oxman, 33, served on the JUF Young Leadership Division Board from 2013 to 2017, holding leadership positions that included President and Campaign Vice Chair, and helped spearhead the creation of YLD Pride. He is participating in the Wexner Heritage Program. A financial advisor at Morgan Stanley, and a partner of the Cohn Weisskopf Oxman Group, he graduated from Northwestern University, earning bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Political Science. Oxman was on the inaugural YLD-Oy!Chicago “36 Under 36” list of outstanding Chicago Jewish leaders in 2012.

Stein, 40, serves as Board Advisor for JUF’s Young Women’s Board, after just finishing her term as President. She also serves on the JUF Community Building and Jewish Continuity Commission, and participates in the Wexner Heritage Program. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood and Elementary Education, and received a master’s degree in Child Development from The Erikson Institute. She was named a YLD-Oy!Chicago “36 Under 36” honoree in 2013.

Davis, Gidwitz & Glasser Award honorees have the opportunity to attend the annual General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, which this year takes place in Los Angeles Nov. 12-14.

Julie Brodsky and Ellie Spitz will receive the 30th annual Samuel A. Goldsmith Young Professional Award, honoring Jewish professionals whose exemplary performance in their work at a Jewish agency in the Chicago area has benefited the entire Jewish community.

Brodsky, 40, is the Assistant Vice President of Young Family Engagement at JUF. A lead member of the JUF Young Families staff, she oversees jBaby Chicago, JUF’s outreach and engagement program geared to new parents and parents with children ages 0-2. She is a member of the Beber Camp Alumni Association Executive Committee, and graduated from Indiana University with a Bachelor of Science in Early Childhood Education and a Jewish Studies Certificate.

Spitz, 28, is the Director of Community Engagement and Wellness at Mishkan Chicago. She graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with highest honors in Human Development and Family Studies, and dual minors in Sociology and Jewish Culture and Society. She received her master’s degree in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis, and holds a certificate in Jewish Leadership from Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning & Leadership and Northwestern University.

The business meeting will begin at 10 a.m. and is free to attend. It will be followed by a lunch session featuring speaker Dr. Daniel Gordis, the annual State of the Federation report, presentation of the Julius Rosenwald Memorial Award to Theodore F. Perlman; and special reports. Luncheon charge is $45 per person; $25 for senior citizens, rabbis, Jewish communal professionals, and students.

For information, call (312) 444-2095 or email [email protected].

Register online at www.juf.org/AnnualMeeting.

JUF’s Jewish Community Relations Council released the following statement today in response to the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish United Fund strongly condemns the ugly display of white nationalist ideologies and violent behaviors that took place over the weekend during the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, VA.

Such hate, bigotry, racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism by white supremacists including members of the KKK and Nazi groups, flies in the face of our American and Jewish values, and has no place in our country.

Nazis murdered 6 million Jews in Europe. The KKK terrorized and murdered an untold number of African Americans in this country. Since then their hateful rhetoric has targeted other minority groups, and their public, violent reemergence is a threat to us all.

We stand with people of good conscience everywhere in denouncing this evil, and reaffirm our commitment to creating an America free of all forms of hate and persecution.

Our condolences go out to the families of those who have lost their lives, and we wish a speedy recovery to those who have been injured.

Shurat HaDin attorney Rachel Weiser will be featured in two programs on Tuesday, Aug. 15, one at noon at the Chicago Bar Association and one at 8 p.m. at North Suburban Synagogue Beth El in Highland Park (for both attorneys and non-attorneys). Moriah Congregation is co-sponsoring the Beth El program.

Weiser will speak about her work on U.S. anti-terrorism cases, including Sokolow v. PA , when she was part of the trial team that won a $655 million jury verdict in 2015 against the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian Liberation Organization, on behalf of 33 American terror victims during the second Intifada.

After moving to Israel in 2010 with her husband and five children, Weiser joined Shurat HaDin, where she also runs the organization’s biannual law student internship program and annual lawyer’s seminar. Her oldest child is in a Special Forces unit of the IDF.

To register for the Beth El program, contact Ana Igornov at [email protected] or call (847) 432-8900. For the CBA program, email [email protected] with your name, firm, address and phone number or call (312) 554-2056 to register.

Shurat HaDin is a non-profit Israeli NGO that handles lawsuits on behalf of terrorist victims in US courts and worldwide, against banks, countries, and other terrorism funders http://israellawcenter.org/about/ . SHD has won over $2 billion in judgments, frozen over $600 million in assets and collected over $200 million for terror victims. The Supreme Court recently granted cert in Rubin v. Islamic Republic of Iran, which involves Iranian artifacts at the University of Chicago and the Field Museum.