Rebekah’s Reflections on Her First Month at JFS

November 18, 2025

I’m excited to share some of my reflections on my first month at JFS and my vision for what’s to come.

I’m so grateful to be here with you all. Stewarding JFS into this next chapter in its 133-year history is a true honor. The board, staff, and community at JFS have given me such a warm welcome—it’s beautiful to experience the deep commitment our staff and community have for JFS.

Today, we face unprecedented challenges, and we are building on an incredibly strong foundation thanks to the generosity of you, our supporters. Thank you for all that you have done and continue to do to make JFS the essential community resource that it is.

What I’ve learned in my first 30 days

Many people know JFS for one or two services, but I’ve learned how vast our reach truly is. We not only offer a wide range of programs — from food access to refugee resettlement to supporting survivors of domestic violence to older adult services — each of our program areas offers a variety of services. From case management and life-skills training for people with cognitive disabilities; and support for Holocaust survivors and family caregivers; to safety planning, legal support, and advocacy for survivors of domestic violence; and programs that build social support and strengthen community ties, JFS provides critical support services. For example, our Refugee & Immigrant Services encompasses dozens of programs, such as employment services, which includes help with job readiness skills, employment counseling, job placement and retention support, and training for new arrivals to become certified paraeducators. It’s humbling to see the breadth of JFS’s impact.

I’ve also been moved by how personally invested our community of generous supporters, volunteers, and staff are. People are deeply committed to helping us carry out our mission. I’ve been struck by the extraordinary care our staff offer to our clients — and how much expertise goes into that care. Every program is not just compassionate, it’s highly skilled.

I am also grateful that, thanks to our dedicated supporters and highly-skilled staff, JFS is an organization that embraces and encourages innovation and change — there’s a real appetite to test new ideas and strengthen our impact.

I love the enthusiasm of our community to partner with us – from our Jewish community partners collaborating with us in many ways to our donors showing up for our recent No One Should Go Hungry campaign, our community has a deep interest in supporting our clients.

Coming together during a moment of crisis

When SNAP food benefits got cut recently, it was an all-hands-on-deck moment as everyone at JFS worked to support our clients through this devastating moment. In just a week and a half, we launched a multi-pronged response that included providing grocery gift cards to nearly 1,300 clients, ramping up our offerings at the food bank, continuing to provide financial assistance to those making impossible choices between paying for rent or food, supporting our broader Jewish community by offering grocery cards through our Jewish community partners, and launching a community giving campaign which has raised nearly $100,000 from more than 260 donors so far. In the past few weeks, we have also received many food donations:

This response involved every team at JFS, and I’m proud of how our staff mobilized quickly and efficiently to design and launch a thoughtful, rapid, and compassionate response to ensure our neighbors could feed their families this month.

And it’s still going. Although the government shutdown has ended and SNAP benefits are being restored, there is still a lot of uncertainty about federal funding and government programs over the new few months. Because of recent policy changes, many of the clients we serve have lost access to SNAP benefits permanently, including most refugees and trafficking survivors. Our social safety net has been fraying for years and, as we’ve seen lately, it can snap at any moment. When it does, JFS will be there for our neighbors.

This is precisely what JFS exists to do—to show up for our community when they need us most. We can do this because of the incredible generosity of our community—including all of you—thank you!

I’m so proud to be part of an organization that is here for our community when it’s most needed—I hope you are too.

Plan for my first 90 days

I am honored to be the Schocken Family CEO of JFS and as I enter my seventh week here, I want to share more about how I see this first phase of my time here. In these first 90 days, I am laying the foundation for the work we’ll do together by building trust, listening carefully, and getting to know JFS from the inside out.

To do that, I’m focusing on four areas: Listening, Learning, Connecting, and Aligning.

First, I want to listen. I’ve been meeting with staff, board members, donors, clients, and Jewish community partners to hear their perspectives. I’ve also joined many community gatherings so I can listen directly to what people are saying about where they see opportunities for JFS and for our broader community.

Alongside listening, I am learning. I’m deepening my understanding of JFS’ programs, services, operations, and finances — as well as our culture. I am also thrilled to expand connections with and learn even more about Seattle’s Jewish community and the wider human-services ecosystem, to strengthen our impact and help meet the needs of our community as the only Jewish social service organization in the region.

Third, I am connecting. It’s important to me to build trust and clarity with our community, including all of you. I am meeting regularly with staff and our Board, and the community of contributors and community partners who are and will continue to be critical to the future of our work. I know that relationships are at the heart of JFS, and I know that working together we will accomplish great things.

Finally, I’ll be working to align. I’ll share back what I’ve heard and learned. This will include what you have all shared with me that you love and cherish about JFS, what our strengths are, and what challenges or opportunities are emerging. Together, we have already fed 1,300 JFS clients who were at risk of not having enough food to eat this month, and I look forward to sharing my perspective on short-term and longer-term priorities to increase JFS’ impact.

We are building on an incredible foundation, and the current environment is deepening the needs of our clients. I can’t wait to work with you all to meet this moment.