Ira Riklis and Important Charities

Labor Day, the holiday that marks the symbolic end of summer, is just around the corner. As on most long holiday weekends, people will be out on the roads, driving to the coast or the mountains, heading to a cookout, or a ballgame, trying to enjoy one last summer outing before the days turn cool and the nights grow longer. And like anytime when lots of folks are out driving, there’ll be the predictable rash of traffic accidents and injuries. Ira Riklis urges caution on the roads, and also urges people to consider finding some time over the next couple of weeks to donate blood.

Why now at this particular time? Two reasons. First, a single car accident victim can require as many as 100 units of blood, which makes the need for blood even more acute than at other times. Second, summer (and winter) holidays are typically the times when hospitals and clinics face the most serious blood shortages. For a businessman such as Ira Riklis, it’s a simple, but deadly, equation: high demand and short supply can lead to unnecessary deaths. To help balance the scales, he makes it point to donate blood several times a year and encourages others to do the same.

That sobering headline summarizes the disturbing estimate of the Nutrition Screening Initiative. Other statistics bear out the sad truth. It’s estimated that up to 55% of elderly Americans admitted to hospitals are malnourished. And across the country, nearly five million people over the age of 60 do not get enough to eat. Facts like these led Chef James Beard, food critic Gael Greene and cookbook author Barbara Kafka to launch the nonprofit CityMeals-on-Wheels in 1981. And once he learned the startling truth from his friends, Ira Riklis was quick to sign on as a supporter of the group.

Now, nearly thirty years later, he’s still involved. The group’s efforts have grown larger over time in response to an ever-increasing as our population ages. Ira Riklis and his family have provided significant funding for several years, achieving the rank of “Very Grand Patrons” within the organization. He encourages others to become involved as well. Whether or not you live in New York City, there are seniors in need near where you live, and organizations that seek to help them.

There’s a TV commercial for a popular new kind of energy drink that touts it as a solution to that “2:30 feeling,” that time in mid afternoon when many of us lose steam, can’t focus and can’t be productive at work. That’s all well and good, but without having a good breakfast and lunch, would we even make it to 2:30? Probably not, at least not with the level of functioning we need to work or be at our best. Yet Ira Riklis knows that’s the situation faced by many of New York’s working poor.

These people work hard at low-income jobs that don’t pay well enough to provide for a roof over their heads or even regular, nutritious meals. To help make a difference, at least for a few of these people, Ira Riklis devotes time on many an early Friday morning serving breakfast and lunch with the good folks at the Central Synagogue Caring Committee kitchen. In order to provide the working poor (and those looking for work) with a boost to their day, the group offers the service on Thursday and Friday mornings at a time when no other local kitchens are in operation. The meals help keep these people going far longer than any energy drink could ever do.

In 2009, the vibrant Israeli city of Tel Aviv turned 100 years old. It was occasion of great celebration. Special events—performances, parties, fireworks, celebrations—went on for months. And Ira Riklis knows it was an anniversary worth celebrating. After all, Tel Aviv—the first Hebrew city established in 3,000 years—has grown up bright, strong and full of promise. If you want to experience the height of Israeli culture, education and music, it’s definitely the place to go.

But like any large, modern city, Tel Aviv has its “other side of the tracks”—the back neighborhoods where many live in poverty. It’s a serious situation and one that the American Friends of Tel Aviv Foundation has been working to alleviate since 1977. Seeing the need and feeling the need to help, Ira Riklis became a supporter of the organization more than two decades ago. Since then he and his family have been sponsoring projects targeted to just one neighborhood—Schoonat Ezra—seeking to make a measurable difference there.

Are you happy with the world as it is today? Does everything seem as it should be to you, or do you see injustices, people with needs, things that should be better than they are? While the world is a beautiful place and we all have blessings to celebrate, most of us also see things that should be changed, needs that go unfilled. Ira Riklis sees and feels those things as well. And as a successful businessman, he has, perhaps more than others, the means to make a difference.

