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The Jewish Federation of Tulsa is built on three strategic Initiatives:
Community Engagement
Ensuring the Jewish Future
Caring for People in Need
Are you interested in getting involved with the Jewish Federation of Tulsa, but have limited time to commit? If you are a member of JFT and in good standing, you are eligible to join one of our committees, which meet monthly or quarterly.
Isabella Silberg, Director of Development and Programming
Brian Brouse, Chair
The Annual Campaign is the vehicle that drives our community of supporters and an extraordinary network of programs and agencies that care for people in need, strengthen Jewish identity and education, build a strong and vibrant Jewish community, and encourage innovation in Tulsa, Israel, and around the world. Campaign volunteers create ways to engage, solicit perspective donors, and work to create a stronger Federation. Special campaigns are launched when events demand an immediate response from the American Jewish community.
Meeting frequency: Monthly
Jared Goldfarb, Chair
The Budget and Allocations Committee receives, reviews, and analyzes information concerning the activities, programs, and performances of those local and national charitable entities and organizations requesting contributions or subventions from the Federation.
Meeting frequency: As necessary
Stan Khrapak, Chair
The Federation’s Community Relations Committee is the instrument by which Jewish interests in public life is served. It also serves as the expression of Jewish conscience on matters of communal concern, i.e., combating anti-Semitism, promoting Jewish-Interfaith relations, and working with the media and public offices.
Meeting frequency: Monthly
Michael Mudd, Chair
The Facilities Committee determines, analyzes, and makes recommendations to the board of directors with respect to major upkeep, maintenance, repair, renovation, and betterment of the physical plant, offices, and other facilities owned or occupied by the Federation.
Meeting frequency: As necessary
Jared Goldfarb, Chair
The Investment Committee recommends and implements investment policies with respect to the safekeeping, investment, and reinvestment of the funds and securities of the Federation. Meeting frequency: Quarterly
Itzik Levin, Chair
The Israel Committee is responsible for the quality of the relationship of Tulsa’s Jewish community to Israel by developing, coordinating, and providing resources.
Meeting frequency: As necessary
Andrew Wolov, Chair
The JFT Foundation makes it possible for individuals and families to provide for the changing and future needs of our people. Gifts to the Foundation ensure that the inevitable passage of time does not interrupt the convictions, the good deeds, and the works of individuals long after they are gone.
Meeting frequency: Quarterly
Ed Sherman, Chair
The Personnel Committee has general supervision over the personnel and employment needs of the Federation.
Meeting frequency: As necessary
Lori Lieb-Rosas, Co-Chair
Jennifer Joels, Co-Chair
The purpose of the programming committee is to assist with the creation and implementation of all programs offered by the JFT.
Meeting frequency: Monthly
Lori Frank, Chair
The Social Services Committee assists local families and individuals in crisis and helps transient Jews in trouble.
Meeting frequency: As necessary.
Sandy Sloan, Editor
The Tulsa Jewish Review Committee helps curate content and offers input on the Tulsa Jewish Review magazine once a month to keep the community informed on local events.
Meeting frequency: As necessary.
Using food as a vehicle to explore identity, culture, and tradition, participants enjoy food from Tulsa’s restaurants and hear from local chefs about their culinary journey. For more information, please contact Isabella Silberg.
We believe that everyone should know about the Holocaust. Holocaust education programs provide education and resources to help educators and students study the history of the Holocaust.
What is the Council for Holocaust Education?
The Council for Holocaust Education exists to assist and coordinate the Holocaust educational efforts of teachers and students in the greater Tulsa area and beyond.
The Council is a committee of volunteers from across the community with administrative and financial support provided by the Jewish Federation of Tulsa (JFT), The Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art and the Eva Unterman Holocaust Education Fund. The Council focuses on Holocaust commemoration and education of the Tulsa community through several venues. Among these are:
In Memory of Dawid Sierakowiak
The mission of The Eva Unterman Holocaust Education Fund in memory of Dawid Sierakowiak is to promote and provide funding for projects that foster understanding, education, and commemoration of the Holocaust that benefit the Oklahoma schools, communities, and beyond.
