By Andrew Adler
Community Editor
Alan Engel is being honored with the JCL 2026 Ottenheimer Award
The Blanche B. Ottenheimer Award, which is the highest honor the Jewish Community of Louisville can give, is presented annually to a leader (or leaders) who have made a real difference – improving the quality of life in Louisville, in Kentucky and beyond. Ottenheimer was a Jewish Louisville community activist. In addition to serving as president of the National Council of Jewish Women, Louisville Section, she worked for passage of the city’s Model Registration Law, which curbed corruption and led to cleaner elections.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines the word “indefatigable” as someone who’s “always determined and energetic in trying to achieve something and never willing to admit defeat.”
That is also a perfectly apt definition of Alan S. Engel.
During his four decades of service to Louisville’s Jewish community, Engel has set a benchmark of zeal and commitment that anyone would be hard-pressed to equal, let alone surpass. Locally he’s best known for his 22-year tenure as executive director of the Jewish Federation of Louisville, taking up the post in July 1988 and retiring in October 2010.
Not surprisingly, “retirement” ended up being only a vague notion for a fellow who was soon poised to embrace a new set of challenges.
“When I first entertained the idea about two years prior, I wasn’t sure how I would react, who I would connect with, and what I would do post career,” Engel wrote in a July 2017 Metro United Way online post titled, “Retirement: An Opportunity to Reconnect.”
“Would I consult, travel or just hang around,” he continued, recalling how “a friend of mine who had gone through the same process a few years earlier suggested that I take six months off after formally retiring and do no volunteering or make other commitments. Just enjoy the freedom, the serenity, the sleep, and chance to play golf whenever I felt like it. That was the best advice I received!”
Eventually, golf gave way to a renewed sense of purpose.
“Like many, eventually I wanted to share some of my experiences,” Engel wrote, “so I spent time wading through papers and books and created a library for any consulting I might do. It wasn’t easy, but it gave me time to reflect on all that I had accomplished in my career. It enabled me to see the role I played here and in other communities where I had lived. Soon after, I began getting recruited by other nonprofits to sit on committees and boards. I tried to take it slow and did for the most part. The great part was that I could pick and choose where I wanted to be and with whom. That is the beauty of being independent.”
Today, Engel can look back on any number of achievements. His advocacy was a key factor in merging the Federation and the old JCC in 2009 to create the JCL. He was a stalwart energizer of the Federation’s Annual Campaign, advocated on behalf of Hillel at the University of Louisville, and lent his expertise to such organizations as the Coalition for the Homeless and the Center for Nonprofit Excellence.
Indeed, if you’ve ever attended classes at the Florence Melton School for Adult Jewish Learning or participated in the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Partnership2Gether Western Galilee programs, you have Alan Engel to thank.
“Through decades of dedication, Alan Engel gave our community not just his leadership, but his heart,” said JCL Board Chair Beth Salamon. “The thriving Louisville Jewish community we experience today stands as a testament to his tireless efforts and deep commitment to others. This award is a fitting tribute for all he has given to the community.”
Not bad for a guy who grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, during an era when vast steel mills dotted the area’s industrial landscape. It was also where Engel’s father spent 1950 to 1984 as executive director of the city’s Jewish Federation, an experience that served as a template for the younger Engel’s subsequent Louisville career.
Along the way, son Alan (like his father) attended The Ohio State University, emerging with a Master’s Degree in Social Work and the commensurate skill of an intuitive, insightful listener. He put in stints with Federations in St. Louis and Denver, eventually landing in Louisville when – at age 42 – he interviewed for and landed the Federation’s top job.
It proved a successful meshing of ambition and skill, drawing implicitly on Engel’s academic training as a therapist.
“I think that (degree) helped me, because people would come in and talk about stuff going on at home, or with relatives or friends,” Engel said. “I could relate to that, and could refer them to JFCS (known as Jewish Family & Vocational Services until 2008) or privately if need be.”
“If you’re a good professional – whatever you do – you have to have confidence in yourself, and take risks,” he emphasized. “I’d encourage my staff (by saying), ‘You don’t have to do it my way.’ I learned that you can’t get anywhere by screaming. One of the things I was most proud of over the years was mentoring staff. Some of the people who worked here went on to become executives in other communities. I’m proud that I played a part in their growth.” Sara Klein Wagner, President and CEO of the Jewish Federation and Trager Family JCC echoed that sentiment.
