eJewishPhilanthropy

L.A.’s nondenominational Kadima Day School to shutter after yearslong funding crisis

Contributing Author — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 13:05:08 +0000

Los Angeles’ nondenominational Kadima Day School is shutting down at the end of the school year and hopes to sell its campus to another Jewish day school, in light of growing financial struggles and diminishing enrollment, the institution informed parents, staff and other stakeholders this week.

The closure comes less than a year after the pre-K-8 school announced that it was in a financial crisis after its primary —and nearly sole —donor, board member Shawn Evenhaim, decided to halt his funding over growing frustration that the school was overly reliant on him and had failed to expand its donor base.

“Kadima is participating in final negotiations with potential buyers,” read the school’s letter, which was sent on April 24. “We are hopeful that Jewish education will remain at 7011 Shoup Avenue and that the students, families, and faculty will have an opportunity to be welcomed to a new community as they will be disenfranchised by Kadima’s closure.”

Last May, when Evenhaim cut his support, he warned the school, many of whose roughly 180 students come from L.A.’s Israeli expat community, that it was not financially sustainable and should not open for the 2025-2026 academic year. The board chose to proceed anyway, raising nearly $900,000 through a tenacious fundraising campaign, featuring Israeli celebrities. But the school was not able to turn that emergency effort into lasting support.

“This didn’t start a year ago,” Evenhaim told eJP. “I’ve been warning for years that the school wasn’t financially sustainable. No one should rely on a single donor, and if that donor stops contributing, and you don’t have enough students, you have to shut down.”

There are currently about 180 students enrolled at the school. Evenhaim estimates that 50-60 of them are in early childhood education, with the remainder in kindergarten through eighth grade.

Evenhaim, an Israeli American real estate developer, helped purchase the Shoup Avenue property in 2004. Including the funds that he gave for the acquisition, he has since donated $10 million to the school and provided an additional $6 million in loans.

Those loans have not been repaid, and the school has struggled to meet its mortgage payments, as well as cover salaries and suppliers. The financial strain led to staff reductions and a planned 8% cut in teacher salaries, though this was later walked back.

Evenhaim, whose three children attended the school, said his decision to stop providing financial support — after 20 years — came after concluding the school would not recover. “They dug themselves a hole they didn’t know how to come out of,” he said. “They used to call me on Tuesday and ask for $200,000 by Friday because they needed to pay salaries. It happened a few times.”

Evenhaim said the loans eventually grew to $6 million.

On May 27, 2025, he decided he would no longer continue supporting the school. In a letter to the board, he wrote that when he first became involved, he did not expect to be the sole supporter but hoped others in the Jewish and Israeli American community would also contribute. “But it never happened,” he said. “We found ourselves almost alone in carrying the financial responsibility of keeping Kadima open.”

Months into the school year, concerns among staff grew. In interviews earlier this year, several teachers said that they had begun looking for new jobs.

“We don’t know if we’ll open next year or if we’ll even be able to finish the school year,” one teacher told eJP, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It’s very stressful. We have mortgages and bills to pay.”

The school tried to find a buyer to take on the bond in order to remain on the campus. After those efforts were unsuccessful, it sent an email to teachers and parents last week announcing the closure.

Evenhaim said that a year ago he had proposed selling the school to a slightly more religious Jewish institution, but the board rejected the offer, saying it did not align with Kadima’s educational approach.

Now, he said, at least two potential buyers are interested in the campus. “Had they accepted my suggestion back then, they wouldn’t be where they are today, but they simply waited too long,” Evenhaim said.

The developer and philanthropist, who is the founder and CEO of the L.A.-based Balaciano Group, said that two schools interested in acquiring Kadima have asked for his help, and that he plans to provide a one-time significant donation to support whichever one ultimately acquires the campus.

“I want to ensure there will still be a Jewish school there. I want to save Jewish education,” he said.

When asked why he did not continue supporting Kadima but chose to help the new schools interested in acquiring the campus, he pointed to what he described as a lack of financial viability. “When you continue supporting a failing business, it won’t succeed no matter how much money you invest in it,” he said. “Unfortunately, they brought the school to where it is today. The other schools interested in the purchase have more students, better resources and a strong track record. They won’t need to come to me each year for donations.”

Evenhaim also addressed rumors that he plans to reclaim the property for development, saying he has no such intention. “If I had wanted to do that, I would have done it back in 2004 when we purchased it,” he said. “I believe in Jewish education and want the place to continue functioning as a Jewish school.”

Kadima was first established in 1970 by Rabbi Eli Schochet. In its first year, the school had fewer than 10 students. Over the years, it grew and moved through several locations before settling in West Hills, where it is now located on the Evenhaim Family Campus.

In an effort to attract more students, Evenhaim had offered reduced tuition. But even the approximately $16,000 annual tuition was not enough to generate a significant increase in enrollment.

“People recently asked me if I regret giving so much money to the school,” Evenhaim said. “And it’s not only money — I’ve invested thousands of hours in the school. But I don’t regret it for a second. In the past 20-plus years, we have made an impact on so many Jewish students, and I truly hope this campus will continue serving the community as a Jewish school. It would be a shame if it doesn’t.”

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With summer approaching, Mandel pledges $60 million in 4-to-1 matching grant to Cleveland camps

Nira Dayanim — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 13:02:36 +0000

As the summer camp season approaches, the Cleveland-based Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Supporting Foundation has pledged up to $60 million to the city’s Jewish Community Center to overhaul its day and overnight camps and youth programming. The donation is structured as a 4-to-1 match: For every dollar that the community raises for the project, the Mandel Foundation will provide four.

Representing what the foundation said was the largest donation to an individual JCC, the gift will fund renovations at the Mandel JCC’s Camp Wise overnight camp, and expand the JCC’s main Beachwood campus to house all of its day camp programming.

“Investing in the Jewish camp experience is among the most effective things we can do to ensure Jewish continuity. This partnership creates an opportunity for children to discover that being Jewish is joyful, relevant, and theirs to own for life,” Jehuda Reinharz, president and CEO of the foundation, said in a statement.

According to the organization, the donation aims to address a 31% rise in families “seeking Jewish connection,” identified in a recent study of Cleveland’s Jewish population. The investment in summer camps is specifically geared toward engaging children who aren’t enrolled in Jewish day schools.

“By creating these world-class environments, we are ensuring our children build their most transformative summer memories and lifelong friendships right here in their own Cleveland Jewish community. This investment allows us to finally bridge the ‘belonging gap’ and build the future our community deserves,” Jesse Rosen, president and CEO of the Mandel JCC, said in a statement.

The donation is meant to expand Mandel JCC’s camping capacity to accommodate 1,300 campers each summer.

The Beachwood campus will be redeveloped to become a year-round Jewish Youth Hub, including a climate-controlled fieldhouse for sports, wellness and community use, along with a renovated theater and an upgraded aquatics center.

Camp Wise, an overnight camp built with support from Jewish philanthropist Samuel D. Wise in 1907, will be updated with new cabins with in-unit bathrooms, replacing the existing cabins from 1966. The donation will also fund a new dining hall, recreation center, arts center, and staff housing.

Construction will be scheduled around the summer camp seasons, with completion targeted for June 2028.

The summer camp donation marks the second major gift by the foundation to Cleveland Jewish life in recent years. Last January, the foundation pledged $90 million for the city’s Jewish day schools, also as a matching grant.

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What do looming changes to 990 Forms mean for nonprofits? Greater transparency and more red tape

Judah Ari Gross — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 12:49:28 +0000

Last week, the Treasury Department announced planned changes to IRS tax Form 990 in a move that could lead to better transparency in how nonprofits use funding and expose foreign interference in the nonprofit world.

But experts told eJewishPhilanthropy that the change would still allow funders to hide their donations and would add an additional layer of bureaucracy for all nonprofits.

“Public money and tax-exempt status demand public accountability,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the announcement. “We are ending the days of hiding fraud, abuse and extremist activity behind complicated nonprofit arrangements. When bad actors misuse charitable structures, directors and officers should understand that transparency can lead to scrutiny, accountability and liability under the law.”

Much of the change centers around “fiscal sponsorship,” in which nonprofits provide their tax-exempt status to outside projects —an increasingly common practice that is meant to improve the efficiency and speed of new initiatives. While it allows grassroots efforts get off the ground quickly with less bureaucracy, this method can also be used to obfuscate funding sources and governance structures, making it unclear who stands behind a fiscally sponsored project.

Fiscal sponsorships have drawn increased scrutiny by conservatives in recent years as they have grown more popular, particularly among liberal funders, such as the Tides Foundation, which is backed by philanthropist George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and supports a wide array of progressive causes, including the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

The new form would also require greater transparency about foreign donations —another area of increased concern in recent years, as non-U.S. funders, some of them tied to foreign governments, have been found to be funding a wide array of political activities in the States.

The 990 form change also comes as the White House is elsewhere cracking down on progressive groups, including filing fraud charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center for allegedly allocating donor funds improperly by using them to pay informants in far-right extremist groups.

The goal of the new 990 form is “to make the financial flows more transparent and to strengthen oversight,” Nancy Chun Feng, professor of accounting at the Sawyer Business School at Suffolk University, told eJP. “Especially for government grants and contracts, fiscal sponsorship arrangements and complex funding structures across entities.”

Feng interpreted the announcement as a “shift from entity-level reporting to network-level transparency,” looking at organizations’ nonprofit partners, many of which are not 501(c)(3) organizations.

But having more reporting requirements does not necessarily mean there will be a better understanding of how the funding is being used, she said. The revisions of the 990 form may also add complexity to the paperwork, which can cause confusion in how it is filled out by organizations and by the public that is reading it.

Additionally, a uniform form may not work equally well across all nonprofits, according to Feng. “Art institutes, journalism and advocacy organizations structure fiscal sponsorship differently, so a one-size-fits-all approach might not capture nuances across sectors,” she said.

For many overburdened nonprofits, the changes will add to a pile of paperwork, Rachel Sumekh, the CEO of TEN: Together Ending Need, told eJP.

“Many Jewish human service agencies receive large amounts of federal funding to support our community’s healthcare, senior services, disability services, etc.,” she said. “Increased reporting on what are already laborious requirements adds a huge burden. Government funding represents [much] of the funding that the over 170 Jewish human services agencies rely on, according to The Network [of Jewish Human Service Agencies. It is] the largest single source, which has already seen cuts from this administration. This means more staff time for reporting, rather than case management, for no extra dollars.”

The last time the 990 form was changed was in 2007, under the George W. Bush administration, adding disclosures on organizations’ governance structure and policies. The forms went into effect in 2008 and were used for the 2009 filing season.

Bessent’s reference to “fraud, abuse and extremist activity” in his statement about changes “made them sound much more ominous, perhaps, than the specifics might be,” Brian Mittendorf, the H.P. Wolfe Chair in accounting at the Fisher College of Business, told eJP.

There have been organizations, including the Nonprofit Open Data Collective, which includes ProPublica, the Aspen Institute, Charity Navigator, Arizona State University and Carleton University as partners, that have been pushing for the IRS to shift the 990 to be more accessible for the public, which will improve research into the work nonprofits do. But Mittendorf questioned whether “is it going to be a refined 990 that provides more information or is it going to be a refined 990 that’s really just for the sake of targeting a handful of organizations.”

There are legitimate concerns about the overuse of fiscal sponsorship, Mittendorf said, which causes the public to not know what money is being used for.

There is also a need for transparency with donor-advised funds, which also allow funders to hide their identities. This is not included in the current IRS change, however. There are also ways to improve 990s without much extra record keeping for nonprofits, “but that also doesnt necessarily sound like what theyre looking to get.”

While there is no definitive timeline for the rollout of the new Form 990, he said, typically a change to a form is first announced, followed by its release to the public for feedback.

When feedback is sought on the new form, “its a great opportunity to participate in this process,” Feng said. “If increased complexity leads to concerns about compliance costs for smaller nonprofits, this may be an appropriate time to raise those concerns.”

The IRS proposed regulations for donor-advised funds in 2023. The agency received feedback from the public and held a forum in Washington, but when President Donald Trump took office for the second time, the regulations never went into effect, Mittendorf said. A similar situation could arise with this new proposal, he said.

People will need to “wait and see” what this all actually means, Mittendorf said. “I think the intent will be much more clear when we see what it is theyre proposing and how quickly they do so.”

The public has a legitimate concern “about the interest of foreign actors in our country, particularly in areas related to elections and [voter] mobilization,” Basil Smikle Jr., professor of practice and director of the master’s in nonprofit management program in the School of Professional Studies at Columbia University, told eJP. These foreign actors could be involved throughout the nonprofit world without the public knowing.

“The hope is that this kind of transparency would also make it easier for the government and law enforcement agencies to see how extremist groups are funneling their resources through nonprofits to be able to engage in certain types of behavior or manipulate or mobilize individuals,” he said.

However, Smikle noted that “extremism” can be in the eye of the beholder, leaving ample room for interpretation for different administrations, which comes with its own potential risks.

“Should the government make determinations about what is extreme and what isnt?” Smikle said. “What kind of ideology is deemed, quote, safe versus which ones are deemed unsafe or unwelcome? What impact does that have on the work that a lot of well-meaning organizations might be doing?”

Smikle expects that there will be pushback against the changes, but that the administration will ultimately push them through.

This is part of “a broader conversation around the federalization of state-level policy,” Smikle said. Currently, each state’s attorney general has jurisdiction over a nonprofit’s status and is doing much of the work to weed out bad actors. “Theyre not breaking new ground here… It’s an opportunity for the federal government to have a greater vision into the work of nonprofits in this country.”

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A day of reckoning and renewal at the Rabbinate

Contributing Author — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 11:31:05 +0000

Yesterday, a group of extraordinary women stood at the gates of the Israeli religious establishment, not with hammers to break them down, but with the profound scholarship of years of intensive Torah study. They arrived at the Ministry of Religious Affairs to take the Chief Rabbinate’s exams — the same rigorous examinations that define the professional and spiritual standing of the Orthodox world. They were met not with the dignity their learning deserves, but with what appears to have been a calculated, four-hour campaign of bureaucratic cruelty and bald-faced deception.

As an Orthodox rabbi and the founder of Itim, I — together with our partners Koleinu and The Rackman Center — had sued the Rabbinate eight years ago to make this day possible. When Deputy Chief Justice Noam Sohlberg wrote his High Court ruling last July, we were certain this day would come. And yet all day, I found myself oscillating between a sense of historic triumph and deep, religious shame. What we witnessed today was not a defense of halacha; it was its desecration.

Yet, through the haze of institutional failure, I saw something today that no technical glitch could stop: the dawning of a new era for the Jewish People and its Torah.

The morning began with a compromise. Last week, we were informed that the women would be segregated from the thousands of men testing at Jerusalem’s International Convention Center. They were to take their exams separately at the Ministry of Religious Affairs. We at Itim chose not to fight this. Our priority was the mission itself — getting the exams in front of the candidates. We assumed, perhaps naively, that even an institution as resistant to change as the Rabbinate would not stoop to sabotaging the exams themselves. We believed there was a baseline of professional and religious integrity that would be maintained.

We were wrong.

For four hours, these women were essentially held in a state of administrative detention in a room at the ministry. They were told there was a technical glitch preventing them from receiving the exams. Unable to leave, as they would be forfeiting their chance to take the tests, they were left in agonizing limbo, their nerves frayed, while across town thousands of men proceeded with their tests without interruption.

At 11:15 a.m., 45 minutes after the exams were meant to begin, I called the Chief Rabbinate’s director of exams. I reached him at the International Convention Center, where he was overseeing the men’s exams. There was no technical glitch. He told me explicitly: The director-general of the Rabbinate had received direct instructions from the chief rabbis not to administer the exams to the women.

While I have no way to verify this, I believe that this was not a mistake. It was a premeditated breach of a High Court ruling. If that is the case, this was an act of institutional rebellion funded by the public purse. More importantly, it appears to have been a violation of the most basic Jewish values. To look these women in the eye and lie to them for four hours is not the way of the Torah. Midvar sheker tirchak — distance yourself from falsehood — is a fundamental commandment, yet the Rabbinate appears to have used deception as a policy tool.

When Itim realized the depth of this bad faith, we did the only thing we could: We went back to the court. We requested an emergency, temporary injunction to halt the men’s exams mid-sentence. We argued that the state cannot facilitate a massive professional certification process for one gender while actively blocking it for another in the same breath. If the women couldnt test, the system had to stop.

The courts response was swift, and it forced the Rabbinate’s hand. Justice Solberg intimated in his decision that there was a hard deadline. And five minutes before that clock ran out, the director of exams finally appeared at the ministry with the test papers. His excuse this time? He claimed the Rabbinate couldnt find a rabbi to supervise the room in the morning. It was a transparently weak attempt to mask a systemic refusal to obey the law.

In doing so, the Rabbinate proved that its opposition to the women’s examination is not based on a higher religious truth, but on a base desire for power and exclusion.

However, once the papers were finally distributed, the atmosphere transformed. The anger and frustration that had filled the room at the ministry began to evaporate, replaced by a fierce, silent focus. After a four-hour delay, the women took the exams, demonstrating a resilience that the Rabbinate’s leadership clearly lacks.

When the exams concluded, the exhaustion — the men finished at approximately 2 p.m., the women after 8 p.m. — was accompanied by satisfaction. There was a realization among the women that they had broken through a glass ceiling. As Ya’ara, one of the women, said to me, “I guess making history isn’t so easy.”

Today was an important milestone, but there is much work to be done. There are endless opportunities — religious, spiritual and economic that are all still in front of us. The momentum of history is on our side, but ensuring equality in Israel’s religious institutions will still demand years of work.

I anticipate that in the coming months and years, the number of women registered in advanced halacha programs in Israel will increase exponentially. For too long, brilliant women were deterred from these programs because there was no official recognition at the end of the road — no finish line recognized by the state. That barrier is gone.

In five years, we will look back at today’s drama at the ministry as a strange, desperate footnote. I believe that by then, we will see hundreds of women passing these tests. We will see a generation of female halachic leaders whose authority is grounded in the same rigorous testing process as their male counterparts. The fight we fought today in the court and at the ministry was for the women in that room, but it was also for the hundreds of women currently learning Torah across the country, and across the world, knowing now that their path is open.

We are at a crossroads. We can choose a path where the Torah is used as a tool for exclusion and deceit, or we can demand a Chief Rabbinate that reflects the integrity of the tradition that it claims to protect.

Today, the women showed us the path of scholarship and endurance. They proved that while you can delay the truth, you cannot defeat it. The Rabbinate learned a hard lesson today: the Torah belongs to all of us. It is not the private property of a few, and it cannot be held hostage by those who fear the very knowledge they are tasked to guard.

The struggle was difficult, and the deception was painful, but the result is undeniable. The doors are open. Now, let the Torah grow.

Rabbi Seth Farber is the founding director of Itim.

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The opposite of helplessness

Contributing Author — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 10:30:00 +0000

I am a congregant at Temple Israel, the synagogue in West Bloomfield, Mich., targeted in a terror attack last month. I was not at Temple Israel on March 12, and the story of what happened there that day is not mine to tell. Those stories are still being pieced together, understood by the people who lived them only in fragments at a time, even in their own hearts and minds. Telling the story together as one community is a thing we will do one day; that’s the Jewish way. We may not have accounts from every person who crossed the Red Sea or traversed the desert over the course of 40 years; we only know they did it as one, as a people, and here we are today, remembering their journey.

