eJewishPhilanthropy

Your Daily Phil: Can we debate without the senseless hate?

EJP — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 14:38:36 +0000

Good Wednesday morning! In today’s edition ofYour Daily Phil, we reflect on the divides within the Jewish community —the baseless hatreds and the fruitful debates — ahead of Tisha B’Av. We report on the renewed legal fight dividingMothers Against College Antisemitism, and cover theIsrael Innovation Institutes push to bring its startup mentality to Jewish communal life. We feature an opinion piece byPam Alcarareflecting on the lessons from her grandfather that have shaped her career in Jewish education, andRabbi Derek Gorminreminds us that the relationship between Diaspora teens and Israel is not a one-way street. Also in this issue:Mark Oppenheimer,Amy Sorensen Ben-DovandJeff Schoenfeld. Ed note:In observance of Tisha B’Av, the next edition ofYour Daily Philwill arrive on Friday, July 24. 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 This evening marks the start of Tisha BAv, the fast day commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, among other tragedies. Jewish communities and organizations will be holding related events throughout the day. What You Should Know A QUICK WORD FROM eJPS JUDAH ARI GROSS We are living in a time of feuds,of division and polarization, and of dehumanization and ignorance. And we are also in a time of profound urgency, of both grave challenges and consequential opportunities. And that combination represents a two-fold shame.It is a shame because the Jewish People —never a particularly large population —is unable to come together to most effectively address those challenges and take advantage of those opportunities. And it is also a shame because the increasingly sectarian divisions on display within Israel, the U.S. and world Jewry more broadly obscure the genuine, fruitful, principled debates that could help better inform the Jewish community’s path forward. Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here. News THE GREAT SCHISM Legal fight renews over Mothers Against College Antisemitism A legal battle between the founder of Mothers Against College Antisemitism,Elizabeth Rand,and the current board of directors over control of the popular Facebook group, which appeared to have been resolved, reignited this week with threats of a fresh lawsuit,eJewishPhilanthropy’sJay Deitcher reports. Asset management:Rand, who previously told eJP that the Facebook group “will die with me,” had issued demands to the board of the nonprofit that grew out of the Facebook group before she would turn over control of it; the board, in turn, believes that it has full ownership of the 60,000-plus-strong Facebook group. Read the full report. Share STARTUP NATION Israeli innovation group turns its methodology toward Jewish communal life An Israeli institute that has spent 15 years driving innovation in transportation, agriculture, health and climate is now turning that expertise toward a new frontier: Jewish communal life. The Israel Innovation Institute is now applying its innovation methodology to Jewish organizations for the first time, launching a new arm called the Global Jewish Innovation Network, or GJIN,reportseJewishPhilanthropy’s Justin Hayet. Helping you do you:“We dont come in saying, ‘We know your challenges,’” Rabbi Leor Sinai, who joined as senior vice president of global Jewish innovation and partnerships to build GJIN, told eJP. “You live there. But weve figured out a formula, based on our success, that we think we can copy-paste to the Jewish world.” He was equally clear about what the institute is not: “Were not coming in and saying, here are the Jewish values through which youll innovate. Were saying, this is what innovation looks like at the institute, and we can help you go down that road.” Read the full report. Share Opinion A GRANDFATHER’S LEGACY The lesson can wait. The child cannot. In an opinion piece foreJewishPhilanthropy, Pam Alcara recounts how, even though he passed away when she was still a child, her grandfather’s example continues to inform her approach as a Jewish educator. “When my grandfather helped build Jewish education in Chile, he was not only helping create a school. He was planting for children he might never teach, families he might never meet and generations whose Jewish lives would grow in ways he could not fully imagine. That image of planting has changed the way I understand both his legacy and my own work. Jewish education is not only what happens when a teacher opens a book. It is what happens when one generation creates the conditions for the next generation to feel that Judaism belongs to them.” Read the full piece here. Share ISRAEL-DIASPORA RELATIONS They come to strengthen their connection to Israel, but they strengthen Israel as well In an opinion piece foreJewishPhilanthropy, Rabbi Derek Gormin, managing director of programming and education for NCSY, reflects on a meaningful comment an IDF soldier made to teen participants on the Anne Samson Jerusalem Journey (TJJ) this summer. “As educators, we often think about how to inspire teenagers. But one of the greatest moments of growth comes when they realize they are not simply recipients of the Jewish story — they are responsible for it. That is what happened on that hillside overlooking Lebanon. For the first time, many of our teens understood that their presence mattered, that they had something meaningful to contribute to the Jewish people.” Read the full piece here. Share Worthy Reads Winning Back Washington:InForeign Policy, INSS’s Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis and Theodore Sassonarguethat Israel can rebuild bipartisan U.S. support, but only if it changes course. “A change in Israeli leadership is a vital first step, but deeper policy changes will also be needed, particularly in how Israel relates to the Palestinians. The opposition parties seeking to lead Israel after the national elections in October need to quickly make it clear that they intend to advance such changes.” Save or Surrender:In his blog, Jewish Funders Network’s Andrés SpokoinycontendsJewish survival requires difficult decisions. “What can still be saved, and what must never be surrendered? Yavne reminds us that survival often requires flexibility, patience, institutional creativity, and the acceptance of partial victories. Masada reminds us that survival purchased at the cost of all dignity, agency, and purpose may become an empty achievement.” Numbers Don’t Lie:In his eponymous Substack, Mark Oppenheimerpushes backagainst efforts to undermine PEN Americas recent report on antisemitism in publishing. “The people I know who have expressed the most skepticism to me about the PEN report are precisely those who in other contexts will express joy that there is a growing movement to boycott Israel, and who will defend cultural boycotts, despite their impact on individual artists who may have any kind of politics.” Liquidity is Coming:In his Substack titledFunding Anthropalypse, Jack Lewarswarnsthat an unprecedented wave of philanthropy — potentially hundreds of billions — is coming from AI-lab equity holders, and that the cost-effective giving ecosystem must urgently expand to absorb it well. “According to unpublished data fromGiving What We Can, cost-effective giving moved about $2 billion last year. This means that, even if every organisation in the space grew 5x next year, it would still only handle a fraction of the expected windfall.” Major Gifts Yonatan Romdonateda kidney through the Israeli nonprofitMatnat Chaimand discovered that his recipient was the brother of the man who had saved his life in a 2002 terror attack in Gaza… UJA-Federation of New Yorkis allocating $150,000 total to support efforts byIsraAID,World Jewish Reliefand theJDCto help victims of the recent earthquakes in Venezuela… Ananonymousdonorsponsoredfour JCC professionals to attend theWellspringSummit for Educatorsat theShalom Hartman Institutein Jerusalem earlier this month… ThePhyllis L. and Leonard J. Attman Foundationmade a “generous” gift for an undisclosed amount toIsrael Baseballto preserve and grow its youth clubs, build Tel Avivs first indoor facility, train local coaches and launch Israels first U12 national tournament… Transitions Hillel Internationalappointed20 new student leaders to itsStudent Cabinetfor the 2026-27 school year… Amy Sorensen Ben-DovisleavingtheJewish Funders Networkto joinCrownFamily Philanthropiesas a program officer… Hadar InstitutehiredShana Bloomas its next vice president of strategy and program… Jeff SchoenfeldandRon Gonenjoined the board ofA Good Option… Destiny Albrittonis joiningBZ Mediaas its new creative director… David Andersonwasselectedto serve as commissioner on theUnited StatesCommission on International Religious Freedom… The Tepper Foundation’sMarni SchreiberisjoiningtheAspen Instituteas a religion fellow… Word on the Street An array of Jewish and conservative organizationshelda memorial ceremony for the late Sen.Lindsey Graham(R-SC); attendees included:Betsy Berns Korn, the former AIPAC president and chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Jewish Federations of North America CEOEric Fingerhut; American Jewish Committee CEOTed Deutch; Dr.Miriam Adelson, the philanthropist and Republican megadonor; Israeli-American Council CEOElan Carr; andRabbiLevi Shemtov, the executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) Israel Policearrestedthree suspects in an alleged NIS 500 million ($164 million) money-laundering ring that used fictitious companies and nonprofits… The College Democrats of America’s decision to platform far-left, antisemitic influencerHasanPikerat its recent conference was “a direct threat to Jewish safety and inclusion,” the group’s Jewish Caucus said on Tuesday. Piker, who has a long-standing history of antisemitic rhetoric, was announced on Friday as the convention’s “surprise speaker,” just hours before it began,Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports… A newGates FoundationreviewfoundthatBill Gatesand representatives of his foundation met withJeffrey Epsteinabout 30 times from 2011 to 2014 despite staff concerns… The Times of IsraelspotlightsHakibbutz NYC, an 18,000-square-foot Chelsea workspace opened by Israeli tech leadersAmir WolnerandGuy Franklinto give Israeli startups their first permanent base in the city… The Israeli financial newspaperCalcalistreports that Israeli tech companyMondayis cutting about 20% of its global workforce… Israeli food-tech companyPlantopia, which produces plant-based dairy products,announcedit raised $9 million in a funding round led bySchreiber FoodsandSiddhi Capital; the funds, the company said, will support a manufacturing facility near Haifa… Glenn Yagoarguesin theJerusalem Strategic Tribunethat theboycott, divestment and sanctions movementhas abandoned campus resolutions for ESG-style “controversy” scores that quietly push pension funds to divest from Israel, costing ordinary savers billions… J. The Jewish News of Northern Californiahighlightsa debate amongJewish security officialsover whether institutions should give police access to their security cameras… Chabad of Bucks County(Pa.)markedthe completion of Phase 1 of itsPlayaRayaaccessible recreational park with a ribbon-cutting ceremony for campers… Philadelphia Jewish Exponentprofilesa Jewish Philadelphia power couple, who met as kids at URJ Camp Harlam and now lead major Reform institutions — RabbiBenjamin DavidatCongregation Keneseth IsraelandLisa DavidatURJCamp Harlam… Joel Rubin, who led Jewish outreach forBernie Sanders 2020 campaign,toldJewishInsider’sMarc Rodthat his former boss has become an outright hostile actor deliberately elevating anti-Israel and antisemitic candidates… Pic of the Day Courtesy Workers from the Israeli international aid organization Natan deliver letters this week to Venezuelans displaced by the June 24 earthquakes that rocked the country, who have been staying at a refugee camp in La Guaira, Venezuela. The letters were written by students from the state-religious Yehuda Halevy School in Jerusalem in a show of solidarity, one of the organizers of the initiative, Nadav Shifman Berman, toldeJewishPhilanthropy. Birthdays Sean Zanni/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images Dustin Yellin, contemporary artist, he is the founder and director of Pioneer Works, a cultural institution in Brooklyn, turns51 Gila Almagor, actor, prominent in Israeli theater, television and film, turns87 Anthony Steen, British Conservative Party member of Parliament for 36 years until 2010, a leading figure in the fight against human trafficking in the U.K. and worldwide, turns87 Judith Walzer Leavitt, historian, author and professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, turns86 Philip Cohen, British biochemist and professor at the University of Dundee in Scotland, Sir, turns81 Albert Brooks, actor, director and comedian, turns79 Richard Martin Nodel, past president of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Detroit, owner of Nodel Parks Alan Menken, one of only 22 EGOT winners, including eight Academy Awards and 11 Grammy awards, pianist and composer of many Disney movie musical scores, turns77 Hershel Boehm, owner of Baltimores Seven Mile Market Terry Swartzberg, managing director of a German public affairs firm, he works to ensure that the Holocaust and its many victims are not forgotten, turns73 Larry Gordon, publisher of The 5 Towns Jewish Times, turns73 Amy Berman Jackson, judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia since 2011 (senior status since May 2023), Judge, turns72 Michael Elliott Landsberg, Canadian sports journalist and mental health advocate, turns69 Cindy Masters, member of the board of governors of the American Jewish Committee David Jonathon Shulkin, secretary of veterans affairs in the first year of the Trump 45 administration, turns67 Joyce Alene Vance, federal prosecutor for 25 years, she was the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama throughout the Obama administration, turns66 Stevan Lieberman, founding partner of the D.C.-based intellectual property law firm Greenberg Lieberman, turns61 Evan Hansen, Democratic member of the West Virginia House of Delegates since 2018, turns60 David Shuster, television journalist and news anchor, now a host for The Young Turks on YouTube and Facebook, turns59 Ben Cosgrove, CEO of Leviathan Productions, focused on Jewish history, folklore and literature Warren Bass, Pentagon speechwriter during the Biden administration, now director of communications and senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy Daniel A. Saltsman, owner of West Bloomfield, Mich.-based Saltsman Industries and Saltsman Financial Group Jonathan Freeman, branch chief and senior advisor for policy and readiness at the U.S. Army Elise Rachel Shutzer, vice president of public affairs at PhRMA Rachel Wainer Apter, justice on the New Jersey Supreme Court, turns46 Reid Cherlin, former White House assistant press secretary, now the executive editor for news and politics at Crooked Media Andrew Grant Feinberg, White House correspondent at The Independent, turns44 Andrew Keene,a Reform lay leader and founder of Esek Supporting Israeli Small Businesses Jason Guberman-Pfeffer, executive director of the American Sephardi Federation since 2014 Keegan Phillip Allen, actor best known for his role in the Freeform series Pretty Little Liars,, turns37 Skyler Gisondo, actor, he played Jimmy Olsen in the 2025 version of Superman, turns30 Maor Cohen, director at the Peterson Health Technology Institute Talia Joyce Thurm Abramson Yoela Palkin, serial entrepreneur, software consultant and product strategist in Silicon Valley

