A conversation with longtime Seattle Jewish educator and Talmud scholar Rabbi Bernard Fox on Jewish education, community, and philanthropy

What did you know about Sam Israel and the Foundation before you joined the board?

Let me tell you the history of Sam Israel and Northwest Yeshiva High School, because it also sheds some light on my relationship with Sam. Danny Rosenthal, who was the head of school when it was started, decided he was going to solicit Sam for funding for the school. He did it on a whim: he ripped a piece of paper out of a spiral notebook, hand-wrote an appeal, and mailed it to Sam in Soap Lake.

Sam later told Rabbi Greenberg, who taught at the Yeshiva High School and saw Rabbi Rosenthal every single day, just how impressed he was by that appeal. To Sam, it proved this was not an institution that would waste money on fancy stationery. He knew this was a place that counted every dime, and that made him feel very good about making a donation.

I didn’t really know Sam personally at that point, so I mostly heard a lot about him. After I took over as head of school at NYHS, he continued to make annual donations. It was suggested to me that if I went out to see him, we might be able to secure additional funding. But I thought it probably wasn’t a good idea. I didn’t really know what was motivating him to give to the school or how he would respond to actually meeting me. Maybe he’d like me, maybe he wouldn’t. Things were going really well at that point, so I decided to leave well enough alone.

I didn’t really get to know Sam until he came back to Seattle, when he was unfortunately unwell, and then I would see him on occasion.

What was your impression of the Foundation before you joined, and what have you been surprised to discover now that you’re a trustee?

I worked with Samis from the other side of the table as a grantee for many years. We certainly appreciated the funding we received, and it was important to the school. As a school leader, I also saw firsthand how important it is for funders to communicate clearly with the organizations they support.

I think Samis does that well today. Beneficiaries have a clearer understanding of the Foundation’s priorities, funding model, and expectations, which helps organizations plan and makes for a stronger relationship between Samis and its beneficiaries.

Now, as a trustee, I benefit from having been on the other side of the table. I understand what beneficiaries’ needs and priorities are, how they process opportunities, what works for them, and what can make a funding opportunity difficult to pursue. I think that perspective is useful.

There has been new leadership at all levels since my years as a grantee, and I think the process and expectations around our grantmaking have become much clearer. I appreciate being able to bring my experience as a former school leader into those conversations.

What has been the most meaningful experience for you since joining the board?

I was pretty ambivalent about becoming a trustee. I retired in 2016 with the vision of not having a leadership role in the community anymore. After 33 years as head of school, I felt I had done my job, and it was time for someone else to take over. I was certainly willing to be available as a sounding board, including to the schools, but I did not want to be in a leadership position any longer.

So, when Rabbi Hassan contacted me to ask whether I would be willing to join Samis, my initial response was really, no, I’m not interested. He asked me to think about it and suggested I speak with some of the heads of school and ask whether they thought it would be important for me to do this. I spoke to some trustees and heads of school, and after that I decided, frankly reluctantly, that I would become a trustee.

My perspective really changed when I went to Israel with Samis and saw firsthand the impact our grants can have and the extent of the needs there.

I also had conversations with Samis trustees, Louis Treiger and Deanne Etsekson, who felt very strongly that people of our generation still have an important role to play in the leadership of the community. My thinking had been that it was time for a new generation to step forward, take responsibility, and assume leadership. But what Deanne and Louis pointed out — and what I came to see — is that we’re living in a time when many younger families have two working parents who are also raising children. Expecting them to take on major communal leadership responsibilities may not always be realistic at this stage of their lives.

If my generation simply withdraws, there can be a real gap. Who is going to care for the legacy of this community and its institutions during that period? I’ve come to believe that those of us who have the experience and the ability to remain involved have a responsibility to do so.

Could you reflect on your personal Jewish journey and share a little of your family history?

I’m from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My father was a Holocaust survivor, and my mother was a first-generation American who was born in Pittsburgh. My father came to this country after the Holocaust with nothing. He had actually been a successful businessman in Europe before the war, but he arrived here with nothing: he paid the cab fare from the train at Penn Station in Pittsburgh to my aunt’s home with a carton of cigarettes.