But I do want to tell a story, one story, of the days that have followed. It is about the opposite of helplessness.

Terrorism, at its core, is about power. Whether it’s a mass shooting, a targeted attack or violence against a single person, the intention is the same: to dominate, to control, to instill fear. However much we analyze or contextualize, at its most basic level, it is an attempt to exert power over others. The natural consequence of that kind of violence is a profound sense of helplessness.

In the days since March 12, I’ve watched how people everywhere respond to that feeling. For some, there is a pull toward reclaiming power: toward strength, certainty, control. This is understandable. I’ve spent years working with people recovering from trauma, and the desire to refuse disempowerment is deeply human. But what has become especially clear to me is this: power is not the opposite of helplessness. Sometimes, it is just another way of organizing ourselves around vulnerability. We suit up in armor as a reaction, not a resolution.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve listened to many, many stories from the people who were inside or just outside of Temple Israel on March 12. Staff, teachers, first responders, and parents whose children are slowly sharing their own details.

While the news cycle is captivated by the violence, by the narratives of power and powerlessness in these events, I am captivated by co-teachers who move through the world more like family than coworkers, and who see their students as their children. By parents who already trusted their children’s teachers, now reckoning with the reality of just how far that care extends. By the wider staff whose relationships, forged through countless small exchanges of mutual care, reveal how deeply a community can be held long before it is tested. The kind of love that is almost hard to believe, except that it is the only thing that makes sense of what happened. When people here speak about their fears and their grief, they also speak simultaneously about their love for and deep devotion to one another, the work they do and the children, families and congregation they serve. Before the attack, they cared for each other and the synagogue building itself in ways that were sometimes invisible, but their devotion was witnessed during and since the worst crisis they could imagine. When they tell me their stories, every single one is threaded with moments of care, connection, and trust. They often reject the word “hero,” not because it’s not true, but because they, most of all, know themselves first and foremost as simply human.

I’ve watched and listened as these deep bonds have only grown. People are sleepless, and they are bereft. They call each other. They gather, and they talk and they cry. They share a meal. The parents plan play dates, and the teachers bring their books, their musical instruments, their joy. They make dark jokes here and there, and they let the even darker thoughts and words they’ve held onto tumble out, while someone sitting nearby simply nods and says, Me too, or You are ok. They tell stories about the before times, too, and they remember who they have always been.

Birds don’t just build nests of sticks, though that’s what is most visible to the world. Sticks are what you think of when you picture a nest. Birds feather those nests, too. Feathers are made up of strands that are individually fragile but interlock in a way that makes a single feather incredibly strong. A feathered nest is more than comfortable; it is the basis for the kind of safety that is sustainable, adaptable to that which can’t be predicted.

I hesitated to tell any story about March 12 because my sacred work is to listen. I am moved to tell this story, though, because of how struck I am that the people most directly impacted by our community crisis are also mostly the people who have always been holding our community together. We speak of miracles that managed to keep the very worst possible tragedies from occurring, but we do not really illuminate the human bonds that were woven together to make that so before war even arrived at our door. Those people, their bonds, are the miracle of which we speak. This is why connection and community is actually the opposite of helplessness.

A terrorist, I’m sorry to say, can bust through walls, even those we build and rebuild. We may not have weak knees, but we are also human beings who are not meant to be invincible. We can, and we must, build nests with sticks like steel. But what we must also continue to do, with even more of ourselves than ever before, is to build relationships; to shine a light and celebrate the strength of a people bound to one another; and to know that where we find safety, and even power, once more, is necessarily going to be in everyday small acts of care and connection, like tiny, almost invisible feathers, that are collected over time.

I realize it sounds naive to claim that it wasn’t bulletproof glass or security planning that saved the day, but rather the bonds between people. Yet all of it matters. It would be equally naive to believe that resilience can be built from physical barriers alone.

We are still in the desert, still making meaning, still finding our way. And what I am seeing, again and again, is that no one needs to do it alone.

Erika Bocknek is a licensed marriage and family therapist.

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Hope can’t be just a feeling. It must be a strategy.

Contributing Author — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0000

There is a particular kind of hope I have been thinking about since Oct. 7, 2023 — and now again after Israel celebrated 78 years of independence. This “hope” is not naïveté that floats above reality, untethered to facts; nor is it the Israeli expression yihiyeh beseder — “everything will be OK” — that waits for circumstances to improve. The hope I am thinking of now is something far more proactive.

Psychologist C.R. Snyder defined hope not as an emotion but as a cognitive framework built on three elements: a clear sense of agency (the belief that our actions matter), clear goals that give direction to that agency and multiple pathways forward to achieve them. Hope, in this formulation, is not a feeling. It is a structure for action.

That distinction matters profoundly in this moment. Across Israel, displaced families have not yet returned home. Communities in the North are not yet fully secure. Daily life continues under the weight of war, with reservists and their families carrying an immense burden. On a global level, antisemitism has seeped into public spaces and private lives alike, undermining Jews’ sense of safety and belonging. And yet, amid this reality, the Jewish people are not retreating. They are organizing.

These dynamics are demonstrated through The Jewish Agency for Israel’s newly released “One People Report” — a truly global survey of the Jewish people, conducted by the Ipsos research institute using a representative sample of 1,428 people spanning 19 countries. Telling the story of our people in four chapters, the report reads like Snyder’s framework brought to life. What makes our survey distinctive is that it treats the Jewish People as one people, with shared concerns and possibly shared aspirations. While we acknowledge the distinct character of each community, we also articulate something that potentially transcends geography — a common sense of purpose and responsibility for the future we could be shaping together.

The first chapter is a difficult one. Our new reality has been redefined by threat. Sixty-nine percent of Jews worldwide name antisemitism as the central challenge facing their communities today and for 79% of Israelis, it tops the list too. These are not abstract concerns. Forty-three percent of European Jews personally encountered antisemitism in the past year. Only 22% of French Jews feel safe as Jews in their own country. And beyond antisemitism, 46% of Jews globally identify Israel’s international image as their second-greatest challenge, a number that reaches 54% in Israel itself. This is our reality, redefined. But the report doesn’t stop there — and neither can we.

The second chapter reveals where we draw our strength, and it is both simple and deep: from each other.

Fifty-six percent of Jews worldwide say it is important to be connected to the Jewish community around them, and 55% report that their community is a strong and supportive environment. These numbers are not merely comforting: they are strategic. The report reveals a striking correlation: Jews who feel more connected to Jewish life also feel significantly stronger and more secure. Among those who feel connected to their community, 51% report high personal security; among those who don’t, that number drops to just 25%. This means connection is not a comfort. It is a capacity. This is arevut hadadit — mutual responsibility.

Eighty-eight percent of respondents see Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. Eighty-five percent say the State of Israel is essential for Jewish flourishing. Eighty-two percent of Israelis agree that a strong global Jewish community is vital for Israel’s resilience. This means that the relationship is reciprocal, and both sides know it. These are not sentimental attachments. They are shared goals, the second essential element of hope.

The third chapter belongs to the next generation — and it is where genuine hope is revealed.

Seventy-four percent of young Jews ages 18-28 worldwide believe their actions can positively influence the future of their community. Sixty-seven percent of young Israelis believe the same about Israel’s future. Sixty-four percent of young Jews globally are optimistic about their community’s future — nearly double the rate of those over 60.

What makes this remarkable is not the optimism itself, but its source. These young people are not optimistic despite the challenges; they are optimistic because they feel the power to respond to them. That is agency. That is the first and most essential element of hope. And here, too, Snyder’s framework is instructive: Hope does not deny obstacles. It insists on confronting them with agency and strategy.

The fourth chapter reveals what happens when agency meets opportunity: an exceptional willingness to act. Seventy-seven percent of global Jewry and 88% of Israelis are ready to participate in at least one Jewish- or Israel-related initiative. Globally, 67% want to strengthen Jewish identity; 64% want to strengthen their local community; 59% want to deepen ties with Israel; 57% want to strengthen the State of Israel itself. In Israel, 76% are willing to support IDF reservists and 68% want to strengthen victims of war and terror.

The willingness is there. The goals seem clear. What’s needed are pathways.

This is precisely where The Jewish Agency’s strategic work begins. Our mandate is not to respond to a report. It is to build the infrastructure that turns the potential energy revealed in this data into real, sustained impact. We work across two overarching impact areas: strengthening Israel and fostering mutual responsibility among the Jewish people worldwide. These are not parallel tracks — they fuel each other. And we pursue both through multiple, concrete pathways.

We are rebuilding Israel’s North and South — physically, economically and socially — as collective Jewish endeavors. Border communities devastated by war deserve the investment of an entire people, and we have seen a surge of young Jews asking not how they can observe from afar, but how they can participate directly. We are strengthening Jewish identity and connection to Israel among young Jews worldwide, expanding pathways for real mifgash, genuine encounter, through the work of shlichim (Israeli emissaries) and supporting the field of Israel educational travel. An entire generation has come of age with limited firsthand experience of Israel, between the disruptions of COVID-19 pandemic and the security situation since Oct. 7. Our global network of shlichim — Israeli envoys serving in communities, in Hillel branches on campuses and in summer camps — creates the relationships and understanding that close this gap. We are also empowering young Israelis through their connection to the broader Jewish world, because the data confirms that this bond is protective for them and for all of us.

And we are building the resilience and security of Jewish communities everywhere not just through security protocols, but through the deeper infrastructure of belonging that the data shows makes communities stronger. Through initiatives like the JReady emergency preparedness platform, we are ensuring that Jewish communities are not alone—they are connected to each other and equipped to respond.

We connect in different ways, but we are one people.

The “One People Report” does something unusual for a survey: it treats Jews in Paris, New York, Buenos Aires and Jerusalem as part of one ongoing, diverse and deep story. These are not identical stories, as each community has its own character and its own challenges. Collectively, the stories reflect shared pains and shared aspirations for the future. That framing is itself a form of hope.

The Jewish people possess the ingredients Snyder describes: a shared sense of purpose, a growing belief in our own agency and an extraordinary willingness to act. Our task is to turn that potential into progress.

At this moment, that is not just a theory. It is a road map, and now is the time to act on it — together.

Shelley Kedar is the chief impact officer at The Jewish Agency for Israel.

The post Hope can’t be just a feeling. It must be a strategy. appeared first on eJewishPhilanthropy.

Your Daily Phil: AI-powered cyberattacks put nonprofits at risk

EJP — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 13:59:31 +0000

Good Monday morning!

In today’s edition ofYour Daily Phil, we examine the growing threat ofAI-powered cyberattacksagainst nonprofits and interview Aaron Institute’sZvi Ecksteinabout the state of theIsraeli economyahead of a two-day conference that he is hosting on the subject. We feature an opinion piece byRabbis Josh FeigelsonandBenjamin Rossdrawing attention to the toll of these contentious times on our clergy and a piece byDavid Bryfman,Rabbi Dena KleinandBethCousenspresenting steps for strategic unification of the field of Israel education. Also in this newsletter:Marc Rod,Carly RosensteinandNaftali BennettandYair Lapid.

Today’sYour Daily Philwas curated by eJP Managing Editor Judah Ari Gross, Opinion Editor Rachel Kohn and Israel Editor Justin Hayet. Have a tip?Email us here.

Follow us on Whatsapp Follow us on Telegram What Were Watching After a nearly four-hour delay, Israel’s Chief Rabbinate permitted three women to take a rabbinical exam today, in a historic first following a protracted legal battle.

The Jewish Women Entrepreneur Conference 2026 kicks off today in Newark, N.J., bringing together over 500 Jewish women for a day focused on business growth and leadership.

The Harold Grinspoon Foundation’s PJ Library is hosting its three-day international conference this week in Springfield, Mass.

The Israel Tech Week Conference kicks off today in Miami, featuring dozens of Israeli high-tech leaders and entrepreneurs.

The Israeli-American Council’s Celebrate Israel festival, featuring 27 events in cities across the U.S., which began last week, continues through May 3.

Tomorrow morning, Reichman University’s Aaron Institute for Economic Policy is hosting its annual conference in Herzliya,Israel. More on this below.

What You Should Know Computer processing power doubles every year and a half,but artificial intelligence accelerates 10 times faster, estimates Jared Kaplan, the CEO of Anthropic, whose latest AI model, Claude Mythos, is fueling grave safety concerns among tech and security experts. In limited release as a safety precaution, Claude Mythos has the potential to not only write code but hack into the world’s most secure programs. It has found weaknesses in every major operating system and browser on the market.

The innovation could be catastrophic for the philanthropic and nonprofit worldsif they don’t prepare, and the latest release is one of many reasons, including rising antisemitism and the recent war with Iran, that cybersecurity experts warn Jewish nonprofits and philanthropists to stay vigilant,reportseJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher.

“Generally speaking, cybercriminals are super innovative,super early adopters, and any technology that they can use in order to leverage crime and scale crime, they will use,” Menny Barzilay, chief technology officer of the Blavatnik Interdisciplinary Cyber Research Center at Tel Aviv University, told eJP.

When people think of protecting Jewish institutions,they envision security guards and cameras, but “in todays threat environment” cybersecurity “is no longer optional,” Steve Gonzalez, vice president of global security and safety at the Anti-Defamation League, told eJP.

Gonzalez, who worked at the FBI for 21 years,said that “Jewish organizations generally face threats across multiple domains — physical, digital and reputational — and were seeing the same hate and extremism that drives the physical security threats increasingly manifest themselves online.”

Between January and mid-April 2026,the Secure Community Network clocked 190 cyberattacks targeting synagogues and Jewish organizations across 16 states. The attacks come in many forms – website defacement, phishing, doxxing, fraud and data exposure – and are “no longer theoretical for the community,” Gonzalez said. Cyberattacks don’t receive the same attention as physical attacks do, and cybersecurity doesn’t receive the same funding, often getting dumped onto the IT department’s already heavy load.

Cyberattacks on Jewish institutionsaren’t simply about “financial gain, but also for information gathering or identifying potential targets within the community,” Michael Masters, the national director and CEO of SCN, told eJP. “The overlap between cyber-activity and physical targeting risk is increasingly evident.”

Read the full report here.

QA From wartime deficits to workforce integration: Aaron Institute’s Eckstein examines Israel’s economy Zvi Eckstein, head of the Aaron Institute for Economic Policy at Reichman University, speaks at the groups conference in 2022. Courtesy Historic highs in defense spending and the complex pressures of a strong shekel are testing Israel’s long-term financial health in ways not seen since the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, according to Zvi Eckstein, head of the Aaron Institute for Economic Policy at Reichman University and former Bank of Israel deputy governor. Ecksteinspoke witheJewishPhilanthropy’s Justin Hayetrecently ahead of his institute’s annual two-day conference, which kicks off tomorrow.

JH:Given the massive scale of the past-two plus years of war, what are the fiscal challenges posed by the conflict, and how do you see it impacting Israel’s national expenditures and economic stability moving forward?

ZE:We are facing huge expenditures from the war. Through 2023, 2024 and 2025, [Israel’s] spending was running around 8% of GDP, which requires the government to issue debt. The main challenge is the uncertainty of whether the war will continue across military fronts in Lebanon, Iran and Gaza. The question is how to balance the budget to maintain a high quality of life so people do not leave Israel. … The key is determining what economic reforms we can generate to have a higher growth and income rate to fund these expenditures and achieve stability in the medium and long run.

Read the full interview here.

Share SURVEY SAYS The fire outside is real. So is the burnout within. Photo from an Amen Center event in Los Angeles in January 2026. Rabbi Benjamin Ross “In December 2025, the Amen Center for Civic Spiritual Leadership and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality conducted a pulse survey of rabbis and cantors. Within days, 450 rabbis and 276 cantors responded. The speed and scale of that response said something before we even read the comments: a nerve had been touched,” write Rabbi Josh Feigelson and Rabbi Benjamin Ross, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.

Running on empty: “Nearly 1 in 4 respondents rated their well-being in the lowest range. Nearly 1 in 5 rabbis said they had no consistent sustaining practices at all. Many reported strong relationships with lay leaders but far weaker systems for leadership development, shared responsibility and durable support. … When leaders are depleted, institutions become brittle. Creativity narrows. Conflict intensifies. Fewer people step forward. More quietly wonder whether they can stay. Communities lose some of the last local places where trust, belonging and moral courage are still being formed.”

Read the full piece here.

Share SYSTEM UPDATE Reimagining Israel education: A new framework for a new world Educators on a professional development tour in Israel, March 2024. Courtesy/The Jewish Education Project “Today, there are myriad high-quality educational experiences for learners and professional development opportunities for educators. At the same time, the speed of generational change, including technological and social disruption, outpaced our planning and policy work. Today’s learners, and many of their educators, bring new perspectives and expectations that demand an evolution of Israel education,” write The Jewish Education Project’s David Bryfman, Rabbi Dena Klein and Beth Cousens in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.

Getting on the same page:“Educators bear the brunt of a field that lacks unified goals, strategies and resources and is filled with competing messages. They are afraid of making mistakes and of angering stakeholders. … Implementing a field-wide strategy and support systems is the only way to advance Israel education so it resonates with and is meaningful to today’s learners.”

Read the full piece here.

