On July 1, JEWISHcolorado welcomed five new and returning members to the Board of Directors. Diana Zeff Anderson returns after previously serving as Chair of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Planned Giving and Endowment Committee. Her Zeff Kesher Foundation builds connections between North America and Israel and is the lead funder of JEWISHcolorado’s Israel & Overseas Center. In 2023, JEWISHcolorado awarded her with the Golda Award. In addition to Zeff Anderson, four new members are joining the board, each bringing a unique background and set of skills with them.
Gabe Gelman
Gabe Gelman comes from a family with a long commitment to leadership in Colorado’s Jewish community. One of his many reasons for becoming involved with JEWISHcolorado is to be a role model for his three children, in much the same way generations of his family served as role models for him.
“For my family, community involvement is not optional,” he says. “If you are fortunate enough with time and resources to give back, it was never a question of whether you would get involved,” he says. “It was just a question of where you would be involved.”
Gelman’s great-grandmother was the bookkeeper for Temple Emanuel when Rabbi Steven Foster first arrived. (“They were great pals,” he says.) His grandparents were married at Temple Emanuel when it was on Pearl Street. His parents, who were both active in BBYO in high school, were also married at Temple Emanuel—but on Grape Street. His mother left a long career as a pharmacist and went to work for the Colorado Agency for Jewish Education (CAJE) before CAJE was incorporated into JEWISHcolorado. She also served on the Boards of Herzl Jewish Day School (now Denver Jewish Day School), RMR BBYO, and Hillel of Colorado.
Gelman was active in BBYO and served in many leadership positions, including Regional Godol of the Rocky Mountain Region. His brothers were also active in leadership roles with both BBYO and Hillel. Both his brothers traveled to Israel on the Joyce Zeff Israel Study Tour (IST), but Gelman’s trip was canceled in 2002 because of the Second Intifada.
“It was obviously very disappointing,” he recalls. “I remember that during the months before we were scheduled to travel, our class at Hebrew High whittled down gradually as people canceled and eventually, it was just a few of us left. Then we finally realized it was not going to happen.”
Gelman served on JEWISHcolorado’s Staenberg Anything Grants™ Committee in 2019-2020 and on the PIN Grants (Programs of Impact and Need) committee since 2021. He is the incoming Chair of the PIN Grants committee, which awards grants that address strategic needs in the Jewish community.
“What I really like about the grant committee process is that you get to interact with all different organizations providing services to the Jewish community—not just the largest ones,” he says. “My goal is to maintain and foster and grow those relationships throughout the grant process. To be able to have impact on their work feels really meaningful.”
Gelman graduated summa cum laude from the University of Colorado Boulder where he helped organize Holocaust Awareness Week. He received his law degree from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. He joined the family law firm, Gelman Law LLC, continuing a tradition of family business—three generations of his family—a tradition that started with his great-grandfather and grandfather who owned Jackson Drug in Denver.
Gelman is married to Rachel and they have three children. In his spare time, he trains for long-distance races and triathlons. He has completed numerous marathons, half-marathons, and triathlons. He competes to serve as a role model for his children—very similar to his reason for getting involved with JEWISHcolorado. He also serves on the Finance Committee of DJDS and is a board member of his neighborhood Metropolitan District.
“You have to be active to make an impact on our community,” he says. “I want my children to have the positive childhood I had, and I also want them to have a future in their neighborhood, their school, and in the Jewish community in Colorado and internationally. To make that happen, you must have a seat at the table.”
Mark Raphaely
Mark Raphaely brings a global and generational perspective to his new role on the JEWISHcolorado board. He was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, and attended Jewish Day School through twelfth grade. He grew up in the close-knit South African Jewish community, attending an Orthodox synagogue and observing holidays in a traditional way.
“That experience formed a big piece of our family values,” he says. “Fast forward 40 years and it translates into how my wife and I have chosen to live our lives and raise our children with Jewish traditions at the forefront of our values.”
Raphaely is the fifth generation of his family to live in South Africa. His great-great-grandfather came to Johannesburg in 1888 and was the founding president of the burial society Chevra Kadisha, which then evolved into a social safety net organization. Chevra Kadisha still exists 140 years later. It is the largest Jewish welfare organization on the African continent.
