Investing in the Future I Once Needed

I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and thanks to someone else’s generous scholarship donation, I was able to attend Henry S. Jacobs Camp. Even as a kid, I knew what a gift that was. Camp shaped my life. It gave me lifelong friendships, confidence, life skills, and even taught me how to do laundry. It was the foundation of my childhood.

I promised myself I would pay it back one day, and one of my earliest professional goals was to give back more than I received.

My journey took me to the University of Tennessee. Near the end of college in 2006, I started using Facebook and was amazed by its potential. Although I’m sure I bugged the heck out of them, as a developer, I couldn’t help sending them feedback about the bugs I was finding on the site. Fortunately, they saw my potential and offered me a job to help build it from the inside! Some of the coolest projects I worked on were core features like News Feed, Events, and Facebook Messenger. I ended up building the Messenger team from 1 person to over 75 which helped scale it into the largest messaging platform in the world. I was just 25 years old, and I will never forget the trust I was given.

After leaving Facebook in 2013, I shifted gears and began training in the winter sport of Skeleton, racing headfirst down icy tracks at nearly 90 miles per hour. I made Aliyah and competed for the Israeli National Team from 2014 to 2021, coming within two spots of qualifying for the 2018 Olympics. Unfortunately, an injury in 2021 ended my Olympic dream.

In 2017, I married the love of my life, Erin Murphy. We now have two wonderful kids, Riley and Leo. In 2018, I brought Erin to visit Jacobs Camp for the first time. She had heard me talk about it for years, but seeing it in person helped her understand why it meant so much to me. We both agreed that our kids would be Jacobs campers one day.

When Erin and I learned about the Our Camp. Our Home. Our Future. Capital Campaign, we knew we wanted to be a part of it. I remember the 25 year campaign and the profound impact on the camp. The facilities were modernized, the camp grew, and we all appreciated the results of the campaign heavily. I remember seeing buildings and rooms named after people who had made it all possible. I was so motivated to see the Seligstein name permanently connected to the camp that shaped my life in such a meaningful way.

Because Jacobs Camp profoundly influenced my life, and now that I more fully understand its true value, Erin and I are deeply committed to securing its future—not only for our own kids but for the next generation of Jewish leaders. I made a promise as a camper to one day pay back the generosity that allowed me to attend, and I’m proud to say I’ve kept that promise.

We made our largest gift to date: $300,000. Growing up, I saw the impact that generous philanthropists had on their communities, and I believe it’s now our generation’s turn to carry that torch.

I share our gift to show how much we stretched. What would a stretch look like for you? If all of us make the biggest gift we can, imagine what we can build together.

Ready to talk about your own stretch gift? Reach out to Jacob Fijman at jfijman@urj.org.