Share Worthy Reads Duck and Cover:InJewish Insider, Marc Rodoffersa first-person account of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting over the weekend. “Two thoughts ran through my head [when I started seeing other guests ducking under the tables and security officers drawing their guns]. The main one: I’m getting married in six days. I can’t die now. The second: I can’t believe this is happening to me again. (For those readers who are newer toJewish Insider— I wasalso on scenefor the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.) … I’m sure we were only on the floor for a few minutes. But with no idea of what was happening, beyond the developing clarity that we’d just heard shots ring out, it felt like an eternity. … When I finally made it home, I was, perhaps unwisely, scrolling X and saw a quickly proliferating set of conspiracy theories about the night, from both sides of the aisle… The Jewish community has become sadly familiar with politically motivated violence, having faced deadly attacks and attempted attacks across the country. But increasingly, it seems to be a society-wide problem — and one without a clear path back.”[JewishInsider]

The Way You Wear Your Hat:In his Substack “Israel from the Inside,” Daniel Gordispresentsthe detention of Alex Sinclair, who was taken into custody for wearing a kippah with a Palestinian and Israeli flag on it, as a chilling indicator of eroding Israeli civil liberties. “I myself believe that Sinclair and those like him — who still hold faith in peace with suicidal psychopaths — are living in a fantasy. Yet I have a soft spot for idealists, and a firm aversion to those who resort to violence… He has been wearing that kippah — with both flags — for twenty years. To many of us, the sight may be objectionable, even grating. But in the Israel of 2026, causing offense remains, as yet, no crime.When the police detain a man sitting quietly in a café simply because his clothing offends the eye of a passerby, they cease to be police and become an instrument of suppression.[IsraelfromtheInside]

Thank You, Mr. Sapiro:InThe Times of Israel, Menachem Rosensaftarguesthat Aaron Sapiro’s 1927 defamation lawsuit against Henry Ford — highlighted in a new documentary, “Sapiro v. Ford”—offers a vital lesson in using the law to dismantle platforms of hate, specificallyThe Dearborn Independent. “As I was watching ‘Sapiro v. Ford,’ it occurred to me that this newspaper’s disappearance from the scene deprived the Nazis and their American acolytes, such as Father Charles Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh, of a major media platform through which they would have been able to spread their antisemitic bigotry in the US in the 1930s. Also, Ford lost much of his luster and bravado after the trial. We can only speculate how vicious and, yes, effective he andTheDearborn Independentmight have been in support of the Nazis’ antisemitic agenda in the decade leading up to the outbreak of World War II but for Aaron Sapiro.”[TOI]

Funding Under Fire:InThe Chronicle of Philanthropy, Shannon McCracken, Woodrow Rosenbaum and Art Taylorarguethat while digital giving platforms require stronger accountability and data transparency, the sector must avoid cutting off billions in donations to nonprofits. Many of the concerns are legitimate, and addressing them is long overdue, but the sector must avoid overreach through sweeping restrictions and state-by-state regulations. Restricting that infrastructure would cut off a channel through which billions of dollars flow to nonprofits each year, including an estimated $2 to $3 billion in corporate matching funds. Some of those dollars may be recovered over time, but small and midsize community organizations will find it particularly difficult to recoup the loss. We owe it to the sector to do everything we can to make it easier — not harder — for people to find the causes they care about.[ChronicleofPhilanthropy]

Word on the Street New York City MayorZohran Mamdaniexercised his veto power for the first time since entering office on Friday to block a bill that would standardize NYPD policy around protests at educational institutions; the move drew staunch criticism from the local Jewish community,Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports…

Thrive CapitalfounderJoshua Kushnerannounced on Friday the launch ofThrive Eternal, a capital holding company that will acquire a minority, non-controlling stake in theSan Francisco Giantsas its first major partnership,Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss reports…

Israeli Consul General to New YorkOfir Akunishas been namedas a candidate for the next chair ofKeren Hayesod…

Jewish Newshighlightsthe dramatic rescue of London’sImmanuel Collegefrom imminent closure following a landmark £12 million ($16.3 million) community fundraising campaign and a change in leadership…

ComedianModi RosenfeldtellsThe New York Post’sPage Sixabout the messages he receives from closetedgay Orthodox Jews…

TheU.S. Embassy in Londonissueda security alert advising citizens in the United Kingdom to exercise increased caution due to recent threats targeting American and Jewish institutions…

The Chronicle of Philanthropycovershownonprofit leadersare rapidly shifting their use ofartificial intelligencefrom a clerical tool into a strategic thought partner for high-stakes decisions like theory-of-change modeling.

Nika Soon-Shiong, the publisher ofDrop Site Newswho is also the daughter ofLos Angeles TimesownerPatrick Soon-Shiong, is circulating conspiracy theories seeking to tie a California-based Jewish couple behind a major pistachio processor to the recent U.S.-Israeli military strikes in Iran,Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.

GlobesreportsMetais cutting 100 jobs in Israel as part of a global 10% workforce reduction to pivot resources toward massive AI infrastructure investments

Former Trump officialBrad Parscaleisleadinga multimillion-dollar Israeli campaign to shape how global AI platforms likeChatGPTandGeminiportray the country…

An11-year-old girlwho was critically wounded in anIranian cluster bomb attackon her home in Bnei Brak earlier this monthdiedof her injuries…

Matan Koch, a lawyer and disability rights leader who dedicated his life to reshaping national inclusion policy and Jewish communal life,diedon Friday…

DiplomatLionel Rosenblatt, whose experiences living in Haifa, Israel, as a child inspired him to join the U.S. Foreign Service and later lead Refugees International,diedon April 11 at 82…

Arnold Pazornik, an attorney who contributed to the early years of the U.S. space program,diedon Thursday at 94…

Cardiologist Eugene Braunwald, who as a child fled Nazi Europe and went on to reshape how modern medicine approaches heart attacks,diedon Wednesday at 96…

Major Gifts The Jewish Federations of North America awarded $5.3 million in grants to 34 organizations to expand person-centered, trauma-informed care for Holocaust survivors and vulnerable older adults…

Transitions Former Israeli Ambassador to the United KingdomTzipi Hotovelywasappointedas the head of Israel’sNational Public Diplomacy Directorate…

Microsoft, the parent company ofLinkedIn, has tappedDaniel Shapero, the professional networking site’s current chief operating officer, as its next CEO,Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports

Carly RosensteinjoinedBuilders of Jewish Educationas its chief impact officer…

Hilary Kriegerwashiredas the next executive editor of theJewish Telegraphic AgencyandNew York Jewish Week…

Pic of the Day Chaim Goldberg/Flash90 Former Israeli Prime Ministers Yair Lapid (right) and Naftali Bennett embrace yesterday after announcing that they will run in this year’s Knesset election under a joint party called “Together,” which will be led by Bennett, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.

Birthdays Mega/GC Images Co-founder of Casamigos Tequila and owner of restaurants, bars and lounges worldwide,Rande Gerberturns 64

Financial executive, he retired in 2014 as head of marketing for money manager Van Eck Global,Harvey Hirschturns 85 Nonprofit executive who has managed the 92nd Street Y, the Robin Hood Foundation, the ATT Foundation and Lincoln Center,Reynold Levyturns 81 Physician and a former NASA astronaut, she is a veteran of three shuttle flights with more than 686 hours in space,Ellen Louise Shulman Baker, M.D., M.P.H. turns 73 Director-general of the Israel Antiquities Authority until 2020, he was previously a member of Knesset and deputy director of the Shin Bet,Yisrael Hassonturns 71 Vice president at Covington Fabric Design,Donald Rifkin Biologist and professor of pathology and genetics at Stanford University School of Medicine, he won the 2006 Nobel Prize in medicine,Andrew Zachary Fireturns 67 Former member of the Knesset for the Shinui party,Yigal Yasinovturns 60 Showrunner, director, screenwriter and producer,Brian Koppelmanturns 60… CEO of ZAM Asset Management,Elliot Mayerhoff Founder and CEO of New York City-based Gotham Ghostwriters, he served as a senior advisor for Sen. Joseph Lieberman in his vice presidential and presidential campaigns,Daniel Gersteinturns 59 Israeli actor, entertainer and television host,Yitzhak Aki Avniturns 59 Attorney and journalist, she is a contributing editor atNewsweekand senior editor atSlate,Dahlia Lithwickturns 59 Author, political analyst and nationally syndicated op-ed columnist forThe Washington Post,Dana Milbankturns 58 U.S. senator (D-NJ) since 2013, he was previously the mayor of Newark,Cory Bookerturns 57 Israeli television and radio journalist and former member of the Knesset for the Jewish Home party,Yinon Magalturns 57 Professor of science writing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,Seth Mnookinturns 54 Cinematographer and director,Rachel Morrisonturns 48 Identical twin brothers, between the two of them they won 11 Israeli championships in the triathlon between 2001 and 2012,DanandRan Altermanboth turn 46 Israeli screenwriter and producer, she has written numerous advertisements and screenplays,Savion Einsteinturns 44 Vice president of AIPAC’s mid-Atlantic region,Leah Berry Television and film actress,Ariel Geltman Ari Graynorturns 43 Basketball coach, analyst and writer,Benjamin Falkturns 38 Senior creative director at Trilogy Interactive,Jessica Ruby Head of climate data at Watershed,Jonathan H. Glidden Research fellow at Emory University law school,David Jonathan Benger Entrepreneurial investor,Noah Swartzturns 33 Medical resident at UCLA Health,Amir Kashfi

The post Your Daily Phil: AI-powered cyberattacks put nonprofits at risk appeared first on eJewishPhilanthropy.

From wartime deficits to workforce integration: Aaron Institute’s Eckstein examines Israel’s economy

Justin Hayet — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 12:13:52 +0000

As Israel continues to maneuver through an era of profound regional — and internal — instability, the economy is emerging as the eighth front, a theater as critical to national survival as the seven military ones, according to Zvi Eckstein, head of the Aaron Institute for Economic Policy at Reichman University and former Bank of Israel deputy governor.

According to Eckstein, the nation’s long-term financial health is being tested in ways not seen since the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, pointing to historic highs in defense spending and the complex pressures of a strong shekel as primary stressors. With these forces defining the current moment, Eckstein warns that the country’s fiscal resilience has reached a pivotal threshold.

Eckstein argues that the shekel’s historic highs present a complex challenge. He explains that an excess supply of dollars, driven by a high-tech sector that accounts for 57% of exports, keeps the currency strong despite wartime pressures. However, Eckstein points out a stark contrast on the ground: While Israel ranks among the top 15 globally in nominal GDP, its citizens face a cost of living 30% higher than that of other average advanced nations.

Against this backdrop, the Aaron Institute is convening its annual conference on Tuesday — a two-day deep dive into the 2027 budget, the country’s cost-of-living crisis and the potential economic growth that the greater integration of Arab and Haredi Israelis into the workforce will yield for the economy. The conference will feature a prestigious roster of experts, including Nobel Laureates Daron Acemoglu and Joel Mokyr, as well as Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron.

Eckstein spoke with eJewishPhilanthropy ahead of the conference, offering a sober look at Israel’s wartime economy. Beyond the fiscal burden of war and the shifting demographic fears of a brain drain, he outlined the country’s historical economic rhythms and current-day forces that define this moment — and Israel’s economic future.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Justin Hayet: This is the Aaron Institute’s 11th annual conference, and while each year has its own “hot topics,” the current economic situation feels uniquely heightened by more than two years of war. Given the massive scale of these events, what are the fiscal challenges posed by the conflict, and how do you see it impacting Israel’s national expenditures and economic stability moving forward?

Zvi Eckstein: We are facing huge expenditures from the war. Through 2023, 2024 and 2025, [Israel’s] spending was running around 8% of GDP, which requires the government to issue debt. The main challenge is the uncertainty of whether the war will continue across military fronts in Lebanon, Iran and Gaza. This generates a demand for military action and costs that simply were not there before Oct. 7, [2023]. The question is how to balance the budget to maintain a high quality of life so people do not leave Israel.

We built a macro model based on the necessity of military expenditure being higher than the pre-Oct. 7 rate of 4.5%. During the war, these expenditures doubled, generating a huge debt. Another challenge is funding the expenditures needed to renew stocks of ammunition and interceptors to prepare for the next round with Iran and to renew army units. We need a larger army expenditure over the next several years. The key is determining what economic reforms we can generate to have a higher growth and income rate to fund these expenditures and achieve stability in the medium and long run.

JH: While we hear about acquisitions in the startup arena, we also hear about some of Israel’s smartest minds leaving in a brain drain. What is the current situation regarding demographics and this trend?

ZE: If you look at the stock market, [Israelis] are optimistic; if you compare the value of stocks to profits, Israeli stocks are expensive. However, there is the topic of [the] “brain drain.” Middle-aged professionals — doctors and high-tech workers — see the danger through the war and have high opportunities in many other countries. Usually, there is a movement of Israelis going abroad and then coming back. Before 2023, more people were coming back than leaving. Since 2023, the number of Israelis who left versus those coming back has switched from a positive to a negative. It went from positive 20,000 people to negative 40,000 people. This net effect has changed, and it is worrisome.

JH: The shekel is at historic highs. How do the currency and high-tech sector impact the economy?

ZE: As a child, the big problem was that the currency was always depreciating, but since 2004, the high-tech sector has driven a massive growth period. Today, 95% of the sector is export-based and highly competitive, drawing Israel’s top talent.

High-tech now accounts for 57% of total exports and 20% of the GDP — higher than any other country, including the U.S. Because the industry is so profitable, production continues even as the shekel strengthens. This sector flourished during COVID and throughout the war; even with many workers in the reserves, production has increased due to AI. Since our exports exceed our imports, there is an excess supply of dollars, which strengthens the shekel. We predict the shekel could [stay at 3 or go] lower in the near future, though if the SP 500 jumps, Israelis may move money there, causing the shekel to weaken.

JH: Your institute prides itself on non-political and data-driven proposals with the potential to unleash economic growth for Israel. What are the proposed reforms for economic stability and the cost of living that you will announce at the conference?

ZE: We must enhance employment for Arab men and women by improving education and Hebrew-language proficiency. We estimate this would increase the growth rate by an additional 0.4%, based on Israel’s GDP of NIS 2 trillion ($670 billion).

Second, we must address the cost of living. While Israel ranks between 10-15 in GDP among OECD nations, our cost of living is 30% higher than the average of advanced countries. This is a result of bureaucracy and bad planning, particularly in agriculture. We are the only country that subsidizes farmers by price rather than production volume. While Israelis admire farmers, we must find ways to support them without maintaining these market failures. Our final conference session will focus on these main sources of the cost of living, specifically food and housing, to improve the national quality of life.

The path forward depends on the integration of the two sub-populations most critical to our economic and social value: the Arab and ultra-Orthodox communities. We are already seeing a shift toward better integration; interestingly, we have also noted a reduction in interest from donors in supporting ultra-Orthodox causes. If the next government shifts even a modest amount of resources toward workforce integration — with a specific focus on high-tech, AI, transportation and housing — we could see Israel’s growth rate reach 3.5-4%. While this will not solve the underlying political issues, it will return Israel to a much higher quality of civilian life.

JH: There is often a lot of noise regarding the statements and work of ministers and political appointees, yet your think tank focuses its work at the professional level. What is the role of civil servants in government fiscal and economic policy?

ZE: Our institute is the most focused, high-quality economic program in the country in terms of actually influencing the professional economists within the government.

We are serious and non-populist. The professionals in the government are not populists either; in fact, the most successful reforms in Israel’s history occurred because professionals convinced politicians to adopt new policies.

The history of Israel shows that even major economic policies attributed to leaders like [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu were actually created by professionals. Perhaps the only major reform driven by politicians was stopping the 1985 inflation crisis — and even then, it was George Shultz, a professor of economics, alongside Stanley Fischer and Herb Stein, who provided the road map to save the economy.

The rules of the game have changed on three major occasions: the 1985 hyperinflation, the loan guarantees for immigrants in the early ’90s, and the post-Second Intifada period, when the U.S. required Israel to lower expenditures in exchange for debt guarantees. Throughout these shifts, the U.S. has remained economically supportive, but the successful execution of policy always comes back to the influence of Israeli [governmental] professionals.

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Security experts warn philanthropic, Jewish worlds at risk as AI supercharges cyber attacks

Jay Deitcher — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 12:06:33 +0000

Computer processing power doubles every year and a half, but artificial intelligence accelerates 10 times faster, estimates Jared Kaplan, the CEO of Anthropic, whose latest AI model, Claude Mythos, is fueling grave safety concerns among tech and security experts. In limited release as a safety precaution, Claude Mythos has the potential to not only write code but hack into the world’s most secure programs. It has found weaknesses in every major operating system and browser on the market.

The innovation could be catastrophic for the philanthropic and nonprofit worlds if they don’t prepare, and the latest release is one of many reasons, including rising antisemitism and the recent war with Iran, that cybersecurity experts warn Jewish nonprofits and philanthropists to stay vigilant.

“Generally speaking, cybercriminals are super innovative, super early adopters, and any technology that they can use in order to leverage crime and scale crime, they will use,” Menny Barzilay, chief technology officer of the Blavatnik Interdisciplinary Cyber Research Center at Tel Aviv University, told eJewishPhilanthropy.

When people think of protecting Jewish institutions, they envision security guards and cameras, but “in todays threat environment” cybersecurity “is no longer optional,” Steve Gonzalez, vice president of global security and safety at the Anti-Defamation League, told eJP.

Gonzalez, who worked at the FBI for 21 years, said that “Jewish organizations generally face threats across multiple domains — physical, digital and reputational — and were seeing the same hate and extremism that drives the physical security threats increasingly manifest themselves online.”

Between January and mid-April 2026, the Secure Community Network clocked 190 cyberattacks targeting synagogues and Jewish organizations across 16 states. The attacks come in many forms – website defacement, phishing, doxxing, fraud and data exposure – and are “no longer theoretical for the community,” Gonzalez said. Cyberattacks don’t receive the same attention as physical attacks do, and cybersecurity doesn’t receive the same funding, often getting dumped onto the IT department’s already heavy load.

Cyberattacks on Jewish institutions aren’t simply about “financial gain, but also for information gathering or identifying potential targets within the community,” Michael Masters, the national director and CEO of SCN, told eJP. “The overlap between cyber-activity and physical targeting risk is increasingly evident.”

This has all been exacerbated by the war with Iran, a country that has invested heavily in his ability to carry out digital attacks, which the Department of Homeland Security warned would carry out “low-level cyberattacks against U.S. networks.”

“Jewish organizations are affected by general cybercrime, just like any other sector, but theyre also uniquely targeted due to the antisemitism and geopolitical factors,” Gonzalez said. “Our adversaries adapt constantly, and so must we.”

In mid-March, as the war with Iran was raging, Jewish news site Yeshiva World News was hacked, although the attack hasn’t been confirmed to have originated in Iran. “Now we are in control,” was posted on its homepage, written in Farsi, along with an image of ayatollahs Ruhollah Khamenei and Ali Khamenei, as well as Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader of Iran.

“One of the biggest misconceptions is that smaller institutions believe that they wont be targeted because theyre small or theyre too small,” Gonzalez said. “Unfortunately, cybercriminals and bad actors often look for the path of least resistance, and they target organizations that may have fewer protections, less training or older systems.”

One easy way to improve security, experts say, is to ensure that the organizations’ systems use two-step verification to log in or access information. Additionally, organizations should update older software, which is more vulnerable to viruses and doesn’t have the latest safety features in place, advises Mitchell Silber, CEO of the Community Security Initiative, which does cybersecurity assessments for Jewish organizations.

When introducing an AI program into a workplace, Silber said, organizations should implement it in a controlled environment with a limited number of people involved so its impact and holes can be monitored closely. Organizations should set boundaries protecting AI from accessing sensitive information, especially about donors.

Staff need to be trained to recognize and report phishing, which “everyone faces all the time,” Brandon Lindsay, the director of information security and data protection for HIAS, told eJP. Everyone has been phished, the term for those pesky emails or texts asking for recipients to download files or log in to seemingly legitimate-looking sites as a way to steal credentials or gain access to an organization’s system.

Because of AI, hackers use autonomous programs to harvest specific details to make phishing scams seem that much more genuine. Emails will know tiny details about investors’ interests and even impersonate the writing of CEOs.

Hackers can even steal speech, recreating the voice of employees and CEOs to contact donors and ask for money, which will then be transferred to hackers’ bank accounts.

A prominent example of voice cloning occurred in 2024 when a Baltimore high school principal was falsely alleged to have made bigoted comments about Black students and Jewish parents. The deepfake was so convincing that the principal was removed from his position, but it turned out that the phone call was a hoax — created by the school’s disgruntled former athletic director. Voice cloning programs are so easy that almost anyone can use them, Barzilay said.

To combat voice cloning schemes, nonprofits should ensure that donors expect to receive more than one method of communication when money is being transferred — for instance, getting a phone call, plus a code sent via email to verify identity or a WhatsApp message plus a phone call, Barzilay said.