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Baseless hatred, out. Fruitful debate, in.

Judah Ari Gross — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 12:54:13 +0000

We are living in a time of feuds, of division and polarization, and of dehumanization and ignorance. And we are also in a time of profound urgency, of both grave challenges and consequential opportunities. And that combination represents a two-fold shame. It is a shame because the Jewish People —never a particularly large population —is unable to come together to most effectively address those challenges and take advantage of those opportunities. And it is also a shame because the increasingly sectarian divisions on display within Israel, the U.S. and world Jewry more broadly obscure the genuine, fruitful, principled debates that could help better inform the Jewish community’s path forward. As Jews around the world mark Tisha B’Av tonight and tomorrow, mourning and commemorating the destruction of the temples in Jerusalem, along with other historic tragedies that befell the Jewish People, many will draw comparisons to and warn of the threat posed by sinat hinam, baseless hatred, the traditional reason given for why the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans. Such warnings are well-based. As Anu Museum of the Jewish People educator Naama Klar quipped last week at a rare gathering of Israeli religious Zionist and Diaspora non-Orthodox leaders, the reason why baseless hatred is widely accepted as the reason, and not any of the others offered in the Talmud, is “because it is the right answer.” For a small, geographically dispersed, heterogeneous people like the Jews, baseless hatred is acutely toxic. In Israel, particularly, as the country prepares for national elections this fall, the type of senseless, divisive hate has already emerged, making true debates about the country’s path forward more difficult to hold. The right-wing Religious Zionism Party has a markedly different worldview and set of priorities than the progressive Democrats Party —about security, religion-and-state issues and civil rights. But that debate — a critical discussion to be had in a country without a constitution —is not taking place when the Religious Zionism Party posts an AI-generated video on its Instagram, giving Reform Rabbi Gilad Kariv, third on the Democrats Party’s slate, the nickname “bar mitzvahs for dogs.” Repeating a baseless canard about Reform Jews does not advance a serious debate about religion or politics, about the differences between Reform and Orthodox Judaism; it shuts down those discussions —and alienates more than a third of American Jews to boot. To be sure, Yair Golan, the head of the Democrats Party, has faced his own criticism for using dehumanizing language, referring to residents of an illegal West Bank settlement as “subhuman” in 2022. (Following a backlash, he apologized for using the term, but stood by his criticism.) In a primetime address last night, Israeli President Isaac Herzog warned of exactly this, calling on all sides to be respectful and to accept the election results. “I call on the people of Israel, in a clear voice: remember that elections are not a civil war. Disagreement and criticism are the lifeblood of our democracy, but our belonging to this place, and our responsibility for our shared future here — for our children, for our grandchildren — come before all else and are the highest priority,” Herzog said. But while baseless hatred is indeed a threat to Jewish continuity, shutting down debate and disagreement cannot be the solution. In his commentary on the book of Genesis, Haamek Davar, 19th-century Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, known as the Netziv, understands the Tower of Babel, built by a people who spoke the “same words,” as representing a people with no disagreement —a dystopian possibility. “And the ‘same words’ can also be seen as the fact that they would kill whoever did not think like them,” he wrote. Honest, frank discussions make you question your priors and see an issue from a new angle. It can sharpen and improve your position, addressing the weak points. “In an argument for the sake of truth, both sides win, for each is willing to listen to the views of its opponents, and is thereby enlarged,” Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks wrote in his commentary on Parashat Korach, which introduces the distinction between arguments for the sake of heaven and arguments for power. For the Jewish community going forward, not only on Tisha B’Av but for the months and years to come, the challenge will be in knowing how to distinguish between senseless hatred and rigorous debate. “A healthy culture protects places that welcome argument and respect dissenting views. Enter them and you will grow, others will grow, and you will do great things together,” Sacks wrote in his 2020 book, Morality. “But resist with all your heart and soul any attempt to substitute power for truth. And stay far from people, movements, and parties that demonize their opponents.”

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Israeli innovation group turns its methodology toward Jewish communal life

Justin Hayet — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 11:55:31 +0000

An Israeli institute that has spent 15 years driving innovation in transportation, agriculture, health and climate is now turning that expertise toward a new frontier: Jewish communal life. The Israel Innovation Institute is now applying its innovation methodology to Jewish organizations for the first time, launching a new arm called the Global Jewish Innovation Network, or GJIN. The institute manages six international innovation ecosystems and describes itself as a hub for more than 3,000 Israeli startups working on global challenges from smart transportation to climate and ocean health, in partnership with investors, corporations and government bodies. Its listed partners and funders include several Israeli government ministries, including the Health Ministry, Economy Ministry, Transportation Ministry and Agriculture Ministry — along with the Israel Innovation Authority, the Merage Foundation, Consensus Business Group and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund. For more than 15 years, the institute has worked with governments, agencies and universities across Africa, Europe and the United States, said Rabbi Leor Sinai, who joined as senior vice president of global Jewish innovation and partnerships to build GJIN. Sinai traced the initiative to the Oct. 7 terror attacks, their aftermath and the wars that followed. He recounted meeting the institutes CEO, an Israeli innovation figure who, by Sinais account, had little connection to Jewish communal life until he watched the global Jewish response to the wars: the surge of volunteers, donors and first-time visitors who arrived to work in agricultural fields, hospitals and the hotels housing thousands of displaced Israelis. “He was blown away by this outpouring of love and support,” Sinai said, describing an Israeli leader whose “Jewish neshama woke up” and who pushed the institute toward a strategic decision to engage global Jewry. Sinai, who has spent some 30 years in Jewish organizations, said the institute’s pitch to communities is deliberately collaborative. “Innovation isnt, ‘I have a great idea, lets go do it,’” he said. “Its the process of naming the challenge and going down that road toward a solution.” The institute arrives with a tested methodology and lets local leaders define their own challenges, he said. “We dont come in saying, ‘We know your challenges,’” Sinai said. “You live there. But weve figured out a formula, based on our success, that we think we can copy-paste to the Jewish world.” He was equally clear about what the institute is not: “Were not coming in and saying, here are the Jewish values through which youll innovate. Were saying, this is what innovation looks like at the institute, and we can help you go down that road.” Over the past six months, GJIN has mapped Jewish communities and organizations at the national, regional and local levels and assembled a roster of more than 20 Israeli innovators and entrepreneurs to serve as mentors, Sinai said. “The response has been very positive,” he said. The networks signature program, the Global Jewish Innovation Fellowship, has enrolled its first cohort. It targets mid- to senior-level professionals, from vice presidents to CEOs, on the logic that senior staff carry the organizational voice to drive change; a parallel track for younger leaders is planned. Each participating organization sends at least two people so the impact compounds on their return. “Two are better than one,” Sinai said. The institute is developing a global digital platform to connect Jewish organizations and let them share challenges and solutions, so a curriculum built in one community can reach others. It also signed a partnership with the European Council of Jewish Communities to extend the fellowship and its methodology to communities across Europe. “Thirty years Ive worked across the alphabet of Jewish organizations,” Sinai said. “This is new. This is refreshing.”

