Philanthropists

Rita and Jeff Adler gave the first $1 million gift to the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando for the 2000 capital campaign to dedicate the JCC Early Childhood Learning Center, 2015.
The Adlers moved to Orlando in 1983, where Jeff became involved with the JCC. Their gift was given in memory of Jeff’s father Richard who was involved with the Clevel and “J.” Rita and Jeff’s philanthropy is primarily focused on youth through the JCC, where Jeff served on the board, and Florida Hospital for Children, where Rita serves on the board. They also support UCF student scholarships. They are $1 million  ontributors to Congregation Ohev Shalom and major patrons of the arts and the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. Jeff is on the UCF Business School Advisory Board. Rita and Jeff are also active with the Orlando Museum of Art.

Rita Adler

Judy and David Albertson established the Judith and David Albertson Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in the Department of Visual Arts at UCF, 2007.
Judy owned theAlbertson- Peterson Gallery. She is a charter member of the UCF Board of Trustees and a member of the UCF Foundation Board. She has been a fundraising leader for the Performing Arts Center and UCF’s fine arts press, Flying Horse Editions. David was board member, president and chairman of the Florida Symphony Orchestra (1981–1991) and a founding board member of PBS (today’s WUCF Channel 24.1). He was a founder of the Orlando Magic NBA franchise, is president of the UCF Athletics Board and played a key role in building the Bright House Networks Stadium. This couple gave a major gift to Harvard University and endowed a chair in economics at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University. They have lived in Winter Park for more than 40 years.
University of Central Florida

Marion and Joseph Brechner being honored with the National Mayor’s Conference and Broadcast Pioneers Award for best local community service by a television station, New York City, 1964.
Marion and Joe Brechner succeeded in business and life, leaving a legacy in Orlando, their adopted home since 1959. Philanthropy reflected their life work of keeping the public informed. They endowed the University of Florida with the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information, Brechner Eminent Scholar and the Marion Brechner First Amendment Project, gifts totaling over $3 million. Other donations created the Joseph and Marion Brechner Fund for Jewish Cultural Reporting at the National Yiddish Book Center, the Anti-Defamation League Joseph L. Brechner Fellowship program and the Joseph L. Brechner Research Center here at the Orange County Regional History Center. Marion was active in the Orlando Friends of the Library, Shakespeare Theater and local Jewish causes. Joe passed away in 1990 and Marion in 2011.
Collections of the Historical Society of Central Florida, Inc

Alan Ginsburg donated $20 million to Florida Hospital (the largest donation in its history) to build the Ginsburg Tower, home to Florida Hospital Cardiovascular Institute, Orlando, 2007. Ginsburg, a successful real estate developer in Michigan, moved to Orlando in 1981 to expand his business. Neither huge success nor tragedy has altered his genuine kindness, sense of humor, or altruism. He continues to give generously to healthcare, education and Jewish causes. His most significant gifts have named memorials for family members he has lost: $4 million to the University of Central Florida’s College of Medicine Harriet F. Ginsburg Health Sciences Library, $2 million to the Jeffrey & Diane Ginsburg Center for Jewish Student Life at Central Florida Hillel, $5 million for a scholarship endowment at Rollins College and $1 million gifts to Congregation Ohev Shalom and the JFGO Capital Campaign 2000.
Florida Hospital

Jean and Norman Gould started Gould Publications in the 1950s and have generously supported education, 2002.
The Gould family espouses Thomas Jefferson’s sentiment: “I cannot live without books.” Over the years, their family-owned company in Longwood grew into one of the nation’s leading law-book publishers. Their gifts include student and nurse scholarships at the University of Central Florida, Seminole State College, Florida Hospital Adventist University of Health Sciences and Valencia College. They named the Gould Law Library at Touro College, their son Bruce’s alma mater. Most recently, the Gould’s gifted 10 acres of land and 80,000 square feet of building space, valued at $4.1 million, to the Foundation for Seminole State College of Florida Inc., the largest single gift in the history of the college.
Bruce Gould

