By EVELYN BARGE Palisadian-Post Intern Growing up in Washington, D.C., during the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s and 70s, Palisadian Celia Bernstein said she developed an early understanding of community issues and social change. As a child, Bernstein would distribute homemade peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to the hungry protesters. “It was a strange time,” she said. “But it had a real impact on me, so I’ve been doing work in the community for a long time.” Bernstein started her career as a social worker before moving into the nonprofit field. She met her husband Brad Kesden in 1983 during a brief venture into the entertainment industry in New York. They met when Kesden interviewed for a television show she was working on at the time. Although he was not hired, the two became friends and started dating in 1985. “I’m convinced that the reason I was in the [television] industry was to meet Brad,” she said. “Otherwise, I don’t know if we would have ever met.” The couple moved to Los Angeles in 1988, the same year that the Shefa Fund was founded in Philadelphia as a national Jewish public foundation to encourage American Jews and Jewish institutions to be involved in socially responsible philanthropy. “It brings back the notion of ‘tikkun-olam,’ a Hebrew word for healing the world,” Bernstein said. “It takes this notion of value of ‘tikkun-olam’ in the Jewish tradition and brings it alive.” Bernstein has been the West Coast director of the Shefa Fund since 2001, when Shefa opened its first West Coast office in Los Angeles. (The organization has sinced merged with another progressive Jewish organization, the Jewish Fund for Justice.) Prior to joining Shefa, Bernstein was the associate director of development at the Liberty Hill Foundation and managed the foundation’s Donor Advised Program. “In 2001, I was charged four years ago with creating a local city fund,” Bernstein said. “Our model is to create these city funds where we can pool contributions from Jewish individuals and institutions in a particular city, and then re-lend them within that city.” Through the creation of a local, faith-based fund, the organization collects loans from Jewish individuals and institutions and then redistributes the money to low-income communities. These communities can then use the funds for affordable housing, small businesses and public facilities. Bernstein said she feels it is important for the Jewish community to examine the potential connection between their personal money and social justice and to utilize their charitable resources. “The Jewish community, over the years, has been a minority community, a poor community and an immigrant community,” she said. “In last few decades, it’s become a very wealthy community. Per capita, the Jewish community is wealthier than the mainstream. We believe that it’s very important for Jews not only to help other Jews, but also for the Jewish community to really engage in being involved in the larger community and making it a better place for all.” In additional to loans for low-income communities, the Shefa Fund also runs a grant-making program. Grants are given to socially responsible organizations both in and out of the Jewish community. In the past year and a half, the Los Angeles fund pooled about $1.3 million in loans and equity grants. “Through our work, we’ve been able to get 20 individuals and family foundations and businesses to lend to us,” Bernstein said. “Our goal is to really organize a huge sum of money from the Jewish community for broader community development.” In February, the Shefa Fund merged with the Jewish Fund for Justice, a larger New York City organization, and Bernstein said the merger will give her office a heightened presence in Los Angeles. The two groups are now called the Jewish Funds for Justice. Bernstein said she is encouraged in her work by both the events of the past and a hope for the future. On her desk at work in Santa Monica, she keeps a framed photograph of her grandmother, Celia Kravitz. The picture was taken as Kravitz sat behind a sewing machine in a sweatshop in Baltimore. “It was not that long ago,” Bernstein said. At home in the Asilomar bluffs neighborhood, she keeps another memento for inspiration. It is a note written by her daughter Lena for a school project at Marquez Elementary. The note reads: “My mom works at the Shefa Fund, and that means give money away, and it means to help people.” “This is why I’m doing what I’m doing,” Bernstein said referring to the note. “This is the penultimate reward.” (Editor’s note: Celia Bernstein and her husband Brad Kesden have both been immersed in the nonprofit world since the fall of 2003, when he founded Rock the Classroom. See Evelyn Barge’s article on Kesden on page 17.)
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