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The lesson can wait. The child cannot.

Contributing Author — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 11:36:15 +0000

The last conversation I had with my grandfather was about my bat mitzvah. I was in fifth grade, and he had been in Switzerland for several weeks. My bat mitzvah was still about a year away, but before we hung up the phone, he made me a promise: “When I get home, we’ll start learning your Torah portion together.” It was not a dramatic goodbye. It was not a moment I understood as sacred while it was happening. It was simply the next thing we were going to do. He never came home. My grandfather, Marcos Pollak, an askan dedicated to strengthening Jewish life in Israel and in Chile — where he helped establish the country’s board of Jewish education — died on the seventh day of the month of Av. My mother and her siblings traveled to Switzerland to bring him home. My father, my siblings and I stayed behind. By the time he was buried, it was Tisha B’Av. For years, I thought what I had lost was the chance to learn my Torah portion from him. I imagined us sitting side by side with a Chumash open between us, my grandfather helping me sound out the words I would one day chant from the bimah. I imagined him stopping every few verses to tell a story, because that was how he taught. A question about Torah would become a story about his childhood. A story about his childhood would become a story about our family. Only much later did I understand that the Torah portion was never the whole lesson. I did not know then that this unfinished lesson would shape the way I understand Jewish education: not as the transfer of information alone, but as the creation of belonging. My grandfather inspired my entire career in Jewish education, though he never taught me Hebrew. He commanded every room he entered, not because he demanded attention, but because people wanted to listen. He filled family gatherings with stories of resilience, migration, rebellion, growth and Jewish life. His Judaism did not feel like something preserved behind glass. It felt alive, joyful, honest and deeply his own. One of my favorite family stories was about the day he cut off his peyot. Raised in an Orthodox home, it was his teenage act of rebellion. But he never told the story as the moment he rejected Judaism; he told it as part of the journey toward a Jewish life that was authentic, meaningful and his. That distinction shaped me. My grandfather understood that Judaism could not simply be handed to the next generation as an obligation. It had to be made meaningful enough for them to claim. Recently, my family began the process of replacing a plaque at Instituto Hebreo Jaim Weitzmann, the first Jewish school in Chile, which my grandfather helped build. The school has an award they give to graduating seniors called the Marcos Pollak Award for Jewish Identity, recognizing students for exemplary dedication to Zionism and cultural values. The sentence we chose comes from Ta’anit 23a: “Just as my ancestors planted for me, I too plant for my descendants.” I cannot think of a more fitting tribute. When my grandfather helped build Jewish education in Chile, he was not only helping create a school. He was planting for children he might never teach, families he might never meet and generations whose Jewish lives would grow in ways he could not fully imagine. That image of planting has changed the way I understand both his legacy and my own work. Jewish education is not only what happens when a teacher opens a book. It is what happens when one generation creates the conditions for the next generation to feel that Judaism belongs to them. That feels especially urgent in part-time Jewish education, where time is limited, expectations are high and students often arrive after already giving so much of themselves elsewhere. I teach during the week, after students have spent a full day in school. By the time they enter the classroom, they are carrying backpacks, homework, sports schedules, friendship drama, family expectations and the ordinary exhaustion of children who have already been asked to sit, listen, transition, perform and keep it together for hours. And still, they show up. That matters. By the time a child enters a Jewish classroom, we are not the first adults who have asked something of them that day. They may be ready to learn. They may also be tired, distracted, anxious, hungry, overstimulated or simply done. That reality should shape how we teach. I always have a lesson prepared. There are Hebrew words to practice, Torah stories to explore, conversations about Israel to facilitate, values to unpack and students preparing for b’nai mitzvah who are eager, nervous, resistant, proud or some combination of all of it. But before we begin, I almost always open with the same prompt: “So, tell me about your week.” It sounds simple, and sometimes it is. Sometimes I hear about soccer games, tests, birthday parties, camp memories or forgotten homework. Sometimes a student wants to tell me every detail of something that seems, on the surface, entirely unrelated to the lesson I planned. And sometimes I hear almost nothing. But over time, I have learned that the quiet answers deserve just as much attention as the excited ones. I notice the student who usually runs into the room but walks in slowly that day. The one who avoids eye contact. The one who keeps interrupting because they are desperate to be seen. The one who insists they are fine in a voice that tells me they are not. Sometimes I pull up a chair and sit beside them before we ever open a book. We may talk, or we may not. Sometimes they simply need to know that someone noticed. The lesson can wait. The child cannot. This is not a rejection of curriculum. It is the condition that makes curriculum matter. I care deeply about what our students learn. I want them to build Hebrew confidence, understand Torah as a living text, ask meaningful questions about Israel and Jewish history, and see themselves as part of the Jewish story. But I do not believe Jewish education begins with information. I believe it begins with relationships. A child who feels unseen may memorize a prayer and still experience Judaism as one more demand placed upon them. A child who feels known may encounter that same prayer as an invitation. A child who is exhausted may not remember every detail of a lesson, but they may remember that a Jewish adult noticed they were having a hard day and chose to sit beside them. That memory matters because Jewish identity is not built only in the moments we can measure. It is built in the small, repeated experiences that tell a child, “There is a place for you here.” In supplemental Jewish education, we often worry about time. There is never enough of it — not enough hours, not enough weeks, not enough years before a child reaches b’nai mitzvah and families begin to decide what comes next. But limited time is precisely why relationships cannot be treated as an extra. If our students experience Jewish learning only as something squeezed between school, homework and activities, then every moment must communicate more than content. It must communicate belonging. That requires investment not only in curriculum, but also in the educators, time and culture that allow students to feel seen while they are learning. If we want children to carry Jewish life forward, we have to give them more than material to remember. We have to give them relationships worth remembering. Maybe that is why this memory returns to me each year on Tisha B’Av. Tisha B’Av asks us to sit with loss. We mourn what was destroyed, what was broken and what could not be restored in the way people hoped it would be. But Jewish history has never ended with destruction. Again and again, what remained was carried forward by people who chose to plant anyway. My grandfather was one of those people. He planted through stories. He planted through Jewish education. He planted through the belief that Judaism was strong enough to be questioned, joyful enough to be loved and spacious enough to belong to every generation in its own way. I did not get the Torah lesson he promised me. We never sat side by side with the text open between us. He never taught me the words I would chant from the bimah. And yet, all these years later, I understand that he was teaching me long before that phone call. The future of Jewish education will depend not only on what we teach children, but on whether they experience Jewish learning as a place where they are known. Now, when I pull up a chair beside a student, I think about the chair that was supposed to sit beside mine. For years, I thought it had been left empty. Now I understand that it was not empty at all. It was waiting to be passed on. Pam Alcala is a Long Island, N.Y.-based Jewish educator, curriculum developer and program leader whose work focuses on relationship-centered Jewish learning, Israel education and helping students find personal meaning in Jewish life.

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Legal fight renews over Mothers Against College Antisemitism

Jay Deitcher — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 11:34:42 +0000