Bruce Gould (right) helped Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dedicate the Ammunition Hill Memorial in honor of Gould’s parents, Norman and Jean, 2015.
Bruce Gould became a principal of Gould Publications Inc. in 1986 and came to Orlando seven years later. Bruce’s first love is the Jewish National Fund (JNF), where he is National President Elect /Vice President of Campaign. In 2015, Bruce made a significant gift to support the Amphitheater and new Commemoration Hall to honor those who gave their lives in the Ammunition Hill battle for Jerusalem. In 2016, Bruce received the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando’s Jerome J. Bornstein Senior Leadership Award. He has served on many boards, including the JCC, Holocaust Memorial Research and Education Center, Touro College and UCF.
Jewish National Fund

“We made our money here and we like to
donate it here” say Harvey (left) and Phillip
Kobrin, 2016.
The Kobrin brothers were born in Brooklyn and moved to Orlando with their parents Sara and Jack in 1955. In 1972, they donated part of their Yaeger grandparents’ Maitland grove for construction of the Jewish Community Campus. In 2001, Harvey and his late wife Nancye, donated $1 million to the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Orlando. Most recently, the Kobrin Family Foundation gave a $1 million gift to the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. The brothers continue to support Jewish Family services, healthcare and arts organizations.
Dick Weine

Harriett and Hymen Lake have been stellar
supporters of the community, 1998.
“He was giving away millions of dollars to Jewish causes while he was wearing a $15 watch,” says Harriett, Hy’s wife of 60 years. Hy and Harriett met in Miami Beach in the late 1940s and married in 1950. They settled in Orlando in 1962 to manage Hy’s properties, including Sky Lake, a huge South Orange subdivision. The Lakes were major donors to the Combined Jewish Appeal (CJA) and donated $1 million to the Federation’s capital campaign to renovate the Jewish community campus in 2000. The Jewish Community Center’s Harriett and Hymen Lake Cultural Auditorium was named in recognition of this gift.
Heritage Florida Jewish News

Harriett Lake was honored at Harriett’s
Can-Can Jewish Family Services Spring
Gala, 2011.
Harriett Lake calls herself a “philanthropy junkie.” Since Hy’s death in 2010, she has donated to Orlando Health’s Trauma Center, Florida Hospital’s Eden Spa, Planned Parenthood, Jewish causes and Rollins College. Her legacy will be her support for the arts. “I want to be sure that 100 years from now, people can still see Swan Lake.” Lake has given to the Orlando Ballet, the UCF Conservatory Theater and made possible The Harriett and Hymen Lake Cultural Center at the JCC, the Harriett Theatre at Mad Cow Theatre, Harriett’s Theatre at Seminole State College, Harriett’s Bar at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater and Harriett’s Ladies Lounge at Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. Orlando Sentinel named her Central Floridian of the Year in 2014.
Jewish Family Services

Henri Landwirth displays building plan at groundbreaking for Give Kids the World Village (GKTW), Kissimmee, 1989.
Born in Belgium in 1927, Henri Landwirth was a prisoner in Auschwitz and Mauthausen Nazi death camps during WWII. Both parents were killed, but miraculously he and his sister Margot survived and were reunited. In 1986, after retiring from a successful hotel career, Landwirth devoted himself to improving the lives of those in need. He founded Give Kids the World, providing vacation experiences to children with life-threatening illnesses and their families. Today, the GKTW Village is a 79-acre resort with 144 villas. He refurbished the Roth Family JCC’s Senior Lounge in appreciation for their GKTW volunteer time. In 2000, he founded Dignity U Wear, which provides new clothing for children and their families who are homeless, abused or abandoned. Landwirth also started Hate Hurts, a program that teaches the importance of forgiving and ending hatred. He was named Most Caring Individual in America by the Caring Institute, Humanitarian of the Year by Parents Magazine and, in 1994, Orlando  Sentinel’s Floridian of the Year.
Give Kids the World

Harriett Lake is famed for her love affair with fashion and her bottomless wardrobe of Hollywood’s golden age fur caps, big glasses, evening gowns and beaded coats. Lake attributes her obsession with clothes to not being able to afford what she wanted as a young girl living in Lebanon, PA, during the Depression. “I was so homely I had to do something to detract from the face.” Across the street from Harriett lived the owner of the red light district who went to New York every season and brought back “drop dead call out the cops gorgeous clothes” for her two granddaughters. “That’s how I got into fashion … Of course, it’s been like that the rest of my life. I decided to build one huge closet with conveyor belts.”
Harriett Lake

