Koret’s specific interest in encouraging engagement with Jewish life focuses on strengthening organizations that are successfully meeting the needs of today’s Jewish community, promoting engagement and involvement with Jewish life, and enhancing understanding between the Jewish and general communities.
Koret’s specific interest in encouraging engagement with Jewish life focuses on strengthening organizations that are successfully meeting the needs of today’s Jewish community, promoting engagement and involvement with Jewish life, and enhancing understanding between the Jewish and general communities.
Making substantial annual grants to the three Jewish community federations in the Bay Area—the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties; the Jewish Community Federation of the Greater East Bay ; and the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley—Koret has become a critical partner in the effort to strengthen Bay Area Jewish life. While some of Koret’s funds are pooled with other community resources, our new strategy for making a difference sets aside a portion of our federation grants as donor-advised, community-impact funds.
Bay Area Jewish Community Centers are making a major difference in revitalizing Jewish life. Their new and previously unimagined structures, programs, and innovative responses to unmet social, cultural, educational, and recreational needs have led to significant capital and programmatic support.
Our support has energized the Jewish arts and cultural scene as well. For example, the Koret International Jewish Book Awards, initiated in 1998, have become the most prestigious awards in Jewish writing.
The Koret Hillel Intern Program, initiated a decade ago on Northern California’s university campuses, has become a model for outreach on campuses nationwide.