Last December, Elizabeth Rand, the founder of the Facebook group Mothers Against College Antisemitism, told eJewishPhilanthropy that the Facebook group “will die with me.” Days later, on Jan. 2, she received a cease-and-desist letter from the MACA Foundation, Inc., the nonprofit that grew out of the group, accusing her of changing the Facebook group name without the board’s authorization, giving non-MACA Foundation representatives unauthorized leadership roles in the Facebook group and banning — and publicly criticizing — board members. Rand was asked to transfer control of the Facebook group to the board immediately. Last Thursday, she received a second letter with similar requests, signed by Seth Bursky, a Melville, N.Y., lawyer representing the MACA Foundation, offering a “limited window to avoid litigation.” The deadline to comply was July 21, 2026. As of Wednesday morning, Rand remains one of the group’s three administrators. Rand created the MACA Facebook group soon after the Oct. 7 terror attacks, and in less than a month, the group amassed over 42,000 members — affectionately known as MACAbees — reaching 60,000 within a year. The group served as a support system for mothers struggling with a post-Oct. 7 world where campuses were teeming with anti-Israel protests and outright antisemitism. The group gave them a platform to connect and organize. Together, mothers flooded campus administrators’ inboxes and voicemails with complaints, calling for professors to be fired, pro-Palestinian programming to be canceled and Israel divestment resolutions to be rejected. Rand was the public face of the movement, appearing in media appearances, including in The New York Times. “I was an ordinary schmuck who started a Facebook group,” Rand told eJP last December, saying that the group ballooned faster than expected. She declined to comment for this piece. Seeking to turn the group into a “legitimate organization, not just a Facebook group,” Rand applied for 501(c)(3) status, and in December 2023, The MACA Foundation, Inc. was approved. But Rand had a full-time job as a Manhattan-based lawyer and felt that “there were other people who could probably do a better job than I was doing because I work all day and not everybody else on the board did,” she said. So on Nov. 10, 2025, she resigned as board president, giving up any power over the organization she had. “Elizabeth Rand was the founder of this 501(c)(3),” Geri Cohen, a Dallas-based lawyer, MACA board member and MACA’s vice president of legal, told eJP. “She was the initiator. She was the founder, and weve been very public about being beyond grateful for that, because in a sea of aftermath of immense horror, she was the one who stood up and created this public 501(c)(3) nonprofit. However, by her own words and her own action, she has removed herself entirely from the foundation.” When Rand turned the organization into a nonprofit, she no longer ran it. “The board doesnt even own it,” Cohen said. “This is all nonprofit 101.” Other nonprofit experts, including Laura Solomon, founder and owner of Laura Solomon Associates, a law firm devoted to the formation and representation of charities and philanthropic individuals, agree that when a founder of a non-membership charity, unlike a family foundation, leaves a board of directors, they have no ownership over the assets or power. Even though Rand hasn’t served on the board or as leadership since November 2025, she never handed off control of the Facebook group, which Cohen described as an asset of the foundation. When discussing the original letter, Solomon also stated that, without knowing the specifics of the situation, “Social media accounts in the name of a charity are a form of charitable asset that must be used exclusively for the charitable purpose. The board is tasked with safeguarding those assets, in keeping with their fiduciary duties.” And that asset provides access to 60,000 members. The original cease-and-desist letter, sent in early January, was prompted by a dispute between Rand and a previous board member, whom Rand said had cursed at her, mostly over banning too many people from the Facebook group. At the time, the Facebook group had become entrenched with infighting between Rand and her followers and others who empathized with the board. Rand had indeed blocked MACA board members from the Facebook group and began promoting a new organization, Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism or AZIAS NYC — a 501(c)(4) — in the MACA Facebook group. After the board member with whom she was arguing was removed from MACA leadership, the cease-and-desist letter was sent, but Rand refused to give up the Facebook group. She also had demands: she wanted the board to apologize for the removed board member’s messages and to have a contract stating that she would have veto power over any new board members and the ability to sit in on board meetings, even if she didn’t have voting rights. In exchange, Rand would allow board members access to the Facebook group, with them managing it and choosing their own moderators. On Jan. 7, Rand announced a rapprochement via a message in the Facebook group. “We are committed to continuing respectful communications as we work towards our shared goals,” it said. “We worked really hard and did our due diligence to come to a different option,” Cohen said. The solution the board and Rand agreed to was that Rand would continue to have control of the Facebook group as long as official MACA representatives were moderators and board members had access. “There would be no disparaging of each other.” But still, Rand ultimately had the ability to make people moderators, to block people, to approve posts, to remove users, and in the months to come, board members began seeing their posts “pending” for long periods of time. Many weren’t approved, Miriam Zivin, MACA Foundation’s president of the board, told eJP. “Sometimes we were told, this was already posted or — keep it about this thread.” In February, as the board began to promote a MACA delegation gathering at the Israel Day Parade in NYC in May, “more and more, we werent allowed to advertise the event and garner support,” Zivin said. “As of a few months ago — our names were not taggable. That turned into suspended accounts, and eventually being blocked. No reason was given for the decline — the blocking we figured out on our own.” Still, MACA gathered at the parade, held on Fifth Avenue on May 31, with the largest delegation the organization ever had — 90 representatives. Rand was invited and attended. “She is the founder of the nonprofit, and so for us, it was [about] really wanting her to be there,” Cohen said. There is a video posted on the MACA Instagram account of Cohen standing beside Rand on a New York City city street at the parade. “On behalf of the MACA Foundations, we are MACA Strong, Mothers Against College Anti-Semitism,” Cohen said to the camera. “Thank you to Liz Rand for founding this organization and for gathering us, even on social media. We were all together as one, and we are still strong, and we still have work to do.” Then came last Thursday’s letter titled: “Demand, Cease and Desist and Litigation Hold.” According to Rand, ever since the January agreement, she has repeatedly asked the board to publicly rescind the original cease-and-desist letter. “They didn’t have to apologize; just a few sentences that they officially rescinded it,” she wrote in a July 17 Facebook post in the MACA group. The Facebook group moderators, chosen by Rand, “didn’t want this thing full of lies on their books and records.” Her request to the board was ignored, she said, and at the parade, they asked to be moderators of the Facebook group. “I discussed this with our [moderators,] and we all agreed that unless they rescind [the original letter], then no. Eventually we stopped posting their stuff and the result was a ridiculous letter from a half assed lawyer making the same baseless demands. And there you have it,” she wrote. On Friday, Rand changed the Facebook group’s name to Parents Against College Antisemitism, yet Cohen said it still remains a MACA asset. “A NEW NAME, SAME MISSION with Elizabeth Rand leading the group,” the description said. Throughout everything, the MACA Foundation has retained control of its Instagram account and its regional social media accounts in Michigan, Los Angeles, South Florida, New York and Houston. Rand herself has a personal Facebook account with thousands of followers as well as a Facebook group for AZIAS NYC. The latest letter accuses Rand of fraudulently claiming to be MACA’s CEO, changing the name of the Facebook group and appointing her own moderators unconnected to MACA and of promoting AZIAS NYC in the MACA group. It asks her to stop acting on behalf of MACA, to give access of the Facebook group to the organization and remove posts advertising her new organization. “Your failure to comply with these demands by July 21, 2026, will result in MACA initiating legal proceedings against you and the Unauthorized Administrator and Moderators,” the letter states, signed by Bursky. There was never an agreement to give Rand access to the board without her being on the board, Cohen said. “If you are no longer involved in a 501(c)(3) as a board member or in any kind of operation, you arent privy to any board meetings, discussions, minutes.” There is much Zivin and Cohen wish people could pay attention to instead of another dispute over the Facebook group. In the past year, the MACA Foundation has brought speakers to MACA groups and to campuses including travel blogger Tal Oran, Christian Zionist actor Nathaniel Buzolic, former spokesperson of the Israel Defense Forces Jonathan Conricus, pro-Israel content creator Zach Sage Fox and former Columbia professor Shai Davidai. MACA representatives have met with university presidents, created antisemitism courses for schools, held student parties and self-defense courses and assisted students with legal advice about anti-Zionism and antisemitism. MACA has tabled, advocated for pro-Israel professors, helped create student Israel advocacy groups and built alliances with Persian, Christian and Hindu communities. Alongside the group Hate Ends Now, MACA brought a replica Nazi cattle car to three college campuses. “When other organizations do not help, they stay silent or they are afraid,” Cohen said. “We are the moms that are called, and we are the moms that show up.” IRS filings show that the MACA Foundation raised $176,000 in 2025. “Not one dime of these donations that we have taken in has gone towards legal fees,” Cohen said. Instead, a single anonymous donor has covered all legal fees related to the MACA-Rand dispute. Still, the controversy has hurt fundraising and is harming the foundation’s work, Cohen said. The “Facebook asset” is essential for advocacy and organizing. Its where people go for community and to learn about antisemitism at schools that aren’t on the Anti-Defamation League’s Campus Antisemitism Report Card, which evaluates 150 schools. Currently, in the MACA Facebook group, the posts that are approved by moderators applaud Rand’s work and condemn the board for threatening legal action, claiming that it is more proof of the Jews being divided at a time when enemies are at the gates. “This is more dangerous than all the antisemitism in the world,” one message said. Zivin hopes that the organization can move past the controversy and remain focused on its goals. “We want to be the ones who are filling the void that existing Jewish organizations are leaving behind and the disservice thats being done to these Jewish students as a result. In order to have that happen, we have to have the ear of people across the country, because we need those people to step up… Because [campus antisemitism] is not going to go away. If anything, its going to get worse.”

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They come to strengthen their connection to Israel, but they strengthen Israel as well

Contributing Author — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 04:10:58 +0000

Every summer, thousands of American Jewish teenagers travel to Israel through NCSY summer programs hoping to deepen their connection to the Jewish homeland. Participants on the Anne Samson Jerusalem Journey (TJJ) expect to be inspired by the places they visit, the people they meet and the history they walk through. This summer, many discovered something they never expected: that Israel needed them. That realization came into focus during a visit to Misgav Am, the northernmost kibbutz on Israels border with Lebanon. An IDF soldier thanked the group for making the journey. You came because you care, he told them. You want to show your love, and you want to hear the truth. Then he added the words I hope those teenagers carry with them for the rest of their lives. We are trying to protect the Jewish home for you too The only thing that keeps us going is you. For many of our students, that was the moment their understanding of Israel changed. As educators, we often think about how to inspire teenagers. But one of the greatest moments of growth comes when they realize they are not simply recipients of the Jewish story — they are responsible for it. That is what happened on that hillside overlooking Lebanon. For the first time, many of our teens understood that their presence mattered, that they had something meaningful to contribute to the Jewish people. Since Oct. 7, 2023, many Jewish teenagers have faced antisemitism and isolation in their schools and on college campuses. They came to Israel looking for connection. Instead, they discovered that simply showing up gave Israelis strength. There is something profoundly Jewish about that. Judaism teaches that every Jew carries responsibility for one another. We often think impact comes from grand speeches or historic decisions. More often, it begins with something much simpler: standing beside another Jew and saying, You are not alone. That lesson began before our teens even landed. During the flight to Israel, a member of the airline crew watched a group of students praying together. Moved by what he saw, he approached them afterward and asked if someone could teach him how to put on tefillin. No one planned for that moment. It happened because these teenagers were living their Judaism openly and joyfully. Before they had even arrived, they had already become ambassadors for Jewish life. Too often, conversations about Israel focus only on politics, conflict and diplomacy. Those discussions matter, but they can obscure a deeper truth: the relationship between Israel and Diaspora Jewry is not unidirectional. We often talk about what Israel gives American Jews — identity, history, belonging and inspiration. We talk less about what American Jews give Israel: hope, solidarity and the reassurance that the Jewish story does not end at Israels borders. That realization is especially powerful for teenagers. Young people spend so much of their lives asking where they belong. In Israel, many of our students discovered a different question entirely: How can I contribute? That shift — from seeing themselves as consumers of Jewish life to active participants in it — is one of the most important steps in building a lasting Jewish identity. Our students returned home with unforgettable memories. I suspect the Israelis they met will remember them, too. As educators, we rarely know which moments will shape a young persons future. A conversation with a soldier. A stranger asking to learn a mitzvah. A simple act of presence. That is why we bring teenagers to Israel: not only so they can strengthen their connection to the Jewish state, but so they discover they are an indispensable part of the Jewish story. This summer, they arrived hoping to discover Israel. Instead, they discovered that Israel was waiting for them. Rabbi Derek Gormin is the managing director of programming and education for NCSY.

