So do Ida and Saul Alpern.

Mr. Alpern is a Holocaust survivor. His parents, a sister and brother perished in the Holocaust; another brother died in 1948 as a soldier defending Israel. From 1941, until liberation by the Russian army in 1944, Mr. Alpern survived death marches forced labor camps, hunger and cold. Following the liberation, the Russians trained him to be a sapper; he removed mines German and Russian armies planted. In 1946, hoping to reach Palestine, Mr. Alpern left Russia, and corssed Europe illegally. While living in a displaced person camp, he became a member of the Irgun Zvai Leumi. In 1948, penniless, he moved to Winnipeg, where he lived with a Jewish family, and became a garment industry cutter. In the 1950s, Mr. Alpern went into the cattle industry, and became a successful businessman. And, in 1963, he met Mrs. Alpern, who had arrived in Canada from Poland in 1939. After a very brief courtship and engagement, they were married.

The Alperns established a bequest to The Jewish Foundation of Manitoba in 2003. Then and now, it expresses their deepest gratitude to the Winnipeg Jewish community for giving true meaning to a phrase they’ve lived by all these years,  “Without hope, life is hollow.”

By creating a will, everyone is able to protect his or her estate when they’re no longer here. But, as the Alperns demonstrate, a will can also be the most significant way to express your passion for causes that have been important to you during your entire lifetime. For the Alperns, a bequest helpsguarantee the future of the Jewish people. So, the community will be there for others, as it was for them. For generations to come.

In fact, bequests are crucial for leveraging much-needed funds for the Jewish community. Yet, according to the 2000-01 National Jewish Population Survey, only 13% of American Jews with assets greater than $500,000 or incomes of at least $150,000 leave bequests to charities. Of this group, only 3% make bequests to federations.

Fortunately, Werner and Ellen Lange are among them.. The Langes never forgot what it felt like to have nothing. Mr. Lange immigrated to the US from Germany in the 1930s to escape Nazi persecution; he lost his parents in the concentration camps. In 1941, he married Ellen Lange, a Holocaust survivor. In 1945, after Werner’s stint in the U.S. Army, the couple moved to Los Angeles. Not long after, they were offered a deal on a garage full of optical instruments – lenses, telescopes, and binoculars …for $100. Not knowing about the optics industry did not dissuade the Langes from establishing Colonial Optical Co., a successful import and export business.

The Langes gave generously and usually anonymously to Jewish programs. But, just before Mrs. Lange passed in 1994, the couple decided to leave their estate to the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles. That gift: a $12 million bequest leading to the creation of an endowment fund that supports projects in the Jewish community, locally and in Israel. The Langes understood the need to support what was important to them even beyond their lifetimes.  They demonstrated that in their will.