“Alan is a social worker at heart; he truly has the patience to listen and provide space for those he collaborates with or supervised to work through their options rather than telling others what to do,” Wagner said.
“Engel,” she emphasized, “is passionate and truly people driven while never looking for the accolades or spotlight. I have literally known Alan for decades, first as my mentor and my boss for 19 years and for the past 17 still a mentor, a champion, a volunteer leader, and a friend.
Merging the Federation and the JCC may have been Engel’s most visible achievement, but it was hardly his sole major accomplishment. He supported JFCS resettling Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union in Louisville, coordinated the Federation’s purchase of Shalom Towers from what was then the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and was a key figure in establishing Louisville’s Kesher Kentucky program for Jewish teens.
These days, “my passion is still with the Federation,” Engel said. “My vision was that we could have a united community. That has begun to happen more and more. Agencies are working better with one another and with the Federation, and I think that’s healthy.”
Now, with so much behind them, Engel and his wife of 53 years, Linda Engel, have undertaken a resettlement of their own. A few weeks ago, they exchanged their longtime Louisville home for a condo in a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina – where their son, Jeremy (one of their three children), daughter-in-law Nikki, and two young grandchildren will provide plenty of happy diversion.
“It was time to let go,” this year’s Ottenheimer honoree observed. Still, the indefatigable Alan S. Engel is in no danger of being forgotten.
“I’m sure people are going to call me,” he said. “And that’s fine.”
This year’s Ronald & Marie Abrams Volunteer of the Year Award, whose extant namesakes exemplify community service, goes to Chris Brice.
Growing up in Lawrence, NY – one of Long Island’s so-called Five Towns and a geographic exemplar of Jewish life – Chris Brice was steeped in a culture where friends, food and faith were inextricably intertwined.
“I really didn’t know what a Protestant was until I went to college” at Duke University, he admitted, recalling how “you had Jews and then you had all the other ethnic groups. It was a very sheltered environment, and there’s great joy and strength in that. But it can also create complacency.”
No such danger for Brice in Louisville, where he’s a financial services executive with Northwestern Mutual. As JCL board Vice-Chair, his vantage point has afforded him a valuable perspective on how to grow Jewish life in his adopted city.
“Obviously we have smaller Jewish community than New York, but more than we thought after the (2022) Brandeis study – which challenges us to engage each other more,” he said. “I look at that challenge as a great opportunity.”
Brice arrived in Louisville during the summer of 1992, armed with a degree in political science from Duke and an arrangement to teach middle and high school history at Kentucky Country Day. Decades later he’d become a KCD parent (he met his wife, Sarah, while both were teachers there), and is a member of the school’s Board of Trustees, which he currently chairs.
It wasn’t so different from Jewish volunteerism, Brice emphasized
“Like our JCC, I’m definitely drawn to community,” he said. “I’ve always said you have to create a small pocket within a bigger group, otherwise you can feel overwhelmed.
He’s carried that imperative to the present day. Whether at KCD, as a volunteer at Louisville’s West End School (serving an under-resourced Pre-K-8th Grade student body), a supporter of Kentucky military families and especially via his ongoing commitment to Jewish Louisville, Brice is a testament to leading with a purpose.
His volunteer résumé reflects that commitment. He’s coached a Louisville Maccabi boys basketball team in a St. Louis tournament (capturing a gold medal), put in a stint as Principal of a revitalized High School for Jewish Studies, and for a year was Kesher Kentucky’s program director.
“My most important volunteer work has been around serving on the (Federation) Endowment Committee,” close to seven as chair, Brice said, citing three points of emphasis:
“One, we have a great, intergenerational group of committee members. I’m the guy in the middle and I love learning from those with the vast experience and wisdom, as well as younger members that have such a fresh perspective. I also really enjoy working with the professional staff of the JCL, from Sara on down.
“Two, I like making systems and processes better. When I first became chair, we spent a lot of time on improving how we steward our endowment gifts. That was an incredible team effort between our committee and the professional leadership.