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Your Daily Phil: Warner Bros.’ David Zaslav dives into the camping business

EJP — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 13:50:24 +0000

Good Tuesday morning! In today’s edition ofYour Daily Phil, we examine newly releasedJewish Federations of North America’s fundraising data showing an increase in donors, and report on the pending sales of five of theShabsels brothers’camps.We feature an opinion piece byRachel Saiferrallying to keepRamah Day Camp Philadelphiafrom closing after the 2026 season, and a piece byChanieandRabbi Peretz Cheinabout helping college students become not merely consumers of Jewish experiences prepared for them by others but owners of their own. Also in this issue:Ron Dermer,Judit PolgarandEfrat Bocher. 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 Tzoharis hosting its Annual Summer Conference today at the Expo Tel Aviv, with speakers includingEric Goldstein, the outgoing CEO ofUJA-Federation of New York;Shlomit Mali, the CEO ofAMI; and Tzohar CEORabbi David Stav.If you’re there, say hi to eJP’s Judah Ari Gross! In New York,Jewish Women Internationalis hosting a daylong workshop series focused on Jewish women in the workplace. More than a dozen Jewish and pro-Israel groups, including theConference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, theIsraeli-American Council, theJewish Federations of North America,Christians United for IsraelandColumbia (S.C.) Jewish Federationare hosting a virtual tribute to Sen.Lindsey Graham(R-SC) tonight ahead of his funeral next week. This evening in Tel Aviv, theHashiloachquarterly journal is hosting an event at theCenter for Israeli Freedomon the question of “Where is American Jewry heading?” featuringHashiloachEditorSagi Barmak, Israeli Diaspora Affairs MinisterAmichai Chikli, Hartman Institute faculty memberMasua SagivandRabbiDaniel Gordis. What You Should Know A QUICK WORD FROM eJPS NIRA DAYANIM Nearly three years after the Oct. 7 terror attackstriggered a wave of emergency giving to Jewish causes, Jewish Federations of North America officials say that has transformed into a lasting growth in their donor base, bucking both broader trends and the organization’s own trajectory. As Jewish philanthropy — and philanthropy in general — is definedby more and more money being given by fewer and fewer big donors, JFNA said that it saw a 2.7% increase in donors to local Jewish federations between 2023 and 2025, bringing the total to around 290,000 donors. Prior to Oct. 7, 2023, JFNA had been seeing a “slow decline,” both in the number of donors and the number of dollars raised, David Heller, JFNA’s outgoing national campaign chair, toldeJewishPhilanthropy. “If you work in Jewish communal fundraising, 2.7% is pretty big.When youre talking about the overall number that were talking about, its a pretty incredible trend,” Heller said. Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here. News GOING, GOING, ALMOST GONE 5 Shabsels brothers camps set to sell to current operators, a nonprofit — and a media mogul As more than two dozen summer camps head to auction after their owners declared bankruptcy, a vision of their future is forming, with some camps being purchased by their current operators, one by a nonprofit — and another by a famous media mogul, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who aims to purchase the camp his children attended, Mohawk Day Camp in Westchester County, N.Y.,reportseJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher. Auction block:The bids that have come in are so-called “stalking horse” bids, meaning they set the floor for where auctions begin. The final sales are set for July 28. Insiders tell eJP that many other nonprofit entities are set to bid on the camps. Read the full report here. Share Opinion NOT SO FAST Keep the sun shining on Ramah Day Camp Philly In an opinion piece foreJewishPhilanthropy, Rachel Saifer, chief operating officer of Penn Hillel, responds to the recent announcement of Ramah Day Camp Philadelphia’s impending closure after this summer (her two sons have been involved with the camp, first as campers and then as counselors, since 2009). “Tell us what the financial gap is. Tell us how many additional campers are needed. Tell us what benchmarks must be met to keep the camp open. Give us a goal, and give us the opportunity to reach it. This should not become a story of decline. It should become a story of a community that refused to let an institution disappear.” Read the full piece here. Share FROM BORROWERS TO OWNERS The day after graduation In an opinion piece foreJewishPhilanthropy, the founders and longtime leaders of Chabad at Brandeis, Rabbi Peretz and Chanie Chein, draw from the writings of developmental psychologist Robert Kegan and the Chassidic framework of “avoda pnimis” — literally “internal work,” or as the Cheins have dubbed it, “insourcing” — to answer the question: What kind of Jewish experience during one’s college years informs the years and decades beyond it? “Kegans research on adult development describes the move from a ‘socialized mind,’ an identity held together by the expectations and frameworks of the surrounding group, to a ‘self-authoring mind,’ in which a person steps back from those frameworks and deliberately makes them their own. … What if we started thinking of ourselves not as educators of texts and ideas alone, but of something deeper: the art and skill of self-authorship itself?” Read the fullpiece? Share Worthy Reads From Ruin to Rebuilding:In theTimes of Israel, Yad Laishas Pnina Omer draws on Tisha BAv toarguethat just as the Temples destruction opened the way to renewal, freeing anagunah(a woman whose husband refuses to grant her a divorce) from an abusive marriage can be the first step toward safety and a life rebuilt. “Because sometimes, what appears to be destruction is, in truth, the beginning of rebuilding.” Trust the Village:In theStanford Social Innovation Review, organizer Ashley Fairbankscontendsthat in a crisis, communities can identify and meet their own needs faster than the foundations meant to help them — and she urges funders to route resources directly to the people closest to the harm. “Philanthropy can help till the soil. It can plant seeds Or, to put it less delicately: You can put the money on the table, trust your community partners, and watch what happens when you step back. Not to withdraw, but to make space for the people who are already carrying the work.” Major Gifts Israeli renewable energy companyEnergixwillinvestNIS 50 million ($16.40 million) over five years to build an energy-tech innovation center and industrial-scale grid-testing lab atTel Aviv University… Jewish Nevadahasapprovedroughly $1.6 million in funding from its Annual Campaign with recipients includingFriendship Circle of Las Vegas,Jewish Family ServiceAgency,Chabad Southwest Las Vegas,Yeshiva Day School of Las Vegas, theJewish Agency for Israeland theIsraeli-American Council… Transitions Israel’s former Minister of Strategic AffairsRon Dermeris returning toJINSAto serve as its distinguished fellow at itsGemunder Center for Defense and Strategy… Israel Friendshas hiredMatt Levinas its national director… Michael Belinskyhasstepped intoa role at theOpenAI Foundationto build out its civil society and philanthropy work… TheHebrew University of Jerusalemhas named former Intel vice presidentYishaiFraenkelas its new vice president for advancement and external relations… TheJewish Community Foundation of Greater HartfordnamedRon CiprianoandEricZachsto its board of trustees… Word on the Street Testifying before AustraliasRoyal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, local Jewish day school and synagogue leadersurgedthe Australian government to allocate more funding toward the soaring security costs burdening Jewish organizations since the Oct. 7 terror attacks… OpenAIis reportedlystartinga business development operation inIsrael, having hired a senior Israeli executive from Amazon Web Services to lead the effort to develop relationships in the Israeli high-tech sector… The New York Timesexaminesthe impact that the Trump administration’s crackdowns on immigration are having on elder care facilities… Mark ZuckerbergovertookMichael Dellas the fifth wealthiest person after shares ofDellstock dropped 3.3% yesterday… In an interview with thePittsburgh Jewish Chronicle,New Jewish Healthcare Foundationnew president and CEO,Danny Rosen,cautionsthat federal cuts to healthcare and research funding have made the foundations mission more essential than ever… More than 1,000 British Jews, including philanthropist DameVivian Duffieldas well as 22 rabbis,signeda letter urging U.K. ministers to ban trade withWest Banksettlements… Hungarian chess grandmasterJudit Polgarturned downHungarian Prime MinisterPéter Magyar’s offer to serve as the country’s interim president, saying she felt she lacked “the strength to take on the historic responsibility of uniting a divided nation” in the post-Viktor Orbán era… Pic of the Day Efrat Bocher/Israel Antiquities Authority Recently uncovered charred wooden beams from a building burned by the Babylonians during the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem, which were unveiled yesterday by theIsrael Antiquities Authority. The announcement comes ahead of the Tisha B’Av fast day, which mourns the destruction of the two temples, among other tragedies that have befallen the Jewish People. “It appears that these beams, which seem to have been used for the walls of an internal courtyard of a structure in the time of the First Temple, which collapsed during the destruction to the floor of the structure,” Efrat Bocher, the director of the archaeological dig, said in a statement. “We estimate that the plaster that covered the walls of the structure melted during the fire, covered the charred wooden beams, and that’s what helped preserve them.” Birthdays Michael Tullberg/Getty Images Jon Lovitz, comedian and actor, best known for his five seasons on Saturday Night Live ending in 1990, turns69 Henry Dean Ostberg, president at Admar Group, turns98 Martin Bandier, retired CEO of Sony/ATV, a large music publishing firm, he is a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, turns85 Shlomo Havlin, professor in the Physics Department at Bar-Ilan University, he won the Israel Prize in 2018, turns84 Robert Shrum, director of the Center for the Political Future at USC, turns83 Benjamin Brafman, criminal defense attorney, known for representing many politicians, celebrities and organized crime defendants, turns78 Susan Veronica Kramer, former member of the U.K.s House of Commons, now in the House of Lords, Baroness, turns76 Sanford Sandy Jay Grossman, chairman and CEO at Quantitative Financial Strategies, turns73 Shonni Joy Silverberg, endocrinologist and professor at Columbia Universitys medical school, she is an honorary president of NYCs Central Synagogue Jane Carol Ginsburg, professor at Columbia Law School and daughter of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, turns71 Irene Ostrovsky,Brooklyn resident Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, former chief rabbi of Moscow, his opposition to the Ukraine war prompted him to leave Russia, turns63 Eric Matthew Simonoff, literary agent at the William Morris Endeavor book department, turns59 Alysia Reiner, actor and producer, turns56 Sara Seager, professor of astronomy at MIT and winner of a 2013 MacArthur Genius Award, turns55 Alexandre Herchcovitch, Brazilian fashion designer best known for avant-garde designs and eclectic prints, turns55 Michael G. Rubin, CEO of Fanatics, licensed sports merchandise and digital sports platform, turns54 Raphael Robbie Diamond, founder, president and CEO of Securing Americas Future Energy (SAFE) and the Electrification Coalition Rabbi Yoel Gold, rabbi of Congregation Bais Naftali in Los Angeles, his YouTube channel has over 4.6 million views Veronica Belmont, online media personality and director of product management at Electronic Arts (EA) in British Columbia, turns44 Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch, CEO of Women of Reform Judaism since 2023 Aniko Gomory-Pink, clinical social worker Chloé Simone Valdary, entrepreneur and political activist, she came to prominence as an African American pro-Israel student activist at the University of New Orleans, turns33 Zachary A. Marshall, policy advisor at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck Rachel Elizabeth Nieves, senior recruiter at Tines Elias Cohen, attorney in Madrid and secretary general of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain until 2021

