Women of Valor
Local women making the world a better place.
Tomorrow, March 8th, is International Women’s Day, and I’d like to take this moment to celebrate two local women making a difference.
Last week, the Hadassah Foundation announced a $500,000 gift from Bellevue-based philanthropist Jacquie Bayley. The donation will go toward the Fund for Leadership, Opportunity, and Sisterhood.
At the same time, Women of Reform Judaism announced their 2025 Women’s Empowerment Award honorees. One of the 12 honorees, selected from candidates around the country, is Tacoma City Council Member Sarah Rumbaugh.
Both Bayley and Rumbaugh have a lifetime of service behind them and embody the ethos of giving back.
Bayley has supported Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, for years, including serving as president of the Pacific Northwest region. In her board role with the foundation — the gender equity, grantmaking wing of the main Hadassah organization — she helped increase donations by more than double. Bayley also serves on the board of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America.
According to Bayley, Hadassah Foundation projects “help women who otherwise would not be able to go out in the workforce, be educated, [or] learn how to be influential in the political world or in the organizational world.”
Bayley ended up with the half-million dollar donation thanks to a wise real estate investment by her grandfather in Vancouver, BC, in the 1950s, that was passed down to Bayley and her brother. Not wanting to manage a real estate portfolio in another country, Bayley let her brother buy her out.
“I didn't work for them, I didn't invest in them, I’m not dependent on them,” she says of the properties that were each worth a few hundred dollars when first purchased. “I made a decision to give large grants to organizations whom I feel reflect my values and my morals and my principles. And that's why I made that contribution to Hadassah Foundation.”
The Bayley Fund will last for 10 years and will provide support to different projects. The first grant will underwrite jGirls+ Magazine, a teen-run online publication that cultivates and empowers young women’s voices, for two years. “It’s a really neat publication that does a lot of leadership and development and training,” Bayley says.
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Tacoma City Council Member Sarah Rumbaugh started out as a city planner then shifted to board work and fundraising for nonprofits.
“My mother was always doing things for other people, and I think I learned this from her,” she says. “This feels like such a part of my life and who I am. What has transformed is how I give back.”
Now on the Council, Rumbaugh uses her position to amplify causes that she’s invested in, like homelessness, hunger, and domestic violence. She also serves on Tacoma Rotary 8 of the International Service Committee, which funds grants for work in developing countries.
The other thing that changed is the lens through which she gives back. Although her mother was Jewish, Rumbaugh was raised in her father’s Episcopal faith. It was in college at Gonzaga that she started to learn about Judaism — from a priest teaching a class on the Old Testament.
“That’s where I found my Judaism — at a Catholic school,” she says. “It was like, oh my God, I want to know more about what I don’t know about. So I went to UW Hillel with Rabbi Dan Bridge. All of those things led me to join Temple Beth El in Tacoma, and it led me to be the president of our temple.”
All this giving back led her to think about running for office. Rumbaugh serves District 2 of Tacoma, which includes parts of downtown Tacoma, North Slope, the Port of Tacoma, Stadium District, Old Town, and Northeast Tacoma. One of her fellow congregants had the idea to nominate her for the WRJ award, which recognizes women, nonbinary, and genderfluid people who promote progressive Jewish values and focus on empowering women and girls.
Both Rumbaugh and Bayley are committed to helping women and girls globally as well as at home. They both see gender equity as a long road with a ways to go.
“I went on a trip to Israel with the Hadassah Foundation before I even attended my first board meeting back in 2016,” Bayley says. “We met with a group of Muslim women. Most of them were in burkas, and they were learning how to be cashiers in the grocery store, and maybe not in their own community, in their own village. You have no idea how big a hurdle this was for these women.”
As part of her work with Rotary, Rumbaugh helps provide menstrual supplies to girls in Africa so they can go to school. On the local front, in Tacoma, domestic violence has skyrocketed, and women’s experiences of violence are often linked to homelessness, she explains.
“I always lead with my lens as a Jewish woman, and it’s been very hard the past year with what’s happened in Israel,” Rumbaugh says. Focusing on giving back in all the ways she can gives her a sense of optimism.
“There are a lot of things people can do,” she says. “It’s not like there’s no hope. We just have to find a different way to do things.”
In other news…
Alexa Halling, a registered dietitian in Seattle who serves on the AJC board, published a blog in Times of Israel about the challenges of refeeding the released hostages who experienced starvation.
Speaking of AJC, this week’s gala dinner featured Elica Le Bon, an activist of Iranian descent who fights relentlessly for Israel. If you aren’t aware of her activism, check out her X or Instagram page. She is exactly what you need right now. And yesterday, and tomorrow.
Community Announcements
Check out the Seattle Jewish community calendar.
Candlelighting in Seattle is at 5:45 p.m. The parasha is Tetzaveh.
Remember to set your clocks ahead by one hour Saturday night.
On Sunday, March 9, the Seattle Great Wheel will be illuminated orange in memory of the Bibas family
Miner’s Landing Pier 57 will light the iconic Seattle Great Wheel in orange and create an illuminated memorial honoring the memory of young mother Shir Bibas, 4-year-old Ariel, and 9-month-old Kfir, who were murdered in Gaza. The color orange now stands as a global testament to hope, remembrance and peace. The illumination serves as a symbol of unity and solidarity for peace throughout the world.
The Great Wheel will be amazing visually and Seattle proudly joins the ranks of the Eiffel Tower, Bradenburg Arch, the Empire State Building and numerous other monuments in the world that lit up orange. More info
Together We Will Heal Community Rally
Join community leaders in a major Seattle solidarity gathering on Sunday, March 9 from 12 to 1pm at Aubrey Davis Park (formerly Lid Park) on Mercer Island. 200 orange balloons will be held as folks walk along the Mercer Island bridge.
Congregation Kol Shalom Presents: A Musical Scholar-in-Residence Weekend
April 4-5, 2025
Featuring Zisl Slepovitch
Join us for a special weekend of music, learning, and Yiddish culture with D. Zisl Slepovitch, a renowned ethnomusicologist (Ph.D.), composer, and klezmer musician. Experience interactive workshops, multimedia concerts, and communal gatherings that celebrate Yiddish music and history.
More information and registration here
Survey announcement
A Friend of The Cholent is conducting a survey of local bookstores regarding how they stock books related to Israel. Please help us collect more information, especially if you have approached a bookstore manager about their collection, and how that went.
→ Survey link ←
Shoutouts
Thank you to Robert Hovden, Karen Treiger, Lior Caspi, and the entire Limmud Seattle team for welcoming me to Seattle over President's Day weekend. Congratulations on a successful event!! —David Benkof
Shoutout to Jennifer and Ken Alterman and Nancy and Paul Etsekson for chairing a wildly successful AJC-Seattle dinner. Seeing a packed house full of Zionists, with a majority of the Seattle City Council offices and prosecutors for both the City of Seattle and King County in attendance, gave me hope for tomorrow. —Sam Jefferies
Shout Out to Naomi Newman for working her magic and getting The Great Wheel lit up ORANGE to honor the blessed memory of Kfir, Ariel and Shiri Bibas, for all of Seattle to see. —Alayne Sulkin
Thank you to Representative Sharon Tomiko Santos for acknowledging the contributions of members of the Seattle Jewish community provided to the Japanese resettlement following the interment. —Wendy Bensussen