The High Holy Days begins with Rosh Hashana, marking the beginning of the new year according to Jewish calendar reckoning.

This season also marks the beginning of another new annual cycle, one which so much of the other events chronicled in these pages relies on: the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland’s Campaign for Community Needs.

The 2025 campaign raised more than $3.6 million for programs and services to support Jewish communal interests at home and abroad. It was not easy – individuals who had previously made significant contributions to the campaign had moved out of the area or passed away.

“We did see significant increases for the individuals who had given previously,” Federation Chief Development Officer Wendy Kahn said of 2025. “It was very successful on that level. It was just very difficult to get to the end.”

That end is a new beginning. And with former Campaign Co-Chair Leslie Beard now chairing the Federation’s board, it is a new leadership opportunity for Rich Meyer, previously chair of the Federation’s Allocations Committee, who joins Jack Birnbach as Co-Chairs of this year’s campaign.

“Rich and I have been working together on both the board and on allocations for years and he’s a great guy, a great human being,” Birnbach said.

Meyer was out of the country and unable to speak to The Jewish Review before press time. Like Beard, Birnbach, and Immediate Past Chair Mindy Zeitzer, Meyer has made the transition from working on allocations to the campaign.

“It’s really, really valuable for anyone who is really deeply involved in federation to understand what it means to raise the money as well as what it means to give out and distribute the money and work with the agencies,” Kahn said.

Meyer and Birnbach will be joined by a Campaign Cabinet of Dana Bacharach, Beard, Elise Brickner Schulz, Steven Kahn, Alan Bacharach, Jeffrey Robinson, Kim Rosenberg, Mark Zeitzer, Jess Hilbert and Simon Gottheiner.

The preparation for the coming campaign began last month with a day-long training program for the cabinet, the rest of the volunteer solicitation team, the members of the Federation’s board and the Federation’s professional staff led by Leslie Pomerantz, Executive Director of the Jewish Federations of North America’s Fundraising Institute, and Becka Ross, the institute’s Assistant Director. The visit was a bit of a homecoming for Ross, who began her career in Jewish communal work at JFGP in 2008.

It was a long day of training, Birnbach said, but “what made it easy to go through is that they knew what they were doing, and they had us engage and practice and brainstorm so that when we got to our donors, we would be effective with their time.”

Two of the most effective uses of donor time are JFGP’s campaign events this year. The first, Impact, is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 22 at 5:30 pm at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center. This women’s only event will feature Lindsay Gottlieb, the head women’s basketball coach at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Gottlieb was part of a history-making cadre as one of the four Jewish head coaches in the combined men’s and women’s Final Fours in 2025 – and the only woman in that number. She began her coaching career as a student assistant while she was still playing at Brown University and landed her first head coaching job at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2008. In 2011 she began an eight-season stint as head coach at UC Berkeley, where she had previously been an assistant and associate head coach. Gottlieb compiled a 197-89 record, leading the Golden Bears to their first Final Four and six other NCAA tournament berths. After serving as an assistant for the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, she moved to Los Angeles in 2021 and has led the Trojans to a Pac-12 Conference championship, a Big Ten Conference regular-season championship and two Elite Eights in three NCAA tournament appearances.

“Women’s sports in particular are in an exciting place in Portland,” Kahn said, noting that Gottlieb’s appearance was secured just as the reincarnation of the Portland Fire WNBA team was launching its branding in advance of beginning play in the 2026 WNBA season. “There could not be a better moment to have a female coach come to Portland.”

Though Gottlieb has been a leader in Jewish spaces throughout her coaching career, having been inducted to the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame of Northern California in 2016, this will be her first appearance in front of a Federation audience.

“She is looking forward to being able to give to her Jewish community,” Kahn said of Gottlieb. “She’s super excited about this opportunity.”

The second JFGP campaign event this year is “Illuminate,” a dance party scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 15. With a theme for this year’s campaign of “From Oys to Joys,” a celebratory event seemed like the perfect note to JFGP’s planning team.

“We’re living with a lot of heaviness and there’s nothing in my mind, as somebody who loves to dance, better than going out and just being in community with some good music and dancing,” Kahn said. ”Rather than just being spoken to, let’s hang and have fun and be together.”

It’s a similar idea to Comedy for Peace’s appearance in Portland last year after more than 12 months living in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terror attacks. Another year later, the need for Jewish community and Jewish joy is just as palpable.

“With the last two years of , we’ve had a lot of ‘oys,’ but I think that we’ve endured as a people over the centuries because of what we are, what we do, how we come together as a community,” Birnbach added.

That community – and the philanthropy that supports that community – is for everyone. Whitney Kagan is part of Portland’s chapter of the Ben Gurion Society. In its second year, Portland’s Ben Gurion Society recognizes young adults (ages 21-45) who are demonstrating philanthropic leadership in their community – debunking the idea that philanthropy is for those older than they are.

“The amazing part of the Ben Gurion Society is finding individuals who want to help but have that same misconception and bringing them into the fold early in a fun, engaging manner so that you know when we do get to that age, we’ve already formed these bonds,” she said.

Nationally, the Ben Gurion Society is open to young adults who contribute $1,000 or more to their local annual campaign. Portland’s chapter has added giving levels – Tzedakah Trailblazers for those giving at least $216 and Chai Bridge Builders for those donating $540 or more.

“We want to build up leadership and make this accessible for all. That’s why we do this,” JFGP Associate Campaign and Engagement Director Laura Jeser said.

The Ben Gurion Society will also be hosting a number of events this year, including an exclusive after-party at Illuminate and the return of last year’s Shabbat Around Town program. That event, which featured society members throughout the area hosting Shabbat dinners for fellow society members, was a rousing success – as was the society itself in its first year.

“We far surpassed our expectations last year of those that got involved, and I think that is because there’s such a passion especially right now for young people to want to support and  get involved and be with Jewish community,” Jeser said. “It’s the calling and the need to support and be leaders in our community.”

For Kagan, it’s not just about the fun events, it’s about the community she is working to build. After all the traditional trappings of a Jewish upbringing – youth group, religious school, even attending Yeshiva University – Kagan hit her post-college years and felt a gap in her Jewish community experience. Her involvement with the Ben Gurion Society has been a deeply meaningful way to bridge that gap and create Jewish community for herself and her peers.

“I’m very fortunate that I’ve done well for myself at a young age. And if I’m going to go in, I’m going to go all the way in. I want to get involved. I want to get people my age involved,” she said. “There’s this conception of, ‘you have to be in your late 40s, you have to be over 50 to really be involved,’ and that’s just not the case.”

Even for those who may be young-at-heart adults, the community and the engagement that comes with the annual campaign isn’t just about raising money.

“Instead of calling up people and saying, ‘Can you give me money?’ I love to meet with them for coffee,” Birnbach said. “I love coffee and I get to find out what interests donors and what questions they have about what we do.”

“So many people will say, ‘put me down for what I did last year,’ and not take the conversation. I think there’s unexpected joy in answering the phone and accepting the invitation for a cup of coffee or going out to lunch and connecting with somebody from the community,” Kahn said. “Somebody just like you is saying, ‘I want to hear what’s important to you and share what’s important to me, too. I want to connect on what’s important, which is the sustainability of our Jewish community and ensuring that all that we love about Portland’s Jewish community and world Jewry is here for us.’ That’s why it’s important to pick up the phone, that’s why it’s important that we talk and that we just maintain those conversations because if we don’t talk, we don’t have relationships and we don’t have a community.”

Learn more at jewishportland.org/give.