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Jewish Federations of North America sees sustained donor growth post-Oct. 7

Judah Ari Gross — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 10:27:46 +0000

Nearly three years after the Oct. 7 terror attacks triggered a wave of emergency giving to Jewish causes, Jewish Federations of North America officials say that campaign has transformed into lasting growth in its donor base, bucking both broader trends and the organization’s own trajectory. As Jewish philanthropy — and philanthropy in general —is defined by more and more money being given by fewer and fewer big donors, JFNA said that it saw a 2.7% increase in donors to local Jewish federations between 2023 and 2025, bringing the total to around 290,000 donors. “If you work in Jewish communal fundraising, 2.7% is pretty big. When youre talking about the overall number that were talking about, its a pretty incredible trend,” David Heller, JFNA’s former national campaign chair, told eJP. Prior to Oct. 7, 2023, JFNA had been seeing a “slow decline,” both in the number of donors and the number of dollars raised, said Heller. A recent survey by the Fundraising Effectiveness Project found that overall, the number of philanthropic donors decreased by 3.6% from 2024 to 2025. The organization also reported a 15.4% increase in its annual campaign in the 2025 fiscal year, its largest increase in a decade. According to a statement, that increase was “primarily driven by increased contributions from existing donors,” though Heller asserted that even still, the larger number of donors had a significant impact. “Were not raising more dollars from a smaller base, which was what was happening. This is truly a larger number from a larger number of donors,” said Heller. In 2023, Hamas terror attacks and the war that followed sparked JFNA’s Israel Emergency Campaign, which raised more than $900 million. Within the organization, that sparked questions about whether the increase in funding and funders would taper off with time, or stick around, said Niv Elis, associate vice president of communications at JFNA. “What I think that weve seen is that the answer is yes,” said Elis. “Theyre not just giving to this one emergency cause, but theyre actually engaged.” After the emergency campaign, many donors who were brought in by it were retained and gave to their local Jewish communities, said Elis, with the vast majority of funding going to local communities, specifically to support Jewish education, camps, JCCs and other areas that “support flourishing Jewish life.” Heller described the growth as distributed broadly, as opposed to concentrated among the largest federations, citing Columbus, Ohio, where the annual campaign doubled from about $6 million to $12 million. “As I was traveling the country, it was in every market that I was in,” Heller said. “We were seeing increases, and thats what is really special about this: it was happening everywhere.”

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5 Shabsels brothers camps set to sell to current operators, a nonprofit — and a media mogul

Jay Deitcher — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 09:35:17 +0000

According to the Foundation for Jewish Camp, there are over 345 nonprofit Jewish camps across North America. After Michael and David Shabsels, who own a Jewish summer camp empire, declared bankruptcy last month, more than 30 sleepaway and day camps across America stood at the precipice, but as bids for camp sites come in, a vision of their future is forming, with many camps being purchased by their current operators — and another by a famous media mogul. At least one of five possible sales is to a Jewish nonprofit and another is to a group backed by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who aims to purchase Mohawk Day Camp in Westchester County, N.Y., the camp his children attended, which includes a $1.2 million performing arts center, a $250,000 playground, a $50,000 kid-sized train, eight in-ground heated pools, two concrete roller-hockey rinks, a petting zoo and waterslides. The bids that have come in are so-called “stalking horse” bids, meaning they set the floor for where auctions begin. The final sales are set for July 28. The shifting camp landscape was caused by the New York-based Shabsels brothers racking up over $344 million in debt, which they are accused of double pledging. In June, after the brothers defaulted on roughly $200 million in bond payments to Israeli investors — with over $34 million of the bond also going missing — they declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New Jersey, both personally and under their umbrella group, Simad Holdings. The brothers owned 25 for-profit overnight camps and eight day camps, operating out of 30 properties, with over 20 of their camps catering towards Jews or having Jewish programming. The average cost to attend one of the brothers’ camps is roughly $9,000 per season, with some topping $17,000. The camps are: Camp Achim in Catskill, N.Y.; Camp Lokanda in Glen Spey, N.Y.; Mohawk Day Camp in White Plains, N.Y.; Kiwi Country Day Camp in Carmel, N.Y.; SHMA Camps in Swan Lake, N.Y.; Camp Echo in Burlingham, N.Y.; Camp Malka in Greenville, N.Y.; Camp Chateaugay in Merrill, N.Y.; Camp Mesorah in Guilford, N.Y.; Camp Green Lane in Green Lane, Pa.; Summit Camp in Honesdale, Pa.; Camp Chen-A-Wanda in Thompson, Pa.; Island Lake Camp in Starrucca, Pa.; Camp Lavi in Lakewood, Pa.; Pine Forest Camp, Lake Owego Camp and Camp Timber Tops in Greeley, Pa.; Rolling Hills Country Day Camp in Freehold, N.J.; Willow Lake Day Camp in Lake Hopatcong, N.J.; Country Roads Day Camp in Manalapan, N.J.; Eagles Landing Day Camp in East Brunswick, N.J.; Meadowbrook Day Camp in Long Valley, N.J.; Indian Acres and Forest Acres in Fryeburg, Maine; Camp Med-O-Lark in Washington, Maine; New England Golf Camp in Belgrade, Maine; Camp North Star in Poland, Maine; Camp Wekeela in Hartford, Maine; Camp Waukeela in Eaton Center, N.H.; Windsor Mountain in Windsor, N.H.; Club Getaway in South Kent, Conn.; Blue Star Camps in Hendersonville, N.C.; Banner Day Camp in Lake Forest, Ill. On Wednesday, Zaslav’s Grandview Ventures made its bid for Mohawk Day Camp for $68 million. The auction is for the camp and the Mohawk Country Day School, a preschool that operates on a shared 40-acre campus. “This is a personal family investment that reflects our lifelong belief that summer camp can be a wonderful part of a childs growth, and Mohawks history as a successful camp experience for so many kids, including our own,” a Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson said of the sale. According to a December 2025 appraisal, the Mohawk Day Camp was attended by 1,900 campers in 2025 and is valued at $85.8 million with a projected 2026 income of $22.85 million. To attend, tuition ranges from $6,000 for three weeks up to $13,100 for seven weeks. Zaslav, like the Shabsels brothers before him, would not be running the camp. His children, now grown, attended the camp before he became CEO and president of Warner Bros. Discovery, when he was an NBC executive living in nearby Rye Brook, N.Y. In addition to the bid from Zaslav’s group, last Tuesday, Simad Holdings struck a $7 million deal to sell Camp Achim in the Catskills to its current acting manager and on Thursday, struck a $12 million deal for Camp Echo in Burlingham, N.Y., with Jewish mental health nonprofit Ohel Childrens Home and Family Services Inc. On Friday, Simad agreed to sell Camp Chen-A-Wanda in Thompson, Pa., for $17 million to Eleven11 Holdings LLC, a group formed under Jon Grabow, who has co-owned and directed the camp since 2008, and made an $18.15 million deal for Camp Lokanda in Glen Spey, N.Y., with 18 Lions LLC, a group formed under Ronen and Dana Gabbay, who have co-owned and directed the camp since 2008. The camps involved in the auctions serve some 20,000 campers and are running as planned this summer, as the bankruptcy court approved interim financing. Insiders tell eJP that many other nonprofit entities are set to bid on the camps. Auction paperwork shows that when sales are finalized, buyers need to “maintain existing Campers attending Camp during the 2026 Camp Season” and do their best to “re-enroll Campers who attended Camp during the 2026 Camp Season for the 2027 Camp Season, except to the extent any of the foregoing would no longer be age-appropriate.”

