Donor Spotlight:
Alia and Dan Ramer

reposted from the December 2006 issue of Speak E-Z

There is a vision that motivates Alia and Dan Ramer of Maplewood to be involved in United Jewish Communities (UJC) of MetroWest NJ. They have a goal to which they are dedicated and that gives them reason to be personally engaged and to volunteer their time in many areas of UJC. Their aim is to help build the leadership for the future of UJC, and for the future of Jewish charitable work.

“Our goal is to replace ourselves,” Alia said. “Everybody ages out. You want to make sure the next generation is in good hands.”

The involvement of Alia and Dan Ramer has been and continues to be extensive. Both are current members of the UJC board. Alia has served on the boards of the Women’s Department and Jewish Family Services, and has chaired various events and functions, including this year’s Vanguard Campaign for the Women’s Department. Dan has served on the board and executive board of Jewish Vocational Services and has also chaired numerous functions and events, including Sports Nite Out and Super Sunday.

The Ramers first became involved with UJC when they moved to the area in 1995. They started for “social reasons,” according to Dan.

“A friend at my office was chairing an opening function for the Young Leadership Division, and he invited us. That’s where we first got inspired, learning what the organization does and starting to meet friends. We really did it for the first two or three years for social reasons.”

“Once we learned more about what UJC does for our community and Jews elsewhere,” added Alia, “it became natural to want to help where we could.”

It was natural for them because they both grew up in volunteering families who were involved in community affairs.

“My mom was an endless synagogue volunteer,” Alia explained. “She was the last to leave Shabbat kiddish because she was helping clean up. I spent many evenings with her folding and stamping newsletters. My father was a member of the school board.” Dan’s mother was a volunteer in several community organizations, such as the Rotary Club and the Chamber of Commerce, and she helped start a synagogue in Sussex County in the early 1970s. When the family moved to Wayne, she became involved in the development of a new conservative synagogue in the community.

As Alia and Dan became more involved in UJC, they both were attracted to work in the areas of educational outreach and leadership development.

“For both of us, outreach is so vital,” observed Alia. “The more you educate a donor about what UJC does, the more they open their hearts.”

Dan explained how education and leadership are related, particularly in his own case. He attributes his sense of the importance of UJC and of doing all one can to his own growing awareness and understanding of Jewish values. He has learned how important it is for Jews to help Jews.

“I personally feel privileged to live in an affluent Jewish community, and I know personally that there are many Jews here and around the world who need help. I have met many of them. As I gained more Jewish knowledge, I wanted to reach out.”

Both of them believe that education is at the heart of developing new leaders. Dan pointed it out when recalling his involvement in developing the new Young Leadership Division leadership council in 2000.

“We became entrepreneurial,” he recounted. “Greg Russo, Stacey Brown, and I would sit at a table in a diner and devise a curriculum of leadership development. We put together a program of eight courses for reaching out to new people. We asked ourselves, ‘what do you want to teach people that will energize them?’”

“Some very good leaders have come out of that program,” Alia noted, “just during the first two years. Education is crucial for leadership development. It’s our mantra.”

The essence of the education that creates a dedication to help is in personally experiencing what UJC achieves.

“You can talk about what UJC does in a pamphlet or you can have a friend tell you what and who we support,” Dan observed. “That’s great, but in order to have a full understanding, it has to hit you emotionally. To motivate and inspire people, I wish they could all come to a program. Once you see it in action, you understand what we’re doing. Once people come, once they’re in the room with the clients, once they become intricately involved with how an agency works and see who the agency’s clients are, it’s a done deal. They’re in.”

The understanding that comes with that kind of direct contact is one of the personal benefits Alia and Dan feel they receive, not only for themselves but for their children. They bring their children to programs to have the emotional contact with the work of UJC and what it means. “They see it and they understand,” Alia said.

As Alia and Dan learned from their families the value of volunteering to improve the lives of others, so their children learn from their work to develop the leadership that will carry this lesson and this work into the future. When asked how optimistic they are that the lesson will continue, that Jews will help Jews to survive, they affirmed their belief in the reality of hope.

“The naysayers claim we should have died out as a people a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago,” Alia noted. “But we’ll still be here in a hundred years, in a thousand years.”