“Three, I love talking with members of our Jewish community about their personal stories and the legacies they want to leave. I think there are few things in this world that serve as a better vessel for one’s legacy than an endowed gift. Both the impact that the donor sets out for this gift and the reasons for why they did it will speak volumes to their descendants and the community about the donor’s values. As a member of the endowment committee, I have had the blessing of helping members of our community shape their legacy. That’s hard to beat.”
Brice added: “I am a fervent advocate for the importance of endowments to support non-profit organizations. A strong endowment creates income streams for our Jewish community that help us invest in our dreams and protect us when challenges arise. Our committee’s goal is to advance our current endowment, which I’d rate as “good” when matched with comparable Jewish communities, to levels of greatness, providing more impact and security for our Jewish community. This is a very long game, and I believe we are on the right track. What excites me about this work is that even though it is unlikely I will see much of the fruits of my labor, future generations will.”
The Julie Linker Community Relations Young Leadership Award is named for a Jewish leader who passed away unexpectedly in 1984, depriving the community of a friend. She chaired the Young Women’s Division of the United Jewish Campaign and was Vice-Chair of the Major Gifts Division, of the Women’s Division, and was vice-president of the Women’s Cabinet of the Federation. This year’s winner is Mariya Leyderman.
Mariya Leyderman knows a lot about how to translate compassion into action.
As executive director of Metro Louisville’s Office of Behavioral Health, Leyderman has focused on addressing the needs of unhoused citizens, many of whom are grappling with chronic mental health challenges.
“Permanent supportive housing will be central to the new office’s work,” a Metro Government statement promised this past October 30, when Mayor Craig Greenberg announced the department’s founding, with Leyderman as its leader. “Stable housing is the foundation of recovery,” Greenberg said.
A native of St. Paul, Minn., Leyderman did her undergraduate work at the University of Minnesota – where she was active in Hillel – before earning a Master’s in Social Work from Tel Aviv University and a Ph.D in Psychology from Louisville’s Spalding University. She’s lived in Louisville for a dozen years, most recently serving as a Jewish Community Relations Council member.
In city government, Leyderman approaches her current job with an imperative of empowering people all too often regarded as powerless.
“I think the position is incredibly important, and I think the work is incredibly important,” Leyderman said.
“It’s arguable that behavioral health can weave into a whole lot of spaces and places and systems,” she believes. “There are a lot of opportunities that people are excited about. Direct work coming out of my office, whether it’s housing, working with the police department, or on some new projects with the prosecutor’s office.”
Indeed, “there have been obvious spaces where the administration wanted me to take over and drive these initiatives,” she added. “And outside of that, it’s kind of open to me being able to weave together and bring in work that I was doing previously for Metro government,” perhaps most notably, her role as coordinating mental health services in the city’s Department of Corrections.
“I always joke that if I didn’t have my previous job at the jail…and I landed in this position, it would be very challenging.” She cites her efforts to forge cooperative programs alongside “the courts, working with state hospitals, emergency departments and community mental health” organizations.
Beyond that, Leyderman encouraged “changes in policy, law and legislation,” efforts she says led to “connections and partnerships that have translated into the work I’m now doing in the mayor’s office.”
“You never would have thought working in a jail would make you successful to work in the community, but I think it was the best way to (understand) every system that impacts people who are marginalized, have severe mental illness and high needs.”
Leyderman acknowledges the value of viewing her professional responsibilities through a Jewish lens.
“You always get asked the question, ‘How did you know you wanted to be a psychologist?’ I don’t think I ever had a lightbulb moment of, ‘This is what I want to do.’ I grew up going to a Jewish day school and Jewish values of helping other people, giving back to the community. My entire life, as I navigated pathways into professional careers, I do think that’s always been rooted in who I am.”
In other words, more intrinsic that formally explicit.
“I wouldn’t say that I’m necessarily religious in any fashion, but the cultural and social values of Judaism are very close to me. What’s valuable and meaningful to me are the relationships that come out of working with people, and I think that’s obviously connected to all of our Jewish values.”
The Arthur S. Kling Award honors the memory of a prominent Jewish Louisville leader, who served as president of the YMHA. He was instrumental in establishing the original JCC on Dutchmans Lane and founding the Bureau of Jewish Education and the Conference of Jewish Organizations, which ran the United Jewish Campaign. This year the award – which recognizes outstanding performances by JCL staff – goes to Alison Roemer, Senior Director of Jewish Journeys and Experiences at the Trager Family JCC.
