Jewish Family Services: Providing Services to Vulnerable Individuals and Families of All Faiths, Races, Ages, Incomes, and Abilities

By Sandor Slomovits

“When the Covid shutdowns started and Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County was providing food for more people in the community [than before], JFS asked if we would make phone calls to clients and just kind of check in and see how they were, and did they need anything,” said Phyllis Herzig. (Herzig is a member of JFS’ Board and has had a close association with the non-profit social service agency since its founding in 1993.) “So, I made some calls, and I called this one woman, told her I was calling from JFS, and she started crying and went on to say how grateful she was…she was so lonely and JFS was showing that it cared.” 

Caring, in fact, is JFS’ primary purpose. Its stated mission is, “to create solutions, promote dignity and inspire humanity.” Over the past nearly three decades the agency has translated those lofty words into actions that, in 2020, benefited over 20,000 people in Washtenaw County. (That number included 18,500 people who received food assistance, nearly 400 who received mental health counseling, over 400 who received employment/career assistance, and over 1,000 older adults (and their caregivers) who received help with transportation, counseling, food deliveries and other services. 54 refugees were also resettled in this time period.) JFS, which was originally created with just two part-time employees, grew to a staff of about a hundred. In addition, in 2020 nearly 700 people volunteered at JFS in various ways. 

When JFS was established nearly thirty years ago its intended purpose was to serve the county’s Jewish residents. Its primary goal was to help resettle Jewish refugees arriving then from the former Soviet Union. (That latter focus had its roots in an older organization called the Soviet Jewry Absorption Committee. See sidebar.)

As JFS expanded over the years, its mission, and the clientele it served, changed, and expanded tremendously. The description on the agency’s website reads, “Together, we are strengthening the community by providing comprehensive services to vulnerable individuals and families of all faiths, races, ages, incomes, and abilities throughout Washtenaw County.” That wide variety of support and services includes transportation for the elderly and their caregivers, crisis intervention, resettlement and integration services for refugees and immigrants, teaching English as a second language, and through its employment and economic empowerment services, help educating people on issues around financing homes, cars, and educations. JFS provides food to those in need, including from a specialty food pantry stocked with halal, kosher, and gluten free foods, low sodium, low sugar, baby food and formula, and liquid nutrition. They also have therapists providing mental health counseling in four languages. 

No one has played a bigger role in JFS’ transformation than Anya Abramzon, the agency’s first full-time employee who has been its executive director since 1997. I talked with her via Zoom and started out by jokingly asking her about her faintly Russian-tinged English. 

Slomovits: Your accent tells me that you were not born in Michigan.

Abramzon: No. I was born in St. Petersburg, in Russia.

Slomovits: When did you come to the US?

Abramzon: In 1990.

Slomovits: So, you were in that group of people who inspired the creation of JFS. 

Abramzon: Yes, absolutely.

Slomovits: How old were you then?

Abramzon: I was 20, 21 years old. I was finishing my studies at the university in St. Petersburg in history and law, and I came here with my first husband who was a refugee. I was not. So, I had to go through the entire process of applying for political asylum and understanding what it takes. It was a difficult process. 

Slomovits: Why Ann Arbor?

Abramzon: We first came to Flint, to a very warm, welcoming, very family-like atmosphere. 

Slomovits: Did you already speak English when you moved here?

Abramzon: My husband did. I did not. 

Slomovits: I’m impressed. 

Abramzon: I was able to sort of understand very simple things, but not at the level where I could converse.

Slomovits: What brought you to Ann Arbor? 

Abramzon: I applied for school to get my master’s degree and was deciding between continuing with law and history, which was my path prior to coming to the United States [or following a path to social work]. But, being surrounded by all these amazing people who really helped me on my journey, and learning more about Jewish communal service, I started seeing a way for me to connect with what my upbringing did not provide. My grandparents on both sides spoke Yiddish. They did things that at the time I thought were just cute things that they did. Like my grandmother had separate dishes [for meat and dairy—in observance of Kosher dietary laws] and I thought it was like just this funny way of doing things, because it was never explained. With the last name I have, it was already hard enough to be in a Soviet school. We [our family, our whole generation] were robbed of what our grandparents could have given us. It was a big loss, and [in addition to] the horrible sufferings of my family through the Holocaust, losing 18 members of our family, it just felt like I wanted to do something to serve the Jewish community. Then, there was my father, who always wanted me to be a doctor (which I did not have a knack for). The closest I could come to fulfilling his dreams for me was getting a degree [in Social Work] where there was some clinical component—that was the mental health piece. So, in doing that, I sort of honored his wishes for me.

