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Today, modern women struggle with the challenge of juggling career and family. But 30 years ago, when many women didn’t work outside the home, Zipora Langberg and Ruth Tanner Glasson managed to juggle career, family and active volunteerism.

Both women were recently honored by ORT, the organization each has served for more than three decades.

After they both retired and their children left the house, the longtime friends stayed involved with ORT, not wanting to give up their volunteering career or the friendships it spawned.

After emigrating from Israel to the United States in the 1950s with her husband and young child, Langberg joined every Jewish organization she could to feel closer to Israel. When she moved to San Rafael, she joined ORT, where Tanner Glasson, a friend of hers, was very active. It quickly became a passion.

Langberg knew about ORT schools in Israel but didn’t realize how much of the organization’s funding came from the work of American volunteers. When she learned how these volunteers change the lives of students all over the world, the mission of the organization compelled her to put all her energies into the local ORT chapter.

In 1880 ORT was created by three successful Russian Jewish men who organized trade schools. Because Jews were forbidden to own land in Russia, learning a trade allowed them to survive. ORT’s education has changed with the times, training students in high demand fields such as the medical, technological and advertising/marketing fields.

As a young girl, Tanner Glasson saw how ORT schools helped people first hand, when her family moved from Austria to Shangai, China in the late 1930s.

For her, volunteering at ORT has always been about the mission of the organization. “I have been an immigrant myself and seen what a trade school can do for people, by helping them become self-sufficient so they don’t rely on charity. It is not a social thing for me. I do this work because I find the cause so moving,” she said.

Tanner Glasson has been volunteering for the Marin chapter of ORT for 38 years and Langberg has put in more than 30 years of service. In that time they have held every possible post in the local chapters, including president, treasurer, vice president and dedicated members who help out wherever needed.

They’ve presided over events that have raised needed funds for schools, gone on missions to visit ORT schools in the U.S. and abroad and put on smaller fundraising events, like a recent Oscars night dinner with movie critic Jan Wahl, to raise both morale and money.

For 82-year-old Langberg, ORT has become a source of rich friendship and community support. When her husband died in 1985 the outpouring of love, affection and donations in her husband’s memory touched her deeply. Her ORT work helped her healing process. Langberg has gotten more than camaraderie from the group. In her professional life she ran a domestic employment agency. She brought those skills to ORT, but at ORT she learned computer skills, public speaking, organizational and fundraising skills and improved her people skills. She also set a good example of public service for her son, who has donated to ORT.

For 80-year old Tanner Glasson, the caliber of women she met and worked with at ORT stands out. She also enjoyed traveling for ORT to schools in Israel and the United States and speaking on behalf of the organization as a national rep. Before retiring, Tanner Glasson had her own accounting business. As a wife and working mom she always found the time to devote to ORT. How did she do it? “If you are interested and you care enough, you just find the time to do it,” she said.

Currently Langberg and Tanner Glasson are “very busy retired.” They are still active on the board, holding the offices of financial secretary and fundraising chair respectively. Langberg also helps put out the ORT newsletter. She also plays bridge, ushers at the San Francisco Opera and has an active social life. Tanner Glasson has remarried after many years as a widow. When they get together with other friends the discussion always seems to turn to ORT.

“It is part of our social life also, fundraising and a little gossip,” Langberg said. “We joke, if we didn’t have ORT, what would we talk about?”

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