“Its very hard for a hacker to take control over [multiple] communication channels,” he said. “Usually they will hack your emails, but they will not hack your phones, or they hack your phone, but they will not hack your computer.”

Often, fraudsters will ask donors to send money to bank accounts that look similar to the one the organization has – only a digit or two off, according to Masters. To protect donors, Barzilay, who has co-founded multiple companies, tells donors to always expect the same, correct bank account prominently displayed on every contact. If the account numbers ever change, donors will be told via an email plus phone call or chat, plus another form of verification.

Many security grants, Silber said, including those from the Department of Homeland Security’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program, can be used for cybersecurity if digital vulnerability is mentioned in the assessment.

“The AI risks, frankly, are actually one of a myriad of risks that any organization today faces, anything from insider risk to third-party risk,” Chaim Yudkowsky, who served as chief information officer for American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) for 21 years, told eJP.

At HIAS, Lindsay is part of a larger protection unit made up of the physical and cybersecurity teams and communication staff. “Were dorks, and we call it shield,” he said. The three departments’ work can overlap, such as with securing digital keys used to access buildings or being prepared to combat misinformation campaigns, which can quickly turn physical.

Lindsay uses AI tools to “think like the attacker,” he said. He has run Microsoft Copilot and other programs to scan HIAS’ systems to find security holes, which he then patches. He’s excited to test out Claude Mythos when it receives wider release.

During the Holocaust, the Nazis collected data “to round up Jews and other people they found undesirable,” Lindsay said. HIAS supports today’s displaced people, refugees and asylum seekers. “Best security for them, digitally, physically, with their privacy and data. It heals them as much as it heals me.”

The post Security experts warn philanthropic, Jewish worlds at risk as AI supercharges cyber attacks appeared first on eJewishPhilanthropy.

Reimagining Israel education: A new framework for a new world

Contributing Author — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 10:00:00 +0000

In recent decades, many committed leaders built and advanced the field of Israel education in tremendously positive ways. Today, there are myriad high-quality educational experiences for learners and professional development opportunities for educators.

At the same time, the speed of generational change, including technological and social disruption, outpaced our planning and policy work. Today’s learners, and many of their educators, bring new perspectives and expectations that demand an evolution of Israel education. Amid heightened tensions and divisions in the American Jewish community, rising antisemitism and an extended period of war, the question is how we move forward educating young North American Jews about Israel and supporting the educators who do this vital work.

Over the past 18 months, at the request of the Jim Joseph Foundation and Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, The Jewish Education Project coordinated research and dozens of in-person and online meetings across the U.S. and in Israel seeking answers to these questions. We engaged more than 400 stakeholders, collecting grassroots input and working with leading practitioners, to reimagine Israel education for a new era. In particular, two advisory committees, comprised of 25 experts and organizational leaders representing day schools, camps, college campuses, academic institutions and other entities, were critical in amplifying current effective practices and thinking together about how to make them even more relevant and resonant. We had leading educators in the field conduct comprehensive literature and curriculum reviews, and nine practitioners served as fellows to develop new, research-based theories of Israel education.

The result of these efforts is Reimagining Israel Education, which provides the field of Jewish education with data-driven conclusions about challenges and opportunities, recommendations for change and a strategic framework for growth and impact. New educational principles rooted in this framework will cultivate in learners a powerful, resilient and enduring connection to Israel.

From our research and meetings, we know that many talented educators want to deliver excellent, meaningful Israel education. We need to fully leverage this existing talent and the many assets in the field today. Too often, educators say they feel confused, overwhelmed and anxious. To be clear, this is not their failing; it is ours. Educators bear the brunt of a field that lacks unified goals, strategies and resources and is filled with competing messages. They are afraid of making mistakes and of angering stakeholders.

While we cannot capture here all that Reimagining encompasses, there are a few key points that we want to elevate with leaders, educators, funders, researchers and others:

First, Israel education should have a clear and connected strategy from the very first time a learner encounters an educator. That’s why the framework will foster learners’ deep, critical and resilient connections to Israel throughout their lifetimes.

When a 5-year-old learns about Israel, that is the starting point for a coherent Israel educational journey that progresses as they age. A Hillel educator should know what a college student has already experienced and learned about at a camp or day school, in a teen youth group or on an organized Israel trip. Educational standards within the framework — what students experience, conversations they have and content they engage with — will start early and continue throughout the childs life with a full and intentional arc of learning. Educators in different settings will offer learning experiences that share a common language and that build on each other.

Second, following in the footsteps of The iCenter, we believe that good Israel education is good Jewish education, and good Jewish education is good education. This means pedagogy that treats children and teens with respect, presenting different narratives and viewpoints about the country and its many diverse peoples. We must trust learners with this complexity. They need space to hold multiple truths and to understand there can be multiple “right answers.” Good Israel education welcomes curiosity and critique and creates space for respectful disagreement.

Specifically, education does not exist to clone younger generations into mirror images of their elders. Education should support learners to wrestle, wonder, question and build. It prepares learners to advance content for the world they will inherit — a world that is fundamentally different from our world today.

Third, the best Israel education engages the whole human being: head (cognitive, knowing), heart (affective, feeling) and hands (behavioral, doing). If we miss any of these, Israel education as a project collapses. Learners must have ample opportunity as they grow up to deepen, shift, iterate and mature their relationships with Israel. At different ages, in different ways, they can explore material using their heads through questions, study and conversation, and then experience it through song, art or prayer. Being in Israel and being with Israelis, learning firsthand and through experience, matters to ongoing engagement and ultimate ownership. Learners are rarely a blank slate. They arrive with identities, values, social media feeds, moral instincts and lived experiences. We don’t want educators to try to erase those; we want educators to engage them honestly and responsibly.

And fourth, Israel’s 3,000 years of history cannot be an “add-on” to Jewish education. If Israel is integral to Jewish life, it must be integrated throughout Jewish educational experiences. And integrating Israel throughout Jewish education demands — appropriately — that we teach our full history, Israel throughout 3,000 years. This includes reclaiming the variety of Zionisms in all their diversity, not as a slogan or a shibboleth, but as the national aspiration of the Jewish people, alive, evolving and deeply human. When we teach only about the modern state, we fail our mission. When learners understand Israel in its full past and future potential, they understand their tradition and themselves more fully. “Israel” is already woven into our tradition, in our prayer language, our sacred texts, our cultural artifacts and more. Exploration of Israel should and can be elevated in all of those experiences.

It’s clear to us that educators want this evolution, that learners will benefit from it and that our community will become stronger as a result (join a webinar to learn more about Reimagining on May 19 or June 3). We are enthusiastic about the early momentum to ensure that this framework catalyzes more professional development opportunities and educational resources for Jewish educators.

Implementing a field-wide strategy and support systems is the only way to advance Israel education so it resonates with and is meaningful to today’s learners. We are grateful to everyone who helped make this project possible and brought us to this point. Let’s reimagine and write this critical next chapter together.

David Bryfman is the CEO of The Jewish Education Project.

Rabbi Dena Klein is the chief Jewish education officer of The Jewish Education Project.

Beth Cousens, principal of Beth Cousens Consulting, served as the lead consultant on the initiative.

The post Reimagining Israel education: A new framework for a new world appeared first on eJewishPhilanthropy.

The fire outside is real. So is the burnout within.

Contributing Author — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 17:00:00 +0000

In the last few months, both of us stood beside our sons as they became b’nai mitzvah. Like many parents, we felt joy, pride and gratitude; but we also heard something in their bar mitzvah speeches that felt larger than our personal family celebrations.

Liberation is never a solo act. In the biblical story of the Exodus, for instance, Moses matters enormously — but alone, he is not enough. He needs Aaron. He needs Miriam. He needs a people willing to move together through fear toward responsibility. The Exodus story does not glorify the lone hero. It insists on shared leadership.

That ancient lesson speaks directly to this political moment.

America is living through a crisis of trust. Public trust in government remains near historic lows, and trust in one another has also weakened. At the same time, loneliness and social isolation have become so widespread that the U.S. Surgeon General has called them an epidemic. Democratic norms are under visible strain, while fear and polarization increasingly shape how Americans relate to institutions, neighbors and even reality itself.

In a moment like this, congregations matter.

Not because they are perfect. Not because everyone belongs to one.

They matter because they remain among the few places in American life where people still practice the habits a democracy depends on: showing up, arguing without disappearing, grieving together, taking responsibility for others and learning that freedom requires obligation.

But here is the problem: We are asking congregations to be anchors in a storm while allowing the people who lead them to burn out.

That is not only a religious problem. It is a civic one.

In December 2025, the Amen Center for Civic Spiritual Leadership and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality conducted a pulse survey of rabbis and cantors. Within days, 450 rabbis and 276 cantors responded. The speed and scale of that response said something before we even read the comments: a nerve had been touched.

The message was not that clergy have lost faith in their work. Quite the opposite. Again and again, respondents told us their work remains deeply meaningful. But meaning is not enough to make leadership durable.

Nearly 1 in 4 respondents rated their well-being in the lowest range. Nearly 1 in 5 rabbis said they had no consistent sustaining practices at all. Many reported strong relationships with lay leaders but far weaker systems for leadership development, shared responsibility and durable support. Roughly 70% of cantors reported spending less than 20% of their time on music-specific work, a striking sign of how outdated many assumptions about clergy roles have become.

The point is larger than clergy wellness. It’s about the health and wellness of our congregations, which are microcosms of our communities.

Jewish communities face an added burden. At a time of elevated antisemitism, many congregations are carrying not only spiritual weight but security fears, threatening our safety and undermining the hope of finding a true sanctuary of peace.

When leaders are depleted, institutions become brittle. Creativity narrows. Conflict intensifies. Fewer people step forward. More quietly wonder whether they can stay. Communities lose some of the last local places where trust, belonging and moral courage are still being formed.

We suspect this problem reaches beyond the Jewish world. In conversations with Christian, Muslim and other faith leaders, we are hearing many of the same concerns: burnout, isolation, overdependence on clergy and underbuilt leadership systems. We do not yet have parallel cross-faith data at the same scale, so we should be careful, but all signs suggest that what is happening to rabbis and cantors is part of a wider crisis in American religious leadership and American religious communities.

That should concern even people who never enter a synagogue, church or mosque.

In periods of democratic erosion, the fantasy of the strongman grows more seductive. People start longing for someone else to fix it, carry it or save them. Healthy congregations teach the opposite lesson. They teach that no one gets free alone. They teach that responsibility can be shared, leadership can be cultivated and communal well-being is a team sport.

What should we do?

First, stop treating burnout as a private failure. It is not mainly a matter of clergy needing better self-care. It is a design failure in the systems around them.

Second, build real, repeatable support: peer cohorts, coaching, spiritual direction, Sabbath-protecting norms and rhythms of work that actual human beings can sustain.

Third, invest far more seriously in volunteer leadership. Not token volunteerism. Real shared leadership: clearer roles, better training, stronger lay-clergy partnership and systems that identify, develop and rotate leaders so communities are not built around chronic overdependence on a few exhausted people.

This is not mushy work. It is democratic infrastructure.

If we keep starving the leaders and institutions still teaching Americans how to carry one another, we should not be surprised when loneliness deepens, trust erodes further and public life grows even harsher.

If we want communities capable of resisting fear and rebuilding trust, we must stop treating the sustainability of our leaders as optional. The fire outside is real. So is the burnout within.

Rabbi Josh Feigelson is the president and CEO of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.

Rabbi Benjamin Ross is the founder and executive director of the Amen Center for Civic and Spiritual Leadership, and serves on the board of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.

The post The fire outside is real. So is the burnout within. appeared first on eJewishPhilanthropy.

Your Daily Phil: Keep calm and carry on? Q&A with former CEO of Britain’s Jewish Leadership Council

EJP — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 14:39:00 +0000

Good Friday morning!

n today’s edition ofYour Daily Phil, we interview veteran British Jewish communal professionalSimon Johnsonabout how the community is coping with the recent violent antisemitic attacks and mounting structural costs to protect local institutions.We profileAmy Spitalnick, head of theJewish Council for Public Affairs, and report on new bipartisan legislation in Congress aiming to protect people from harassment and intimidation at places of worship. We feature an opinion piece byAvrum Lapinhighlighting trends in the world of Jewish philanthropy,Russel Neissresponds to Harley Lippman’s recent op-ed urging Jewish investment in guiding the trajectory of AI andAlex Pomsonshares early insights from theJim Joseph Foundation’s Growing Educators and Leaders Study. Also in this issue:Alex Sinclair,Bill AckmanandMatthew Halpern.

Shabbat Shalom!

Today’s Your Daily Phil was curated by eJP Opinion Editor Rachel Kohn and Israel Editor Justin Hayet. Have a tip? Email us here.

Follow us on Whatsapp Follow us on Telegram What Were Watching President Donald Trump announced a three-week extension of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon yesterday — still acknowledging Israel’s right to act in its own defense if attacked — after a White House meeting between the ambassadors from the two countries.

The Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta is hosting Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, who during the Biden administration served as the State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, and Holocaust educator Brendan Murphy, the founder of the Bearing Witness Institute, for a public conversation on “Antisemitism in America Today – Reality, Risk, and Response” on Sunday.

What You Should Know A series of targeted attacksagainst Jewish institutions in the U.K. is “chipping away” at the community’s sense of safety, Simon Johnson, former CEO of the Jewish Leadership Council from 2013 to 2020,toldeJewishPhilanthropy’sJustin Hayeton Thursday.

In a wide-ranging interview,Johnson, who is currently a trustee of The Bloom Foundation and chair of Camp Simcha U.K. and splits his time between London and Israel since makingaliyahlast year, discussed the escalating physical and psychological toll of these attacks, the structural costs of protection and the long-term impact on the sustainability of British Jewish life.

Justin Hayet:The recent uptick of attacks in the United Kingdom against Jewish institutions has sent shockwaves through the community. How has the sense of safety changed for British Jews?

Simon Johnson:The veneer of security is being stripped away. For lots of people, even at the height of antisemitic attacks, even in the areas where the Jews live, there was broadly a tense, but steady, stable level of security. People thought, provided they stayed within the community, there would be a relative level of safety and security. It has chipped away a feeling that we will be OK if we stay in our area. That has shocked people. It caused them to question how secure they really are.

JH:In response to recent events,many are calling for increased security at Jewish institutions across the U.K. Is that the right solution, or are we missing a deeper issue?

SJ:The response of the government is always to say that we will increase the police presence, better security and build more walls, and that is probably the correct assessment. But as Lord David Wolfson of Tredegar said in the House of Lords: “But so far as the governments response is concerned, while we are always grateful for support for the Community Security Trust, the debate about Jewish security needs to move away from being about higher walls around our synagogues and more guards outside our schools and on to the root causes of why we need such security?”

The answer to this problem is not merely more guards, higher fencing, steel-reinforced, or bomb-proof glass. This is addressing the symptoms of the problem. What the Jewish community cannot do alone, and the government has to, is they have to address the causes. To stop enabling visible anti-Jewish racism in the public arena. Stop making it possible.

Read the full interview here.

SPITALNICK SPOTLIGHT Freed from federation constraints, Spitalnick expands JCPA, aims to align with U.S. Jews progressive views Amy Spitalnick. Courtesy/JCPA After Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) hosted a livestream about rising antisemitism with Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of Manhattan’s Park Avenue Synagogue called the event “the most refreshing 30 minutes of YouTube I’ve ever experienced.” But two-and-a-half years into Spitalnicks tenure, while JCPA has reorganized and grown substantially, there has also been some contention,Jay Deitcher reports foreJewishPhilanthropy.

Trusting the community:Some on the left have criticized Spitalnick’s liberal Zionist stances, while critics on the right — including her immediate predecessor, in an interview with eJP — feel that her progressive politics pigeonhole the Jewish community and that her organization is spending resources on cultivating relationships with individuals and groups who are not allies of the Jewish community. “All of the poll data tells us the majority of the Jewish community is holding this complexity, is rejecting the binary approach to fighting antisemitism and protecting democracy that has shaped so much of the public conversation,” Spitalnick said.

Read the full report here.

Share SACRED SPACES Tom Suozzi introduces federal buffer zone bill protecting houses of worship Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) speaks with members of the media outside the U.S. Capitol on December 17, 2025 in Washington, DC. Heather Diehl/Getty Images Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) and Max Miller (R-OH) introduced the SACRED Act, a bipartisan bill establishing a 100-foot buffer zone around religious institutions to protect attendees from harassment and intimidation. Modeled after the FACE Act, the legislation criminalizes the obstruction of access and targeted threats while maintaining protections for peaceful, non-disruptive picketing,Marc Rod reports foreJewishPhilanthropy’ssister publicationJewish Insider.

Drawing the line:The bill, which applies within 100 feet of a religious institution, would create criminal and civil penalties for individuals who attempt to intimidate or obstruct someone in a manner that causes reasonable fear for physical safety to prevent them from entering or exiting a place of worship. It also applies — within that 100-foot zone — to individuals who intentionally approach within eight feet of a person seeking to exercise their freedom to worship, for the purpose of intimidating or harassing them.

Read the full report hereandsign up forJewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.

Share PHILANTHROPY TRENDS The more things change FANDSrabutan/Getty Images “We hear so often that giving is undergoing profound transformation, shaped by economic pressures, generational shifts, technological innovation and evolving donor expectations,” writes Avrum Lapin, president of fundraising and management consulting firm The Lapin Group, LLC,in an opinion piece foreJewishPhilanthropy.“A knowledge of emerging trends along with proven ‘best practices’ is essential for nonprofit leaders seeking to advance growth-oriented, high-impact fundraising programs going forward.”

For example:“One of the defining trends in major gift philanthropy is the continued environmental shift toward ‘fewer donors, more dollars.’ Overall, giving remains resilient, but growth is increasingly driven by larger gifts rather than broad-based participation. … This concentration of giving means that to grow, nonprofits must invest more heavily in identifying, cultivating and stewarding high-capacity donors. It widens the gap between large, well-resourced institutions and smaller organizations struggling to access major donors. As I have noted and stressed over the past decade, both in previous op-eds ineJewishPhilanthropyand with our clients, future success will increasingly depend on intentional major gift strategies, robust prospect research and use of data, integrated into long-term relationship building.”

Read the full piece here.

Share READER RESPONDS This isnt a revolution. Its a rerun. Natalya Kosarevich/Getty Images “I read Harley Lippman’s‘Jewish philanthropy can’t miss the AI revolution’(April 20) with a sense of déjà vu born of more than a dozen years of writing the same piece every time the Jewish world meets a new shiny thing,” writes Jewish educator and technologist Russel Neissin an opinion piece foreJewishPhilanthropy.“If we rush into AI as if it were a magic wand, we will repeat the same mistakes of pouring money into platforms while starving the people who actually sustain Jewish life.”

Misplaced focus:“Lippman suggests that this time might be different if our response involves funding chairs in AI ethics, convening technologists and rabbis, and bringing Jewish voices to emerging policy debates. These are serious proposals, but they are also familiar ones. They prioritize visibility, prestige, and influence at the highest levels while remaining largely disconnected from the institutions where Jewish life is actually taught, practiced, and sustained. Without a far deeper investment in those institutions and the people who lead them, such efforts risk becoming another layer of well-intentioned infrastructure with little capacity to translate into lived experience.”

