Inspired by the Past, Building for the Future.

Before Jewish Federation of San Diego had a name, it had a purpose: ensuring no member of the community faced hardship alone. Rose Neumann was one of sixteen women who came together in 1918 to found Federated Jewish Charities, and she led it as president until 1947, building an organization rooted in dignity and compassion. That shared legacy laid the foundation for what would become Jewish Family Service and Jewish Federation of San Diego.

More than a century later, the needs look different and the obligation has not moved. Each month, the New Life Club gives Holocaust survivors and their families connection and belonging. The Hebrew Free Loan Guarantor Fund helps vulnerable community members secure interest-free loans. Chaplaincy offers comfort at the bedside, presence at the graveside, and the dignity of a proper Jewish burial for those who could not otherwise afford one.

That same responsibility makes Federation a convener. When senior transportation surfaced as an unmet need in the early 2000s, Federation brought several agencies together to create On the Go, a program Jewish Family Service has carried forward ever since.

The values Rose embodied still connect this community to Jews around the world, through global partners including JDC, the Jewish Agency for Israel, and World ORT, which reach vulnerable Jewish communities in more than 70 countries.

The needs will continue to change. Our responsibility to one another will not.

From its earliest days, Federation has invested in each new generation, trusting that a community grows strongest when its people feel they belong to it. National Young Leadership Cabinet, Women's Division, and the volunteer corps that built this community all began the same way, with someone deciding a young person was worth the investment. Nine decades later, that conviction still guides the work.

Benjamin Sussman joined LEADS carrying something he had not said out loud to many people: he was not proud of being Jewish. Through text study, authentic relationships, and experiences like an interfaith Shabbat dinner, something shifted, and the pride that had been absent began to return.

For many, the journey begins much earlier, with a child's first Jewish book, a first summer at camp, or a first trip abroad. Through PJ Library, scholarships, and subsidies, Federation helps make those experiences possible for more children and families. As those children grow, the Peter and Elaine Chortek BRIDGE Initiative strengthens the Jewish identity, leadership, and global connection of San Diego teens.

Mosaic is the newest expression of that commitment. Created for Jewish adults ages 25 to 40, it connects people through the neighborhoods, interests, and relationships already at the center of their lives. Rather than asking people to fit into existing structures, Mosaic begins with connection.

The young adults who find their place through Mosaic today are the volunteers, donors, and leaders who will carry Jewish San Diego into its next chapter.

In 1936, San Diego's Jewish community came together to help rescue European Jews fleeing the rise of Nazism. It answered the call again in 1948 to help build a newborn State of Israel. When the gates of the former Soviet Union opened, this community answered once more through Operation Exodus, and in the generations since has stood with Jews in need from Ethiopia to Ukraine to Argentina.

Nowhere has that commitment taken root more deeply than in the partnership with Sha'ar HaNegev. Since 1998, leadership exchanges, youth delegations, and visits in both directions have forged relationships that would prove invaluable when they were needed most.

When Hamas attacked Sha'ar HaNegev on October 7, 2023, those relationships became a lifeline. Because the partnership had been built over more than two decades, San Diego was able to respond immediately, and continues to stand alongside Sha'ar HaNegev in its recovery today. Through projects like Beit Melacha, the work creates spaces for healing, creativity, and resilience.

That same commitment reaches across the Jewish world, through global allocations to JAFI and JDC and deepening ties with Jewish communities in Budapest and Mexico City. This past year, immersive journeys to Cuba, India, Argentina, and more connected this community to the Jewish stories woven through each.

Assif, meaning gathering, is Sha'ar HaNegev's newest project: a single welcoming campus bringing comprehensive mental health and trauma care, community, culture, and emergency preparedness together in one place. Rising from the region hit hardest on October 7, Assif is where children, families, and whole communities will come to heal and grow stronger together. Nearly 20,000 people are expected to use its facilities every year.

Thanks to a $5 million matching opportunity from the Rady Family Foundation, every dollar directed to Assif is doubled.

Keeping one another safe, so that Jews can gather to pray, learn, and celebrate without fear, is among the oldest of Jewish responsibilities. In April 2019, a gunman opened fire at Chabad of Poway, killing Lori Gilbert-Kaye and wounding three others.

The attack made painfully clear what this community had long lacked: any shared resources or coordinated effort to protect the nearly 100 spaces across the county where San Diego's Jews come together. Federation has spent the years since building that infrastructure.

In February 2023, Federation partnered with the Secure Community Network to bring on Bill Ganley as San Diego's Community Security Director, giving the community a dedicated, full-time point person for the first time. Through the Jewish Community Security Institute, launched in 2022, the people who run our synagogues, schools, and agencies learn to protect their spaces together, and each comes away with a grant to put what they learned in place.

Meeting that reality takes more than guards and grants. The Federation-powered Finest Community Coalition, 49 San Diego Jewish organizations working together, lets the community respond with one voice. Federation advocated for the passage of California's AB 715, confronting antisemitism in K through 12 schools, and brought a delegation to Washington in support of the Jewish American Security Act.

In the next 90 years, Federation will keep building upon this infrastructure, reaching more institutions, responding faster, and holding steady through whatever comes.

With the public launch of Spark Interactive, Legacy of Light Goldberg Institute for Holocaust Education (LLGI) introduced a bold new way to engage students, educators, and community members with one of history's most important stories, and it is far more than a new educational platform.

The launch of Spark Interactive marked a defining moment. More than 400 educators, community leaders, supporters, and partners gathered to experience the platform firsthand, a reflection of a community that chooses to invest in memory, education, and the courage to confront hatred.

As the Survivor generation diminishes, the responsibility to preserve and share their stories grows larger. Created to meet that moment, Spark Interactive ensures future generations can continue engaging with the lessons of the Holocaust in meaningful, personal, and transformative ways.

Spark Interactive is part of LLGI's broader effort to strengthen Holocaust education throughout the region. Through the Academy of Critical Thinkers (ACT), educators are learning to bring critical thinking and ethical reflection into their classrooms, reaching an estimated 3,000 students in the program's first year.

The SHOAH Collaborative connects educators, institutions, and community partners working to advance Holocaust education and combat antisemitism. At the same time, LLGI brought the acclaimed Anne Frank: A History for Today exhibit to audiences across San Diego County, where trained student docents helped thousands of visitors reflect on Anne Frank's story and its continuing relevance.

We are reaching a moment when the last eyewitnesses to the Holocaust will no longer be with us. Because this community chose to invest in preserving their stories, those voices will reach students who might otherwise never have encountered them, and endure long after the last Survivor is gone.