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The day after graduation

Contributing Author — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The Jewish communitys commitment to its college students is one of the most remarkable things about Jewish life today: Hillels, Chabad houses and dozens of other organizations, staffed by some of the most dedicated people in the Jewish world, backed by extraordinary philanthropic investment. Perhaps no other moment in the Jewish life cycle receives anything close to this concentration of resources, talent and love. But college doesn’t last forever, so every one of these organizations, whatever its particular approach, shares a single ultimate aim: informing how these young people will live as Jews after college. Which raises the question that should keep all of us up at night. What kind of experience actually carries over to the day after graduation, and to the years and decades beyond it? Here is the uncomfortable part. An experience that is provided to a student is, by its nature, a socialized experience. The Shabbat dinner someone else cooked, the class someone else taught, the trip someone else paid for: all of it is borrowed from the setting that supplies it. This is not a criticism; it is a structural fact. Our operating assumption has been that if the experience is wonderful enough, students will want to integrate it into their lives after they leave. But wanting is not the same as owning. When the provided environment dissolves, the graduate steps into a world of career pressure and social pressure, a culture that dissolves particular commitments and, increasingly, contains open hostility to Jews and to Judaism. A borrowed identity, however warmly borrowed, was never theirs to keep. Jewish tradition has always understood the difference. “Lo hatalmud ikar ela hamaaseh” — the learning is not the essence; the deed is (Pirkei Avot 1:17). Learning, for all its indispensability, remains in some measure external, received from text and teacher. The deed is where a Jewish life becomes personal, practiced in ones own way — owned. Our tradition never confused giving people Judaism with people making Judaism their own. Developmental psychology has arrived at the same distinction. Developmental psychologist and consultant Robert Kegans research on adult development describes the move from a “socialized mind,” an identity held together by the expectations and frameworks of the surrounding group, to a “self-authoring mind,” in which a person steps back from those frameworks and deliberately makes them their own. His research suggests only about a third of adults ever complete that move, and those who do typically do so in their thirties or forties, often through hardship, when the structures that held their borrowed identity collapse and force the work upon them. None of this means our earlier education failed. Childhood and adolescence are supposed to be socialized; that is the design. A child needs to receive the big ideas of Torah, the skills to access our texts and practices absorbed in the warmth of family and community. Borrowed is exactly what a young Jewish identity should be. The question is when, and where, does a person get to do the work of making it their own? Not in childhood; the capacity isnt built yet. Not easily after graduation, either, when a person is out in the world alone, building a career, forming a family, with no environment structured around their growth. There is exactly one window: college. Students have left their families and communities but have not yet gone out on their own. They are still inside a setting built for learning, with time, mentors and the freedom to work out who they are. It is the last fully immersive environment most people ever enter. The developmental capacity for self-authorship first opens there, and it is largely left to chance. So here is an invitation to those of us who work on campus: What if we stopped thinking of ourselves as marketers of Judaism, attracting students by making the product appealing? What if we started thinking of ourselves not as educators of texts and ideas alone, but of something deeper: the art and skill of self-authorship itself? This is harder to teach than a text. It is closer to ballet or swimming: a craft learned through practice rather than from the page, taught by people who have mastered it themselves, acquired through repetition and correction over time. It cannot be delivered in a single immersive trip or a one-semester course. It requires a pedagogy, a cohort, mentors and a culture that lives what it teaches. College, where students remain for years inside our communities, is precisely where that kind of formation is possible. We know it can be done, because we have done it. Over the past five years, through M54: The Institute for Insourcing, which we founded in 2021, we developed such a pedagogy, the Soular System. Rooted in the Chabad Chassidic framework of avoda pnimis, what we call insourcing, we taught it to 70 Jewish community leaders across the U.S. before bringing it to students at Chabad at Brandeis. The early signs from our first two student cohorts are what you would hope for. One student wrote, Ive grown in my Judaism in a way that I now am learning to incorporate it into every aspect of my life, which is what an owned Jewish identity sounds like: not attendance at what is provided, but integration into a life. Another described the experience as a time for me to step outside my life to look at it more objectively, analytically and reflectively, which is the developmental move itself. Students also report that the work is already reaching beyond their Jewish lives, changing how they see their own commitments. We share this not to claim ours is “the” way, but it is proof of concept. Others can and should develop their own pedagogies out of their own traditions and strengths. The point is that self-authorship can be taught — deliberately, on campus, now. The warm and welcoming experiences we have all built remain essential. They create the trust in which this deeper work becomes safe to attempt. But warmth is the precondition, not the outcome. And funders have an extraordinary role to play here: to fund what endures, to ask not only how many students came but what kind of adults they became, and to invest in the longitudinal research that would let all of us learn, honestly, what our methods produce over the course of our students adult lives. That evidence would make every organization in this field better. The infrastructure is already there. The dedicated people are already there. The resources are already there. What is needed is an honest assessment and the courage to act on it. Done right, this will not move the needle. It will change a generation. Chanie and Rabbi Peretz Chein are co-founders of Chabad at Brandeis, established in 2001, and of M54: The Institute for Insourcing, established in 2021.

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Keep the sun shining on Ramah Day Camp Philly

Contributing Author — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 20:41:59 +0000

I have raised my two sons with the core foundations of a strong Jewish identity, but a Jewish preschool, day school and a vibrant synagogue community have not rivaled the impact of Ramah Day Camp Philadelphia. That’s why, like so many families, we were devastated to receive an email last month announcing the planned closure of Ramah Day Camp Philadelphia after the 2026 season. I understand that difficult financial decisions sometimes must be made. I also appreciate that the Board spent considerable time reviewing enrollment and finances. However, I cannot accept that closing this extraordinary institution is the only path forward. Today, with 160 campers and 50 staff members creating a community built on Jewish values, joy, friendship, and Israel, the camp is vibrant, far from dead. And despite the impending closure, Ramah Day Camp has continued to thrive over the past four weeks. How do we give up on the magic of Ramah and joyful Judaism in a time when it matters so much? Ramah runs deep in our family. We subscribe to 10 for 2 — living 10 months of the year dreaming of the 2 months at camp — and we get that burst of pure happiness when we hear the music of “Golden Boy” or “Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu. We have been part of the Ramah Day Camp family for nearly two decades; it is what has shaped who we are, teaching us to be proud Jews in a safe place while allowing us to find lifelong friends. I say “we” because Ramah is not only about the campers: the Ramah effect is multi-tiered, trickling up to the parents who connect with their Judaism via their children. This is the magic of Ramah. In Philadelphia, many people see Ramah Day Camp as an on-ramp for the overnight camp Camp Ramah in the Poconos. I wanted my boys to have the same magical experience I did, immersed in a 24/7 Jewish utopia that molded lifelong friendships. But as it turned out for my boys, like many other children, this would not be their path. The day camp was the best option for my family, and hundreds of families like ours who desire a strong Jewish foundation. We soon learned that the day camp has the same ingredients as the overnight camp: the songs and dances are the same, the love for Israel is the same and the resulting proud Jewish leaders are the same. In 1947, Camp Ramah was founded because Jewish families wanted environments free from antisemitism while strengthening Jewish identity. At a time when antisemitism is rising, Jewish students are increasingly facing hostility and families are again searching for safe, joyful Jewish spaces, how can our response be to close a camp? This should be the moment when we are investing in sanctuaries of Jewish joy, not cutting off a limb because it requires some support and leadership. This closure comes at a time when Ramah is thriving elsewhere. Ramah Poconos has continued to see steady enrollment of over 500 campers for the last two summers, according to the 2024 and 2025 annual reports. National Ramah has invested in its day camp network, with two new day camps opening in the last three years (Ramah Day Camp Greater Boston in 2023 and Ramah Day Camp Los Angeles in 2024). Finally, Philadelphia has the fourth-largest Jewish population in the United States. There has to be a disconnect here that can be remedied. The closure represents a failure to meet the needs of a growing Jewish population — a direct failure of Ramah’s mission. Lets understand why enrollment is down and respond creatively with the leadership and vision this moment requires us to have. Ramah teaches our children to be innovative leaders with hope for the future. It is our time to practice what we preach. To the Ramah Day Camp Board: Partner with Jewish Learning Venture to understand where young Jewish families are living today in Philadelphia and what they are looking for. If Elkins Park, Penn., is no longer the right location, lets explore moving the camp. If operating costs are too high, lets scale back. Synagogues and the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia need to convene a community-wide effort. Invite philanthropists, alumni, parents and Jewish communal leaders to the table. Tell us what the financial gap is. Tell us how many additional campers are needed. Tell us what benchmarks must be met to keep the camp open. Give us a goal, and give us the opportunity to reach it. This should not become a story of decline. It should become a story of a community that refused to let an institution disappear. Let us help build a solution before closing the doors forever. Our children deserve that. Our community deserves that. And Ramah deserves that. The Ramah Day Camp song declares “Hinei hashemesh,” which translates to “Here is the sun.” The song encourages joy and optimism. It is time the Jewish leaders work to uphold that mission. Rachel Saifer is the chief operating officer of Penn Hillel and the mother of Max and Asher Goldman, proud Ramah Day Camp Philadelphia chanichim (campers) and tzevet (staff) members from 2009 to the present.

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Your Daily Phil: It’s the wealth transfer, stupid: Giving USA report’s key takeaway