This endowment fund of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa honors Eva Unterman, a child survivor of the ghetto and camps, whose leadership in implementing and supporting Holocaust education has brought the lessons of the Holocaust to countless teachers, students, and community members. Her annual Interfaith Yom HaShoah Commemoration began in 1998 and continues to the present.
At Eva’s request, the fund is dedicated to the memory of Dawid Sierakowiak, whose diary recounts the hopes and suffering he experienced in the Lodz Ghetto before his death at the age of nineteen.
Eva has memories of a young man who came to the ghetto rooms her family called home and tutored her in Hebrew. She believes that this young man was Dawid Sierakowiak.
“I was so fortunate to have survived and I feel a real obligation to tell my story for David Sierakowiak and all the other children who died in the Holocaust.
-Eva Unterman
To Learn more about Eva Unterman and the Fund click here
To Donate To The Eva Unterman Holocaust Education Fund click here
The Institute of Adult Jewish Studies is our community’s best effort to meet the challenge of continuing education for the Tulsa Jewish community.
For more than three decades, Temple Israel, Congregation B’nai Emunah, the Charles Schusterman Jewish Community Center, and the Jewish Federation of Tulsa have pooled their resources to provide the highest quality and best variety of courses for the members of our Jewish community.
Over the years, we have seen the Institute of Adult Jewish Studies change and pivot to meet the needs of the community and its interests. Right now, is one of those times. The Institute of Adult Jewish Studies is getting a facelift. Please be patient as the committee works to rebrand Adult Institute. For more information, please contact Isabella Silberg.
Learn a bunch in just one lunch. Open to all community members, we meet once per lunch for an educational speaker and lunch. Please contact Isabella Silberg for more information.
Conceived as a partnership between Circle Cinema and the Jewish Federation of Tulsa, the Oklahoma Jewish Film Festival is a celebration of Jewish film held each March.
For more information, please contact Sandy Sloan.
2022 Oklahoma Jewish Film Festival is March 27-31
In partnership with the Jewish Agency, a select group of outstanding emissaries travel to different cities across the country and provide a living connection to Israel by promoting Israeli experiences, facilitating Jewish social activism, and speaking authentically about Israeli faith and culture.
Tulsa is one of the few cities that participates in this incredible partnership.
The Shlichim is responsible for:
For more information on travel to Israel or Israel programming, contact our Schlicha Chen Shoval.
An informal and fun competition held at the Sylvan Auditorium where teams battle to see who has the greatest knowledge. Proceeds go to the Dave Sylvan Camp Scholarship Fund and JFT Programs and Services. For more information, please contact Isabella Silberg or Martha Kelley.
Jewish continuity is about creating a rich Jewish future for our children and our children’s children. This future is built on what we do today, so JFT creates opportunities for people of all ages to participate and celebrate Jewish life and connect with the community and Israel. We have a multipronged approach to building, supporting, and sustaining our Jewish community. JFT helps answer the hard questions. What role is Judaism going to play in your life? How do you build a Jewish network? How can we provide you with Jewish confidence through Jewish competence?
BBYO is the leading pluralistic teen movement aspiring to involve more Jewish teens in more meaningful Jewish experiences. For over 95 years, BBYO has provided exceptional identity enrichment and leadership development experiences for hundreds of thousands of Jewish teens.
For more information, please contact David Finer.
To learn more about BBYO, please click here.
Camp Shalom, Greene Family Camp and Camp Ramah
We believe it’s important for every Jewish kid to experience summer camp. That is why we offer scholarships for Jewish children in Tulsa to have the summer of their lives at one of our many camp partners. Sign up at Bnai Emunah or Temple Israel.
A group for Jewish moms of young children. The group creates community and provides moms with support and a safe space to share, learn, reflect, and hear from one another about the challenges of raising a Jewish boy and/or girl.
