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Jewish Community News
News: June 2006
SVYAD changes leadership
By Cecily Ruttenberg
Three years ago, hundreds of young Jewish adults in the Silicon Valley had little organized opportunities to come together and schmooze. Today, three years after the December 2003 establishment of the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley’s Young Adults Division, monthly cocktail hours follow weekend volunteer opportunities and winter ski trips.
Much of SVYAD’s success can be credited to outgoing Co-presidents
Ephraim Lindenbaum and Lindsay Greensweig, who launched the program almost
single-handedly three years ago with financial backing from the Federation.
Lindenbaum and Greensweig's successor is in the process of being determined.
“We both saw that there was a need in the community that wasn’t
being met,” said Greensweig matter-of-factly. “I truly believe
that if we don’t build a strong young adults division there will
not be a future to the Federation or the Jewish community.”
To date, SVYAD has had strong growth and success. The program started
with less than 100 names on its mailing list and has already grown to
over 800. Silicon Valley Connect, the monthly cocktail gathering in Sunnyvale,
is regularly attended by more than fifty young adults and the board is
15 members strong, with young adults rang-
ing in age from 23 to 37. What’s more, SVYAD has brought in over
100 first-time donors to the Federation, growing the dollar amount contributed
to Federation from young adults to $50,000 from $20,000.
“I am delighted with SVYAD’s progress,” said Federation
Executive Director Jyl Jurman. “Cultivating young adults to be leaders,
donors and participants in the local Jewish community is critical. Lindsay
and Ephraim have been invaluable in this process.”
Greensweig and Lindenbaum explain that SVYAD filled a very important missing
gap between Hillel at the college level, and adult participants in Jewish
community through synagogue life and Federation.
“The key is in continuity,” said Lindenbaum. “Hillel
of Silicon Valley was providing a mechanism for college-age young adults.
But then literally it was a flat earth theory. When people exited Hillel,
with all this time having been put into developing their Jewishness, they
were literally dropped off the edge of the earth.”
The outgoing co-presidents attribute SVYAD’s success both to a dire
need in the community and their aim of providing events for the chronically
busy generation X and Y.
“We had to think outside of the box, because young adults are so
busy,” said Greensweig. “Unless we had a hip mode, people
weren’t going to come.”
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