Read the full piece here.

Share THE HINGE Supervision and the sustainability of Jewish educators: Early signals from a longitudinal study Illustrative. Unsplash “Concern about the sustainability of the Jewish educator workforce is both widespread and well-founded But much of what we know comes from snapshots: exit interviews, climate surveys or moments of acute stress such as in the wake of Oct. 7, 2023. What’s been missing is a longitudinal lens: not just how educators feel at a moment in time, but what actually changes in their professional lives from one year to the next — and what does not,” writes Alex Pomson, principal and managing director at Rosov Consulting, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “The Growing Educators and Leaders Study (GELS), launched by the Jim Joseph Foundation in 2023, is designed to provide that lens.”

Early observations: “Educators who reported improvements in supervision were significantly more likely to report increased career satisfaction and a stronger sense of professional contribution. Conversely, where supervisory relationships deteriorated, satisfaction often declined — even while commitment to Jewish educational work itself remained intact. Interviews help explain why this pattern is so pronounced. Educators do not describe supervision as a narrow managerial function limited to evaluation or oversight. They experience it as a structural and relational condition that shapes nearly every aspect of their work: clarity of expectations, alignment of priorities, workload, opportunities for growth and whether their contributions are recognized.”

Read the full piece here.

Share Worthy Reads Good for Business:InGlobes, Dean Shmuel Elmasreportson a study that found the IDF’s elite Talpiot Program produces unicorn founders at five times the rate of Stanford University’s MBA program, with 3% of its graduates launching companies valued at over $1 billion. “The Israel Defense Forces Talpiot Program has for decades been seen as ‘the jewel in the crown’ of the Israel Defense Forces. It was established under the Ministry of Defense Directorate of Defense RD [MAFAT in Hebrew], with the aim of identifying outstanding young people and training them as a technological-operational reserve. It turns out that this military training translates into business success on an exceptional scale.”[Globes]

‘Influence the Influencers’:InThe Chronicle of Philanthropy, Eden StiffmanspotlightsBridge Entertainment Labs, a nonprofit that advises writers, producers and executives in the entertainment industry on integrating themes of pluralism and shared humanity into their work. “Nonprofits have long tried with mixed results to influence culture with awareness campaigns on everything from breast cancer and bicycle lanes to climate change and marriage equality. They have spent funds on advertising, worked with celebrity spokespeople, and tried to push narratives through media of all kinds. Bridge’s approach is more indirect: working upstream, with storytellers who shape what audiences see, rather than trying to reach those audiences directly.”[ChronicleofPhilanthropy]

Word on the Street Missouri adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism for use in state schools and colleges…

Following the temporary closure ofCongregation Beth Israeland theShlenker Schoolin Houston due to unspecified threats, law enforcementannouncedthe arrest of 18-year-oldAngelina Han Hicksin North Carolina and a 16-year-old in Texas for alleged conspiracy to commit mass murder by driving a vehicle into the congregation…

Nassau County Policearresteda 15-year-oldSyosset High Schoolstudent and his father after a police investigation into antisemitic graffiti at the school led to the discovery and controlled detonation of homemade explosives, including nitroglycerin, at their Long Island home…

New York City CouncilmemberSimcha Felderreportedlystormed outof a task force meeting after the administration refused to codify a formal definition of antisemitism…

A Stanford student reportedlytooka sign from a joint tabling effort on campus by advocacy groupsCAMERA on CampusandISRAEL-isyesterday. The incident escalated when a former IDF soldier andISRAEL-isstaff member allegedly tackled the student.ISRAEL-istoldeJewishPhilanthropyit is reviewing the incident and has suspended the employee involved until further notice

TheTreasury Departmentannounceda new transparency initiative to revise Form 990, aiming to expose hidden funding and strengthen oversight of 501(c)(3) organizations regarding government grants, contracts and fiscal sponsorships…

Israeli airlineIsrairislaunchingdaily flights between Ben Gurion Airport and JFK airport starting in late July…

Police in the central Israeli city of ModiindetainedAlex Sinclair, aHebrew UniversityandJewish TheologicalSeminarylecturer, after a cafe patron claimed his crochet kippah featuring both Israeli and Palestinian flags constituted incitement. The officer also cut out the Palestinian flag from the yarmulke before returning it to Sinclair

Following life-saving surgeries for severe multi-system trauma and liver damage sustained during the March 21 Iranian missile strike on Arad, a 7-year-old girl has beendischargedfromSchneider Children’s Medical Centerto continue her recovery at home…

The Wall Street Journalreports thatBill Ackman’sPershing Square Inc. islaunchingan IPO to sell up to 33.12 million shares at $50 each…

Israa Jaabis, a Palestinian woman convicted of a 2015 attempted car bombing,addressedUC Berkeley students on campus via video call this week…

World ORThaslaunchedtheMikhail Libkin Memorial Awardin honor of the late director of ORT Russia, who died suddenly last month…

Michael Tilson Thomas, a conductor and composer known for drawing inspiration from his family’s history in Yiddish theater,diedat 81…

Transitions Maryland Hillel announced leadership changes in advance of the opening of its new Rosenbloom Hillel Center, with Rabbi Ari Israel taking over as CEO, Marty Rochlin as executive director and Rachel Gordon as assistant director of student life

Pic of the Day Courtesy Some 100 Jewish day school educators from across North America attend the inaugural “Together We Thrive” conference on Monday, which was held at The Shefa School in Manhattan, focused on including students with learning difficulties in Jewish day schools.

“Learners in our schools have more needs than ever,” Rebecca Ritter, head of teaching and learning at The Shefa School, said in a statement. “This is a moment for us as a community to rise to the occasion and begin to build a ‘field’ for special education in mainstream day schools. Establishing a passionate community of practitioners, researchers and organizations will enable us to build this field together by developing a common language, shared assumptions, recognized expertise, standards for practice, a pipeline and leadership. This will impact the lives of tens of thousands of Jewish students.”

Birthdays Screenshot/mitzvahday.co.uk London-based founder and chair of Mitzvah Day International, Laura Marks CBE turns 66 on Sunday

FRIDAY: Rabbi emeritus at Washingtons Adas Israel Congregation, he is a former president of the Rabbinic Assembly, Rabbi Jeffrey A. Wohlberg turns 85 Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony and Peabody Award-winning singer and actress, Barbra Streisand turns 84 Delray Beach, Fla., resident, Phyllis Dupret Distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, College Park, Jeffrey C. Herf turns 79 Former president and publisher of USA Today, then chairman of theStreet, Lawrence S. Kramer turns 76 Israeli designer, architect and artist, Ron Arad turns 75… Chairman and CEO of Cincinnati-based Standard Textile, Gary Heiman Former president of basketball operations for the Washington Wizards of the NBA for 16 seasons, himself an NBA player for 9 seasons, Ernest Ernie Grunfeld turns 71 Israeli singer descended from the Jewish diaspora in Kurdistan, Ilana Eliya turns 71 Columnist for Foreign Policy, Michael Hirsh turns 69 Author of books for children and teens, Deborah Heiligman turns 68 Founding partner and CEO of KSX Communications, Andrew Kirtzman turns 65 CEO and President of Wells Fargo since 2019, he was previously the CEO of Visa, Charles Scharf turns 61 Chief executive director of the Jewish Caring Network, Rabbi Carl S. “Chaim” Schwartz turns 56 Deputy chief of staff for Councilmember Sidney Katz, Montgomery County Council in Maryland, Laurie Mintzer Edberg Emmy Award-winning television writer, producer and film screenwriter, known as the co-creator and showrunner of the television series Lost, Damon Lindelof turns 53 EVP of political operations at AIPAC, Mark H. Waldman Israeli model, actress, entrepreneur, lecturer and activist, Maayan Keret turns 50 Film and television actor, Eric Salter Balfour turns 49 Brandon Hersh Partner at Apollo Global Management, Reed Rayman Special assistant to POTUS and senior speechwriter in the Biden administration, Aviva Feuerstein turns 39 Tech and innovation reporter at Automotive News, Molly Boigon

SATURDAY: Retired attorney, he is a brother-in-law of Barney Frank, Myron Mike Sponder Social worker and former health spokesman of the Green Party of the U.K., he is the older brother of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Larry Sanders turns 91 Co-founder of Lender Bagels Bakery, he was the national chair of UJA, Marvin K. Lender turns 85 Hedge fund manager and founder of Omega Advisors, Leon G. Lee Cooperman turns 83 Former CEO of baker supply manufacturing companies, Joseph “Joe” Weber turns 81 Hedge fund manager and founder of CAM Capital, Bruce Stanley Kovner turns 80 Rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University since 1973, rabbi of the Young Israel of Riverdale Synagogue since 1974, Rabbi Mordechai Willig turns 79 Former French finance minister and later managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn turns 77 David Handleman Long-time chairman and CEO of Village Roadshow Pictures, now president of Through The Lens Entertainment, Bruce Berman turns 74 Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations from 2018 to 2021, he was previously president of Bed, Bath and Beyond, Arthur Stark turns 71 Administrative law judge at the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, Beth A. Fox Commissioner of the National Basketball Association since 2014, Adam Silver turns 64 Senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, focused on security issues in the Middle East, Michael Scott Doran turns 64 Partner at Quinn Emanuel, he served as U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic in the Obama administration, Andrew H. Schapiro turns 63 Emmy Award-winning actor, voice actor, comedian and producer, he is descended from a Sephardic family rooted in Thessaloniki, Hank Azaria turns 62 Infomercial pitchman, better known as Vince Offer, Vince Shlomi or The ShamWow Guy, Offer Shlomi turns 62 Deputy director general at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Benjamin Krasna turns 61 CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ, Meredith Dragon New York Times-bestselling author and adjunct professor of neuroscience at Stanford University, David Eagleman turns 55 Deputy director of community health at the Utah Department of Human Services, David E. Litvack turns 54 Former professional baseball outfielder, Micah Franklin turns 54 Democratic party strategist, she is a co-founder of Lift Our Voices, Julie Roginsky turns 53 President of the Alliance for Downtown New York, the nations largest business improvement district, Jessica S. Lappin turns 51 Opinion editor at the California Post, previously senior-editor-at-large for Breitbart News, Joel Barry Pollak turns 49 Attorney turned grocer and now professor, Danielle Brody Rosengarten Vogel Executive director at Yaffed, Adina Mermelstein Konikoff Managing director, head of social, content and influencer at Deloitte Digital, Kenneth R. Gold Director of public affairs at FEMA during the Biden administration, now SVP at Avoq, Jaclyn Rothenberg Film and television actress, model and singer, Sara Paxton turns 38 Staff writer at Daily Kos, Emily Cahn Singer Former NHL ice hockey defenseman, now a color analyst for Westwood One and ESPN, Colby Shane Cohen turns 37 TikTok star, he runs the culinary website CookWithChefEitan, Eitan Bernath turns 24

SUNDAY: Owner of the NBAs Los Angeles Clippers for 33 years until its forced sale in 2014, Donald Sterling (born Donald Tokowitz) turns 92 Retired Federation executive in Los Angeles, Oakland and Sacramento, Loren Basch Professor of computer science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Hal Abelson turns 79 Immediate past chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, now board member at Democratic Majority for Israel, Harriet P. Schleifer turns 73 President of Brandeis University from 2016-2024, Ronald D. Liebowitz turns 69 Moscow-born, conservative journalist and political activist in Israel, Avigdor Eskin turns 66 Senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and contributing writer at The Atlantic, Jonathan Rauch turns 66 Journalist, biographer and the author of six books, Jonathan Eig turns 62… Former member of the Maryland House of Delegates and state Senate, Roger Manno turns 60 Former member of the California state Assembly, where he served as chairman of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, Marc Levine turns 52 Member of the NYC Council for six years and now a recently elected member of the NY State Assembly, Kalman Yeger turns 52 General partner of Coatue Management, Benjamin Schwerin Senior global news editor at The New York Times, Russell Goldman turns 46 Senior director of federal government affairs at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Karas Pattison Gross Media relations manager at NPR, Benjamin Fishel London-based reporter for The Wall Street Journal covering finance, he is the co-author of a book on WeWork, Eliot Brown Male fashion model and actor, Brett Novek turns 42 Head coach of the UC Irvine Anteaters baseball program, he played for Team Israel in the 2012 World Baseball Classic, Ben Orloff turns 39 Communications director at the University of Florida College of Health and Human Performance, Alisha Katz AI product manager at Apple, Kenneth Zauderer Washington correspondent for The Epoch Times, Jackson C. Richman Board liaison at American Jewish World Service, he is also a part-time matchmaker at Tribe 12, Ross Beroff Ahron Singer

The post Your Daily Phil: Keep calm and carry on? Q&A with former CEO of Britain’s Jewish Leadership Council appeared first on eJewishPhilanthropy.

‘The veneer of security is being stripped away:’ A conversation with longtime U.K. Jewish community leader, Simon Johnson

Justin Hayet — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 13:44:17 +0000

A series of targeted attacks against Jewish institutions in the United Kingdom is chipping away the community’s sense of safety, veteran communal professional and lay leader Simon Johnson told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Justin Hayet in an interview on Thursday.

Previously the ceo of the Jewish Leadership Council from 2013 to 2020 and currently a trustee of The Bloom Foundation and chair of Camp Simcha UK, Johnson made aliyah earlier this year and now splits his time between Israel and the U.K. Johnson sat down with eJP to discuss the shifting landscape of British Jewry, offering praise for the work of the Community Security Trust (CST) in fortifying communal life and providing a nuanced look at how shifting demographics and new government policies are creating a dangerous storm of structural and economic quiet crises.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Justin Hayet: The recent uptick of attacks in the United Kingdom against Jewish institutions has sent shockwaves through the community. How has the sense of safety changed for British Jews?

Simon Johnson: The veneer of security is being stripped away. For lots of people, even at the height of anti-semetic attacks, even in the areas where the Jews live, there was broadly a tense, but steady, stable level of security. The CST volunteers, buildings well protected, police protected. People thought provided they stayed within the community, there would be a relative level of safety and security. It has chipped away a feeling that we will be OK if we stay in our area. That has shocked people. It caused them to question how secure they really are.

JH: In response to recent events, many are calling for increased security at Jewish institutions across the U.K . Is that the right solution, or are we missing a deeper issue? SJ: The response of the government is always to say that we will increase the police presence, better security, and build more walls, and that is probably the correct assessment. But as Lord David Wolfson of Tredegar said in the House of Lords: “But so far as the governments response is concerned, while we are always grateful for support for the Community Security Trust, the debate about Jewish security needs to move away from being about higher walls around our synagogues and more guards outside our schools and on to the root causes of why we need such security?”

The answer to this problem is not merely more guards, higher fencing, steel-reinforced, or bomb-proof glass. This is addressing the symptoms of the problem. What the Jewish community cannot do alone, and the government has to, is they have to address the causes. To stop enabling visible anti-Jewish racism in the public arena. Stop making it possible.

JH: You’ve mentioned that these attacks arent just random acts of vandalism. Who do you believe is fueling this violence? SJ: Our belief [as a community] is that all four recent attacks have been motivated or inspired by Iranian-linked organizations. What we have known for a long time in the U.K. is that the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] has been using proxies — small-time criminals, vandals, untraceable connections — in order to do this harm. But the police and government have very good intelligence that the IRGC and the Iranian elements are behind this attack.

Manchester [Johnson’s hometown] was the attack everyone was fearing for 20 years. We were not surprised. That it should happen in the most Zionist community of Manchester, where Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and Jews live in a good state of harmony — that that should be undermined by someone creating such a violent attack on a synagogue It’s very disturbing.

JH: We’ve seen central London become a flashpoint for weekly protests. How has this impacted the communitys ability to live openly as Jews? SJ: Since Oct.7, I’ve been concerned that on certain days, places in central London have become no-go zones. The police have enabled the protests and marches; they have not made sufficient arrests and have not stopped antisemitic chanting and banners. On these days, the city is no longer safe for Jews openly expressing their Judaism or support for Israel. I know people who are now hiding outward signs of Judaism while traveling.

JH: Beyond physical safety, the donor ecosystem is facing its own crisis in the U.K. What are the primary threats to the sustainability of U.K. Jewish nonprofits? SJ: My general concern for philanthropy is demographic changes and government policy affecting the charitable sector. Once you look outside CST, at social services and religious organizations, they are under threat. Wealthy individuals are leaving for Israel or [leaving the United Kingdom] for financial reasons due to taxation. This shift in the donor base is directly affecting our charities.

Charities are also being hit by policies like increased employer taxes and the minimum wage, which cost the biggest employers—those in social services, special education, and elderly care—often an additional £1 million a year [per nonprofit]. The government has also introduced VAT to private schools, which caused Immanuel College to close among other issues. This is significantly impacting the donor ecosystem.

JH: With the cost of operations rising and the donor base shifting, how are foundations responding? SJ: The philanthropic foundations [in the U.K.] are being approached to help charities address these gaps of increasing costs and reducing funds. While foundations are being open and generous, there is a challenge. Security is seen as a tax on the community; its a must. Fortunately, CST is one of the best supported and most financially robust communal organizations, with government funds running through it, but the pressure elsewhere is immense.

JH: As a new immigrant to Israel yourself, how do you view the relationship between aliyah and the future of British Jewry? SJ: The data shows more people are leaving, but there is not an exodus. [For instance] We came to Israel to be with our three children – it’s a s simple as that. We all wanted to be together. Had they all been in Australia or elsewhere, perhaps we might not have joined them. But because they were all in Israel, a country I had advocated for and defended professionally when in the UK, and which means so much to our family, well it made it a very simple and exciting decision for us to take.

The community is broadly staying, yet it is under a unique combination of pressure: increased antisemitism, reduced philanthropy, and rising costs. This means long-term sustainability is going to be under greater pressure than in a place like the U.S.

I say this now even as a new immigrant: a strong Israel needs a strong Diaspora. These communities need to be self-sustaining. As important as it is that Israel welcomes those who want to come, world Jewry and philanthropy must also support Jews outside of Israel. There will always be a requirement for elderly care, for example, because not everyone can move. If we strip away those who can support these causes, who is going to support them?

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Freed from federation constraints, Spitalnick expands JCPA, aims to align with U.S. Jews’ progressive views

Jay Deitcher — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 12:01:52 +0000

In June 2024, when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) hosted a livestream with Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the tension between the speakers and their audience blazed across the screen for the entirety of the 30-minute event.

“Antisemitism, hate and violence against Jews because of their identity is real and it is dangerous,” Ocasio-Cortez said at the beginning of the event. “It is also important to say here in this moment and during that conversation that criticism of the Israeli government is not inherently antisemitic and criticism of Zionism is not automatically antisemitic. People immediately took to social media to call Spitalnick a traitor for meeting with one of the Democratic movement’s most vocal critics of Israel, and Ocasio-Cortez lost her endorsement from the Democratic Socialists of America due to Spitalnicks condemnation of Zionist bans and the use of the term as a pejorative.

