The Greensboro News and Record has a lengthy profile on Kathy Manning, who is slated to take over this fall for Joe Kanfer as the top lay leader at the United Jewish Communities/Jewish Federations of North America.
Manning, 52 and a Greensboro resident, will become the first woman to hold the position since the UJC was formed out of a merger of United Israel Appeal, the Council on Jewish Federations and the United Jewish Appeal in 1999.
An interesting tidbit about the lawyer:
Once a month for the past several years Manning has made breakfast in her home, including her special egg soufflé, for the heads of the Greensboro Symphony, Eastern Music Festival and Triad Stage and others.
It’s her way of trying to figure out how to boost the energy around the arts in Greensboro.
“Only Kathy would have been able to make everyone stop out of their busy schedule and take the time to come to the meeting,” said Lisa Crawford, the symphony president and CEO.
(FWIW, JTA staffers like special egg soufflés as well.)
Manning and her husband Randal Kaplan are also active in the United Way and the National Council for Community and Justice, according to the paper.
Why did she get involved with the federations?
While working her way to partner at one of the city’s most prestigious law firms, Manning was also increasingly drawn to the local work of organizations supporting Israel and needy Jews throughout the world.
It is a passion undergirded by the reality of Adolf Hitler having offered his country’s Jews on a world stage to countries who would take them and before he set into motion the Holocaust.
“If there had been an Israel in 1939, we would not have lost 6 million Jews because there would have been a population to take them in,” Manning said.
