Melton, Maimonides come under federation umbrella
By Deborah Moon
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The Jewish Federation of Greater Portland umbrella has been expanded to cover two more organizations—The Florence Melton Adult Mini-School and Maimonides Jewish Day School.
Melton was approved as a constituent agency at the JFGP governing board’s February meeting. In March, the board voted to admit Maimonides as a constituent agency effective July 1.
“Constituent agencies are part of the family and are entitled to request funding from the (federation) allocations committee,” said JFGP Executive Vice President Charles Schiffman. “Being a constituent agency also gives them a seat at the monthly Agency Council meetings where issues of concern to local agencies are discussed.”
“In effect, it means these two agencies, each of which provide an extremely important service to the community, will now have a seat at the table,” he said. “It takes a party who should have a voice in what’s going on in the community and brings that voice into official channels.”
Schiffman said constituency status was granted to Melton and Maimonides, not to Morasha and Chabad of Oregon, with which the two are associated respectively.
“Maimonides Jewish Day School is an independent 501(c)3 organization,” said Shiffman. “While the school is organized according to Chabad principles, Chabad of Oregon is a different organization and constituent status goes to the Maimonides Jewish Day School.”
“Because a day school provides a particularly comprehensive Jewish education framework, I suspect the federation would welcome the opportunity to support any day school in the Portland area. There are only two in existence,” he said.
The other day school, Portland Jewish Academy, has been a federation beneficiary agency for decades.
JFGP Board Vice President Marshal Spector said the fact that both new agencies are educational organizations played a major role in their addition to the federation family.
“The future and vitality of the Jewish community is greatly dependent on the education of our young people and our adults,” said Spector. “These are organizations that met the criteria for constituency status and we were pleased to be able to have them join the federation family.”
Portland Melton President Mimi Epstein was pleased by the federation’s recognition.
“Until this year the local chapter of the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School has been the only independently run Melton program in the country,” said Epstein. “We made the decision to apply for federation affiliation in order to provide stability for the program into the future. As an in-depth non-denominational educational school for Jewish adults, we believe this liaison to be an appropriate move both for Federation and for Melton.”
Maimonides Day School Director Devora Wilhelm said she feels the federation’s action shows that the community cares about Jewish education.
“Federation has shown how important Jewish education is,” she said. “We are welcoming all children into the community; the future lies in children.”
“It’s a new chapter in the life of the school,” said Wilhelm. “I look forward to seeing growth in many different ways.”
“This welcomes us and recognizes us as part of the greater federation community,” she said.
Spector noted that agency status is not the only way federation embraces community groups. He said JFGP Community Initiative Grants are awarded to agencies, organizations and synagogues that develop programs or activities “that further the vitality of the Jewish community.”