Nammie Ichilov only was on the job for a month as CEO/president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Naples when the Foundation received a $10-millon-gift from local philanthropist Stephen Saks.
“This is an incredibly generous gift,” Ichilov said. “It is a statement of his love and passion for Jewish communal life.”
Saks, a retired Miami-Dade County car wash owner who has adopted Naples as his home, also gave an additional $10 million to be shared by the Holocaust Museum & Cohen Educational Center; Baker Senior Center Naples, for its lunch program; Jewish National Fund; Temple Shalom, for youth programs; and Golden Paws Assistance Dogs.
“The older one gets, the more likely their priorities change,” Saks said in a news release. “I wanted to feel a sense that my long, financially successful life would serve a higher purpose. Judaism locally would be at the forefront of my charitable giving path.”
Saks, who turns 95 in June, declined an interview request.
This is not the first time Saks has gifted charities. He’d previously given $1 million to the international PJ Library program, which provides free books that celebrate Jewish culture to families with children.
Saks built a relationship with Jeffrey Feld, who retired as CEO and president, in December.
“Their relationship grew and Steve Saks just developed a love and passion for investing into the Jewish community of Naples and wanting there to be a vibrant and active and engaged community in the future,” Ichilov said.
The Pine Ridge Road campus is named after Saks, as are a classroom and a wing of the Nina Iser Jewish Cultural Center, and the lobby of Temple Shalom.
“Steve has constructed his philanthropy in such a way that it directly helps people build a community, to be able to come together, whether they’re coming to the temple for religious purposes or to the Iser Center for more social and cultural opportunities,” Feld said in a news release.
The money won’t be used for capital needs, Ichilov said. The gift will be used to invest in Jewish event programs and community support.
“The gift allows us to be able to have that kind of endowment for future generations, not just for the community members today,” Ichilov said.
Saks was born in Patterson, New Jersey, to immigrant parents from Poland. He called himself a teen troublemaker and was sent to military school in South Carolina. He became an optometrist but never practiced medicine after serving in Korea.
He turned to the construction business in New Jersey and then moved with his wife and children to Miami in 1968 where he opened his first car wash.
He and his family moved to Naples in 2018.
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