Arriving in Israel with her family just before the 1973 Yom Kippur War erupted, Carol Saal became immersed in the world of Judaism. Living in Haifa for three years “solidified my bond to the Jewish people” and inspired her to become a Jew-by-choice.
As chair of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation’s 1997 annual campaign, the former marketing executive’s goal is to get more people involved in fueling the institutions that serve the Jewish world.
“When I was young, I always heard my mother marvel at Jews’ participation in building community, whether it was hospitals, universities, opera houses or museums, and she never understood why that was so, and I never understood why that was so until I became a Jew,” said Saal, who was raised Roman Catholic. “And then I realized the values of tzedakah and tikkun olam [healing the world] are really a driving force in Judaism.”
Saal, who lives in Palo Alto, intends to capitalize on those values in order to surpass last year’s campaign total of $19 million. On Super Sunday, Nov. 24, 1,000 Bay Area volunteers will phone 15,000 people asking for help. New sources of funding, she said, are needed to further Jewish education and cultural efforts, as well as to assist those whose needs are growing, including the frail and emigre elderly.
The federation is “like the venture capital for the Jewish community,” she said. “Without the seed funding, without the deep pockets and without the ongoing support, nothing happens.”
To achieve those ends, her first step is an outreach effort to involve new people. Her second step is to expand the donor base. In addition to increasing involvement among youth, Saal wants to “focus with razor-sharp clarity” on Silicon Valley, where she lives and has worked, and which “has not been generous as a community.”
Yet “Silicon Valley has never been more successful, people have never been richer,” she added. “A large part of that is Jewish wealth.”
Alan Rothenberg, new JCF president, said Saal’s marketing and fund-raising experience particularly qualify her for chairing the campaign.
“She comes out of a background where you need to be convinced of the merits of your product before you talk to customers or potential customers. And clearly, the future of the Jewish community in the Bay Area is really important to her,” Rothenberg said.
Saal “especially feels that there are a lot of people in the South Peninsula who may have been born Jewish but forget. She’d like to remind them that it’s time to stand up and be counted again.”
Born in Hartford, Conn., Saal received a bachelor of arts degree from Mount Holyoke College, spending her junior year studying in Florence, Italy, and going on to do graduate work in early childhood education.
She married Harry Saal in 1967, and they relocated in 1968 from New York City to Palo Alto, where their two children, Jessica and Nathaniel, were born. In 1973, Harry Saal had the opportunity to work with IBM at the new science center at the Technion in Haifa and the family left for Israel.
Returning to California in 1976, Carol Saal enrolled her children in the South Peninsula Hebrew Day School in Sunnyvale, becoming an active member of the school’s board of directors. Beginning in 1979, Saal got involved in two of her husband’s high-tech start-up companies: She served as marketing communications manager of Network General Corp. from its inception in 1986 until her retirement in 1991, when she decided to use her professional skills as a community volunteer.
A member of Congregation Kol Emeth in Palo Alto, Saal has served on the boards of a number of Jewish nonprofits, including the JCF executive and endowment committees, the South Peninsula Regional Council of the JCF, Stanford Hillel and HaTikvah, an organization that provides housing for developmentally disabled adults. She currently serves as Bay Area regional chair of the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.
As the Jewish community enters the next century, the driving forces propelling greater involvement will no longer be the Holocaust, concerns about Israel’s security or fear about anti-Semitism, Saal said.
Instead, the Jewish world must focus on the Jewish value system — with its emphasis on lifelong education, caring for the elderly, standing up for what’s right and serving those who have fallen through the cracks.
“It’s very sad and frustrating for me to see Jews not appreciate and understand what they have. Judaism really has the most solid and workable set of values of any belief system because it focuses on the here and now. As a Jew, you feel the obligation to change things that you see are unfair or wrong. To be blunt about it, the world very much needs Jewish values.”