Every other year, the Jewish Federations of North America asks each community to nominate a woman for the Kipnis-Wilson/Friedland Award, recognizing women who exemplify the spirit of the Lion of Judah by proven commitment to the Jewish community through leadership and philanthropic giving. This year, Women’s Philanthropy of Jewish Federation of St. Louis has announced that Galia Movitz will be the 2016 recipient of the Kipnis-Wilson/Friedland Award.

Movitz, a native Israeli, has been a Lion of Judah for more than 20 years and has given to Jewish Federation of St. Louis’ Annual Campaign since 1980. In 1997, she established a legacy gift that will endow her Annual Campaign Lion of Judah contribution. Most recently, as a co-chair, she was a driving force for Women’s Philanthropy’s “L’Chaim Soul to Sole” event this fall, a first-time community event and fundraiser with 650 women in attendance.  

She and her husband Milton (a past president of the Jewish Light) were also honored this year at the Jewish Student Union of St. Louis Gala, where they dedicated the Galia and Milton Movitz Senator John Danforth Israel Scholars program for teens. In 2013, they were also honored at the Saul Mirowitz Jewish Community School Gala with the Meyer and Marcelle Kranzberg Visionary Award.

Movitz is an active life member of Jewish Federation of St. Louis’ Women’s Philanthropy board. She has served in many positions including president of the Women’s Division, campaign chair of the Women’s Division, on the executive committee of Jewish Federation’s board, chair of Partnership 2000, was on the CAJE board and was a recipient of the Grosberg Young Leadership Award.  Movitz also sits on the board of Congregation B’nai Amoona, Nishmah: The St. Louis Women’s Project and is a life member of the Saul Mirowitz Jewish Community School board. In 2012, she was instrumental in merging the Reform and Conservative Jewish day schools in St. Louis into one community day school, the first of its kind nationwide.

Movitz is an educator in addition to being a community volunteer. Galia and Milton Movitz have a daughter, Talia, and a son, Daniel. 

Since 1972, the Lion of Judah program serves as a symbol of today’s Jewish woman’s strength, a symbol of her caring about the organized Jewish world and a symbol of her financial commitment of at least $5,000 to the community’s Annual Campaign.  

All Kipnis-Wilson/Friedland Award recipients will be honored during the International Lion of Judah Conference in Washington, D.C. in September, 2016.

Past St. Louis winners of the award include Nancy Siwak (2004), Sheila Greenbaum (2006), Terry Bloomberg (2008), Leslie Litwack (2010), Jane Roodman Weiss (20012), and Sherri Frank Weintrop (2014).