With some in the Jewish community applauding Spitalnick for the bridgebuilding conversation — Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of Manhattan’s Park Avenue Synagogue called the event “the most refreshing 30 minutes of YouTube I’ve ever experienced” — and others denouncing her, the fallout from the talk was par for the course since Spitalnick took the helm of the organization two-and-a-half years ago.

Under her leadership, JCPA has reorganized and grown substantially: Its staff has increased from two to nearly a dozen, with the number of employees working on the Capitol Hill increasing from zero to four; its annual budget has increased from $970,000 to over $2.7 million; and the number of annual donors to the 83-year-old legacy organization has increased from 300 to over 800.

But Spitalnick’s tenure with the organization has also been contentious. Some on the left have criticized her liberal Zionist stances, while critics on the right — including her immediate predecessor in an interview with eJP — feel that Spitalnick’s progressive politics pigeonhole the Jewish community and that her organization is spending resources on cultivating relationships with individuals and groups who are not allies to the Jewish people.

Spitalnick, 40, rose to national prominence as executive director of Integrity First for America, where she launched a successful multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the neo-Nazi organizers of the deadly 2017 Charlottesville, Va., march. She has become a progressive face for the Jewish community, acting as a go-to resource for CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Spitalnick’s worldview and advocacy were shaped by the stories shared with her by her maternal grandparents, who grew up in what was then Poland, now Ukraine, and survived the Holocaust — the only members of their families to do so. Her grandmother hid under a porch, listening as her sisters, nieces and nephews were murdered nearby. The sounds of the gunshots that her grandmother recalled were “seared into my brain as a kid,” Spitalnick said.

But after a chance meeting in a displaced persons camp, her grandparents found refuge in America, where they sought a better life. Her grandfather drove a New York City cab, and her grandmother worked as a seamstress, sacrificing so her mother could have “opportunities they couldnt have dreamed of,” Spitalnick said.

Her grandmother was a member of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, and her parents, both teachers, were members of the United Federation of Teachers. It was these unions, along with the higher-education opportunities offered in America, which “in turn, gave me the opportunities that I have,” she said.

She grew up during the so-called “golden age of American Jews,” when Jews were ingrained in popular culture, higher education and the Supreme Court, and experts debated if antisemitism existed outside of the darkest crannies of American culture. “It felt like a very safe time to be an American and an American Jew,” Spitalnick said.

Spitalnick grew up in Long Island and followed the path many American Jews did, attending Jewish summer camp and becoming USY president. While studying political science and Middle Eastern studies at Tufts University in Massachusetts, she spent her junior year in Israel, learning at Hebrew University, and became Hillel president her senior year.

It was during her time at Tufts’ Hillel that Spitalnick first connected with JCPA, attending its annual The Charlotte B. and Jack J. Spitzer Hillel Forum, an event that brought together student leaders to debate policy, Israel advocacy and social justice.

“I never intended to be so institutionally engaged in the Jewish community, but its where I found my home in a lot of these moments,” she said.

Before suing Nazis with Integrity First for America and later joining the JCPA, Spitalnick served as press secretary for liberal Israel advocacy group J Street, communications director and senior policy advisor to the New York State attorney general and spokesperson and advisor to the New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. Today, Spitalnick is one of the youngest leaders in the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

Even before Spitalnick took over JCPA, the organization was set to make major changes. The nonprofit previously worked within the Jewish federation system, serving as an official umbrella organization for over 125 Jewish Community Relations Councils and 16 Jewish national organizations, which paid dues and voted on policy.

The JCPA and most JCRCs were created during the 1930s and 1940s “at a very different time in our understanding of a Jewish collective voice in America,” Jeremy Burton, the longtime CEO of the JCRC of Greater Boston, told eJP. “One of the things that JCPA was not doing well anymore… was being able to speak [for] and support community relations [councils] across the country in ways that were useful to [the] local dynamic in which we operate.”

Burton works in “hyper-blue Massachusetts,” while his colleagues work within very different political communities. Prior to the reorganization, JCPA would release statements that were “frankly, this parve, gray, amorphous, insult nobody, make everybody feel like we said nothing,” Burton said. “The organization would come out with national statements on matters to be used by relations councils that were too conservative for some communities and too liberal for others, and didnt match the local needs, and they were unusable by everybody.”

Tension over what political positions the organization took bubbled between the agency and the federation system.

After the 2017 Charlottesville march, David Bernstein, past president and CEO of the JCPA, came under fire for telling JCRC leaders to hold back on condemning conservative politicians with alt-right or white nationalist ties because it could upset federation donors. After JCPA signed an open letter published in The New York Times in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, the tensions between the federation system and JCPA reached a boiling point. Either the JCPA was going to be forced to fold into the federation, which would mean following its lead politically —that is, attempting to be-apolitical — or it was going to have to split from the federation system.

In 2022, the change was made official, with JCPA ending its role as the umbrella organization for JCRCs, though the organization continues to work closely with the councils and many federations, providing JCRC and federation professionals and lay leaders with resources, tool kits, webinars, summits, mentorship programs, retreats and affinity groups.

Under the new iteration, JCPA is nimble and clearly knows the values it stands for, Burton said, offering JCRCs “the tools and the frameworks that allow us to step into spaces where certain kinds of actions and voices and coalitions are needed.”

Burton’s JCRC may not repost every statement the JCPA releases or use every resource it offers, but his council relates to it the same way it relates to every national Jewish organization — they take what they can and leave the rest.

Today, Spitalnick said, JCPA serves the majority of American Jews, whom studies show value democracy and civil rights. Pew Research Center polling shows that American Jews lean heavily progressive. In the 2024 presidential election, the Jewish community cited democracy as a key priority. A recent Ipsos study showed that while the majority of American Jews felt antisemitism was an issue, 72% believed that President Donald Trump was using it as an “excuse” to “penalize and tax college campuses.”

“All of the poll data tells us the majority of the Jewish community is holding this complexity, is rejecting the binary approach to fighting antisemitism and protecting democracy that has shaped so much of the public conversation,” Spitalnick said.

In addition to its work with JCRCs, JCPA has staff members advocating on Capitol Hill for democracy and against bigotry in legislation and policies.

Amy Rutkin, a veteran political leader with over 25 years’ experience who served under Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), told eJP that she sees Spitalnick’s influence throughout the language and choices being made by members of Congress.

“In a very short period of time, [Spitalnick] has had a huge impact on how the Beltway understands… what a majority Jewish voice really is,” Rutkin said. Although there are loud voices on both the far left and right, Spitalnick captures how the majority of America feels, and she’s an “equal opportunity condemner” when it comes to calling out the explosion of antisemitism on either side of the spectrum.

Rutkin credits Spitalnick’s advocacy, together with other Jewish and civil liberty organizations, with pushing the Department of Homeland Security to drop requirements for nonprofits to cooperate with ICE in order to access nonprofit security grants and with halting a bill that would have allowed the executive branch to strip a nonprofit of its status, without proper due process, if it was deemed to support terrorism.

Additionally, Rutkin said, Spitalnick’s webinar with Ocasio-Cortez led to the congresswoman acknowledging that antisemitism on the left exists and should be condemned; the acknowledgment seemed to open the door to others on the left to follow suit, when such condemnations were rare post-Oct. 7. Soon after, representatives across the left spoke out against antisemitic incidents at the Brooklyn Museum and the Nova Exhibition.

But there are those who feel that Spitalnick is spending resources cultivating bridges with the wrong people. David Bernstein, who headed the JCPA from 2016-2021, has watched as the “JCPA became structurally disconnected from its base of Jewish federations,” he told eJP. “It no longer needed to reflect the broad middle of the Jewish community. That shift created space for Amy to move the organization significantly to the left, so JCPA now sits on the outer left flank of the mainstream Jewish communal world, and Amy has become an articulate spokesman for that position.”

During his time at the agency, Bernstein saw Jewish federations claiming “primacy” over JCRCs. He believed that “JCRCs needed to have an independent voice from the federation movement,” he said. “That federation movement was tied to certain priorities around funding that the JCRCs needed some operational flexibility from… and there was a very valuable plausible deniability in having local JCRCs that had more room to maneuver than their Jewish federations might want to have.”

Having a single spokesperson speak for the entire American Jewish community is not “remotely possible,” Bernstein, who is founder and the CEO of North American Values Institute, said, but the “question is how much should the lions share of the Jewish community investment in building partnerships be with her vision emphasizing the progressive advocacy network.”

In practice, he agrees that democratic values are central to Jewish security and community flourishing, but Spitalnick’s “view is that the Jewish community should double down on the traditional progressive advocacy network, which she sees as essential to protecting democratic norms. But my view is that that progressive network has drifted away from core American civic principles that undergird our democracy, and that we should instead create a coalition of normie Americans and immigrant groups. These are people committed to American civic values like freedom of inquiry, pluralism, equality of opportunity and the rule of law. These are, in my view, the partners who can help defend democratic norms and, at the same time, push back against both the extreme left and the extreme right.”

That, he said, is where Jewish resources should go.

(This year, JCPA’s annual budget is $2.7 million; Bernstein reported that NAVI has a budget of $3 million; and, for comparison, last year, the Anti-Defamation League reported a budget of $130 million.)

Other leaders in the community feel that Spitalnick is a needed voice in the Jewish world, one of many.

“Uniformity is not the goal,” Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, who serves Manhattan’s Park Avenue Synagogue, told eJP. While he often agrees with Spitalnick on issues, he also disagrees on certain topics.

“What convening space should be, and leadership in this time and every time should be, is not an expectation that everyone agrees on every issue, [but] rather that we come together in the classic model of Jewish dialogue and debate to ask openly and respectfully whats in the best interest of our people; and to do so in a matter where, when we disagree — which we will inevitably disagree — we do so without being disagreeable,” he said.

Brandon Rattiner, the senior director of the Colorado JCRC, views the Jewish advocacy world as a “conglomeration” and believes that the more voices advocating for Jews, the better.

After last July’s firebombing in Boulder during a Run for Their Lives hostage support rally, the first person who Rattiner called was Spitalnick. He “couldnt handle that moment without her,” he said, and knew she had navigated traumatic terrain before and had “the tactical experience [to get] me to a place where I feel safe enough and supported enough to actually go implement the hard parts that I need to do.”

“I dont think anybody is advocating that any one organization or one voice should be the voice [of all Jews],” he said. “We are a diverse community. Weve learned since Oct. 7, and even more so after that, that the Jewish people are not a monolith. We have a lot of different perspectives, and one of the most important things that we can do is create a Jewish ecosystem that is authentic to the diversity of our perspective.”

Different messengers serve different audiences, he said. “Advocacy is a team sport, and ADL, [Jewish Federations of North America], JCPA, they all make really important contributions. Amys voice is distinct, and having that distinct voice is additive to our community advocacy.”

The need for coalition building was exemplified after the Boulder firebombing, which was preceded by a May 2025 shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. that left two Embassy of Israel staff members dead. Soon after the deadly incidents, social media was flooded with commentary suggesting that the attacks were not antisemitism, but protests of Israeli policy. In response, Spitalnick pulled together peers in The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights who released a statement from 65 civil rights organizations, including those representing Muslim, Arab, LGBTQ+, Japanese American, Sikh and other minority communities. The message: “When Jews are targeted Over the actions of the Israeli government, thats antisemitism period full stop,” she said.

JCPA continues to receive support financially from local federations and JCRCs, but they have seen a surge of funding from private foundations, mostly Jewish, but also foundations focused on pro-democracy and interfaith coalition-building work, Spitalnick said.

“Weve definitely had a number of new donors over the last year in particular, but before that as well, who have said they felt homeless [in the Jewish world politically] and theyve appreciated the perspective weve brought,” she said.

One of JCPA’s newest board members, Tracey Labgold, came to the organization after splitting ties with the ADL because the organization presented an award to Jared Kushner for his work on the Abraham Accords in 2024. “Breaking up with ADL was one of the hardest things I’ve done in my entire life,” she told The Forward in January, but soon after, she found a home with the JCPA.

“The Jewish community has never been afraid to speak out for our values, no matter the administration in power,” Spitalnick said. “Whether its on issues of antisemitism, whether its on civil rights and racial justice, whether its on immigrant rights, LGBTQ rights, our community has always been among those front and center in advocating, not just for our own values and safety, but for the safety of all communities under threat.”

Everything in her family’s history, everything in Jewish history “tells us that not only is there no inclusive democracy without Jewish safety, but theres no Jewish safety without inclusive democracy,” she said. “These things go hand in hand. The false choices that weve been offered between Jewish safety and democracy are intended by the extremists on both ends of the political spectrum to divide us.”

She isn’t worried about being seen as a “bad Jew” or of being judged for her values or her Zionism, she said. There are conferences on the left that won’t invite her because of her advocacy, and conferences on the right that want nothing to do with her. There are times her X account is flooded with people referring to her both as a self-hating Jew or a kapo and a genocidal Zionist.

“Theres this broader idea that everyone abandoned us after Oct. 7, and I would say that its far more complicated than that,” she said. Often, Jews are told not to “sit at the table with folks with whom we might have real disagreements, but thats the only way were going to build the coalitions we need to keep us safe,” she said. “Were not going to solve antisemitism by talking to people who already agree with us.”

Helping JCPA reshape itself wasn’t the only major change that took place in Spitalnick’s life three years ago. She also gave birth to a daughter, a milestone that only deepened her work.

“Bringing a Jewish kid into the world right now is an inherently optimistic thing to do,” she said. “You have to believe that a better world is possible. I have an obligation to leave things a little bit better than they were when she got here and to work towards the country that her great-grandparents saw as their safe place to land.”

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Supervision and the sustainability of Jewish educators: Early signals from a longitudinal study

Contributing Author — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 11:24:54 +0000

Concern about the sustainability of the Jewish educator workforce is both widespread and well-founded, with burnout, turnover and retention familiar themes in communal conversation. But much of what we know comes from snapshots: exit interviews, climate surveys or moments of acute stress such as in the wake of Oct. 7, 2023.

What’s been missing is a longitudinal lens: not just how educators feel at a moment in time, but what actually changes in their professional lives from one year to the next — and what does not.

The Growing Educators and Leaders Study (GELS), launched by the Jim Joseph Foundation in 2023, is designed to provide that lens. Following more than 550 Jewish educators and leaders over multiple years, the study tracks how their motivations, workplace experiences and career trajectories evolve over time.

Even at this early stage, with the study just entering its third year (see interim report here), a striking pattern is already emerging. These are early signals, not final conclusions, but they are already clarifying something important.

During the first two years of the study, across roles, sectors and career stages, educators have described their work in identity-laden terms — as an expression of calling and responsibility. Their sense of purpose, career motivation and commitment have barely changed. This is consistent with a previous study supported by the Foundation, Preparing for Entry. Commitment appears deeply rooted and slow to shift.

At the same time, other dimensions of educators’ professional lives are far more variable. Job satisfaction, their sense of contribution and perceptions of sustainability fluctuate, especially when educators change roles, organizations or supervisory arrangements.

This distinction — between stable commitment and variable experience — is one of the clearest patterns to emerge so far. It suggests that short-term changes in educators’ experience are driven less by shifts in motivation and more by shifts in context.

Supervision as a hinge

Within these findings, one detail stands out. Among the contextual features shaping educators’ professional lives, the quality of supervision functions as a hinge between educators’ stable commitment and their day-to-day experience.

Survey data underscore this point. While measures of career commitment have remained highly stable over the first couple of years of data collection, responses related to supervisory relationships have shown some of the greatest change. In fact, 41% of participants in the first cohort experienced a meaningful change — positive or negative — in their relationship with a supervisor over a single year, making it one of the most volatile domains measured.

These shifts matter. Educators who reported improvements in supervision were significantly more likely to report increased career satisfaction and a stronger sense of professional contribution. Conversely, where supervisory relationships deteriorated, satisfaction often declined — even while commitment to Jewish educational work itself remained intact.

Interviews help explain why this pattern is so pronounced. Educators do not describe supervision as a narrow managerial function limited to evaluation or oversight. They experience it as a structural and relational condition that shapes nearly every aspect of their work: clarity of expectations, alignment of priorities, workload, opportunities for growth and whether their contributions are recognized.

A supportive supervisor does not eliminate the demands of educational work. But in participants’ accounts, strong supervision makes those demands feel navigable rather than overwhelming. Where supervision is weak, misaligned, or inconsistent, the strain intensifies.

Educators who changed jobs during the first two years of the study illustrate this dynamic clearly. These educators were far more likely than others to report shifts — positive or negative — in satisfaction and autonomy; and supervisory dynamics frequently featured in their explanations. Leaving was rarely framed as a rejection of the mission of Jewish education. More often, it reflected an effort to find conditions in which that mission could be sustained.

In this sense, supervision is not peripheral. It is a key mechanism through which organizational context influences educators’ professional trajectories.

Reframing the retention conversation

These early findings invite a reframing of some familiar field conversations. Concerns about educator retention often focus on motivation: Are younger professionals as committed as previous generations? Are educators losing their sense of purpose?

The evidence emerging from GELS suggests that these may not be the most productive questions. So far, commitment appears durable. What varies more are the conditions under which that commitment is exercised.

If supervision functions as a hinge between educators’ stable commitment and their variable experience, then strengthening supervisory capacity becomes a strategic lever for sustaining the workforce.

This does not mean placing additional burdens on already stretched supervisors. It points instead to the importance of investing in supervisors’ preparation, support, and clarity of role. Supervisors themselves operate within systems that shape what they can realistically provide. Attention to supervision requires attention to organizational design, leadership development, and culture—not simply individual performance.

As a longitudinal study, GELS does not yet offer definitive conclusions about long-term retention or attrition. We are still in the early stages of observing trajectories unfold. What the study does offer, even now, is the ability to distinguish between what appears stable and what appears sensitive to change. This distinction allows the field to move beyond generalized anxiety about burnout toward a more precise understanding of how educators experience their work over time. As additional waves of data accumulate, we will be better positioned to examine how supervisory practices interact with role transitions and longer-term career sustainability.

Sustaining a vibrant Jewish educator workforce requires attention both to the inner commitments that draw people to this work and to the organizational conditions that shape their daily experience of it. The early evidence from GELS suggests that while commitment remains strong, context matters profoundly. If the field seeks durable impact, it will need to focus not only on who educators are, but on the environments in which they work—and on strengthening the hinge points (especially supervision) that connect the two.

Alex Pomson is principal and managing director at Rosov Consulting.

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The more things change…

Contributing Author — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 09:31:38 +0000

The past five years have been marked by uncertainty: the COVID-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine, the Oct. 7 attacks, multiple wars with Iran. We have spent this time navigating the peaks and valleys and guiding our partner organizations to strategies and approaches that will achieve success in a tumultuous world. I salute our colleagues in Israel for their resilience and determination, staying focused on making a difference and remaining engaged between sirens and red alerts.

Living in the philanthropy world, I keep a close eye on the landscape and direction of major giving, the lifeblood of successful nonprofits. We hear so often that giving is undergoing profound transformation, shaped by economic pressures, generational shifts, technological innovation and evolving donor expectations. Giving remains strong, yet strategies, structures and motivations behind major giving are changing. A knowledge of emerging trends along with proven “best practices” is essential for nonprofit leaders seeking to advance growth-oriented, high-impact fundraising programs going forward.

