Endowment Established to Rename Jewish Family Service’s Jewish Community Chaplaincy Program
Rabbi Eliot Baskin and Dr. Hilary Nieberg Baskin recently established an endowment to rename the Jewish Community Chaplaincy program at Jewish Family Service of Colorado (JFS) to the Baskin Jewish Community Chaplaincy program. Rabbi Eliot J. Baskin, D.Min. DD. recently retired from serving as the Associate Rabbi of Temple Emanuel in Denver, Colorado. Previously he served for two decades as Denver’s Jewish community chaplain through JFS.
The Baskin Jewish Community Chaplaincy program provides direct spiritual care for members of the Jewish faith who are ill, in crisis, grieving, or near the end of their lives—in hospitals, assisted living communities, long-term care facilities, mental health institutions, correctional facilities, or at home. The chaplaincy program provides these services while incorporating the Jewish values of Pikuach Nefesh and G’milut Hassidim.
"With this endowment, our Baskin family hopes to empower Jewish Family Service to extend the reach of the Jewish community chaplaincy to fulfill the sacred mitzvah of bikkur cholim, visitation of those in need, now and in the future,” said Rabbi Baskin.
According to the Rose Community Foundation 2018-2019 Greater Denver Jewish Community Study, only 20% of Jewish adults in the Denver metro area live in a household in which someone is a dues-paying synagogue member. The chaplaincy program serves the significant and growing population of unaffiliated Jewish individuals and families, providing spiritual services and support through comfort and connection.
“JFS is extraordinarily grateful to the Baskin family for establishing the Baskin Jewish Community Chaplaincy Endowment,” says Linda Foster, JFS president and CEO. “The Baskin family’s vision for the chaplaincy program is deeply attuned to its significance in the past, attentive to the needs of the present, and mindful of what the chaplaincy can be, what it should be, and what is possible in the years ahead to best serve the Jewish community. As it expands as a result of this endowment, the Baskin Jewish Community Chaplaincy program will provide tremendous support to, and have a major impact on, the Jewish community.”