One of Rachel Sternberg’s favorite Chicago Jewish stories to tell took place before she was born. It was the one about Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir visiting the old Chicago Federation building before the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 and calling upon the Chicago Jewish community to help support Israel in its time of need. We’re going to do this, the prime minister said, and we need your support.

Of course, said Sternberg, the JUF community stepped up to the plate. In its 116-year history, JUF has always come to the aid of any community in peril-from Israel to Ethiopian to Soviet Jewry and everyone in between.

What makes this institution great, she said, is that we’ve been here in the past and we’ll be here in the future–for good. “There’s this beautiful blend between honoring our past and the foundation that has built this community with so much history, success, and tradition, but at the same time we have the vision to look forward, to see new ways to innovate and address the needs of future generation,” she said.

And for more than 22 of those years, Sternberg has been working right in the thick of it, helping lead JUF in its mission to help repair the world. After more than two decades of professional leadership, Sternberg, senior vice president of Campaign, wrapped up an extraordinary career at JUF this past January, coinciding with the close of a successful 2015 JUF Annual Campaign.

She served as the catalyst to so many JUF programs and initiatives. Sternberg began her career at JUF in 1993 as Trades, Industries, & Professions (TIP) Division Director in the Campaign Department and in the years that followed, she played a wide range of roles in Resource Development, serving in and/or managing every aspect of Campaign as well as creating both the Events and the Community Outreach and Leadership Development departments, being promoted from Young Leadership Division director to Assistant Vice President, Associate Vice President, and Senior Vice President along the way.

In 2010, she became JUF/Federation’s Chief of Staff. Then, she returned to Campaign in 2012, where she became the lead professional in charge of the JUF Annual Campaign.

Though she is leaving JUF on a day-to-day basis, Sternberg will spearhead a special fundraising project for JUF culminating in 2017, with details to be announced in the near future.

Sternberg traveled on a JUF mission to Israel her first year on the job-and she subsequently traveled 20 more times to the Jewish State as well as on 25 missions total around the world, to the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and to Cuba, among others.

But more than the places, it’s the people who Sternberg will remember most, the bonds between both the extraordinary lay and professional staff. She is grateful to the community, to her colleagues, and to JUF President Steven B. Nasatir for their unwavering support.

In turn, Nasatir said that Sternberg’s commitment to collective action inspires him. “Rachel’s uncanny capacity to think strategically and develop powerful relationships with volunteer leaders and colleagues has been a key to her success,” he said. “Her embrace of one of our founding principles–collective responsibility–has motivated all who work with her. Rachel is an extraordinary professional leader, and her contribution to JUF/Federation’s work during her tenure has been very significant.”

Sternberg will always be moved by the power of JUF. “There is something that people get by being a part of the work that we do, making already full lives even fuller,” she said. “No matter where they are in their work life or family life, they can gain by being part of the collective.”