Ellen Braunstein
Samantha van Adelsberg, an ardent Zionist, says she loves fundraising for Jewish National Fund-USA because the organization is synonymous with Israel.
“If there’s a program about special needs, we’re involved; if it’s an area being developed or having trees planted, we’re on it; if it’s research, technology, any component in Israeli society, we’re there.”
With a background in opera, van Adelsberg, 33, is the director of Eastern Pennsylvania for JNF, her job since January 2017.
“I’ve never had a role so rewarding and so in alignment with my own beliefs,” said van Adelsberg, who lives in South Philadelphia and is looking for a synagogue to join.
Van Adelsberg finds it easy to talk about Israel and ask for financial support, she said. Although there are challenges presented by the far-right coalition that’s come to power, it’s important, she said, “to keep giving proper information to donors.
“There’s the demonization of Israel in the media,” she said. “I think the misunderstanding sometimes comes from people just assuming what they read in the media about Israel is all accurate.
“Speaking with donors who don’t know enough about the country and about the work we do, they assume the propaganda that’s out there. Our task is debunking those myths.”
Van Adelsberg said she has learned to have productive conversations with people who believe that Israel is an apartheid state.
“I was able to give at least one donor the right information, and he donated and continues to donate to our campaign.”
Another test of her abilities is the message sent by a government that has weakened the power of the country’s judiciary.
“I have donors who think that we have connections to the government. We are an apolitical and areligious organization even though we have Jewish in the title,” she said. “The current climate does make the job a little more challenging but, as a result, it provides for deeper conversations.”
Van Adelsberg received her common Dutch surname from her Jewish grandparents who emigrated from Amsterdam. She spent her early childhood in Southern California until 1994 when the family’s home was damaged in the Northridge earthquake.
The van Adelsberg home was lifted off its foundation and came crashing down. No one was hurt.
“I was only 4 at the time and my parents got me and my brother out of there,” she said. “My parents were, like, ‘We’ve got to be in a place that’s not riddled with earthquakes.’ So that was enough to drive us to the other side of the country.”
The family moved to Bala Cynwyd near relatives in Villanova. Her father, Trevor, was in telecommunication sales.
Van Adelsberg describes her parents as “very Zionistic.” She has several close cousins in Israel and one she calls her uncle, Eytan Stibbe. He was the second Israeli to go into orbit and celebrated Passover at the International Space Station in April 2022.
“That’s my claim to fame,” she said.
Van Adelsberg had her bat mitzvah at the Conservative Temple Adath Israel in Merion. The family sent her to Camp Galil in Ottsville. Now, van Adelsberg calls herself Reform.
Her professional career in Jewish organizations came after a three-year stint as a project coordinator at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia. She trained in opera as a soprano at Binghamton University in New York.
“I thought I was going to be a professional opera singer. But it was a really difficult lifestyle, living from paycheck to paycheck,” she said. “The starving artist life is not for me, and you really have to be OK with rejection. I learned that immediately upon graduation and am pretty good at taking constructive criticism.”
Working with rejection has helped her become resilient when a big gift doesn’t come in.
“Knowing that if someone says no, it could mean no for now, but another time, maybe, which is what’s happened when I’ve spoken with several donors,” van Adelsberg said. “It doesn’t rattle or affect me as much as I think it would if I didn’t have that opera background.”
For a few years, she was a voice instructor at a music training center and then a communications and marketing intern at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History.
She wasn’t a fundraiser before she met Marina Furman, a refusenik, activist and speaker, who is executive director of National Major Donor Advancement at Jewish National Fund-USA. Van Adelsberg’s mother, Marci, an educator, introduced her daughter to Furman, who lived on the same street as her parents.
“It was a great conversation. It was ‘Do you love Israel? Would you like to talk to people about supporting it?’
“This was new work to me, but I think under Marina’s guidance, you see the urgency and when people are willing to support it; that’s the rewarding piece.
“You meet people who are just as in love with Israel as you are and see all the beauty and want it to continue to thrive.”
Ellen Braunstein is a freelance writer.