Slomovits: Did you study at U of M?

Abramzon: Yes, and graduated from the Project Star program, which is now called the JCLB, Jewish Community Leadership Program. 

Slomovits: Was it right after school that you started interning at JFS?

Learn more online at Iglesiamartell.com.

Abramzon: For part of the graduate studies (I believe it’s 900 hours) you have to provide services in the field under supervision. I did my internship with JFS, which at the time had a half-time director, Sue Sefansky, and a board of about 20 people, who did everything for the organization, from providing services, to setting out governance, to reaching out to clients. Concurrently, I also took an internship with the Jewish Community Center in Detroit, and I did a summer internship with the JDC (The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the oldest Jewish relief organization in the world). I also went back to Russia to study the Jewish community. That was in ‘94. I graduated in ’96 and worked for Federation Apartments in Detroit and started their home care program. And then I got a phone call from Nancy Margolis, [of the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor] on my birthday. She said “Anya, let’s meet and talk.” And on April 1st, 1997, I was employed by JFS. The rest is history.

Slomovits: When you started you were a one woman show, and JFS has grown….

Abramzon: It’s really not my doing. I was incredibly lucky. It’s been a journey and every step of the way there were incredible people who either joined that journey or somehow contributed to that journey for JFS to become what it has become. It’s been like a constellation of stars that came together and made it all possible.

Slomovits: I’m pretty sure that most people would say that you’re being too modest, but we’ll leave it at that. One of the things that impresses me about JFS is that you are a Jewish organization that serves everyone, not only Jews. Would you talk about that?

Abramzon: It’s interesting how what we believe in, and what forms our vision, is a compilation of experiences. I had the privilege of not just getting my master’s degree in social work, but also getting a special certificate for Jewish communal service work. I had an opportunity to study the Jewish values side of social work, the concept of Tikun Olam (repair of the world), the greater sense of social justice, even looking at Jewish law, what justice means and how it can only be justice for all and not just for particular people. That was really the foundation, but then there were other things that really helped form my vision for what I wanted JFS to be and become. When I did my internship with JDC, and went back to Russia, I interviewed a number of people who were working in Moscow and St. Petersburg. They were delivering packages of food to older adults. Many of those older Jewish people lived in communal flats. There were so many in there that JDC would feed the entire apartment. And if there were other older people who lived in close vicinity to these Jewish elders, who were also struggling, no matter who they were, they fed them too. I remember thinking, why? The important thing is that we have to take care of our Jewish older adults. Why are we feeding the rest of the people? And I remember this rabbi in St. Petersburg said, “Well, you know, it’s really important to think about the person as a whole. If this person has food, but their neighbors don’t, if that person knows that their neighbors are taken care of too, they can enjoy what we do for them so much more. They’re safer, they’re viewed as part of the ecosystem that we are taking care of.” 

And then there is also the practical side of it. As giving, as kind, as generous as our community has been, there are certain things that we are only able to do if we bring in government dollars. To be able to serve this community well, it was important to not only be compliant and prepared to administer government dollars, but that we have the right policies. One of the key policies is that we don’t discriminate. So, from Jewish values, to being able to serve our mission in a sustainable way, those things really come together.

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Slomovits: Was that the stance of JFS right from the beginning or did that evolve as it grew?

Abramzon: It grew. When I joined JFS our mission statement was a page long. It started out with a beautiful paragraph about the tapestry of our community and how the Jewish community is coming together to give JFS this special mission to take care of its needs, to serve the Jewish community. Over the years, as we were growing and as we were serving more and more people in the community, it became very clear to us that the only way that we can serve this community well is if we serve the entire community—that we can serve the Jewish community only as part of the community at large. If we truly are building our services on Jewish values, Tikun Olam cannot be done in a very narrow way. It had to be applied in a community-wide way. So, right now our mission is really only six words: it’s about humanity and dignity and finding solutions to help people feel loved and cared for. When we describe how we provide employment and provide this and provide that, at the end of the day, what are we doing? We’re looking for solutions and we’re doing it in the most dignified way. Our goal is always to do whatever we do in the most dignified way. 

Slomovits: Just the other day, after there was that horrible shooting in Atlanta, JFS sent out an email supporting the Asian-American community. I thought, wow, how, wonderful. And I’ve seen earlier emails about Martin Luther King Day and Black History Month. Everything that I’ve received from JFS is saying that nobody’s excluded.

