08/08/2025
JFSA's Caring at Home Program Meets Clients Where They Are
Marty Marcus, right, on an apple picking excursion at Patterson Fruit Farm in Chesterland with his JFSA Caregiver, Erkin Tursunov. Tursunov received an honorable mention in 2024 from the Ceca Foundation and is a recipient of OCHA’s Caregiving in Excellence Award. Submitted photo
Jewish Family Service Association (JFSA), a beneficiary agency of the Federation, is celebrating 150 years of serving the community. This story is part of a Cleveland Jewish News series honoring this milestone anniversary.
Article reprinted with permission from Cleveland Jewish News
by S.A. McSherry
It’s a quiet morning in Moreland Hills as 92-year-old Marty Marcus gets out of bed and makes his way to the kitchen, where breakfast is already waiting — prepared by JFSA home caregiver Linda O’Neal.
O’Neal serves him his meal, ensures he takes the correct medication, and shares a few laughs over breakfast. Before he heads back to his room, she hands him a stack of fresh laundry and gently suggests a better shirt to match the outfit he chose earlier that morning.
In the afternoon, the caregivers trade shifts as Erkin Tursunov arrives to take Marcus to his favorite bagel shop. Later, Tursunov prepares dinner using the groceries O’Neal picked up earlier that day. By nightfall, Marcus heads to bed with a full stomach and a smile on his face.
“It’s the perfect match,” Marcus said. “Erkin and Linda are certainly the perfect match. They run everything around here. You want to know something about the house? Call Linda, she’ll tell you.”
Marcus, a congregant of Congregation Mishkan Or in Beachwood, is one of many adults taking advantage of the Caring at Home services provided by JFSA, the Jewish Family Service Association of Cleveland.
According to Susi Meisel, co-chair of the Home Care Committee at JFSA alongside Idelle Wolf, JFSA home caregivers delivered nearly 36,000 meals to homebound seniors and spent 200,000 hours providing at-home support within the past year.
Meisel
Lynne Marcus Cohen, Marty Marcus’ daughter, said she feels a sense of relief knowing that her father is taken care of when she’s not there. Even better, she said, is that after some initial resistance for help, she’s watched the caregivers turn into her father’s friends.
“The initial resistance is very common, but when you are paired with somebody who is such a great match for your family, you quickly get over it and realize how helpful they will be,” Cohen, a congregant of B’nai Jeshurun Congregation in Pepper Pike, said. “It’s such a benefit to us and to our family.”
The homecare program was established at JFSA for that exact purpose, when they noticed a void in the Jewish community. Seeing the need for caregiving options, Meisel said that they established homecare for seniors and adults who may need any type of assistance in the home – whether it be daily chores or medical help.
“JFSA started offering homecare 30 years ago, and they really went into the business with intent,” Meisel, a congregant of Park Synagogue in Pepper Pike, said. “They saw what was going on around them at nursing homes and other places and said, ‘We can do this, and maybe a little more seamlessly than our competitors.’ We have a long history of pivoting to the needs of the older adult communities, so when there was a need for private caregivers and nurses, JFSA made that happen.”
The team at JFSA understands that choosing a caregiver can be overwhelming, especially during an emergency. “It can be hard to think clearly in those moments,” Meisel said. That’s why JFSA takes the time to listen, understand each family’s unique situation, and help identify the right type of care and caregiver to best support their loved one, she added.
“We are an effective and efficient outstanding resource for adults in the community and others,” Meisel said. “We do transportation, we do home visits and meetings. We offer coordination of appointments, medication help, monitoring by a nurse and check-ins on a regular basis.”
At JFSA, Meisel said the organization offers a wider range of services than many people realize, calling the team “one of the best-kept secrets in town.” Marcus and Cohen agreed, sharing that they were pleasantly surprised by the variety and high quality of services provided by JFSA’s professionally trained, award-winning caregivers.
“The homecare team works tirelessly everyday with a variety of different clients, whether you are trying to heal a bed sore or the aftercare for a complex spinal surgery,” Meisel said. “No matter who you are, they’ll take care of you, and that success is due to Laura (Dales) and her team’s ability to meet people where they are and coordinate across a fragmented, complex healthcare system.”
To inquire about these services, Meisel recommends calling JFSA and asking for Caring at Home to learn more, and said she would like to thank Susie Bichsel, president and CEO of JFSA, and Laura Dales, Executive Director, Home Care, her efforts with Caring at Home.
For Marcus, the support and companionship he receives from JFSA caregivers is something he considers a win-win for everyone — a sentiment his daughter wholeheartedly shares.
“We are fortunate to see each other a lot and talk all the time,” Cohen said. “But we also have the peace of mind that if we want to go out of town, we know that he is completely taken care of and we really don’t have to worry. And that’s thanks to JFSA.”