“My great-great-grandfather identified a community need and stepped in to fill it,” Raphaely says. “I’m proud to say that our family has been supporters of this organization for a century and a half.”
Raphaely’s great-grandfather Leo moved to Cape Town, where, in 1936, he also identified the need for action. He chartered a ship, the Stuttgart, and brought more than 500 European Jews fleeing the rise of Hitler to South Africa. Each refugee needed a guarantor, so Leo and a partner went door-to-door in Cape Town and traveled to far-flung farming communities to find sponsors who would ensure the refugees were not a burden on society.
“I have friends in my generation who hear my last name and tell me that their grandfather was a passenger on the Stuttgart,” Raphaely says. “You know the phrase, ‘Whoever saves one life saves the world.’ Leo did more than his share.”
Raphaely says that his father was also a role model for community activity and philanthropy. He founded an organization that funds trips for Jewish seniors without financial resources so that they could visit their children who live abroad, and, in some cases, meet their grandchildren for the very first time.
“My father, who passed away in 2022, asked only one thing of these grandparents,” Raphaely says. “He would ask them to write a letter describing the experience. These letters were so moving and powerful and would serve as incredible fundraising tools when trying to secure funds for more grandparents to take similar trips in subsequent years. My father was a real pioneer, a man of action who had an immensely positive impact on the world, and I miss him tremendously.”
Raphaely is the founder and director of Sandhurst Capital, a private lending company that provides short-term loans to real estate developers and investors. He moved to Denver in 2016, and he serves on the board of Young Israel of Denver (formerly DAT Minyan) and was President from 2018-2020. He and his wife Sarah have four children. They first discovered JEWISHcolorado through Young Adult Division (YAD) Family Shabbats, and that led to their involvement with major events.
“Especially since October 7th, I recognized the important role that JEWISHcolorado plays in this community, bringing Jews of all stripes together in bad times and good,” he says. “As a community, we speak more powerfully when we speak with one voice.”
Raphaely praises the work of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) “advocating in a coherent way.” He hopes to make JEWISHcolorado an organization where an even wider spectrum of the community—from secular to Orthodox Jews—feels comfortable. He points to events like Celebrate Israel as an example where JEWISHcolorado is already “doing a fantastic job” bringing a broad swath of the community together.
“No organization in the state has the ability to do that better than JEWISHcolorado,” he says. “That is one reason I reached out to Renée and asked how I can help.”
Rachel Silvestain
When Rachel Silvestain first became involved in JEWISHcolorado’s Young Adult Division (YAD) as an Ambassador, she had the opportunity to see some of Jco’s philanthropic records dating back to the 1950s and 1960s. There, she saw her grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ names.
“They did not give a lot of money, but $2 in the 1950s when you were raising four children was a lot to them,” she says. “It showed me that no matter how much they were able to donate, giving Jewishly was so important to them.”
Silvestain will continue the family legacy by giving her time and talent to JEWISHcolorado as the newly elected YAD Executive Chair and new member of the JEWISHcolorado Board of Directors.
She is a third-generation Denverite, with memories of growing up involved in BBYO and Shwayder Camp. She thought of JEWISHcolorado as “a hub—an umbrella organization that supported many other organizations.” She had served on the boards of Hillel and her Jewish sorority, and after college, friends invited her to join YAD.
“YAD became a place where I met new people and became socially involved,” Silvestain says. “I learned about JEWISHcolorado, and I discovered a pathway to understanding the work Jewish Federations of North America is doing through Cabinet.”
Silvestain recently returned from a National Young Leadership Cabinet trip to Azerbaijan where she witnessed first-hand the global involvement of JFNA’s partner organizations, including the Jewish Agency and the Joint Distribution Committee.
“Joining Cabinet is so important because it gives you an international perspective,” she says. “You also meet leaders from other cities and talk with them about what they are doing and that is vital to be a contributing and productive member of a local board.”