Fewer donors, larger gifts

One of the defining trends in major gift philanthropy is the continued environmental shift toward “fewer donors, more dollars.” Overall, giving remains resilient, but growth is increasingly driven by larger gifts rather than broad-based participation. In fact, the decline in smaller gifts was part of the impetus by the Giving Institute to establish the Generosity Commission, which studied the trends of the philanthropic marketplace with a focused look at millennials and other younger and emerging cohorts and their impact on philanthropy going forward.

In its recently released “2025 Trends in Giving,” the Blackbaud Institute noted the following reliance of all nonprofits on major giving:

“Large organizations received 84.5% of annual revenue from major gifts, compared with 51.7% for small organizations — a gap that explains much of the performance divide. Major giving is critical for organizations of all sizes — and for organizations struggling to achieve growth. Strengthening major gift strategy is often a necessary starting point.”

This concentration of giving means that to grow, nonprofits must invest more heavily in identifying, cultivating and stewarding high-capacity donors. It widens the gap between large, well-resourced institutions and smaller organizations struggling to access major donors. As I have noted and stressed over the past decade, both in previous op-eds in eJewishPhilanthropy and with our clients, future success will increasingly depend on intentional major gift strategies, robust prospect research and use of data, integrated into long-term relationship building.

DAFs and foundations: Donors are smarter, more strategic and more sophisticated

I see it every day: Major donors in 2026 are very generous but more strategic than ever, functioning in a hyper-competitive marketplace. Gen Xers, who continue their rise into positions of nonprofit board and professional leadership and are key philanthropic decision-makers and allocators of major gifts, increasingly approach philanthropy with the same rigor they apply to business and investing. This means a focus on ROI, long-term impact and an alignment with personal values.

And while we know that charitable intent is innate and most individual giving is driven by an emotional bond and passionate purpose, it certainly is a bit more “transactional” today, with donors increasingly relying on more advanced approaches such as impact measurement frameworks and data-driven decision-making, insisting on a CEO or a rabbi who can read a spreadsheet. They are no longer satisfied with simply funding programs; they want to understand the nature and scope of results created by their dollars, how those results drive change and their translation into impact. We encourage all nonprofits to understand this and to integrate this into their approach to the market and to prospective donors and funders.

Acting as extensions of individual giving, donor-advised funds (DAFs) and private foundations continue to grow in popularity, offering donors flexibility, tax advantages and strategic control over their giving.

In CCS Fundraising’s Oct. 15, 2025, newsletter by Robin Rothman, titled “The Future is #DAF: Donor-Advised Fund Growth and How Nonprofits Can Benefit,” the author quotes Elizabeth Abel, CCS senior vice president (and a former colleague):

“When I consider donor-advised funds, I imagine new opportunityan opportunity to connect donor intent with impact, to turn long-term planning into immediate generosity. Abel goes on to say, “The data confirms what we see in practice: DAFs are not only expanding in scale but also changing how nonprofits engage major donors and integrate a range of giving vehicles into their gift request strategies.”

So, to advance in this market, we encourage successful nonprofits to clearly articulate who they are and their value proposition and why they deserve support, while elevating and strengthening their selling proposition/case for giving. This can be achieved while employing clear metrics, compelling storytelling tied to outcomes and full transparency.

The Great Wealth Transfer

Over the next generation, an astounding amount of financial resources and philanthropic power will transfer between generations, creating one of the most significant opportunities in philanthropic history. This wealth transfer is already influencing philanthropy, as younger donors bring different expectations and values.

As noted in the 2025 article “The Great Generational Wealth Transfer” for Glenmede:

“By 2048, an estimated $124 Trillion may flow from older to younger generations, with approximately $100 trillion moving from the Silent Generation (post WWII) and Baby Boomers to Gen X and Millennial heirs as well as charities. This massive intergenerational shift in assets will affect the giving and receiving generations differently, underscoring the importance of being prepared and being clear about intentions.”

Engaging the next generation is critical for long-term growth and success. Next-generation philanthropists often prioritize social issues and are also more likely to seek hands-on engagement, collaborative giving models and transparency. Digital engagement, peer influence and authenticity play a larger role in their decision-making.

Emphasis on trust and transparency

Trust-based philanthropy is gaining traction, with donors increasingly favoring unrestricted, multiyear gifts that empower organizations rather than restrict them. High-profile philanthropists have modeled this approach by giving large, flexible grants designed to strengthen nonprofit capacity and leadership. At the same time, there is growing scrutiny of how charitable dollars are allocated.

In the future, nonprofits must demonstrate effectiveness and fairness, inclusivity and community-centered approaches. Donors are asking deeper questions about who benefits and how decisions are made. I recommend that this be part of the conversation between nonprofits and their friends and supporters. Trust goes two ways. Make it work for you and your organization.

Technology and data

Technology is transforming major giving and asking. Digital platforms, AI and advanced analytics are enabling nonprofits to identify prospects, personalize outreach and predict donor behavior with increasing precision.

Additionally, technology creates opportunities for more sophisticated stewardship, including real-time impact reporting and customized donor experiences. As online giving continues to grow quickly, digital engagement is becoming an essential component of donor cultivation.

However, I emphatically and unequivocally believe that technology is not a substitute for investing in and building relationships. The future of major giving requires a careful balance between high-tech tools and high-touch engagement.

In conclusion, the future of major gift philanthropy is dynamic, complex and full of opportunity. While the total pool of donors may be shrinking, the influence and expectations of major philanthropists are expanding. So, we recommend that you think about what you might do:

Point your nonprofit forward: set your strategic direction and strengthen your sense of mission and purpose, expanding your capacity to achieve it. Understand your leaders and donors and guide them. Help them to help you. Gain access to data and knowledge about individuals, families and institutions — from inside and outside — that expands your organization’s network, perspective and capability. Build your board and volunteer leadership with individuals who bring the three W’s — wealth, wisdom and work — to the benefit of your nonprofit. Organizations that embrace data, prioritize relationships, align with donor values, evolve from transactional giving to a more transformational partnership and demonstrate measurable impact will be best positioned to succeed. Success in this increasingly competitive market will require nonprofits to think more strategically, operate more transparently and engage donors more meaningfully than ever before.

Avrum Lapin is the president of The Lapin Group, LLC, a full-service fundraising and management consulting firm for leading nonprofits. He is also a member of the board of The Giving Institute and the Global Jewry Advisory Board.

The post The more things change… appeared first on eJewishPhilanthropy.

This isn’t a revolution. It’s a rerun.

Contributing Author — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0000

I read Harley Lippman’s “Jewish philanthropy can’t miss the AI revolution” (April 20) with a sense of déjà vu born of more than a dozen years of writing the same piece every time the Jewish world meets a new shiny thing. From blended learning to MOOCs to the metaverse and NFTs, every “transformative” platform promised to scale Jewish life quietly evaporated.

That pattern matters. If we rush into AI as if it were a magic wand, we will repeat the same mistakes of pouring money into platforms while starving the people who actually sustain Jewish life.

Lippman suggests that this time might be different if our response involves funding chairs in AI ethics, convening technologists and rabbis, and bringing Jewish voices to emerging policy debates. These are serious proposals, but they are also familiar ones. They prioritize visibility, prestige, and influence at the highest levels while remaining largely disconnected from the institutions where Jewish life is actually taught, practiced, and sustained. Without a far deeper investment in those institutions and the people who lead them, such efforts risk becoming another layer of well-intentioned infrastructure with little capacity to translate into lived experience.

AI is just another tool, and tools amplify what already exists. If we feed AI the same underfunded, undertrained and under?valued ecosystem that produced mediocre digital experiments of the past, we will get more of that amplified mediocrity. To be sure, AI will help us produce that mediocrity faster, more cheaply and delivered in that “convincing” AI patter sprinkled with em dashes that will undoubtedly grant us an opportunity to cultivate experiences to help us delve into the tapestry to leverage and foster the intricate details that are the hallmarks that underscore Jewish life.

But is that really what we want?

Jewish funders must decide whether they want to be a booster for durable Jewish life or venture capitalists shilling for the next shiny thing.

Ten years ago in this publication, I documented the history of over 100 years of technological advancements and new futures that promised to transform Jewish life, solve the affordability crisis, the crisis of engagement or to finally make sure kids would learn. None of them did. I suggested that part of the solution going forward was to embrace a series of really wise recommendations offered now 40 years ago in a report by the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture.

And yet, a decade later, we’re still no closer to conquering the big issues, and we are still constantly distracted by the shiny things. The solutions to our problems are not new, our unwillingness to implement them remains the core blocker.

To put it more explicitly, we have spent millions of dollars on technologies and ideas that mostly ignore the expertise of those in our communities doing the actual work and then millions more trying to train these teachers, rabbis and local organizers to retrofit their programs around products that were never built for them, that they never asked for and that they probably never needed.

If you really care about AI in Jewish contexts, fund the people first. And if you don’t give a lick about the tech, then all the more so fund the people first. Underwrite the slow, messy work of curriculum design and community adaptation. Invest in proven research-based solutions and not the newest shiny things. Work with folks who collaborate with others to maximize the limited communal resources. And figure out ways to engage folks at the margins who are missing from our communal voices.

Platforms without people are expensive toys. People without platforms are resilient institutions.

If Jewish philanthropists really want to lead, not just in shaping AI policy but in shaping Jewish life, they need to start thinking more like civic stewards than speculators. That means investing in people placing educators, rabbis and other communal leaders at the heart of the effort, not as an afterthought. It means demanding rigorous evaluation and funding projects based on evidence, not enthusiasm, with clear goals and a willingness to walk away from what doesn’t work. It means saying no to the seductive promise that the new shiny thing will solve our problems. It means stop chasing the revolution and start investing in the people who will live with its consequences.

Equally fluent in Yiddish and JavaScript, Russel Neiss is a Jewish educator, technologist and activist. Neiss is a 2020 recipient of the Covenant Foundation Award for Excellence in Jewish Education, and his work has been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, The Atlantic, CNN, Wall Street Journal, the Jewish Telegraph Agencyand other media outlets.

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Your Daily Phil: Craigslist founder Craig Newmark: ‘Good philanthropy never goes out of style’

EJP — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 13:17:20 +0000

Good Thursday morning!

In today’s edition ofYour Daily Phil, we sit down withCraig Newmarkof Craigslist fame, spotlight the approach of the expandingMoshal Programto supporting Israeli university students from disadvantaged families and interview Gov.Josh Shapiro’s amid increasing pressure to end military aid to Israel. We feature an opinion piece byLara Knuettelin honor of World Book Day, one byAya Shechterexploring the difference between access and influence and one bySami Jinichabout working toward a shared society for Jews and non-Jews in Israel.Also in this issue:Rabbi Elazar Symon,Sivan KobiandChaim Galbut.

Today’s Your Daily Phil was curated by eJP Opinion Editor Rachel Kohn and Israel Editor Justin Hayet. Have a tip?Email us here.

Follow us on Whatsapp Follow us on Telegram What Were Watching The Jewish Community Center of the North Shore (Mass.) kicks off its International Jewish Film Festival this evening…

What You Should Know An approachable philanthropist who is passionate about supporting military families, fighting cyberattacks andrescuing pigeons, Craig Newmark largely fell into his wealth: His company Craigslist started out as an email list for friends, became a bare-bones website and took off unexpectedly. He finds people’s interest in him both “surreal” and “funny,” he said, admitting “theres a lot of stuff I dont get.”

Newmarkspoke recently witheJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcherabout what makes his philanthropy Jewish, when to give to specifically Jewish organizations and his criticism of the Giving Pledge.

Jay Deitcher:Youve given to a number of Jewish initiatives. Often in the philanthropic world, we talk about balancing focusing on the particular, which is initiatives based around the Jewish people, and the universal, or obligations to the entire world. How do you weigh that in your own philanthropy?

Craig Newmark:I just do what makes most sense. I have some small bias towards specifically Jewish initiatives. As you noticed with the ADL, they do good work in threat intelligence gathering regarding threats to the Jewish community in the U.S.

I also support other groups that support traditional Jewish values, like I support 92NY. I think its Jon Stewart [who] said [it’s] a tie for the second holiest place in Judaism, along with Zabar’s, although I kind of prefer Russ Daughters. I support the Jewish Community Relations Council in New York, and the [Secure Community] Network in Chicago. Theyre doing good work. I dont talk about them a lot because anyone doing threat intelligence gathering that protects us is at serious risk, and I dont want to get them targeted.

JD:The ADL has come under fire a lot the last two years from both sides of the political spectrum. Why is ADL still an important initiative to support?

CN:Right now, theyre getting a lot of crap from different people. Im not qualified to address that because being smart about it requires social skills. I try to avoid areas where Im largely ignorant.

But I can see they do good counter-extremism work. They do it quietly, and Im very aware whenever youre dealing with anything involving intelligence gathering or law enforcement… they appreciate it when I keep my mouth shut. Sometimes it is really good when a tech success story guy keeps his mouth shut.

Read the full interview here.

WRAPAROUND SUPPORT Expanding Moshal Program gives a critical boost to promising students from disadvantaged backgrounds Illustrative. Adobe Stock Over two years of war have turned the normal Israeli army-to-university pipeline into chaos, with students cycling in and out of reserve duty and unable to build academic momentum. Limore Dishon-Loewy, a senior clinical psychologist and supervisor at Tel Aviv University, described the additional challenges facing students from Israel’s social and geographical periphery, who are watching their families struggle while other sectors seem to keep moving forward. The war has created castes between people who have a foothold and people who dont,”she told Rachel Gutman foreJewishPhilanthropy.

Here to help:The brainchild of South African philanthropist Martin Moshal and Israeli businesswoman Yael Lavie, the Moshal Program annually supports 300 first-generation university students from below Israels poverty line pursuing degrees in engineering, computer science, medicine, economics and law. The program provides full tuition, a living stipend, one-on-one support from social workers and career coordinators, English-language training, soft skills workshops, and access to a powerful alumni network. The program just completed a major post-Oct. 7 expansion at Sami Shamoon College in southern Israel, bringing in 80 additional students in a single year in partnership with Israeli-Canadian philanthropist Mark Scheinberg; it is now planning a similar initiative for the North, targeting students from Kiryat Shmona, Shlomi, Maalot and the Golan Heights.

Read the full report here.

Share SHAPIRO SPOTLIGHT Josh Shapiro supports U.S. aid to Israel, but calls to use it as leverage Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Peter W. Stevenson/The Washington Post via Getty Images On the eve of the NFL draft on Wednesday, Pittsburgh, the host city, was in full spectacle mode. Israel, 6,000 miles away, was abuzz for a very different reason: the country was marking 78 years of independence. As he jumped between draft events, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro shared his thoughts about both. “I think we’re here to celebrate an iconic event in sports and sports in general. Sports has the power to bring people together, and we need more of that in our society,”Shapiro told Gabby Deutch foreJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publicationJewish Insiderfollowing a “unity dinner” in Pittsburgh that brought together 100 Black and Jewish students from local universities. .

Question of values:Asked about Yom HaAtzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, Shapiro expressed affection for Israel. He also called for America to do more to rein in its government. “I’ve always been really clear that I have a love for Israel, even while I have real concern about the leadership of Israel,” said Shapiro. “Every day I do, of course, get asked about Israel and the Middle East, and I think it’s important to just speak truthfully about how I feel. I think it’s important to be true to who you are, to not put your finger in the wind and just sort of follow which way it’s blowing.”

Read the full interview hereandsign up forJewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.

Share REPRESENTATION MATTERS It’s on all of us to share the stories of the Jewish People PJ Library held its first ever Jewish Children’s Book Festival at the 92NY in New York City in January 2026. Courtesy/PJ Library “Today, on April 23, PJ Library recognizes World Book Day, a global celebration of books and their power to connect people across generations and cultures. The day also marks PJ Library’s annual day of giving — a 24-hour call to support sharing the stories and histories of the Jewish people with families raising Jewish children in New York and around the globe,” writes Lara Knuettel, chief philanthropy officer for PJ Library, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.

A teaching opportunity:“On World Book Day, let’s celebrate the power of stories and help our children develop a love of reading, finding connections to those who came before them and those who look like them today. But let’s also look inward and explore our unique roots to reclaim the histories that have shaped us. … We might not all be writers, but our unique stories and collective memories are just as important. Not every Jewish story follows the same path, or looks the same, and when those stories go untold, we risk leaving people behind. When we share them, we expand what it means to belong.”

Read the full piece here.

Share STRATEGIC INFRASTRUCTURE Presence without power changes nothing A civic engagement meeting held by the Israeli-American Council in Austin in April 2026. Courtesy/Israeli-American Council “American public support for Israel is dwindling to historic lows, yet our community is looking to the same old strategies to respond to this crisis,” writes Aya Shechter, chief programming officer of the Israeli-American Council, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “The instinct in moments like this is to look for a messaging fix. Better hasbara. More outreach. Stronger relationships. More meetings with the right people. But our problem is not a lack of access. It is that access and influence are not the same thing.”

Don’t get me wrong:“Meetings matter. Relationships matter. Access matters — it opens doors. But doors are not the same as leverage, and visibility is not the same as power. What matters now is not gaining entry to more rooms; it is building the local leadership, civic fluency and durable structures that shape what happens inside them. That requires a different kind of investment: in civic training, local leadership pipelines and coordinated long-term strategy that treats influence as infrastructure rather than an event. It requires funders willing to measure success over years, not grant cycles. And it requires organizations willing to share accountability for outcomes, not just credit for activity.”

Read the full piece here.

Share BE THE CHANGE Why I came to Israel to work for shared society Sami Jinich with other Younited school Community Educator staff. From left: Noga Smooha, Jinich, Sleman Adoulat, Areen Naseraldeen and Christina Bazia. Courtesy “For American Jews who believe in and benefit from liberal democracy, the work of shared society organizations in Israel should feel both intuitive and imperative,” writes Sami Jinich, a community educator at the Younited International School in Wadi Ara in northern Israel and assistant to the director of strategy at Givat Haviva, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.

The ties that bind:“I’ve met students from Jewish and Arab schools who met for the first time through Givat Haviva’s programs, learning the dreams and struggles of their neighbors who live nearby but feel a world apart. What struck me most was how naturally conversations among students left divisive politics aside and entered the personal — what it was like to live on the border with Gaza on Oct. 7, or how difficult it is to start college in Israel without speaking Hebrew fluently. Shared society is not built through policy debates. It is strengthened when people learn to carry each other’s stories alongside their own. In this way, Israeli identity starts to belong to and reflect all of its citizens alike.”

Read the full piece here.