Winning the Kling Award “was a total surprise for me and I’m humbled to have received it,” Roemer said. “It feels good to be recognized for the work that you do by leadership.”
Roemer joined the JCL staff in June 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic had compelled most programming to shift from in-person to virtual formats. Academically trained as an educator, she’d put in eight years as director of The Temple Preschool before looking for her next professional challenge.
“I loved my time at The Temple,” Roemer said, “but I just wanted a career change. Sara Wagner (President and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Louisville and the Trager Family JCC) caught wind of that and said, ‘Let’s talk.’ At the time I didn’t know what she had in mind, or that there would be anything to entice me. But it turned out there was a new position they were creating to do outreach to young Jewish families – figuring out how to get them connected to the Jewish community, and for their children.”
“Alison is the the point person that helps every family navigate their Jewish journey through our community,” Wagner said.
Perhaps inevitably, “we started with our youngest kids, because that’s where most people’s paths start when they have young children,” Roemer said. “But a big part of this job began with camp grants, sending kids to Jewish overnight camps and teen Israel trips with One Happy Camper grant dollars from the Jewish Heritage Fund and the Federation. That’s still a big part of this job: connecting families with the right path for them.”
Regardless, it’s vital to remember that “what might be right for my family and the path we’d chosen might not be the same path somebody else takes,” she added.
“There are lots of entry points, lots of ways to be involved and to do things that speak to you. So, if you’re social and like being with other people, we have tons of opportunities for you to meet other people and do social activities. And if you want more spiritual or religious activities, there are plenty of those in our community – we can connect you with people who have similar likes and interests.”
Sometimes those connections span multiple generations. Roemer remembers her days as a teenage Camp J counsellor, where some of the kids she supervised would eventually grow up and send their own children to Camp J.
One of those alumni is Travis Haynes, who attended Camp J during Roemer’s counselor years, later sending his own children to The Temple preschool.
“The success of my children’s early education can be directly traced to Alison’s leadership,” Haynes recalled, adding that those same kids have flourished during their summers at Camp J, where Roemer and Camp Director David Siskin work in close collaboration.
“Every year, when I see opportunities for my kids to spend a week here or there at a different summer camp, they either try it and don’t like it, or simply respond, ‘No, I would rather be at Camp J,’” Haynes said. “But beyond the fun, I get the benefit of knowing that under Alison’s leadership—and now her daughter’s leadership as a counselor—my kids are weaving themselves into the fabric of the Louisville Jewish community.”
The Joseph J. Kaplan Young Leadership Award is named for a leader in Jewish education and president of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association (YMHA) – the predecessor of the Jewish Community Center. Kaplan encouraged people to remember Jewish Louisville in their wills. The Award was established during his lifetime. This year’s winner is Elizabeth McCrary.
Asked to ruminate on her notion of leadership, Elizabeth McCrary paraphrased the celebrated quote attributed to early common-era Rabbi Tarfon.
“‘It’s not your job to complete the work, but neither are you free not to participate,’” said McCrary, whose own participation is best expressed via her work connecting young families to the richness of Jewish Louisville.
“What I love so much about my community involvement is my favorite committee, Shalom Louisville,” McCrary said. Or as the Federation program itself explains: “Whether you have recently arrived in Louisville, are planning to move here or if you have lived here a while but are now looking to make Jewish Louisville a part of your life, we are here to help!”
She cited the tasty success of Shalom Louisville’s bagel brunches, where she met a collection of newcomers who later were guests in her home. “I got to feed them from my own kitchen,” McCrary said. “And that was really, really special.”
The hosting dynamic could hardly be more natural for McCrary, a Jew by Choice who grew up in Augusta, Georgia and had an earlier career as an event planner. These days she works virtually for Cincinnati-based Women of Reform Judaism as Executive Associate supporting WRJ’s CEO, Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch.
“I love to be hospitable and welcome people,” McCrary said. “And to me that’s what WRJ does, either through affiliating sisterhoods or by creating opportunities for unaffiliated women to find their passion in Judaism.”
