Over the last year, Jewish Family Services has resettled over 50 Ukrainian families and individuals, resulting in a total of 100 new Ukrainian arrivals in Richmond.
It’s worth noting that it was JFS’ seventh resettlement effort. JFS puts its energies into helping Jews resettle in Richmond, which involves everything from meeting the immigrants at the airport and finding them living accommodations to teaching them to shop in U.S. grocery stores and getting their children into local schools.
The mission of Jewish Family Services has always been to transform lives and strengthen the community. Although what that means has changed over the decades, the nonprofit has always looked to help with what’s important to Richmonders at the moment. “Tikkun Olam” – repairing the world by making it a better place one person at a time – has been their guiding principle since the 19th century.
The organization was founded in 1849 when the wife of the rabbi at Congregation Beth Ahabah on Franklin Street convened a group of women to form the Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Association as a way to serve neighbors and the community who were sick and vulnerable. Over the years, the group helped Civil War soldiers, as well as victims of the twin pandemics of Spanish influenza and tuberculosis.
By the end of the 20th century, their focus was on aging baby boomers. “A lot of what we do today revolves around taking care of older adults, so we partnered with Beth Sholom to start hospice services to offer a continuum of care,” says Wendy Kreuter, CEO of Jewish Family Services. “Virginia is experiencing a crisis in foster care, so we put additional emphasis on finding forever homes for children in Virginia.”
When the 2020 pandemic began, JFS Richmond drew lessons from its own history. “When COVID hit, it wasn’t our first rodeo with something like that at JFS, and our history helped us understand what we needed to do,” Kreuter says. “Closing was not an option for JFS. We continued to go into homes and our counselors pivoted from in person to Zoom.”
The Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Association eventually transitioned from a volunteer agency into a modern social services agency, becoming Jewish Family Services in 1954. Led by Zipporah Cohen for the 33 years from 1904 to 1937, JFS continued its work through World War I and the Great Depression. “No matter what may come to us or how severe the test,” Cohen wrote, “we will be able to meet these demands, for in the hearts of our people dwell love and charity.”
On Sept. 21, they commemorated the 175th anniversary of having a positive impact on the Richmond community with another Cohen. JFS Richmond hosted a special event, “Celebrating 175 Years of JFS with Andy Cohen,” at the Dominion Energy Center. Cohen is an award-winning TV host, producer and radio personality, most recognized as the host of “The Real Housewives” franchise.
Today JFS is a professional nonprofit social services agency offering high-quality senior care, counseling for people ages 5 to 95, and adoption and foster care services to all, regardless of age, race, faith, income, or identity. “We serve the entire community, not just the Jewish community, and 70% of our clients are not Jewish” Kreuter says. “We serve low-income clients on Medicaid because we want to help those who need help most.”
JFS Richmond is the oldest Jewish Family Services organization in North America, last year providing almost 1,500 families and individuals of all ages with over 120,000 hours of counseling, in-home care and care management, senior engagement, public and private guardianship programs for those who have no family, adoption and foster care services and resettlement services.
With an impressive list of accomplishments dating back to before the Civil War, JFS Richmond decided that 175 years of serving the community was a pretty big deal. “We wanted to pull out all the stops, so we thought about who would be appropriate to help us celebrate,” Kreuter says. “As an American Jew, Andy Cohen is known for his creativity and innovation and that’s exactly what it takes to meet a community’s needs for 175 years.”
With a solid record of transforming lives and strengthening the community, JFS Richmond’s 175 years of history is not just their own. As Kreuter points out, it’s also Richmond’s history, women’s history, Jewish history and American history.
“It’s our history but it’s your history, too,” she says. “When you think about all the lives we’ve touched, Richmond wouldn’t be Richmond without Jewish Family Services.”
To learn more about Jewish Family Services and its work, visit the website.
