|
|
June 8, 2001/Sivan 17, 5761, Vol. 53, No.36
AJHS honors social worker
LEISAH NAMM
Assistant Editor
Florence Frank, one of the first social workers serving the Valley's Jewish community, will be honored by the Arizona Jewish Historical Society this weekend.
Photo by Leisah Namm
|
The steady growth of the Valley's Jewish community has largely resulted from those who laid its foundation.
Florence Frank, one of the first social workers serving the local Jewish community, will be recognized as a "community builder" this weekend at the Arizona Jewish Historical Society's annual meeting.
Frank came to Phoenix in 1947 as a widow with her young son, Henry. Although she had a degree in social work from the University of Chicago, she worked in personnel at Diamonds department store due to a job shortage in her field.
A few months later, after a call from Rabbi Abraham Krohn, former rabbi of Temple Beth Israel in Scottsdale, she took on the position of executive director at Jewish Social Service (now Jewish Family and Children's Service), where she worked for 12 years.
Over the past 54 years, Frank, 94, has noticed tremendous changes in the Valley's Jewish community.
"When I first came, the Jewish community was about 20,000," she says. "I knew that any Jewish person who came here would come to Jewish Social Service for orientation or to find a home or to find jobs. So I knew a lot of the people (then), but not anymore."
In addition to her counseling duties at the Jewish agency, she also helped resettle German and Polish refugees into American life and handled adoptions.
In the resettlement program, she helped resettle approximately 40 families.
When the immigrants first arrived, "it was very difficult for them," she remembers. "There was very little industry - this was in the fifties - getting them jobs was pretty hard. But they've all become very successful."
Many of the immigrants have kept in touch with Frank throughout the years. "When the kids grow and make some accomplishments, they let me know. It's really something," she says.
She notes that two of the children have become lawyers, one is an architect and one is a top Army officer.
"There's a lot of rewards in this (work) that I'm able to see. And maybe that's why I've lived this long - so I can get to see (them)," she says.
When she handled adoptions for Jewish Social Service, she worked with agencies and courts in Denver and California because she couldn't place the babies of local Jewish girls up for adoption in Arizona (for privacy reasons). She recalls often driving to California to meet with adoption officials, leaving after midnight because her car didn't have air conditioning, and keeping a bucket of water and newspapers in her car, which she would place on her skin to keep cool.
After her work at the Jewish agency, she worked with Family Service to develop services in Mesa, Tempe and Guadalupe. "I called myself the itinerant social worker," she says. After several years, she retired. She then went into private practice with Dr. Ronald Peterson and set up the Chandler Human Relations Center.
Frank resides in Scottsdale, is a member of Har Zion Congregation and remains active in the community.
She is currently on the boards of the Arizona Civil Liberties Union (AzCLU), Friends of Mexican Art, and the Youth Evaluation and Treatment Center, a program she helped establish in the 1970s that provides housing and job training for at-risk children ages 12-17.
She was also a consultant to the Mesa United Way, a board member of the Phoenix Art Museum and received the AzCLU's 1982 Distinguished Citizen Award.
A passion for art led her to serve as a docent at Scottsdale Center for the Arts for more than 20 years. She used to lead tours at the center and she still attends weekly meetings and lectures there.
She calls her years in social work "a rewarding experience."
The AJHS annual meeting and community builders honors brunch will be held Sunday, June 10, at the Radisson Resort, 7171 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale.
Other honorees at the AJHS meeting are Sylvia Richman, who was a strong force in the establishment of the Jewish Community Center's preschool when the JCC was on Camelback Road; Saul Silverman, who served as executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix between 1965-1979; and Yale Simons, a war hero and activist in the Jewish community.
|