Mizel JCDS, with its pre-K through 5th grade program, provides the model where elementary children will daily live and learn Jewish history, values, traditions, Hebrew language and ritual, along with secular courses of a strong educational program.
PJ Library is an international, award-winning Jewish family engagement program designed to strengthen the identities of Jewish families and their relationship to Jewish community.
The name, “PJ,” stands for “pajamas” and invokes that time at the end of the day when parents and children strengthen their bond through love and learning by cuddling up with a book.
The PJ Library initiative is building a stronger Jewish people by investing in our future. At this time when many young families in our society are exploring how they want to raise their children, PJ Library books and music arrive in families’ homes, offering resources for making Jewish choices and establishing Jewish connections. With intermarriage hovering at 50 percent, there is great opportunity to educate more parents, and thus their children, in the priceless stories of Jewish traditions, values, and heritage. PJ Library engages young people in playful stories of Judaism, thus planting seeds in fertile minds.
We have also launched PJ Library events, where we create opportunities for kids and parents to explore ways to connect and interact, and exchange resources and experiences. By providing these books and opportunities to connect without cost, PJ Library aims to help families explore the timeless core values of Judaism and to transmit these values to the next generation.
PJ Library offers the gift of high-quality Jewish books and music each month, reaching approximately 110,000 children in more than 185 communities in the United States and Canada. Nearly 200,000 preschool children also receive books through “Sifriyat Pijama,” PJ Library’s sister program in Israel. The program was created by the Harold Grinspoon Foundation which funds institutions and programs that directly transmit Jewish learning to children, adults, and families and was inspired by Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library which sends books to children in underprivileged areas of the US.
If you’re the parent, grandparent, or guardian of a Jewish Tulsa area child between the ages of six months to eight years, sign up today! Visit www.PJLibrary.org to sign up, or for local assistance, call Isabella Silberg at 918.935.3690.
Engaging Jewish young professionals to foster community and meet and mingle with other Jews through social activities and events.
Programs include happy hours, a summer soiree, social gatherings at bars, restaurants, yoga and fitness studios and coffee shops.
For more information, please contact Isabella Silberg.
JFT leverages the strength of our community to provide aid to people in need. Our work includes assisting in emergencies and connecting people to the skills and services necessary to be self-sufficient, decrease isolation, and ensure their dignity.
The vision behind the JFT Community Garden is to educate the community on the importance of local food production and provide produce to those in need. The JFT garden has been about increasing access to highly nutritious, fresh, and organic food in a way that maintains dignity, builds community, and celebrates diversity.
The design was specific. Its shape is that of a hexagram, the compound of two equilateral triangles, which makes up the Star of David.
Partnership with the Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma
Every month of the growing season, we drop off produce at the Food Bank, freshly picked from our garden. At times, we have supplied up to 2000 lbs. of produce in a single year.
Partnership with Women in Recovery
We are particularly excited about partnering with Women in Recovery through Family and Children’s Services. We provide these women with life-long skills, teaching them how to grow their own produce and how to feed their family on a budget.
We get the volunteers we need to help maintain our garden, while these women gain a sense of empowerment and we all work together to strengthen the Tulsa community.
Partnership with Junior League of Tulsa
We are thrilled to partner with the Junior League of Tulsa once again. JFT participates in their Impact Project, devoted to ending the cycle of poverty in the Tulsa community through hands-on education and community-based programs. The JLT ladies give of their time in planting, harvesting, and learning about gardening, nutrition, and food and hunger issues. They are encouraged to connect with other volunteers from Women in Recovery. All the food goes to the Food Bank bi-weekly.
Rooted in Jewish traditions, we provide monetary support for financial emergencies and mental health crisis. All information is strictly confidential. Please contact 918.935.3662 for further information.
JFT supports quarterly community service projects that help benefit local organizations that service those in need. Some of the special projects and donation drives include:
Please contact Falisha Brown for more information or 918 495-1100.