Share Worthy Reads Greedy Gatekeepers:In theNonprofit Quarterly, Lauren Girardinspotlightshow the lack of regulatory oversight for for-profit fundraising platforms has allowed companies to exploit nonprofits through unauthorized solicitations and the mismanagement of donated funds. “The problem is as much structural as it is regulatory. Small nonprofits typically lack the technical staff and legal expertise to evaluate the practices of the platforms they rely on, let alone hold anyone accountable when something goes wrong. They hand over donor data and payment processing, and trust that the platform will do the right thing and send the money. This creates a stark power imbalance. For-profit companies now control the donor data, payment infrastructure, and timing of transferring money. As federal funding cuts shrink government support, nonprofits are more dependent on individual donors giving online, which means they are also more dependent on the commercial platforms that are gatekeepers of those transactions.”[NonprofitQuarterly]

The Sower’s Gamble:Reflecting on Israel’s 78th Independence Day in an opinion piece for theJewish Telegraphic Agency, Rabbi Elazar Symonexploresthe theological and existential tensions between human initiative and divine providence within the Zionist project. “This awareness creates a double responsibility. On the one hand, we must continue sowing the seeds of the great dream of return. On the other hand, we must continually examine ourselves, ensuring that we leave room for God to join us in building this house, cultivate patience and strive to be morally worthy of the project. In Israel, not only seeds are planted in the earth. Sons and daughters, mothers and fathers are buried as well, lowered into the ground with tears by loving hands and hearts full of doubt, struggling to believe that their loss will not be in vain. Our partnership in building this house means that we also bear the terrible cost of its construction.”[JTA]

Starving the Mission:InAlliance, Holly Witheringtonunpackshow a rigid 15% “indirect cost” standard forces nonprofits into crippling cycles of layoffs and organizational stagnation. “Well-intentioned funders often get hyper-focused on metrics and forget about the foundations — hiring, compensation equity, and burnout prevention — which are baseline necessities and not something you can simply add-on down the road. This creates a vicious cycle. By restricting spending on ‘People Ops,’ funders ensure that two-thirds of organizations remain unable to attract or retain qualified staff, leaving a progressively smaller, more exhausted workforce to handle rapid response work. To break this cycle, funders must shift from line-item scrutiny to strategic investment, boosting infrastructure allocations to at least 30% and providing the flexible, multi-year support required to build lasting internal structures.”[Alliance]

Word on the Street The U.K.’s Jewish News reports that after scheduling competing London rallies for May 10, the Board of Deputies, Jewish Leadership Council and Campaign Against Antisemitism are now merging events to present a unified front against antisemitism…

Jewish Insiderhighlightsa delegation of Jewish leaders — all from American communities targeted in violent antisemitic attacks — who met with congressional leadership to advocate for an increase inNonprofit Security Grant Programfunding…

The New York TimesspotlightsIndia’s B’nei Menashe community, one of the “lost tribes” of Israel, as the remaining 5,800 members of the Jewish community prepare to move to Israel, with 250 making the journey today…

CNNbreaksdown the Justice Department’s landmark indictment of theSouthern Poverty Law Centeramid growing allegations that the case is politically motivated…

TheNew York Posthighlightsthe popularity ofInfused Shabbat dinnersamong 420-friendly Jewish New Yorkers seeking inclusive community spaces to alleviate social isolation since the Oct. 7 attacks…

InThe Daily Wire,Mark GoldfederandAlan Scheinerof theNational Jewish Advocacy Centerarguethat New York City MayorZohran Mamdani’s“selective indifference” toward addressing antisemitic crime opens the city to legal problems…

Manhattan Borough PresidentBrad Hoylman-Sigalwasbooedat a92NYpanel for making positive comments onstage aboutMamdani…

A 17-year-oldpleadedguilty to his involvement in a recent arson attack onKenton United Synagoguein suburban London but claimed he did not know the building was a synagogue…

Chaim Galbut, a 6-foot-7 Orthodox Jewish basketball standout at Miami Country Day School known for his viral dunks,has committedto play for Duquesne University starting in the fall…

Rep.David Scott(D-GA), a 12-term lawmaker known for his strong pro-Israel support,diedat 80…

Major Gifts The Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County (Fla.) announced a $4 million gift from Ken Endelson that will establish the Endelson Sports Complex…

Transitions Rafi Ronejoined theExecutive Office of the Governor of Marylandas a senior fellow…

Rabbi Cheryl Peretzwill be the interim dean of theZiegler School of Rabbinic Studies, effective July 1…

Ariel Krokwas hired as the regional development director for Brazil at theWeizmann Institute of Science…

Pic of the Day Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School/Facebook Elad Strohmeyer, consul general of Israel to the Midwest, leads students in lively song and dance at a Yom HaAtzmaut celebration yesterday at Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School in Chicago.

Birthdays Wikimedia Commons Israeli singer-songwriter, now based in Seville, Spain, known for Ladino music of the exiled Jews of Portugal and Spain,Mor Karbasiturns 40

Retired stage, television and film actor,Alan Oppenheimerturns 96 Owner of Council Bluffs, Iowa-based Ganeeden Metals, a multi-generational scrap metal recycling firm,Harold Edelman Retired real estate brokerage executive, he held leadership positions at Merrill Lynch Realty, Prudential California Realty and Fox Carskadon,Terry Pullan Retail industry analyst and portfolio manager at Berman Capital, he is the former president of JCPenney Credit Services and VP of credit at Macys,Steve Kernkraut Chair emeritus of Israel Policy Forum, he serves as chairman of Trenton Biogas, an organics recycling-to-energy business in Trenton, N.J.,Peter A. Joseph Health services researcher focused on smoking cessation programs for women, maternal health and child health,Judith Katzburg, PhD, MPH, RN Deputy director of NCSEJ, the National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry,Lesley L. Weiss Principal of Philadelphia-based Ceisler Media Issue Advocacy,Larry Ceislerturns 70Gary R. Pickholz Retail sales manager at Chrissy’s Collection,Janni Jaffe Co-founder of Gryphon Software, he is the author of a book on the history of antisemitism,Gabriel Wilenskyturns 62 CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, he is the primary proponent world-wide of the Magnitsky Act,Bill Browderturns 62 DC-based executive director of the Orthodox Unions Advocacy Center,Nathan J. Diament Heiress and businesswoman, daughter of Ronald Lauder, style and image director for the Estée Lauder Companies,Aerin Lauder Zinterhoferturns 56 CEO of Aish HaTorah, RabbiSteven Burgturns 54 Former president and CEO at Americans For Peace Now, now president and CEO at New Jewish Narrative,Hadar Susskind Founding member of the rock band the National, he was a collaborator on several of Taylor Swifts studio albums,Aaron Brooking Dessnerturns 50 and his twin brother, also a member of the National,Bryce David Dessnerturns 50 Jewelry designer,Jennifer Jen Meyerturns 49 Director of policy initiatives at Maimonides Fund,Ariella Saperstein Founder and CEO at 90 West, a Boston-based strategic communications firm,Alexander Goldstein Co-founder of Edgeline Films, he co-directed and co-produced Weiner, a documentary about Anthony Weiners campaign for mayor of NYC in 2013,Joshua Kriegman Vertical lead at Red Banyan, he was the communications director at the Republican Jewish Coalition,Neil Boylan Strauss Deputy director of the Mid-Atlantic and Florida for J Street,Adi Adamit-Gorstein Senior editor atAxios,Alexis Kleinman Former University of Michigan quarterback, now a fund manager in NYC,Alex Swieca American Jewish Committee ACCESS New York board member,Sam Sorkin Director of the Jewish Renewal Administration,Elisheva Mazya Executive editor and strategist at ILTV News,Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman

The post Your Daily Phil: Craigslist founder Craig Newmark: ‘Good philanthropy never goes out of style’ appeared first on eJewishPhilanthropy.

Expanding Moshal Program gives a critical boost to promising students from disadvantaged backgrounds

Contributing Author — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 11:50:01 +0000

In the six years since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Israeli students have missed at least 108 days of in-person schooling, which is roughly half a standard school year. That figure, calculated by Taub Center senior researcher Sarit Silverman, counts only full national closures: three COVID lockdowns and three military operations, including the period following the Oct. 7 terror attacks and the two wars with Iran. Factor in regional closures in the North and South of the country, partial schooling in the center of the country after Oct. 7, the hybrid learning and COVID-related isolation, and the total approaches a full school year, according to Silverman.

But this doesn’t even tell the whole picture.

“These situations deepen the gaps between the center [of Israel] and periphery, Limore Dishon-Loewy, a senior clinical psychologist and supervisor at Tel Aviv University, told eJewishPhilanthropy. “Every time were pushed back home, the students who were already in a race to catch up fall further behind.”

At the university level, the three years of war and military campaigns have made a bad situation worse. Reserve duty has turned the normal Israeli army-to-university pipeline into chaos, with students cycling in and out of combat, missing half a semester, unable to build academic momentum. Students from the North and South, whose families have been evacuated due to war, are left without a home to return to on weekends and without the basic sense of continuity that learning requires.

Theres a complete rupture of the continuum, said Dishon-Loewy, who works primarily with students from disadvantaged backgrounds in her private practice. Army, studies, army, studies —its one big salad. And the students who came from the periphery are carrying their families financial stress on top of all of it. She described a process of learned helplessness setting in, particularly among students from Israel’s social and geographical periphery who watch their families struggle while other sectors seem to keep moving forward. The war has created castes between people who have a foothold and people who dont,” she said.

But for university students who show exceptional promise, there is help.

Established in 2009, the Moshal Program supports first-generation university students from below Israels poverty line pursuing degrees in engineering, computer science, medicine, economics and law. The program provides full tuition, a living stipend, one-on-one support from social workers and career coordinators, English-language training, soft skills workshops, and access to a powerful alumni network — with the goal of ensuring graduates enter Israels knowledge economy on equal footing with their more privileged peers.

With over 850 active students, nearly 1,000 alumni and a growing network of employer partners — over 300 organizations, including Apple, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia and most of Israels major hospitals — the program just completed a major post-Oct. 7 expansion at Sami Shimon College in the South, bringing in 80 additional students in a single year in partnership with Israeli-Canadian philanthropist, Mark Scheinberg. It is now planning a similar initiative for the North, targeting students from Kiryat Shmona, Shlomi, Maalot and the Golan Heights.

The program is the brainchild of South African philanthropist Martin Moshal and Israeli businesswoman Yael Lavie. Moshal managed major property deals and financial investments. Lavie spent 17 years in banking, including senior roles at Bank Hapoalim across northern Israel and six years as deputy general manager of the banks Switzerland branch in Zurich, before running a family office in London.

A woman in a totally male world, Lavie said with a laugh. I just continued until I sat at the front of the table.

According to Lavie, the idea for the Moshal program came to be after Mr. Moshal attended a seminar on higher education. He learned that when young people from extreme poverty pursue degrees that could lead to lucrative careers, they can then transform their lives as well as those of future generations and their entire surroundings. Lavie said she went home and couldnt stop thinking about it. She returned the next day with two pages of strategy.

Lets take our business tools, she remembered telling him, and use them to make a real impact — looking at return on investment, looking at how you actually invest the money so that you reach your goals.

In their case, the return would be measured in graduates employed in their field, earning as much as their second-generation peers.

The model Lavie and Moshal built is what she calls It Takes a Village: a holistic wraparound program that begins the moment a student is accepted into university and doesnt end until theyre employed. Financial support covers full tuition and a living stipend with one nonnegotiable condition: first-year students are not allowed to work.

When you come to the Technion, and you need to compete with students who come from very robust backgrounds, you cannot be working nights and then expect to be able to focus during the day on your studies, Lavie said. It doesnt work.

The program’s wraparound support provides a social worker for every 100 students whose job is to make sure no one drops out. Two career coordinators begin working with students in their second year, helping with LinkedIn profiles, mock interviews, workplace preparation and storytelling workshops. There is intensive English-language training. There is a structured community: Shabbat dinners, holiday gatherings and second-year students paired with first-years. They know from day one that we are with them until they finish their degree, Lavie said. Even if it takes an extra year. Do you know how much peace of mind that gives them?

Dishon-Loewy, who sees the psychological toll of the past six years up close in her clinical work at Tel Aviv University, understands why that certainty matters.

In her work with students from the periphery, she sees what she describes as a dissociative rupture — a deep split between the emotional and cognitive self that makes sustained learning nearly impossible. Trauma means that you are working so hard to protect yourself that you end up in emotional numbness, disconnected, she said. And the whole idea of learning is to become a more thinking, more learned person who meets the world. These students are simply not available for that.

This is the reality Moshals wraparound model is built to address. When the Gaza war began, that support extended into the field. They sent money for food to students called up for reserve duty. They bought military equipment for soldier-students who didnt have what they needed.

We care, Lavie said. Theyre fantastic people.

The results support the strategy: Moshals graduation rate is 95% — compared to a national STEM dropout rate of around 25%. Some 90% of alumni are employed in their professional field after graduation. Alumni earn, on average, three times their family income on their first salary: roughly $6,500 per month, against a national family average of $1,971.

The economic case is compelling. The average Moshal investment per student is $53,574. In their first year of work alone, alumni earn over $75,000, exceeding the entire investment. Over a lifetime, the average Moshal alumnus will earn $3 million and pay $1.3 million in taxes. Across all 1,850 students and alumni to date, projected lifetime tax contributions reach close to $3 billion — against a total program investment of $70 million. I dont know any higher ROI for the economy, the individual, and the society, Lavie said.

In April 2025, Victor Lavy of Hebrew Universitys Department of Labor Economics published an independent study on the program. His findings confirmed what Moshals internal data had suggested: Alumni perform at the level of second-generation higher education graduates, earn 20% more than comparable STEM graduates and 86% have reached the highest income deciles, even while 60% of their parents were in the lowest. “‘Your alumni behave like second-generation higher education,’ Lavie recalled Lavy telling her. Thats what were here to do.

Beyond its 850 active students, the program has nearly 1,000 alumni (3,000 including their program in South Africa) and a growing network of employer partners: over 300 organizations, including Apple, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia and most of Israels major hospitals. It has just completed a major post-Oct. 7 expansion at Sami Shamoon College of Engineering in southern Israel, bringing in 80 additional students in a single year in partnership with the Scheinberg Foundation. It is now planning a similar initiative for the North, targeting students from Kiryat Shmona, Shlomi, Maalot and the Golan Heights.

The alumni community is itself part of the model. Over 1,000 Moshal graduates are now paying it forward — returning to their schools, army units, national service-year programs and Haredi yeshivot to tell the next generation: we were exactly where you are. The program has a particularly strong presence in the Haredi sector, where word of mouth has proven especially powerful. According to the Israeli Bureau of Statistics only around 4% of Haredim are employed in STEM-related careers.

“Among Israelis born to college-educated parents, 1 in 5 pursue STEM degrees that lead to high-paying knowledge economy jobs. Among first-generation, below-poverty-line youth, that ratio is 1 in 33. Talent is spread evenly, Lavie says. Opportunities arent.

Universities subsidize roughly half of each students tuition, but there is no systematic national investment in the wraparound model that makes Moshal work. Lavie has a vision for what that could look like: a pay for success arrangement in which the government contributes once graduates are gainfully employed and paying taxes. She insists that spending on humans needs to be top of mind: Why are roads more important than people? she asked. This is human infrastructure.

Moshal officials estimate that the maximum addressable market of first-generation, below-poverty-line students with the potential to pursue STEM degrees is approximately 2,400 students per year. The program currently reaches 8% of that pool. Lavie believes that if the program could grow to four times its current scale, it would hit a tipping point for Israeli society: enough role models, enough alumni, enough proof of concept circulating through the periphery of Israeli society to actively change the calculus for the next generation.

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Presence without power changes nothing

Contributing Author — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 10:30:00 +0000

American public support for Israel is dwindling to historic lows, yet our community is looking to the same old strategies to respond to this crisis.

The numbers are troubling. According to a Pew survey released this month, 60% of Americans now hold an unfavorable view of Israel. A year ago, that number was 53%. Among adults under 50, the survey found unfavorable views of Israel are at 70%; and among Democrats under 50, they’ve reached 84%. Even within the Jewish community, favorable views of Israel dropped sharply.

The instinct in moments like this is to look for a messaging fix. Better hasbara. More outreach. Stronger relationships. More meetings with the right people.

But our problem is not a lack of access. It is that access and influence are not the same thing.

What influence actually requires

For decades, Jewish leaders and institutions have had meaningful access to centers of power: universities, government offices, corporate boardrooms, civic spaces. But access alone does not shape outcomes. It does not determine which frameworks take hold, which values become normalized or which concerns are taken seriously before a crisis erupts.

Influence is something deeper. It is built when a community is not merely visible to institutions but embedded within them, present where agendas are formed early and quietly: school boards, city commissions, advisory councils, local political networks and the civic structures that shape public life long before issues become national headlines.

That kind of influence is rarely dramatic. It does not produce a headline or a viral clip. It is cumulative. It comes from steady civic presence, leadership development and the patient work of showing up before there is an emergency.

After Oct. 7, 2023, the Jewish community mobilized in meaningful ways. People showed up, marched, donated and demanded action. That mattered. But mobilization is not the same as infrastructure. A community that activates only after the moment arrives will almost always be reacting to decisions others have already spent years shaping.

They built systems; we built campaigns

The erosion in public opinion is not a messaging problem. It is the visible result of a structural imbalance built over decades.

For over two decades, while Jewish philanthropists funded university buildings and endowments, others funded something more consequential: professors, department chairs, curricula and student organizations trained to carry a coordinated ideology forward. Research has documented billions in foreign funding flowing into American universities, much of it unreported, with a direct correlation to rising antisemitic incidents on campus. And the system has not stayed on campus: according to JLens research recently cited by Ari Hoffnung of the Anti-Defamation League, there are now more than 75 active BDS campaigns targeting SP 500 companies. From the lecture hall to the boardroom, the infrastructure is the same. Only the venue has changed.

Our adversaries understood that influence requires coordinated effort across institutions, geographies and years. They built systems; we responded with campaigns. That asymmetry is not incidental. It is the result of a strategic choice: theirs to build, ours to react.

Why the cycle is hard to break

Part of this is structural. Campaigns are easier to fund. A rally, a video, a solidarity event — these produce visible, immediate proof of impact that works in a grant report or a donor appeal. Civic infrastructure takes years to show results and resists clean metrics. Organizations respond to incentives, and right now the incentives favor the visible over the durable. That is not a criticism of any single organization. It is a problem the entire funding ecosystem shares.

The coordination problem runs just as deep. When I spoke recently with lay leaders and Jewish organizations executives from coast to coast, I searched for something simple: a short list of shared civic priorities the Jewish community could present as one voice to every candidate running for office.

Adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Bubble-zone protections around houses of worship. Anti-BDS contracting rules. Clear enforcement when protests become harassment.

But with the exception of some organizational or city coalition position papers, no such document exists. More than two years after Oct. 7, with a midterm election approaching, the broad Jewish community still cannot agree on a minimum set of civic demands.

What needs to change

Meetings matter. Relationships matter. Access matters — it opens doors. But doors are not the same as leverage, and visibility is not the same as power. What matters now is not gaining entry to more rooms. It is building the local leadership, civic fluency and durable structures that shape what happens inside them.

That requires a different kind of investment: in civic training, local leadership pipelines and coordinated long-term strategy that treats influence as infrastructure rather than an event. It requires funders willing to measure success over years, not grant cycles. And it requires organizations willing to share accountability for outcomes, not just credit for activity.

Because presence without power changes nothing.

Aya Shechter is the chief programming officer of the Israeli-American Council.

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