This will probably be a bit shorter than Part 1. Maybe I should have combined them.

We will start with American Associates, Ben Gurion University of the Negev. BGU is one of Israel’s largest universities, with its main campus in Beersheva (in the northern Negev Desert), and smaller campuses in Eilat (on the Red Sea) and Sde Boker (about 40 miles south of Beersheva), near the retirement home of David Ben-Gurion. It is supported in part by contributions arranged by a series of “friends of” organizations, the largest of which is here in the United States, headquartered in New York City, with a branch in the DC/Baltimore area.

Somewhat over 40 years ago, we joined a seven couple study group composed of Adas Israel families with children of comparable ages, and we met with that group on a regular basis for about 15 or 20 years, when we all decided that it would be nice to take a trip together. We decided to go to Israel on an archeological tour, and spent a year or so preparing for the trip through various readings, etc. One of the seven families had been involved with BGU and suggested that BGU in Beersheva might be able to recommend a guide for us and also offer us a tour of the campus. That sounded good.

When the recommendations came for the tour (which was to be 12 days long), the suggested beginning was 3 days at BGU and only 9 days on the road. This seemed absurd to be, but the group approved the agenda and we were off. Although the idea of spending 3 days at BGU struck me as 2 days too long, in fact, all three of those days were remarkable. We met with faculty and with students, we toured both the Beersheva and Sde Boker campuses, we attended classes, we toured laboratories, we went into the field and saw agricultural experimentation and a fish hatchery, a little of everything.

When we got back home, Edie and I made a contribution to the school, and we got involved in the local supporting group in Washington. Soon, our friends who had led that group for years decided it was time for them to step aside, and we became the local co-chairs and, as a result of that, I think, I was asked to be on the national board of what was then called American Associates, Ben Gurion University of the Negev. The work of that group was obviously important and, more than that, I found that I really enjoyed being with the permanent staff and with the other supporters that I met from around the country.

A few years after that, I remember we were on a road trip (surprise!) and the car phone rang (those were car phone days, not cell phone days) and it was the president of the board of directors asking if I would be interested in “running” for the Treasurer position. It intrigued me, and I said I would think it over. I liked the idea of getting more involved, but I was neither ever going to be a million-dollar supporter, as some were, and I really had no financial background to be a Treasurer. I remembered my assistant treasurer position at Temple Sinai, where I was totally out of my league, and shivered a bit.

It is true that since then my law practice had me looking at a lot of financial data, and I knew how to understand what I looked at, and my days as a board member and officer at Adas Israel had given some experience in working on budgets, but still…..the BGU world was filled with sophisticated businessmen with MBAs and more, and with prominent CPAs. But it was also true that AABGU had a Chief Financial Officer, whom I knew from by board work and whom I thought I could work with. At any event, I said “yes” and started me on a six year spell as national treasurer of AABGU.

Of course, I approached my work as much as a lawyer as I did as a treasurer and when I discovered that the financial structure of AABGU at that time did not seem to comply with IRS rules for organizations that were “friends” organizations of foreign institutions (compliance was necessary so that contributions would be deductible for U.S. income tax purposes), I went about arranging for legal representation to put us into compliance. That’s a long story in and of itself, but it was a successful restructuring and I can only assume that the organization is still in compliance today.

Other than that, being treasurer meant working on the annual budget of an organization that brought in about $40 million in contributions annually, and presenting that budget to the board at biannual board meetings, getting involved in board executive committee meetings which involved any number of issues, and taking nine or ten trips to Israel for meetings at the university itself (and one fascinating meeting in London where I represented the US organization and the other participants represented the fund raising organizations from Canada, South Africa, Latin America and various European countries – what a fascinating group of people).

At any rate, I remained treasurer and a board member until about 5 years ago, when I resigned.  Leadership at the organization was changing, and leadership at the university was changing and it seemed that the 20 years or so that I spent helping BGU was sufficient.  I am still in touch with the organization and make an annual contribution, but am no longer a board member.