In Louisville McCrary attends Keneseth Israel, where her partner, Greg Moore, had been a member, together with various friends. “I was enveloped by these wonderful people and felt at home.” In parallel, “I’d been living Jewishly for a year or two and started taking the Judaism 101 class with Rabbi Freed,” alongside several fellow prospective Jews by Choice.
“My cohort was finishing going to the mikvah and that kind of thing – it was August or September (of 2023), but for personal reasons, I wasn’t ready,” McCrary said. “And then October 7 happened, and I thought – ‘I am reacting to this as a Jew.’ I had kind of a lightbulb moment.”
By the very next day, “it was obvious there were two camps – I’m oversimplifying a very complicated thing – but in my experience there was a ‘Jewish’ response and a “non-Jewish” response,” she said. “I was in the ‘Jewish’ response. So I texted Rabbi Freed and I said, ‘Okay, it’s time.’”
As Co-Chair of KI’s May 31, 2026 Centennial Gala, McCrary acknowledges the responsibility of a different shade of leadership.
“The fact that this congregation, which has existed for 100 years, has entrusted me to lead has definitely been a moment of personal growth,” she said. “Honestly, it makes me feel a little guilty sometimes, because I have all this positivity and so little negativity.”
The Lewis W. Cole Memorial Young Leadership Award is named for an organizer of the Conference of Jewish Organizations, the predecessor to the Federation. A committed Annual Campaign volunteer, Cole devoted his life to Jewish Louisville. This year’s winner is Alexander Blieden.
As a member of the youngest adult generation of the Blieden family, Alexander Blieden recognizes how vital it is for him to support the Trager Family JCC as it embarks on a $29 million expansion of its Jewish Heritage Fund Campus.
“My family’s been here for years and years,” said Blieden, who along with Marsha Roth is vice-chair of the expansion’s capital campaign (Kate Latts and Steve Trager are the campaign’s co-chairs). “It’s a secular space, super inclusive, and what’s happened with (growing) membership is incredible. And thinking about long term, as a young parent, what the JCC has meant to my family and what it means to me,” makes that relationship all the more significant.
“My wife (Amanda Blieden) is here three or four times a week, and I’m here on a weekly basis,” said Blieden, who is president of Kaden Companies, his family’s 46-year-old commercial real estate business. The Trager Family JCC “has some of the nicest facilities of any community center in the city.”
They include the Blieden Family Playground, which opened two years ago with an emphasis on accessibility.
Blieden has been connected to the various iterations of the facility for as long as he can remember. “I grew up going to the JCC – my family sent me to camp there,” he said. “I used to play basketball there, and all the sports. That’s where some of the key relationships I still have to this day were built – because of the JCC and the community I had there.”
He took a somewhat circuitous route from teenhood to his eventual return to the city of his birth. After graduating from Tulane University in New Orleans, he made his way to Chicago and his initial forays into commercial real estate.
“At the same time, I was pretty involved with the Jewish Federation in Chicago,” Blieden said, “and a lot of my community there were young Jewish professionals and guys I ended up going on Birthright with.”
But after five years in the Windy City, the tug to return to Louisville was too potent to resist. Still, “for the first several years I was just getting my footing. I felt something was missing.”
That “something” began to gel several years ago after what ended up being a pivotal conversation.
“I was told about a program called ‘Cabinet’ from a buddy of mine in Chicago,” Blieden recalled, and I ended up reaching out to Sara,” referring to Sara Klein Wagner, President and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Louisville and the Trager Family JCC.
“Cabinet” is Jewish Federations of North America’s National Young Leadership Cabinet, which JFNA says is aimed at “the next generation of global Jewish leaders towards philanthropy, communal engagement and activism in support of Jewish people and community everywhere.”
Blieden was intrigued. “My buddy told me about all the relationships he’d made, about the philanthropic component, the mission component…how it changed his involvement and outlook.”
For Blieden, “that was the catalyst. And when we’re talking about me being part of this capital campaign, that experience strengthened my connection to the local community.” Participating in Cabinet also demonstrated “how the Jewish experience I thought I wouldn’t be able to attain here in Louisville (because) I was leaving behind a bigger city with a stronger population” was, in fact, a fallacy.