But the task to right all the world’s wrongs is immense, at times seemingly too immense for any one of us to even begin to make a difference. At times like those, Ira Riklis recalls a parable told to him long ago by his Rabbi. It involves a man on a vast, lonely, storm-ravaged beach who is picking up stranded starfish one-by-one and tossing them back into the sea to save their lives. The moral of the story is that when faced with a seemingly insurmountable challenge, we can either give up or begin to chip away at the problem in whatever small way we can.

With the summer winding down and September just around the corner, college students around the country are gearing up for fall classes. And while they may not realize it, those graduate students who will be attending the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and Graduate School of Education will be following in the footsteps of Ira Riklis and his wife Diana. They have fond and grateful memories of excellent education and experiences attending those colleges.

That’s one reason they’ve been happy to give back to those schools over the years since. Much of their support has gone to the GRE, since that’s where they perceive as most needing their support. Ira Riklis attended Wharton, but knows that many alumnae of that college have achieved great success and are more than happy to offer their support to that college. They’ve watched both schools grow over the years, and they both feel a certain satisfaction knowing that they’ve aided that process so that students entering into programs this year will enjoy the same, or even better, level of education that they did.

Ira Riklis and his family have supported many worthy organizations and causes over the course of their lives. Each year, they give gifts to more than fifty worthwhile groups. Of course, as with any of us, no matter how blessed we may be with wealth, there’s a limit to what they can give. Accordingly, some groups receive large sums, while others get smaller amounts. Some get a more symbolic donation of eighteen dollars. About now, you might be scratching your head and wondering: “why such an unusual amount.”

The answer lies in the ancient Hebrew practice of Gematria, a system of assigning numerical values to words and phrases. While Ira Riklis leaves the details up to scholars, he, like most Jews, is well aware that eighteen is the numerical value of the Hebrew word for life. Giving gifts in that amount is considered a way of celebrating life and extending its blessing to those on the receiving end.

Aish HaTorah is Hebrew for “Fire of Torah,” and the passion of the group that bears that name is to share the teachings and wisdom of the Jewish holy book with all who seek to learn. Their wholehearted approach to doing so without judgment of those who come to them, either through their website or their educational centers which offer programs in cities around the world has earned them the respect and ongoing support of Ira Riklis.

Each year, they serve hundreds of thousands of Jews with information about Judaism and guidance in their personal lives. Ira Riklis himself has benefited from the counsel of their Rabbis in times of need and uncertainty. And he’s been deeply appreciative of the fact that their counsel and support has been offered without pressure to convert him to their strictly Orthodox point of view. For them, Judaism is not “all or nothing,” it’s a journey of faith where each step counts and all are welcome on the path.

Just like the rest of us, Ira Riklis has moments when he realizes that, even though others are being unreasonable, he just has to lighten up. Sometimes those moments come when you’re just trying to do something good and right, but others are making things more difficult than they need to be. One such situation arose when he was trying to donate blood (something he does regularly, and which he urges to do as well).

On most occasions, this process proceeds apace. But once, when Ira Riklis went into the medical center, he found that they’d changed their donation forms to include legal jargon he found to be inappropriate and unnecessary. When he objected to this, the receptionist rather haughtily told him that if didn’t complete the paperwork, they simply wouldn’t take his blood—even though there’s a continuous need for blood donations to meet the demand of people whose lives hang in the balance. So, smiling to himself “Well, I guess that would show me!”, he cheerfully filled out the forms.

No matter how bright the downtown lights, how culturally rich the museums and art galleries, how bustling the financial districts, every city has a darker side, with impoverished neighborhoods where people struggle to get by. Ira Riklis knows that this holds equally true for New York as for Tel Aviv. Visitors to that vibrant city will see the glitz and glamour, the luxury hotels, trendy restaurants and the cultural attractions. They’re much less likely to encounter the areas where some 40 percent of the residents live in poverty.

Those people, those neighborhoods, need friends, which is precisely why Ira Riklis continues to be an ardent supporter of the American Friends of Tel Aviv. The group works closely with donors in creating projects aimed at improving the lives of those in the neediest neighborhoods. While other donors have donated more, none have funded as many projects as the Riklis family. And to maximize the effect of their efforts, most of their support has been focused on just one neighborhood—Schoonat Ezra—with the goal of making a clear and measurable difference there.