Silvestain believes that her new role on the board demonstrates and reinforces JEWISHcolorado’s commitment to young adults.
“The first step toward success is to engage young adults and get them through the door,” she says. “After that, they can move up the ladder of leadership, but it all starts with getting people in their twenties and thirties involved.”
To that end, Silvestain sees her role on the Board as an advocate for the continued support of YAD. She also wants to demonstrate how YAD contributes to JEWISHcolorado by developing the next generation of leaders. She is hoping to develop an intentional YAD presence at JEWISHcolorado major events.
“We have come a long way from the potlucks with 30 people that I remember from more than a decade ago,” she says. “We have also made great strides making large events ‘young person friendly,’ but I want to see that grow even more.”
With 15 years of experience, Silvestain is a seasoned corporate accountant employed by Kodiak Building Partners. As someone who has “been involved Jewishly” her entire life, she believes that her service on JEWISHcolorado’s board is more important now than ever.
“People are craving Jewish connection in what feels like a scary world today,” she says. “If we can provide that, it’s huge. It’s the way I fight back against antisemitism. We are saying ‘We’re still here,’ and here are the events and connections you can have through JEWISHcolorado.”
Michelle Striker
Michelle Striker’s grandparents came from two different parts of the country—her grandfather from Connecticut and her grandmother from Casper, Wyoming. They met at the University of Colorado Boulder, settled in Denver, and when they could, started a family foundation to give back to the community. Today, that legacy continues with the Martin and Gloria Trotsky Family Foundation.
“I have memories of my grandparents talking to us when we were young about the kind of organizations they wanted to support,” says Striker. “Giving back to the Jewish community was priority number one for them once they were able to give philanthropically.”
Today, Striker and her cousin serve as co-presidents of the family foundation. She still remembers her grandparents talking about their commitment to JEWISHcolorado, then Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado. Her connections to JEWISHcolorado include a trip to Israel with IST in 1996—an “incredible experience,” she says. She also was involved as a young adult in her twenties when she chaired a local young adult conference called “Be There.”
“It was so exciting to encounter the energy of young people who wanted to connect with other Jewish people and learn from them,” she says. “I remember Robyn Loup, who is a dear family friend, spoke at our Be There conference, and it was a chance to learn from such a wise macher.”
Striker graduated from CU Boulder and holds a Master of Public Administration from the University of Colorado Denver. She worked for 15 years in development for diverse nonprofits, including the Anti-Defamation League, Escuela de Guadalupe, a dual language Catholic school, and Book Trust, a national early literacy nonprofit that increases book access for children.
Striker stepped back from her career to raise two young children and discovered that she loved to volunteer.
“Volunteering feels different from a job,” she says. “I really love to roll up my sleeves and get into the nitty gritty. It’s such a great way to give back to a community that has given me so much.”
At the urging of Carla Kutnick, Striker became involved with Women’s Philanthropy at Jco, and she joined the Women’s Philanthropy Committee in 2021. That led her to serve on the Dignity Grows Committee.
“I love the direct impact of Dignity Grows,” she says. “Helping women with period poverty and giving them access to supplies feels very tangible, and JEWISHcolorado does a great job partnering with diverse organizations to get products to people.”
As the co-chair for two years, Striker was also instrumental in the development of the Women’s Philanthropy: “Smart Women, Smart Conversations” program.
“Roberta (Witkow, Director of Women’s Philanthropy) asked us to develop gatherings where people could learn about an issue that feels pertinent in their lives and relates to Judaism,” says Striker. “It’s one of the programs I am most proud of because it’s a great way to engage new people at JEWISHcolorado.”
Striker joins the board as the new Chair of Women’s Philanthropy. She says she is looking forward to learning from other board members.
“I don’t know what I don’t know yet, but I am excited to learn,” she says. “We would like to continue what we are doing in Women’s Philanthropy and even take it to the next level.”
Striker is married to Doug and the mother of two children, a new generation who can learn from their mother about giving back.
“I feel like my grandparents would be so proud and happy about what I am doing,” she says. “What they taught us about tikkun olam is being passed on through my involvement at JEWISHcolorado.”