Coupled with the post-October 7 realities, “a lot of people who felt ostracized from their communities – and who were seeking connection to their Judaism,” Blieden said, “elevated the importance of being in a Jewish space like the JCC, with the safety of being within these walls.”
First given in 1974, the Elsie P. Judah Memorial Award was established to honor the late Elsie P. Judah, who was one of the founders of the former Golden Age Group. Judah, who died in 1972, left $3,000 to the Jewish Federation as a bequest. At the request of her son, Clarence F. Judah, the Federation board of directors and endowment fund trustees approved the establishment of the annual award. This year’s winner is Harvey Liebschutz.
Among the regulars who attend AgeWell’s weekday lunches at the Trager Family JCC’s Kohn Family Town Square, Harvey Liebschutz stands out for being (A) a confirmed bachelor as he closes in on his 88th birthday, (B) a steady volunteer making sure the monthly AgeWell newsletter is mailed out on time, and (C) likely the only cohort member who – while serving in the Army – made a habit of catching rides after flagging down passenger trains as they sped along tracks out of Anchorage.
More about that in a bit. But first, why is he so dedicated to getting that newsletter in the mail?
“Why?” Liebschutz echoed, sounding a bit surprised that anyone would ask such a question. “Because who else is going to do it? And it saves labor to volunteer. You don’t have to pay somebody to do it. That costs money, and income is limited there.”
Call this a reflection of his intrinsic pragmatism. So is his ongoing bachelorhood, a circumstance he acknowledges without a trace of fuss. Not to mention his innate generosity.
“Harvey’s volunteerism is very under the radar,” said Janet DeArk, assistant director of the AgeWell program. “We will show a film with popcorn and pop and all kinds of stuff. The movie will be over, and Dara (Cohen, AgeWell’s director) and I will get up and go in there – and the place will be completely clean. That’s the kind of volunteering he does. We don’t have to ask – he just does it.”
Another example of Liebschutz’s pitch-in eagerness is “My Dog Eats First,” “a local organization that packages dog and cat food for pets of the unhoused, and which is one of our mitzvahs,” DeArk explained. “Harvey was one of the folks who helped bag it up. He’s the best kind of person you can have.”
“In my opinion it’s cheaper and you don’t have to deal with headaches that way,” he told an interviewer in 2018 as part of an oral history project at the Filson Historical Society. “As a result, I was able to do most of the things I wanted to do. I’ve been to California, Vegas, and on several cruises. Once I caught a train from the old L&N station, which is now the TARC station, to watch a football game in Chicago.”
Liebschutz’s trains may not run quite so often these days, but he is still mobile. Living in a condo situated in a building where one side of the street is in Lyndon and the other in St. Matthews, he typically arises at 9 a.m. and gets to his AgeWell lunch a little after noon – four days a week – followed by walking the upstairs track. On Shabbat he plays the Reform-Conservative-Orthodox shul trifecta: Friday nights at The Temple, Saturday mornings at Keneseth Israel and Saturday evenings at Anshei Sfard.
“You’ve got to stay active,” he says. “If not, you become a vegetable, just sitting at home watching television and twiddling your tongue.”
Oh, and about that Alaska venture: Intent on visiting his younger brother Donald, Liebschutz hitchhiked from his Army post in Arkansas to Oklahoma, hopped a military plane and made his way to Anchorage, where Donald, also serving in the Army, was stationed.
“We decided to travel out from Anchorage,” Harvey Liebschutz explained, remarking that “the way you’d do that was very unorthodox: We’d stand on the railroad tracks and wait. When a train came along, it would stop and you’d get on. There was no station or anything; just simply standing on the railroad tracks. I always found that interesting and I’m curious if they still do that today.”
The 2026 JCL Award recipients include six teen honorees, shown on page 18.
The Jewish Federation of Louisville and the Trager Family JCC will hold its 2026 Annual Meeting on Monday, June 29 in the Trager Family JCC’s Shapira Foundation Auditorium. Join the Jewish Federation and the Trager Family JCC as we elect our officers and new board members, as well as recognize and celebrate our award winners. The evening begins with cocktails and appetizers at 5:30 p.m., followed by the meeting and awards ceremony at 6:15 p.m. RSVP to Adam Cohen at 502-238-2722 or email [email protected].