Alan and Jayusia Bernstein

Alan and Jayusia Bernstein Presented by The Foundation of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation

Roots Jayusia is the daughter of the Holocaust. She was born after the war in Czernowitz, Romania, now part of the Ukraine. The family was fortunate to emigrate to Peru where she grew up. It was a blessing that Jayusia’s mother lived in Coral Gables more than 20 years until she died last year at 103. Jayusia has a sister Tania who lives in the Dominican Republic where she and her husband work diligently to keep a Shule going.

My grandfather emigrated from Jerusalem to the United States through Ellis Island at the turn of the 20th century under circumstances which are best described in Irving Howe’s The World of Our Fathers. My father lived the American dream rising from what can only be termed “challenging circumstances”, to earning a PhD and having a distinguished career as an economist specializing in international economics. I grew up

in Washington, D.C. I have two brothers, George, a professor emeritus of history at Tulane, and Dan, an attorney in New York. Family Jayusia and I are always amazed at the infinitesimal probabilities that a boy from Washington would meet up and marry a girl

from Lima, Peru. My first job out of business school was with a “private equity” firm (we didn’t know the term then) based in Lima funded by U.S., European, and Japanese capital. This was the period of the 1967 War- while I was connecting with the Jewish community, Jayusia connected with me. We have been married for 52 years. We have two sons, Leo (49) and

Leo Bernstein and Family at the Alhambra

Marc (36). Leo’s career started on Wall Street as a portfolio manager. Three years ago, he founded a software company that provides data analytics to the property casualty insurance industry. Marc is a Managing Director at Credit Suisse where he is involved in IPO underwritings. Leo lives in New York. Last year Marc and his family moved to Coral Gables within walking distance from our home. Both are married to wonderful professional women improbably named Michelle! New York and Early Careers Shortly after arriving in New York as newlyweds, Jayusia stated she was returning to school. Normally the process requires

filling out an application, taking the college boards, maybe even an interview and waiting anxiously for a decision. Not Jayusia. She went directly to the Admission Office of NYU, filled out the forms, talked to one of the assistant deans, and was accepted on the spot. I have no idea what she said-can only imagine! She graduated Phi Beta Kappa. And two years after that, NYU awarded her an MBA in investment finance. Jayusia ended up in the investment advisory department of Kidder Peabody, a leading investment firm at the time, where with a senior colleague offered investment advisory services emphasizing covered option writing to reduce portfolio risk and to enhance returns. Little did we know that her expertise in investment management would be critical to our second career. Yin and Yang Fast forward. Alan went from being an institutional oil analyst on Wall Street to joining a publicly held independent exploration company and then to starting up his own petroleum drilling and production company in the late 1970s, largely at the encouragement and financial support of Jayusia. When it became evident that the new company would survive, she resigned her position on Wall Street and joined him. In this phase, Alan was the managing partner. Though their company flourished, by the latter 1980s, the U.S. petroleum industry was floundering. So, in the early 1990s, Jayusia took the lead in founding Stratigraphic Asset Management, an SEC registered investment advisory firm. This time she is the managing partner. Jayusia manages the portfolios and I do the macro-economic and company analyses on which we base our decisions. We do it all, together. We understand one another [almost] perfectly.

Giving Back We have come a long way from our roots. When you have been so blessed, it is important to give back. Over the years, Jayusia and I have served on boards of performing arts groups, Jewish organizations, and educational institutions. I was on the Board of Trustees of Amherst College, my alma mater, and Jayusia was on an Advisory Board of NYU, her alma mater, and both of us were on the Board of Directors of the Spanish Repertory Theater in New York. In Miami, I was a board member at Ransom Everglades School, which Marc attended, Temple Beth Am, the Florida Philharmonic, the Arsht Performing Arts Center Trust, the Musical Arts Association of Miami, which for a period, managed the Cleveland Orchestra Miami Residency, and currently the Miami Music Project, a non- profit that provides classical musical instrument instruction after school to students free of charge. Temple Beth Am Jayusia and I believe that the survival of Judaism in the United States depends on strong Jewish institutions operating at the local level. Temple Beth Am fulfills this mission exceptionally well. Marc had his Bar Mitzvah at Temple Beth Am in 1998. We are grateful that Marc and Michelle’s daughters, Mia and Lucy, are now attending the TBA Day School, which has become one of the leading independent schools in Miami-Dade.

Presented by The Foundation of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation

Jayusia and her Mother

Marc Bernstein and Family

Temple Beth Am AND Rambam Day School

Presented by The Foundation of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation

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