PHOTO: Etti Segal, right, accepts the 2024 Laurie Rogoway Outstanding Jewish Professional Award at the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland's Annual Meeting. Nominations are now open for this year's award. (Rockne Roll/Jewish Review file)

By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
Nominations are now open for the 2025 Laurie Rogoway Outstanding Jewish Professional Award, presented by the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland annually to an early- to mid-career Jewish communal professional for commitment to Jewish professional leadership and to the future vitality and vibrancy of the Jewish community.
Sarah Howard takes over as the head of the Rogoway Award committee this year – she previously worked at Congregation Neveh Shalom and at BB360.
“[The Rogoway Award is] a way to recognize the incredible work that early and mid-level career professionals are doing in our community,” she said. “There’s some great people out there.”
The award is named for Laurie Rogoway, a former senior staffer at the Federation.
“I think Laurie is what you would call a ‘professional’s professional.’ She was here at the Federation when I started 14 years ago, and she was already an incredibly well respected, experienced and savvy Jewish professional,” explained Federation Chief Planning and Engagement Officer Caron Blau Rothstein. “I’ve never met anybody who didn’t have an amazing thing to say about Laurie and a lot of respect for her professionalism and her warmth and her caring.”
The award, presented at the Federation’s annual meeting, comes with up to $1,800 in funds for professional development activities of the awardee’s choice.
“We want to say, ‘we see you; we honor you; we celebrate you and we want to support you in your professional Jewish journey,’” Blau Rothstein said. 
But Blau Rothstein explained that in order to see those people, they need to be nominated. The good news is that anyone can nominate someone, and it’s easy to submit someone to be considered. 
“This is accessible to anybody. You don’t have to work with this person in a in a professional capacity; if you’re a preschool parent, if you’re on the board of your organization, if you received services from this person in their professional capacity and you’re a community member, you are empowered to make this nomination,” she said. 
This is also not the kind of award the one must be surprised by, Blau Rothstein explained – in fact, she encouraged those who might qualify to ask a colleague or friend to nominate them. 
“You can say, ‘I’m really interested in the professional development. I really believe in my career as a Jewish professional, and I think that this award will help me further my career and further my work for the Jewish community,’” she said. “Don’t be shy. This is not a time to be to be overly humble. This is a time to share your commitment.”
“There is so much incredible work happening in the community that we don’t know about and so we need to rely on those nominators to tell us about that incredible work,” Howard said. 
The only regret the committee has is that there arent multiple awards to give out. 
“Every award show you go to, they say, ‘it’s an honor to be nominated,’ but it really IS an honor to be nominated because it means that you’ve been recognized by your community,” Blau Rothstein said. “We’ve every year had great candidates and it’s always been a hard choice and some people didn’t get it the first year they were nominated; their nomination rolled over and they received it in a subsequent year.”
Previous awardees include Neveh Shalom Foundation School Hebrew and Judaics Coordinator Etti Segal, Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education Director of Collections and Exhibitions Alisha Babbstein, former Jewish Family and Child Service Lead Aging and Adult Services Clinician Missy Fry, former Oregon Hillel Executive Director Andy Gitelson, Congregation Shaarie Torah Executive Director Jemi Kostiner Mansfield, Federation Chief Financial Officer Ben Winkleblack, former BB360 Chief Program Officer Ben Charlton, former Portland Kollel Director of Women’s Programming Eve Levy, Oregon Jewish Community Foundation Director of Outreach Sonia Marie Leikam and Federation Director of Educational Initiatives and Associate Director of Community Relations Rachel Nelson.
Nominations are now open until Noon on Mar. 21. For more information or to nominate someone, visit jewishportland.org/rogoway. Questions can be directed to Blau Rothstein by email at caron@jewishportland.org.