Giving Our All

In the May 31, 2013 edition of Community Links I wrote an article titled “The Cost of Jewish Living.”  In this article I made a proposition that the various merchants and service providers who service the Jewish community in Los Angeles make a commitment to donate 3% of profits to support Jewish day school education by donating that 3% to any Jewish day school’s financial aid fund.  By doing so, we would create a cycle of community support:  patrons support Jewish business, businesses support Jewish education and involvement for children, schools receive additional funds to disperse for financial aid, families experience some element of financial relief, families have some spending money to shop, etc.  Assuming merchants and service providers do not raise their fees in order to make the donations, theoretically as more business owners choose to participate, the collective impact could be quite substantial in support of financial aid for day schools.

As always, I provide my email and contact information in case any readers wish to share their thoughts.  The very first email I received in response to the May 31st article read as follows, “What a wonderful idea. Now you should “put your money where your mouth is” and be the first to post such a sign in your office.  Cheers, dr.p.”  Here is my exact reply, “Thank you, I actually give 10% but I don’t think most would consider that so I chose 3%. Would you like to join? What is your name? Best, Mia” I guess Dr. P wasn’t ready to commit since I received no reply to my invitation to participate in the initiative.

To my knowledge, not a single business owner has decided to commit to this 3% idea of a solution to better support families to be able to afford Jewish day school education for the community’s children in Los Angeles.  I’m not sure why.  Perhaps times are tough.  Perhaps business owners are not confident that what is given away comes back ten-fold.  Or, perhaps no one actually reads this column.  Any one of these is reason enough for it to not take off.  But I am not someone who quits, and I am also a woman of action.  What Dr. P’s email did for me is cause me to dig deeper and ask myself—am I doing everything I possibly can to contribute?  Am I doing everything I possibly can to inspire others to give?  What else can I personally do to help motivate others to give a percentage of their earnings to Jewish day school education financial aid funds?  I decided the answer was no—I am not doing all that I can do.  I need to do more, and what follows is my plan of action to motivate and inspire YOU to get involved.

As a woman who has married, divorced, and remarried; As a mother to nine kids—three of mine, four of his, and two of ours (ranging in age from 18 years to 20 months); As a professional psychotherapist, writer, and educator; As the wife of a general contractor/rabbi; As an Ashkenazi woman married once to an American Ashkenazi and now to a Sephardic Israeli Iraqi; As a woman who has over 20 years of experience in the world of education and Jewish education, I’ve gathered some skills and some wisdom. I’d like to share it for the benefit of raising money for financial aid for Jewish day schools.  At first I considered starting a foundation of sorts, but then I realized that I truly don’t want that responsibility (and work).  So what I realized I can do instead is to become a channel for the money—a conduit of sorts—to connect donors with schools by offering up some of my wisdom and experience.

B’ezrat HaShem and bli neder, I plan to start offering workshops for women to offer support, empowerment, and inspiration for their work in this world.  My thoughts right now are to coordinate the events with Rosh Chodesh.  The events will be open to any women 18 years and older who wish to attend and ticket for admission will be a check for $18 or more written to the Jewish day school of that person’s choosing with “financial aid donation” in the memo.  I’m still working on the format, but we’ll touch on all aspects of women’s lives—home, work, parenting, marriage.  Much of what we will do will be in a Jewish context; however women of any faith are welcome to attend.  There will be opportunity for discussion, anonymous question and answer sessions, perhaps a guest speaker some times.  Maybe some retailers will offer freebie give-a-ways as favors.  Let’s see together what evolves!  But I will need some help to get the first event off the ground:  a space to host the event, people to greet the attendees and collect entrance fees, ways to get the word out (PTAs?  Flyers?  Synagogues?).  If you can find it within yourself to participate in any way—to volunteer to make things happen, or to attend and find others to attend as well—I think we can start to build something amazing to help Jewish families in our Los Angeles community and to help schools raise additional funds for financial aid.

I hope that more than five people read this, but if only five do, then I hope I get five replies with offers to get involved.  Any merchant or service provider that offers to assist will be recognized (I’m not sure how but it will be worth it).  I can be reached at mia@bhcounselingcenter.com and I am very much looking forward to seeing how we can come together and give it our all.

By: Mia Adler Ozair