$3 Million Gift for Community Engagement
Thanks to a generous gift from Betsy Gidwitz of Chicago, a longtime Jewish lay leader, JTS can now strengthen its ability to bring Jewish learning to the broader community. Dr. Gidwitz’s gift will endow the Center for Community Engagement at JTS, which will be overseen by Rabbi Julia Andelman, director of Community Engagement. Among Dr. Gidwitz’s many roles in Jewish leadership, she has been a member of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency since 2000. A former faculty member at MIT and specialist on post-Soviet affairs, she chairs the agency’s Russian-Speaking Jewry Committee. Dr. Gidwitz has held several leading positions with the Jewish Federation/Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago, including serving for many years as an officer of the federation board. We are deeply grateful for Dr. Gidwitz’s gift, which reflects her belief in Jewish learning and her support for our mission to bring JTS scholarship to the Jewish world.
