ESTABLISHED 1902

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Celebrating 113 Years of Service to the Jewish Community

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Published weekly on Friday by The Jewish Advocate, Inc.To subscribe online go to www.TheJewishAdvocate.com or call 617-367-9100 x120.

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Reprint of The Jewish Advocate™Copyright © 2015 The Jewish Advocate, Inc., Jewish Advocate Pub. Corp. All Rights Reserved. The Jewish Advocate® is protected by international copyright, trademark and other intellectualproperty laws. Reproduction, or storage in a retrieval system, or in any other form is prohibited. You may not modify, copy, reproduce, republish, upload, post, transmit or distribute in any way anymaterial from this reprint, the newspaper, or the website.

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Established 1902

Vol. 205 No. 12 MARCH 21, 2014 — 19 Adar II 5774 www.TheJewishAdvocate.com

By Alexandra LapkinAdvocate Staff

With the amount ofstartups headed byJewish entrepre-

neurs sprouting up in Bostonin recent years and a presenceof an established Jewish busi-ness community in the Hub, itwas only a matter of timebefore the emergence of aJewish mentoring service.“The Brookline area boasts

an amazing community of suc-cessful business leaders, manyof whom are Jewish,” said AriIrvings, managing director ofJewish Venture MentoringService (JVMS). “It madesense to marry the two andgive back to the community.” Jewish Venture Mentoring

Service (JVMS) was foundedlast year by local Jewish busi-nessmen Rony Shapiro, anentrepreneur and philanthro-pist; Pam Salkovitz, formerCEO of Stride Rite Corp.;Lance Kawesch, managingpartner at Kawesch LawGroup LLC; Miriam May, anonprofit professional former-ly with Smart Consulting FirmLLC; Eric Silverman, manag-ing partner at EasthamCapital; and Irvings, who ischief of staff at Massachusetts

Bay Commuter Railroad Co.Irvings explained that JVMS

aims to support the entrepre-neurs as they navigate throughthe complexities of launchinga business, by pairing themwith a team of mentors best fitto advise on their particularbusiness idea. The mentors will take on

startups at any level. “It couldjust be an idea,” Shapiro said,“no experience necessary.”In addition to the core of

founding members, more than50 Jewish mentors are engagedin the program. They offerguidance to new entrepreneursat any stage in the process,from conception of an idea to

the launch of a business.“The motivating factor for

starting JVMS was seeing theneed in the community,” saidIrvings. “We recognized thatthere was no Jewish entrepre-neurial outlet and it was anarea that needed cultivationwithin the community.”“How I wish JVMS was

around when I was startingout – how many pitfalls Iwould have avoided,” saidShapiro, who now serves asJVMS chairman. “Even if Itook half the advice, I wouldhave avoided half the pitfalls.” JVMS is modeled after the

Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology’s (MIT) Venture

Mentoring Service. The pro-gram’s mentors received theirtraining at the VentureMentoring Service, whichpairs up volunteer mentorswith MIT students, alumni,faculty and staff members whohave ideas that they would liketo turn into a business.Similarly to MIT’s program,

mentors also run JVMS on avolunteer basis and entrepre-neurs have no financial obliga-tion to the program. Shapirosaid that “Remember whereyou came from” is his messageto the mentors: “Somebody,some group was willing tohelp you. … Some people say,‘We’re not capable.’ But every-body has something to offerfrom their experience.”Since its launch, JVMS has

received 30 applications andworks with 15 ventures on anygiven week. The program iscurrently housed in an officeat Congregation KehillathIsrael in Brookline, but is gear-ing up to expand to other loca-tions to make room for aneventual startup incubator, aspace where entrepreneurs willwork on their projects.The ventures that JVMS has

taken on run the “gamut ofinnovative ideas,” Irvings said,

Entrepreneurs getting down to business

Jewish Venture Mentoring Service (JVMS) has assisted startups such as Grill Easy, which o�ers an easier, cleaner, and environmentally friendly way of �ring up a grill. Grill Easy founders Michael Angelov and Alex Burakovsky are seen here with JVMS Managing Director Ari Irvings.

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Jewish Venture Mentoring Service helps startups

Published weekly on Friday by The Jewish Advocate, Inc.To subscribe online go to www.TheJewishAdvocate.com or call 617-367-9100 x120.

The Jewish Advocate, The Jewish Times, The Boston Jewish Times, andThe Jewish News of Western Massachusetts are trademarks registered with theU.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Periodicals Postage is paid at Boston, Massachusetts.

ISSN 1077-2995. (USPS-275-020).

Reprint of The Jewish Advocate™Copyright © 2015 The Jewish Advocate, Inc., Jewish Advocate Pub. Corp. All Rights Reserved. The Jewish Advocate® is protected by international copyright, trademark and other intellectualproperty laws. Reproduction, or storage in a retrieval system, or in any other form is prohibited. You may not modify, copy, reproduce, republish, upload, post, transmit or distribute in any way anymaterial from this reprint, the newspaper, or the website.

To purchase reprints contact: sharonh@TheJewishAdvocate.com

The Jewish Advocate 15 School Street, Boston, MA 02108 • Tel: 617-367-9100 • www.TheJewishAdvocate.com

from mobile apps, to medicaldevices and cleaning business-es, to brick-and-mortar stores.The program’s goal, Shapiroexplained, is to take on all ofthe entrepreneurs who apply.“We’re not about picking win-ners,” he said, “but about help-ing ventures and entrepreneursbe successful.”“We were very impressed by

the knowledge and experienceof our JVMSmentors,” said Jonah

Bernstein, one of the foundersof Cognition Medical Corp., amedical equipment manufac-turing company inCambridge. “Their coachingon manufacturing helped usadvance from scientific dataand an [intellectual property]

position to our second proto-type. We appreciated JVMSmentors’ direct feedback topush us to make strategic deci-sions at the right time.Additionally, they were gener-ous with their contacts andintroduced us to the broadermed-tech community."Other ventures at JVMS

include Joyful Hearts, a start-up that helps people who areunable to use computers toconnect with their family andfriends electronically. Anotherstartup, Grill Easy, offers anenvironmentally friendly wayto fire up the grill.But in addition to helping

other startups, JVMS isfocused on its own growth.“We’re a startup ourselves,”

Irvings said, “so we are alwaysworking on securing our ownfunding to do even more.” Inorder to expand, the programfounders have been workingon establishing partnershipswith programs such asMassChallenge and network-ing with other startup men-tors.But what sets JVMS apart

from other startup mentoringprograms and incubators is theJewish connection between thementors and the entrepre-neurs. “There’s a sense of com-munity,” Shapiro explained.“The Jewish tradition holdsthe giving of one’s time andskills to those facing economicopportunities as one of thehighest forms of giving,” he

said. Irvings said the program’s

philosophy was inspired byMaimonides’ principle oftzedakah, noting that“Mentors guiding the commu-nity on how to be independentand how to support them-selves and family” is the moti-vating factor behind the pro-gram. And so, he added,JVMS aspires to “build andstrengthen the community bysupporting these entrepre-neurs in the hopes of creatingmore jobs and them givingback their time and resources[to the next generation ofentrepreneurs].”

Visit j-vms.org to learn more.

Entrepreneurs getting down to business

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