Landwirth’s life and the story of Give Kids the World are chronicled in his book Gift of Life, written with J. P. Hendricks, 1996.
All of the proceeds from Gift of Life are donated to GKTW. Landwirth hoped the reader would realize the “wondrous happenings of your own life and that you can come to believe in miracles.” The forward was written by Walter Cronkite and the afterword by Senator andformer astronaut John Glenn.
Roz Ettinger Fuchs

The Nicholson Pavilion at Winter Park Hospital is being namedfor benefactors Sonja and Tony Nicholson, 2007. Expected to open to patients in 2018 or 2019, the Nicholson Pavilion is the largest investment in Winter Park Memorial Hospital’s 60-year history—thanks in part to a major donation from the Nicholsons. In 2006, the Nicholsons gifted $5 million to Florida Hospital for the Nicholson Center in Celebration, a stateof- the-art surgical training center specializing in robotics that opened in 2007. Tony moved to Central Florida in 1967. He and his wife Sonja are the owners of Nicholson Homes. Their most significant philanthropic impact has been on Florida Hospital and the University of Central Florida. The couple made multimillion dollar donations to help build UCF’s Nicholson School of Communications and the Nicholson Fieldhouse, the first fulllength indoor football field in the South.
Florida Hospital

In 1993, Harris Rosen adopted Tangelo Park, a poor, predominately African American neighborhood not far from the I-Drive tourist corridor that made him rich, 2011.
Orlando hotel magnate, Harris Rosen, moved to Orlando in 1970 and twenty years later told himself, “Harris, God has been so incredibly good to you … it’s time for you to start giving back to those who need a helping hand.” Over the past two decades, Rosen has spent more than $10 million on preschool education, parenting programs, mentoring and college scholarships for residents of the Tangelo Park and Parramore neighborhoods and others. Rosen’s philanthropy includes Haiti earthquake relief, $18 million in land and money to establish the University of Central Florida Rosen College of Hospitality Management and $3.5 million to build the Jack and Lee Rosen Jewish Community Center. The Orlando Sentinel chose Rosen as the 2011 Central Floridian of the Year.
Deatrick Public Relations

Jerry Roth’s business background and commitment to the Jewish community have led him and his wife Susan to contribute to programs and services to enhance the community at large, 2016.
Jerry Roth was seven years old when his parents Marvin and Nellie moved to Orlando in 1953. He owns a pharmaceutical company in Sanford. Jerry and Susan Roth contributed $2 million to the JCC in Maitland that was renamed the Roth Family JCC. They have also contributed generously to Temple Israel and UCF. In 2002, UCF did a study that showed it would cost $130 million to build a new stadium. Jerry researched pre-engineered facilities on his own and UCF found a successful way to use his plan and build it for around $54 million.
Susan Roth

Chuck Steinmetz accepts Jewish National Fund’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Orlando, 2015.
Steinmetz came to Orlando in 1970 when he was transferred here by his employer, Orkin. Steinmetz, retired owner of Middleton Pest Control, has been recognized by the Jewish National Fund as a leader through tzedakah. In 2011, Steinmetz and his late wife Lynn gave $5 million to the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences’ Department of Entomology and Nematology. Steinmetz supported the Orlando Science Center and founded Congregation of Reform Judaism’s Steinmetz Family School of Chai. Most significantly, Steinmetz and his wife Margery Pabst Steinmetz donated $12 million to the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts for a 1,700 seat acoustical theater for music and dance. The Steinmetz Hall is scheduled to open in 2019.
Jewish National Fund

The generosity of Judy and Bob Yarmuth has been inspired by “good people doing good things for our community,” 2015.
Judy [Hoff] grew up in Whitefish Bay, WI, and Bob in Louisville, KY. Bob can trace his mother’s family to 1720 in America. The couple met in Gainesville in 1981 and married in Orlando in 1987. Motivated by inspirational people and causes, their philanthropy is far-reaching. They give both personally and through their business. Judy’s community activism started in the 1990s with HUG Me, a pediatric HIV/AIDS program. Through Sonny’s BBQ, Bob promotes “Random Acts of BBQ, helping others feel the warmth of giving.” As charismatic leaders, the Yarmuths give annually to more than 50 organizations. The recipients of their most significant gifts include Congregation Ohev Shalom, the Jewish Community Capital Campaign 2000, the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, Rollins College and the University of Central Florida.
Judy Yarmuth