Carol Pavlofsky, who raised more than $24 million for the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton between 1979 and 1997, died at her home in Kettering on May 25. She was 84.

A native Daytonian, Pavlofsky began her work with the Federation in 1977 when she was hired as membership director for the new Dayton Jewish Community Center complex on Denlinger Road in Trotwood.

Two years later, she was named director of the Women’s Division of the Federation’s annual United Jewish Campaign.
In 1990, Pavlofsky was named overall United Jewish Campaign director.

Along with the Federation’s annual campaign, she also oversaw special resettlement campaigns Operations Moses and Solomon, which brought Ethiopian Jews to Israel; and Operation Exodus, in which Federations across North America raised $900 million and brought nearly 1 million Soviet Jews to Israel and 150,000 to the United States.

In a 1997 interview with The Observer when she retired, Pavlofsky said her single favorite memory of her work for the Federation was “when we raised a million dollars in about 45 minutes for Operation Exodus.”

In 1990, when large numbers of Jews were finally allowed out of the Soviet Union, the Federation movement launched the Exodus campaign.

“The money was raised in Beerman Realty’s boardroom,” she recalled. “And we didn’t really know that we had it until we got home and added it.”

Operation Exodus became the largest emergency fund-raising project in Jewish history. For its part in Operation Exodus, Dayton’s Federation ultimately raised nearly $2 million and resettled close to 200 Soviet Jews in Dayton by 1993.

Pavlofsky also began the Women’s Division planned giving program and was an active participant in Beth Jacob Congregation’s building campaign in the late 1970s. She was a president of Beth Jacob’s sisterhood, an officer with Hadassah, and served on the board of the original Covenant House Guild.      — Marshall Weiss