When we moved to Birmingham about 17 years ago, we knew only two Jewish families. Then, we attended our first service at Temple Emanu-El. We were welcomed. We still recall our first High Holiday service: one of the few members we had met promptly introduced us to those sitting beside us. From that start, Temple became our door to the Birmingham Jewish community and the door has always been open to us and others.
We had always planned a legacy gift to Temple Emanu-El. Temple is a significant part of our life in Birmingham and we are excited about the future of the congregation under the leadership of our new clergy. Like everyone else, COVID19 created a lot of time for thought and reflection. We asked ourselves why we should wait to make our gift: there was really no good reason. So, what to do? We really had two primary goals: First, is to provide additional operating funds to allow flexibility to our Temple leadership and clergy in addressing the needs of the Temple’s future. Second, to enhance the foyer-garage entrance to Temple.
We are blessed to be in a position to make our legacy gift now: $1 million to the Endowment to provide unrestricted revenue monies to Temple and $250,000 to fund remodeling of the foyer. We also hope that our leaving this legacy gift during our lifetimes will inspire others to accelerate their planned legacy gift.