When people look at Joseph Sprung, they see a successful, self-made entrepreneur. A member of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue and The Hampton Synagogue, he has homes in Manhattan and Westhampton. His company, JBS Financial Services, which he founded in 1994, has an Illustrious client list. He humbly lowers his voice when discussing his three children and six grandchildren. But beyond the surface of his impressive accomplishments lies a passion, a thirst for helping those who suffer from illnesses and disabilities.
“I’m blessed that I have healthy children and grandchildren,” he explained. “It’s important for me to give back.” A child of Holocaust survivors, Sprung was born in Brooklyn and had a yeshiva education. His parents rarely spoke about their wartime experiences. “They were very closemouthed about it,” he recalls. “They would throw snippets at us. They talked about how horrible it was but never painted an overall picture of what happened. So my sister and I figured out much of what they endured.” His parents avoided talking about their past, but they spoke openly about their concern for the Jewish future, instilling an abiding love for Israel in Joseph and his sister. In college, he expressed that passion in an efficient manner – by “playing basketball marathons to raise money for ambulances in Israel.” It was an early indication of his interest in the needs of people in poor health.
He graduated from Touro University in 1977 with a degree in economics and was elected to “Who’s Who Among Students in America.” Four years later, he became a Certified Public Accountant after receiving a second degree from Bernard Baruch Graduate School. As a child of immigrants who suffered persecution, it’s not surprising that, as a newly minted CPA, his first involvement with a non-profit organization was for The North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry (NACOEJ). The group was founded in 1982 to help Ethiopian Jews emigrate to Israel and become assimilated into Israeli society and support those who remained in Ethiopia.
Since then, he has been involved with many children’s charities. He is a former President and Chairman of Chai Lifeline, a Regional Chair of Children of Chernobyl, and served on the Executive Business Committee member of AMIT – a network of 96 religious schools and programs in Israel. He funded an Amit after school program for the children of Sderot, a city in southern Israel that is less than a mile from the Gaza Strip and into which Hamas and Islamic Jihad have fired rockets that have killed and wounded Israelis and caused millions of dollars in damage. Sprung’s program is designed to keep children in a safe environment at the end of the school day, keeping them busy with computers and sports and, for some giving them their only hot meal of the day. Joe has also chaired a project to build an emergency medical center and is currently on the board of Music for Autism.
Particularly close to his heart is his own nonprofit, Bear Givers – originally called Bears 4 Kids, and of which he is the chairman and founder – the group which donates teddy bears to children’s hospitals throughout the metropolitan area. One of the things that inspired him to launch the program was a visit to Israel during The second intifada in 2002. “No one was on the streets — tourists weren’t coming to Israel during that difficult time, and I felt it was important to visit the country. To generate enthusiasm for others to join me, I came up with the idea of visiting children in Israeli hospitals.
That’s how it started. I got about 20 people to join me on the trip, and we visited about eight hospitals. We bought the stuffed bears in Israel and traveled all over the country, giving them out. “I saw the benefit of our visits. It wasn’t just the stuffed bear that meant something to the kids, but that someone cared enough to spend time to be with them. It was a very, very positive experience, not just for the kids, but for the visitors.” . . Read more in “The Jewish World” or “The Jewish Sentinel”.
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