The Ohio Jewish Chronicle, December 22, 1994/19 Tevet 5755, page 1

By Ina Horwitz-Whitmore

The Jewish Community Blood Donor Council is getting a big shot in the arm.  Former Columbus business executive Richard Lieberman, now of Punta Gorda, Fla., has established the “Richard Lieberman Perpetual Life Blood Donor Endowment” at the Columbus Jewish Foundation to support all operating expenses of the Council’s blood drives in perpetuity. 

Believed to be the first endowed blood drive in central Ohio, it may also be the first of its kind in the country, according to Foundation President Myer Mellman.

The Council has been holding blood drives since 1949.  Currently, they are conducted semiannually at both Beth Tikvah and the Leo Yassenoff Jewish Community Center before the Christmas and July 4^th holidays.

Lee Schulman gave his 100^th pint of blood at the Center.  Schulman has been a regular donor since first asked in the early 1970s.  He also gives blood through a special procedure known as “apheresis,” which lasts about two hours (normal blood donations take about an hour).  The process provides a match with a specific recipient, such as a burn or cancer victim.

“I give blood regularly, because my father passed away from cancer, it really hit home,” he said.  “Once I started, I couldn’t think of a good reason to stop.”

Past chairman and a founder of the Jewish Community Blood Donor Council, Richard Grundstein, is thrilled with the endowment set up by Lieberman through the Foundation.

“What this wonderful gift does is to unfetter our Council from the responsibility of raising funds each year (which have amounted to about $4,000 annually to meet blood drive expenses) so we can concentrate on getting donors,” he said.

Grundstein noted that when the Foundation first offered to help endow the Council, he never expected that one person would be responsible for it.

This is one of many philanthropic Jewish contributions that Lieberman has made to the community, Grundstein said.  Lieberman, like his father, is a Columbus native.  He has made his permanent home in Florida since 1988 with wife, Michelle.  Yet he still maintains a strong sense of commitment to the Columbus Jewish Community.

“I make my biggest contributions to Columbus,” He noted in a telephone interview.  “The community is still number one in my book.”

An East High School graduate and attendee of The Ohio State University, the former Bexley resident was associated with Capital Bad and Burlap Company, Ludlow Sales and various real estate interests.

Always very active in Jewish communal affairs, Lieberman is a lifelong member and trustee of Congregation Tifereth Israel, serving as its president from 1968 to 1972 and as treasurer for many years.  Lieberman was instrumental in building the Leo Yassenoff Jewish Center.  He was involved with Wexner Heritage House and the Columbus Jewish Federation, working on various Federation campaign and committees, particularly in the field of Jewish education.

Lieberman and his late wife, Evelyn, had three children.  Sons Larry and Jeff in Columbus, and daughter, Sharon Good resides in Evanston, Ill.  He also has six grandchildren.  He often returns to Columbus to visit family and friends and to take care of his real estate business.

“Dick Lieberman has been one of the most devoted leaders of Congregation Tifereth Israel for many decades,” stated Rabbi Harold Berman.  “His specialty as president, and after his presidency for many years as treasurer, was a careful eye on financial administration, always making sure that funds were in place to complete anything that the congregation began.  His special gift to the community offers another dimension of this particular concern, making sure that the funds will be in place for the community to engage in this vital program for years, indeed for decades to come.”

Sondra Osipow, one of this year’s blood drive co-chairs along with Richard Sabgir, called Lieberman, who she has known for 27 years, “a man of great integrity with strongly-held convictions.

“I’m so excited that he saw fit to donate in this way, as it will help so many people,” she said.  “It also gives us more opportunities than we previously had to try to reach new and younger donors.”

It is the people under age 40 who need to be especially encouraged to become blood donors, and only five percent of those eligible to donate give blood in this country, according to past Chair Christi Kaufman.

“Hopefully, with this endowment, we will be able to educate this age group to understand our obligations as human beings,” she said.

Past Co-Chair Elliott Luckoff agreed.  He believes younger people are less likely to give blood, perhaps due to their busy lifestyles or to the fact that some may be squeamish about being pricked by a needle.  He and other volunteers all quickly pointed out that the procedure does not hurt.

Luckoff, while expressing his gratitude for the endowment, hoped it might allow the Council to conduct blood drives on a quarterly basis instead of twice a year.  Blood can be safely given every eight weeks, he noted.  He also hoped the endowment would be the impetus for members of the Jewish community to endow other community organizations.

“When you give blood, it’s a mitzvah, for perhaps you may be saving someone’s life,” noted Luckoff.

“What Richard Lieberman has done with his endowment to the Jewish Community Blood Donor Council is good for the general community and good for the Jews,” Foundation Executive Director Jackie L. Jacobs said.  “We are part of the larger community.  Making the world better and helping everyone in need is a fundamentally Jewish concept.  By volunteering and donating blood, Jewish individuals are really doing something spiritually uplifting.  This makes something holy out of a secular act.”

Council has long tradition

The Jewish Community Blood Donor Council has been in operation for over 45 years.  It began in 1949 when the late Sylvia Schecter, its first chair, approached the American Red Cross under the auspices of the B’nai B’rith Women, with the idea that the Columbus Jewish Community would like to do its fair share in recruiting blood donors, according to Richard Grundstein.

At the time, there were some 300 B’nai B’rith Women participants, and the men from what was then the “Zion Lodge 62 of B’nai B’rith” helped the women, Grundstein noted.

In addition to Schecter and Grundstein, the late Fred Yenkin and Marjorie Gross were all vice-chairs in the early years.  The Council recruits donors from all the major Columbus Jewish organizations, including the seven area synagogues.  Volunteers conduct all aspects of the drives, including telethons to recruit donors as well as monitoring, and making and serving refreshments on the day of the drives.

The Council holds drives around July 4^th and Christmas, since these are times of extreme blood shortages.

“That became the opportune time for us as Jews to fill in to get donors,” said Grundstein.

With its 100 volunteers, the Council recruits about 650 donors yearly.  Red Cross officials have told Council members not to slacken its efforts, for it could not meet the average demand for 550 pints daily without the Council’s assistance, Grundstein noted.

 The Red Cross’s regional plant at 995 E. Broad St. services 47 hospitals in 28 mid-Ohio counties daily on demand throughout the whole year.

 The Council’s future goal is to expand efforts to recruit 1,800 donors yearly.  Local blood drives protect two million people in Central Ohio, including the whole Jewish community, noted Grundstein.

 “It’s free if they have the blood,” he said.  “We are helping make sure it is there.”

Last updated on:    01/08/2007