Rewarding years of service

June Casagrande

NEWPORT-MESA -- Board members of the Jewish Federation are supposed to

try to get 10 people to attend the group’s annual fund-raiser luncheon.

Natalie Mandel, though, usually gets 30 or 40.

“That’s a sign of how many people love and respect her,” said Ellie

Saltzer Weinstein, president of the Women’s Division of the federation .

It’s also a sign of why Weinstein and colleagues selected the longtime

Newport Beach resident as their Woman of the Year. And it’s a reason why

she’s been Leonard Mandel’s woman of the year for 60 years running.

“On Feb. 21, it will be our 60-year anniversary, can you believe it?”

Natalie, now 81, mused. “And we still really like each other.”

The couple met in 1937 when a group of upperclassmen from USC showed

up at a UCLA mixer to check out the freshmen girls, including 17-year-old

Natalie.

“I thought he was gorgeous,” Natalie said of Leonard, now 84. “He’s

still adorable. He still works out. All the girls at his gym think he’s

adorable too.”

The couple moved to Newport Beach from Los Angeles in 1975 and got

involved in the Jewish Federation almost immediately. More than a quarter

of a century later, federation leaders say it’s impossible to measure how

much the couple has benefited the organization and its charities. But it

is possible to show how much they are appreciated.

At the federation’s annual Women’s Voices luncheon today, Natalie will

received the Anne Entin Woman of the Year award. Most notably, Mandel has

served on the board of directors for the organization, which supports

more than a dozen Jewish social service agencies in the United States and

Israel. Inspired in part by their two developmentally disabled

grandchildren, the Mandels have volunteered for the Jeremiah Society, an

affiliate of the Jewish Federation that works with disabled children and

also provides teacher training.

“I’m so thrilled and so excited about the award,” Natalie said. “It’s

such a beautiful, wonderful thing.”

* June Casagrande covers Newport Beach. She may be reached at (949)

574-4232 or by e-mail at o7 june.casagrande@latimes.comf7 .

FYI

* WHAT: Annual Women’s Voices Luncheon of the Jewish Federation’s

Women’s Division; speaker Deborah Lipstadt, professor of modern Jewish

and Holocaust Studies at Emory University, will speak on “Denying the

Holocaust: Perspectives From a British Courtroom”

* WHEN: 10:30 a.m. today * WHERE: Hyatt Regency Irvine, 17900 Jamboree Blvd., Irvine

* COST: $65

* CALL: (714) 755-5555, Ext. 222