Kafi Benz

Kafi Benz (born 1941) is an American author and artist who began participation in social entrepreneurship through environmental preservation and regional planning in 1959 as a member of the Jersey Jetport Site Association, which opposed plans by the New York Port Authority to found a new airport in the Great Swamp, the central feature of a massive 55 square mile watershed in New Jersey bounded to the south and east by the Watchung Mountains, 25 miles west of Manhattan.

During the 1980s she also became very active in historic preservation, founding a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, Friends of Seagate Inc., for that purpose. The organization later was expanded to include concerns for additional areas in the arts and sciences. At the same time she founded the official web site of the sculptor Jim Gary. In 2001 it was moved to another web site she created that may feature other artists as well, Kafi Benz Productions.

Born during 1941 in Chatham, New Jersey, her mother was a commercial artist, graphic designer, and illustrator and her father was a prominent physician and surgeon who was chief of staff at a hospital in Morristown.

The Jersey Jetport Site Association was a small, but effective conservation organization, circumventing the efforts of the Port Authority to replace Newark Airport with a much larger complex farther to the west. After infiltrating meetings of the powerful authority headed by Austin J. Tobin, that were held to marshal support among construction companies and unions, the members of the association distributed opposition literature and drew public attention to its efforts. Greater opposition arose among the residents of the massive area that would be affected once the issue was revealed by coverage of the expulsion of four of the JJSA members (Kafi Benz, Joan Kelly, Esty Weiss, and Betty White) from a meeting at a Newark hotel, the Essex House, in a local newspaper, the Newark Evening News, on Thursday, December 3, 1959. Coverage quickly included publications such as the New York Times.

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