Abramzon: We really, truly believe that. Today I had the pleasure of speaking with a client whose mental health is, unfortunately, not at the point where I could reason with her. I had to talk to her about not swearing and not saying offensive things to the drivers who were trying to take care of her, who happened to be people of other races. As I was trying to reason with her, she called me names; I was thinking that it’s a great privilege to be in the position where at the end of the day, I still love her. I still want to take care of her. She was saying horrible things to me and I was thinking, “Well, I still care about how you’re going to get to your medical appointments and what you’re going to eat.”

Slomovits: Yes!

Abramzon: There are so many amazing stories… stories of resilience, stories of success, stories of struggle and pain. Whether we’re working with Holocaust survivors, who almost eight decades later are still bearing the trauma, or we’re working with people who have just survived horrible atrocities and came to us as refugees looking for a safe haven, at the end of the day, what we do is offer safety. We offer protection, we offer freedom—freedom in the sense that they don’t have to always be in survival mode, that they’re not alone.

During Covid we had to deliver meals and we needed more volunteers. We had 400 people who signed up and continued for months delivering meals. When we had to retool to receive more refugees back in 2016, we had 13 congregations from around Washtenaw County come together, and they are supporting our resettlement work to this day. I think that the agency is a catalyst for people coming together, for people finding meaning, for connecting with values that maybe they didn’t think about but were always there. It was important for them to find something that would allow them to feel that they’re living their values. 

We are a cradle-to-grave organization because we do so many things. We have this approach that you treat every person as a whole. We don’t say, well, we do X, Y, and Z, and the rest, you know, go find help somewhere else. We came out of a wraparound model, which worked really well with people who were re-establishing themselves. But then, we learned that it also works really well with older adults, and it works with people who are unemployed. When you can meet as many needs as you can, especially basic needs, through one agency where there’s trust, where there’s understanding, where there’s a connection, it really helps. We also know the things that we are not best at, and we know who our partners are. For example, we don’t provide substance abuse treatment. We don’t specialize in it, but we refer for it and we can provide other kinds of support.

Slomovits: How do you see JFS evolving? 

Abramzon: We would like to be much more involved in refugees establishing their own business opportunities. We want to be able to provide more support for their digital literacy, for all of the things that are above and beyond the initial integration, where you come in and you find a job and you have a roof over your head. But what are the next steps? In the past we felt that when refugees come, it’s important that we get them housing and we get them a job. Once they have a job, they’re going to be fine. And then we’ve learned that it’s really not enough because people come with such level of trauma that in order for them to hold a job, they need to start feeling human again. How can we help them start feeling human again? What would it take? Would it take us providing music lessons for their children, or having a group where they can share, making sure that we have an interpreter who speaks their language, not over a phone line, but in the room, holding their hand. What are the pieces that we have to put together for people to be most positioned for success? 

With older adults, with caregivers, every time we think about what we do, I think about ten things that we’re not doing yet, and it drives me crazy. (Laughter) We wanted to provide respite services for so many years because we saw caregivers coming to us and after horrible, horrible months, sometimes years, when you don’t have time to get your hair cut, and you don’t have a moment for yourself because you’re caring for your loved ones. And sometimes you have a full-time job [on top of caregiving]. There are so many things that people have to endure. We really wanted to bring respite services, and now that we’re able to do that, we’re already thinking, “It’s not enough, you know, what we do is not enough.”

We’re in the process of building a kitchen because we really want to make meals—medically-tailored meals that would really be best for your diet. Not just something that as a poor person, you get, you say, thank you. We wanted to make sure that we work with your primary care physician. And if you need to be on the low sodium diet, or if it has to be kosher for example, or halal, that we make that happen. We are adding services every day because our community needs it. 

Slomovits: That’s wonderful. It really is. You probably hear this, and you and your staff and the board should hear it. It’s inspiring, it’s uplifting. You can look at so many things in the world that are going wrong, and it’s wonderful to hear about things that are going right. Or at least that somebody’s trying to make them right. 

Abramzon: It doesn’t mean it’s glamorous or happy all the time. There are problems every day. There are some days that are not that great. But then, at the end of every day, it still feels good to be doing what we’re doing. 

Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County is located at 2245 South State Street Suite 200 in Ann Arbor.  Learn more about Jewish Family Services through their website at JFSAnnArbor.org. You can contact Anya Abramzon, Executive Director of the JFS, by calling the office at 769-0209.

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