When my father wanted to reestablish himself, even though he came from a religious background, he didn’t feel he could observe Shabbat. So, we kept a kosher home, but we were not Shabbat observant.

When it came time for me to start school, my parents had a conversation about where I should go. My mom pointed out that there was a beautiful public school just a block away from us. She said that we’re not that observant, so why pay private-school tuition to send him to day school when there’s this beautiful public school right up the street?

My dad said, I don’t know what direction our family is going to go in, or what direction our son will go in religiously, whether he’ll be observant or not. But if we don’t give him a day school education, we take away his ability to choose, because if he doesn’t know what it is, he can’t decide.

I give my mom a lot of credit. Not coming from a religious background at all, she was open-minded and she agreed. So, I started day school right away, from nursery and kindergarten on.

It was a real sacrifice for my parents. My father was just getting started, and it was truly a struggle for them, but they did it and they were very supportive. He even hired tutors to work with me over the summers, in both general studies and Judaic studies, because he wanted me to excel. I had the best of everything, despite the struggle it was for them. As my father became more established, the family shifted and became observant. He did not want to work on Shabbat, so as soon as he felt he didn’t have to, he stopped, and that was that.

As I got older, I was fortunate to have some fantastic teachers. I was not an easy student, but they captured my mind. My real love is the study of Talmud. I fell in love with it at a very young age, around seventh grade. I became enamored with the whole concept, the exercise, everything about it. It’s still my first love when it comes to Judaic studies.

After I graduated high school, I went to Yeshiva in New York. I never had any aspiration of becoming a rabbi; I just wanted to continue learning. But in my program, the most advanced classes were on the rabbinic track, so whether I wanted to be on that track or not, if I wanted those classes, that’s where I had to go. So, I became a rabbi sort of by accident.

At the same time, I was finishing my ordination, I was studying for my MBA, and my intent was to go into a business career, either with my father, who by that point had a successful real estate development and construction company, or into finance, since my specialty is quantitative analysis.

Caught between these options, Shirley and I decided to take a year off to figure out which direction made more sense. We came out to Seattle to give a year of service to Jewish education, from which we had both benefited so much.

That was in 1980, and it turned out to be a lot more than a year. We fell in love with what we were doing and decided this is what we wanted. So, we both went into education. Everything sort of happened without being planned.

Has being on the board changed your perspective on philanthropy and Seattle’s Jewish community, and what do you envision for our community over the next five to ten years?

I think it’s important to maintain a range of day schools. If we’re going to grow this Jewish community, both by bringing people who already live in Seattle into greater affiliation and by attracting more Jewish families to Seattle, we need strong institutions. Among the most important are our schools and our camps.

We also need to take a long-term view. When we support schools, it’s not simply about the next year. It’s about maintaining strong institutions and giving them the opportunity to grow and continue doing their important work.

We also need diversity. When I first came to Seattle, I taught half a day at the Yeshiva and half a day at Seattle Hebrew Academy. It’s interesting that Seattle Hebrew Academy had a much more diverse student and family population then than it does now. Quite a few of the students I worked with came from families that today would probably be more inclined to send their children to JDS or SJCS.

That era no longer exists. Families increasingly want schools that closely reflect their values and their understanding of Judaism. So, we need diversity in the options we provide. We need Orthodox schools and we need community schools. We have to offer a variety of options so families can find a place for themselves within Seattle’s Jewish community.

Is there anything else you’d like to share as we close?

My view on philanthropy really hasn’t changed. I’ve always felt that our support for institutions, as individuals, cannot be transactional.

The schools are a perfect example. I always found it troubling when families would be strong supporters of a school as long as they had a child enrolled but would disappear after graduation. The problem is that if everybody felt that way, we wouldn’t have been able to sustain the school for their children in the first place.

Our schools depend on support from the community at large, not just from the families directly benefiting from them. We need to help families understand that an institution was there for them because others made sure it was there — and we each have a responsibility to make sure it is there for those who come after us.

Shirley and I support institutions from which we receive no direct benefit because we recognize that they’re important for the community. That’s a model of philanthropy I believe we need to promote throughout the community.