While all this was going on, Edie was leading the Bereavement Committee at Adas Israel. Without going into details, this committee helped families whose loved ones passed away by, among other things, arranging the funerals in order to let the families concentrate on other things, and in order to minimize the decisions that families would have to make when they were in a state of grief or shock or both. I was a committee member; it was a very dedicated group of people.

In conjunction with her work as Bereavement Committee chair, Edie was a member of the Jewish Funeral Practices Committee of Greater Washington, a not-for-profit that was created in the 1980s to promote simple and traditional Jewish funeral practices and to keep the cost of funerals under control (in DC, there was a Jewish funeral duopoly that was charging high prices, and trying to up-sell fancy caskets, etc). The JFPC was led by a DC lawyer who had been chair of the committee for over 30 years, and had members from all of the Jewish denominations.

The Committee held evening meetings four times a year, and there were times when Edie couldn’t go and I went in her place, and really appreciated what the Committee was doing and the people doing it. It was a new world for me. At some point, and I don’t remember exactly when, Edie and I decided that I would take her place as a Committee member. The group, although a legal non-profit, was run informally, so that this transfer was as easy as could be.

Some years later, Bob Hausman, the Committee chair, who was then in his early 80s, called me up and said that he thought he needed to resign, that it was becoming too much responsibility for him, and that I was the logical (he said the “only”) board member he would be comfortable turning it over to. I told him that I was interested, but unsure what it might amount to, so that I would like to shadow him for a year before reaching a final agreement. This is what I did. It was an interesting year, when we were negotiating an arrangement with a suburban Virginia funeral home to offer funerals in compliance with our standards (including financial standards) and, again, I found it interesting, worthwhile and something I felt competent to do.

This started a 10 year presidency that ended in the summer of 2025, when I too, now in my 80s, thought it time for me to step aside, and I resigned the presidency, stayed on the board for a year, and just a few months ago resigned my board position. The organization continues to thrive with arrangements with three local funeral homes, with helping congregations create and sustain bereavement or chevra kadisha committees, and with monitoring what happens generally with Jewish funerals in the area and acting as a model for groups in other cities across the country.

Finally, there is the Haberman Institute for Jewish Studies, of which I am currently president. By coincidence the Haberman Institute (then called the Foundation for Jewish Studies) and the JFPC were established at about the same time, in the early 1980s. The Institute was established by Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman when he retired as Rabbi at Washington Hebrew Congregation, and over the course of several decades brought scholars to the DC area to share their expertise in Jewish religious and cultural thought. For years, he operated the “foundation” as a solo-practitioner, maybe with the help of one or two assistants, but it became too much for him as he aged (he lived to 97), and the organization began to operate with an independent board of directors and a professional, part time, executive director. I attended Foundation programs from time to time (I am obviously interested in such things) and had several friends who were board members. One of those friends, Arnie Hammer, who was then about to become the president of the board, suggested that I might want to join the board, and I did. It was a small board, so it didn’t take too long before I was a vice-president/treasurer, and became quite active.

Arnie was having health problems, and felt he could not keep up with his presidency, and he called me and my friend Elaine Amir together and said that he was going to resign and that one of us had to become president. He also suggested that it would be good to have a woman president, something that had not yet been the case. Elaine agreed to become president if I would be vice president and we would in effect act together as co-presidents, which we did, as we worked together well and our strengths complimented each other rather than causing competition between us.

This was about the time that I took over the Funeral Practices Committee, and I told Elaine that I could manage both, but not as president of both, so that she was stuck with the title as long as I was leading the other group. I am not sure that either of us thought that this would be a ten year stretch, but it was. When I left the presidency of the funeral committee in 2025, I also replaced Elaine as president of Haberman (we had renamed the organization after Rabbi Haberman passed away, a more than fitting renaming), and she continues to work along side me as past-president and board member.

As those who follow this blog know, I will be turning 84 this year, and don’t know how long my Haberman service will continue. But so far, so good, and we have added some board members who are younger (like in their 70s) and who are more than qualified to take over once my time ends.

That’s it. No more about me.