Our Board Chair and CEO Report

Shabbat Message from CEO Ezra S. Shanken
 

At our Annual General Meeting on Monday evening we welcomed three new directors. Mazel tov to Michael Fugman, Adin Mauer, and Rachel Meadow who are joining our Board. We also said todah rabbah to the directors who concluded their terms: Bruce Cohen, Kyra Morris, Rick Kohn, and Diane Switzer. We greatly appreciate their dedication to community and that they chose to share their expertise with our Federation.

I would also like to thank Michal Cotler-Wunsh, former Member of the Knesset and senior public policy and strategy advisor, and Yaron Deckel, The Jewish Agency’s regional director for Canada, for sharing their insights on issues we face as individuals, as a community, and as a people. 

The AGM is always a time of reflection on the year that passed, and the 2021-2022 year was unique in that it was the second full year of pandemic response alongside our regular (and regularly evolving) work. We would like to share with you the Board Chair and CEO Report that will appear in our upcoming 2021-22 Annual Report:

The second year of the pandemic was one of both challenges and opportunities. In response to the changing needs of our community, we have updated our strategic priorities to guide us through 2025. 

At the same time, we reached more people in more places, as our impact extended beyond our local community and partnership region to address crises across the province, in Ukraine, and around the world. 

The generosity shown by our community this past year was humbling and inspiring.

Under the leadership of campaign chair, Lana Marks Pulver, the 2021 Annual Campaign generated $9.52 million, including Annual Campaign contributions, corporate partnerships, and support for community initiatives. Another $1.73 million, which includes additional support for special projects, community recovery, emergency relief, and donors’ multi-year commitments to our international partners was generated, as well as $2.6 million for special projects. 

For the past four years the Jewish Community Foundation has benefitted tremendously from the leadership of Diane Switzer, chair of the Foundation’s Governors. The Foundation closed the year with $76 million in assets under management and oversaw disbursements from funds resulting in nearly $3.6 million, which has positively impacted a myriad of charitable organizations and services. 

The Foundation also announced the establishment of a new $1 million endowment fund to support Temple Sholom. A very generous Temple Sholom member family seeded the fund and chose to establish it at the Foundation because they value the professional fund management and strong governance that the Foundation brings. The family used their philanthropy to inspire others to give.

Our leadership and staff are key factors in our continued success.

Our work and our shared impact received new recognition this year, and we were very proud to welcome The Honourable Janet Austin, Lieutenant Governor of BC, as Honorary Patron of our organization.

Alex Cristall, concluded his two-year term as board chair, and we want to thank him for his monumental achievements during a crucial time for our community., We are truly grateful to him for his service and are delighted that he is staying on as immediate past chair.

In June of 2021, we welcomed our current board chair, Candace Kwinter, who also serves on the Aliyah, Antisemitism, and Unity of the Jewish People committees of our partner, The Jewish Agency for Israel. 

Our Chief Executive Officer, Ezra Shanken, was offered and accepted a new contract through 2027, providing ongoing professional stability to the organization.

In addition, our Senior Management Team developed and implemented a set of performance values that now guide the day-to-day work of our staff and leadership: Caring, Excellence, Collaboration, and Efficiency.

As a Federation, we have a unique vantage point.

We see the bigger picture and bring to bear our strengths in the areas of community planning, convening partners, inspiring collaborations, and raising funds to meet community needs.

We were very proud to see the culmination of five years of convening and collaboration come together as our partner, Jewish Family Services (JFS), opened The Kitchen. This central hub for JFS’s food security programming is the outcome of the Food Security Task Force that our organizations jointly led, which in turn was an outcome of the Affordability Summit we co-presented with key partners.

We are deeply grateful for the ways in which our community continued to come together, and that enabled us to draw upon the new strengths we had forged throughout the pandemic.

Our Community Recovery Task Force, chaired by Risa Levine, continued its work and we distributed additional funds to support the longer term needs of community organizations. This fiscal year alone, the task force recommended the distribution of more than $1 million, bringing the total to over $1.7 million.

We moved forward in several other key areas of strategic importance to the community, including the launch of an exciting new climate change initiative with our partners, the establishment of a mental health committee that developed a new community strategy, and more.

In our partnership region of the Upper Galilee Panhandle, we are establishing an entrepreneurship centre to provide opportunities to underprivileged youth that will ultimately help break the cycle of poverty in the region.

When violence broke out in Israel last spring, we saw a wave of antisemitism sweep across Canada. We opened a fund to help victims of terror and worked with our advocacy agent, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, to call on the Canadian government to convene an Emergency Summit on Antisemitism.

In last year’s Annual Report we were proud to share news of the BC government’s $25 million contribution to the first phase of the proposed JCC site redevelopment. This year, we are proud to report that the Federal government has promised their support, too.

Together with the JCC and King David High School, we also introduced JWest—the new name for the proposed JCC site redevelopment project. JWest is a vision for more than just a new JCC. It represents the single biggest project in the history of our Jewish community—one which will benefit not only our community but the entire city and region in all its diversity.

If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that we can never be sure what challenges may lie ahead next. But we have also shown that we—together with our partners and our donors—are ready to take on whatever comes next.

The strength of this community is what inspires our future.

Candace Kwinter Board Chair	Ezra S. Shanken Chief Executive Officer

Ezra S. Shanken 
CEO, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver