June 9, 2005 | Read Time: 1 minute
The assets of the Jewish Communal Fund, in New York, will soon increase by $39.5-million, as it receives proceeds from an auction this month of 14 artworks.
Donald Jonas, who helped found Lechters, a now-defunct chain of housewares stores, and his wife, Barbara, donated pieces from their collection, including works by Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko, to the Jewish Communal Fund with the intention that the pieces be sold. The money raised at the auction will be put into the Jonases’ donor-advised fund at the Jewish Communal Fund, which is an umbrella organization of such funds. The Jonases will be able to earmark the money in the donor-advised fund for charities they want to support.
Ms. Jonas said the donation of the artworks was the first major step in the couple’s effort to give away most of their fortune to charitable causes. She said Mr. Jonas had “two early business mentors who once told him, ‘If you die rich, you die poor.’” Recalling that admonition, she said, her husband told her, “We’ve had 30 years with this art. It’s time to give back.”
Ms. Jonas, a retired social worker and psychotherapist who helped found the Center for the Study of Children at Risk at New York University Medical Center and at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, in New York, said she and her husband are eager to embark on the process of deciding where to donate the proceeds.
The couple, who have been married for 52 years, plan to do research and involve members of their family before deciding which charities will receive money, but Ms. Jonas said groups focused on education, medical research, and curbing poverty worldwide would be likely beneficiaries.
