JFCS and the Jewish Community: The Ties That Bind

With the 2025 JFCS MOSAIC Awards behind us, Jewish Family & Career Services now turns its attention preparing for our Annual Meeting, on June 24, at 5 p.m.  We’re not only hoping to see many members of the community there to help us celebrate, but we’re specifically urging members of Louisville’s Jewish community to come and hear about all the great work – past and present – going on at JFCS.

While our Annual Meeting (like all our services) is open to all, we’re hoping to reach a large number of the Jewish community this year to help dispel some myths we’ve heard in the peripherals recently: “is JFCS here for us?”

It’s a question that stings — not because it’s unreasonable to ask, but because it touches something deeply personal. JFCS was born more than a century ago from Jewish values of serving the entire community. Our agency’s foundation is rooted in Chesed (loving-kindness), Tzedakah (justice), and Kehillah (community) and those values still guide us today — perhaps more than ever.

Few realize that Jewish clients make up nearly 10% of the people we serve annually. From mental health counseling to food assistance, job coaching to elder care, we remain a vital support system for Louisville’s Jewish community.

Our Sonny & Janet Meyer Food Pantry, for example remains the only food pantry in the area offering both kosher and Halal food items, ensuring Jewish families and individuals facing food insecurity don’t have to compromise their values to nourish themselves. Two years ago, we took that a step further and opened a satellite kosher pantry at Shalom Towers, so homebound seniors could keep kosher without needing to travel.

Over the past year, we’ve worked hand-in-hand with synagogues and Jewish leaders to provide emotional and mental health support during incredibly trying times. When the conflict between Israel and Hamas escalated last fall, JFCS sprang into action by offering community members help in processing fear, grief, and confusion through guided discussions and trauma-informed care.

We’ve hosted “Friday Night Talks” at Temple Shalom, Keneseth Israel, The Temple, Adath Jeshurun, and others. These open conversations have created space for learning, and collective healing.

And as antisemitic threats continue to impact Jewish preschools and institutions nationwide, we’ve facilitated sessions for staff and parents at local synagogues — offering tools to handle anxiety, foster resilience, and protect our youngest community members’ sense of safety.

We’ve also doubled down on our Volunteer program and others like Pledge 13 and Shabbos Friends, helping Jewish adults, and especially teens, stay connected to their roots through volunteerism and mentorship. These aren’t just programs — they’re lifelines of opportunities to help facilitate others living out their Jewish values.

It’s not just locally where JFCS’ influence and expertise has been utilized.  Earlier this year, CEO, Dr. David Finke, was asked to co-chair the Network of Jewish Human Services Agencies’ (NJHSA) national conference.

Dr. Finke has also teamed up with Rabbi Chottiner to support Jewish youth grappling with antisemitism and identity struggles. And in the coming year, we plan more conversations, more safe spaces, and more dedicated outreach to Jewish youth around issues like substance misuse, anxiety, and peer pressure.

Oftentimes dispelling the myth of JFCS’ outreach to Jews in Louisville comes from the larger myth of “Jewish Invincibility.”  In his remarks at the recent MOSAIC Awards, Dr. Finke spoke of his own childhood experience growing up under the myth of being “well off” simply because he was Jewish, when the reality of being a child of a working-class single mother couldn’t have been further from the truth.  This long-standing myth is often dangerous as sometimes the biggest barrier to help for the Jewish community is the idea that we’re not supposed to need it at all.

Data from the 2021–22 Brandeis University study of Jewish life in Louisville tells a different story:

• 18% of Jewish adults are the primary caregivers for relatives outside of routine childcare.
• 31% of Jewish households have at least one person limited by a disability or health issue.
• 36% of Jewish adults say they have only a few people they can count on, and 2% say they have no one at all.

JFCS exists because our Jewish values compel us to serve. We don’t assume who is or isn’t in need. We show up, regardless – for Jews, for our neighbors, for anyone who walks through our doors.  It’s what we were founded on back in 1908 and what we’ve been doing since.  It’s also what we’ve set our sights on continuing into the future.

We invite you to join us on June 24 at 5 p.m. at JFCS for our Annual Meeting as we celebrate the “wins” of the past year, including our work with Jewish families, youth, and seniors — and unveil our exciting vision for the future.

JFCS continues to serve ALL people of Louisville — Jews and non-Jews, of every race, orientation, identity, and background. Not in spite of our Jewish identity, but because of it!

Because to us, Jewish values are not a label—they’re a calling. And we’re answering that call.