EJP — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 13:22:26 +0000

Good Monday morning! In today’s edition ofYour Daily Phil, we speak with fundraising consultant and Giving Institute board memberAvrum Lapinabout what the Jewish community can learn from the latestGiving USAreport on American philanthropy. We report on a new partnership between theAnti-Defamation Leagueand theLeague of United Latin American Citizens, and onAIPAChalting fundraising for lawmakers who voted to cut aid to Israel. We feature an opinion piece bySharon AvniandLaura Yaressharing what they discovered when they studied how Jews (and non-Jews) engage with Judaism through cultural arts and leisure, and a piece byRabbi Liz P.G. Hirschon recent legislation expanding gender segregation in Israeli academia. Also in this issue:David Bocarsly,Arbel Ori HoffmanandDoron Almog. 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 For the ninth consecutive night, U.S. forces struck Iranian targets as Iran continues to targetKuwait,BahrainandJordanwith missiles and drones. No missiles were fired at Israel, though debris from one missile intercepted overJordanfell inside Israeli territory north of Eilat yesterday. This evening,UJA-Federation of New Yorkwill host its Westchester Professional Women event, featuringJaya Apparel GroupCEOJane Siskinin conversation withBloomingdales personal shopperLiz Wilcoxen. AdamahsJewish Green Business Network will hold its first Chicago happy hour this evening, bringing together Jewish professionals who work in the climate and sustainability space. What You Should Know While the Jewish community often thinks of itself as distinct and different,when it comes to giving, the trends and challenges in Jewish philanthropy are markedly similar to those in the wider community. And yet, for Jewish organizations, there are particular lessons that can be gleaned from the broader patterns in American charitable giving —as seen in the latest annual Giving USA report, which was released last month. Most significant of these is the profound shift underwayas vast amounts of wealth move from the baby boomers to Gen Xers, two generations with vastly different outlooks and giving patterns, which Jewish organizations must prepare for, Avrum Lapin, president of the Lapin Group and a board member of the Giving Institute, which produces the report,toldeJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim. Those incoming Gen X donors tend to treat Jewish issuesas “one item on a menu” of many worthy causes and have less “brand loyalty” to legacy organizations, according to Lapin. A debate over how best to direct funds amid rising antisemitism is also starting to reshape the communitys funding landscape as Jewish philanthropy recalibrates after years of emergency giving. Read the full interview here. News STRONGER TOGETHER ADL, League of United Latin American Citizens launch partnership to combat anti-Latino hate The Anti-Defamation League announced a fresh partnership with the League of United Latin American Citizens, the nation’s oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization, at the latter group’s annual national convention last month. Under the agreement, the ADL will co-fund a new position to research anti-Latino hate through its Embed partnership program,eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher reports. Hand in hand:The partnership comes as the ADL has said that it is focusing more closely on antisemitism, though Oren Segal, an ADL senior vice president, told eJP that this does not come at the expense of addressing other forms of hate. “Many of the same extremist networks and online spaces that fuel antisemitism also fuel anti-Latino hate, anti-Black racism, anti-LGBTQ violence,” Segal said. “This has always been true. And our work protecting the Jewish community, the nature of that work has always meant that we are seeing threats against other communities, and we’ve never ignored that.” Read the full report here. Share SILENT REBUKE AIPAC ends fundraising for endorsees who voted to cut off Israel aid Days after 104 members of Congress voted in favor of a measure that sought to end U.S. aid to Israel, AIPAC will no longer allow donations through its political action committee to 18 lawmakers it endorsed who voted in favor of the legislation,reports Gabby DeutchforeJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publicationJewish Insider. Political shift:The group did not announce the change. But the endorsement page on AIPAC’spolitical giving portal— where supporters can donate to candidates who have been endorsed by AIPAC — removed the option for individuals to route money to those lawmakers. AIPAC now allows its supporters to donate to 72 Democratic candidates in the House and Senate, compared to 178 Republican candidates — meaning 71% of the candidates the group is now actively supporting are Republicans, and 29% are Democrats. Read the full report here. Share Opinion BOOKSHELF Learning about Judaism in unexpected places In an opinion piece foreJewishPhilanthropy, professors Sharon Avni and Laura Yares, authors of the new bookJudaism Mediated: Learning About Jewishness through the Cultural Arts, encourage communal leaders and funders to pay more attention to where and how American Jews are engaging with Judaism outside of traditional paradigms like synagogue membership and formal education. “For the past several years, we have been studying American Jews (and non-Jews) as they engage with Jewish cultural arts in a range of settings… This kind of learning does not often show up in demographic surveys. It is not captured by questions about synagogue membership. But it is real, and it is widespread, and it is reshaping what Jewish engagement looks like among 21st-century American Jewry.” Read the full piece here. Share ISRAEL-DIASPORA RELATIONS I studied in Israel. Here’s why I’m concerned about its new higher education law. In an opinion piece foreJewishPhilanthropy, Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch, CEO of Women of Reform Judaism, speaks out against legislation passed last week by the Knesset permitting universities and colleges to offer gender-segregated master’s and doctoral degree programs. “Supporters argue that the new law will make it easier for Haredi Israelis to pursue advanced degrees while honoring their religious customs. Increasing access to master’s and doctoral degrees is an important goal. … However, these policies risk the pluralistic and democratic foundations of the State of Israel at a time when these values are already being eroded.” Read the full piece here. Share Worthy Reads Money You Can’t Spend:InThe Conversation, University of Arkansas professor Thomas Adamcontendsthat endowing foundations in perpetuity is a mistake, since societys needs shift while donor missions stay fixed. “But I see a big problem with having foundations outlive the donors that endow them with funds in perpetuity. Society’s needs always change, while many foundations’ missions are intended to satisfy a specific need that’s not eternal.” The Counted People:InJ. The Jewish News of Northern California, Jewish California CEO David Bocarslymakes the casefor Senate Bill 1387, which would make California the first state to recognize Jewish identity as an ethnicity and allow Jews to be counted as such in demographic data. “The secular Jew, the Israeli American, the Jew of color, the atheist who finds meaning in the pursuit of justice. All of us deserve to look into the state’s own mirror and recognize ourselves in it.” Major Gifts The Jewish Community Foundation of Greater MetroWest’sMack Ness Fundwill grant $950,000 in 2026-27 for economic development and demographic growth projects in Israels Negev region, the group toldeJewishPhilanthropy; the fund also recently launched a partnership with theNegev Development Authorityto providematching grants for tourism initiatives… TheGoldhirsh-Yellin Foundationdonatedan ambulance toAmerican Friends of Magen David Adomin memory ofSarah MilgrimandYaron Lischinsky, twoIsraeli Embassyemployees who were killed in a shooting attack last May… Israelmarkedthe completion of the first full French translation of theBabylonian Talmudat a ceremony hosted by PresidentIsaac Herzog. The translation was funded by French Israeli philanthropistPatrick Drahi… The parents ofArbel Ori Hoffman, a 4-year-old Israeli girl who was killed last month in a car crash,donatedher organs, saving the lives of four other people… Transitions Former Teva Pharmaceuticals executiveRachel Yarconywasselectedas the next CEO of8400 Health Network,an Israeli nonprofit that connects cross-sector leaders to grow the countrys health-tech and life sciences industry… Sally Schusterwasappointedchair of theInterfaith Center for Sustainable Developments board of directors… Word on the Street A new poll by Israels Channel 12 newsfindsthat one-fourth of Israelis are considering leaving Israel if Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahuis reelected… New England PatriotsownerRobert Kraftwas spotted watching theWorld Cupfinal at MetLife Stadium alongside PresidentDonald Trump, first ladyMelania Trump, Spains KingFelipe VIand QueenLetizia, Canadian Prime MinisterMark Carney, Mexican PresidentClaudia Sheinbaumand FIFA PresidentGianni Infantino… In an interview with the Israeli financial newspaperGlobes,investorBill AckmanpraisesIsrael as uniquely positioned in both defense tech and AI, while warning that antisemitism and a leftward turn have made theDemocratic Party“a catastrophe” Fortunereportsthat astrengthening shekelhas madeTel Avivthe worlds most expensive city for aMcDonaldsmeal at $20.90… The California-basedSamueli FoundationreleaseditsOrange County Jewish Community Demographic Studyafter a two-year effort and announced $42.25 million in new grants in response to the study’s findings… TheHarvard CrimsonandPablo Torre Finds OutrevealedthatLeslie WexnergaveHarvardmore than $142 million over nearly four decades — roughly $100 million more than had been publicly known — before his foundationseveredits partnership with Harvard over its response to the Oct. 7 attacks… Canvaco-foundersMelanie PerkinsandCliff ObrechtlaunchedtheGlobal Goals Platformto survey global citizens worldwide about the changes they most want to see, an early step toward giving away a 30% stake in their $42 billion company… NPRspotlightsthe efforts of Israeli paragliderAmnonn Hahnto helpswiftsduring their migration to Israel for the spring nesting season as the global population of the birds faces a steep decline… Hungarian Prime MinisterPéter MagyarnominatedJewish chess grandmasterJudit Polgárto serve as interim president until a new constitution is adopted… The Wohl LegacylaunchedtheWohl Legacy Leadership Fellows, a new award offering emerging U.K. Jewish community leaders up to £10,000 ($13,463) in funding for executive education scholarships to help them better serve the community… Shoshana Bryen,the senior policy director at theJewish Policy Center,diedlast week… Pic of the Day Leonardo Kremenchuzky Thousands gather in Buenos Aires, Argentina, yesterday to commemorate the 32nd anniversary of the deadly bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita ArgentinaJewish community center. Theterror attack, which was carried out by the Hezbollah terrorist organization on behalf of Iran, on July 18, 1994, killed 85 people and injured more than 300. Attendees included members of the local Jewish community, Jewish Agencyshlichim(emissaries), Jewish Agency for Israel chairman Maj. Gen. (res.) Doron Almog and former Israeli hostage Iair Horn, who was born in Argentina. “The legacy of those who were murdered and those who fell is to keep building — to find solace in action, strengthen Jewish communities, invest in the next generation, and deepen the bond between Israel and Jewish communities around the world,” Almog said in a statement. Birthdays Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images Efraym Elliott Yamin, singer who came on the scene as a finalist on the fifth season of “American Idol”, turns48 Paul Baum, professor emeritus of mathematics at Penn State University, turns90 Carl Gershman, retired president of the National Endowment for Democracy (a private, congressionally supported grant-making institution), turns83 Yoram Ben-Zeev, longtime Israeli diplomat, he served as Israels ambassador to Germany, turns82 Roberta Achtenberg, former commissioner on the Civil Rights Commission, assistant secretary of HUD in the Clinton administration, presently vice chair of the Bank of San Francisco, turns76 Judge Patti B. Saris, senior U.S. District Court judge in Massachusetts, turns75 Thomas Loren Friedman,New York Timesweekly columnist and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, turns73 Jeffrey M. Friedman, molecular geneticist at NYC-based Rockefeller University and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, turns72 Farrell Meisel, broadcast and digital media consultant Barbara Risman, professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, turns70 Marcie Hermelin Orley, past president of the Womens Department at the Jewish Federation of Detroit, she is the mother of fashion designers Matthew and Alex Sylvia Harwood, British-born English tutor and former special education teacher now living in Israel Linleigh Ayn Richker, head of a women-led political network for the U.S.-Israel relationship, also a mahjong instructor Jane S. Hoffman, public policy expert and author, turns62 Nira Shpak, former member of the Knesset for the Yesh Atid party, she is a brigadier general in the IDF (reserves), turns60 Yitzhak Zeev Pindrus, member of Knesset for the United Torah Judaism party, turns55 Jack Achiezer Guggenheim, attorney David Marc Chalian, SVP, Washington bureau chief and political director ofCNN, where he oversees the political coverage across all ofCNNs platforms, turns53 Franklin Foer, co-editor ofJewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame, he is a staff writer atThe Atlantic, turns52 David Fox, Miami-based EVP at AIPAC Fred Kreizman, assistant commissioner in the Community Affairs Bureau at the NYPD Beth Doane, co-founder and managing partner of the communications and branding firm of Main+Rose Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of the progressive Indivisible movement, turns41 Ty Kelly, former MLB player, he was a third baseman for Team Israel in 2023, turns38 Chloe Fineman, comedian and former regular player on “Saturday Night Live”, turns38 Joey Bragg, actor and comedian, turns30 Ashley Abramowicz Gibbs, software engineer at Home Chef Dr. Sheila Ganjian Navi, anesthesiologist Etan Raskas, VP of business development and operations at Thyme Care Jonathan Tamir Alden, principal at Blackstone Goldie Fields, intellectual property attorney at Ballard Spahr

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It’s the generational wealth transfer, stupid: The key takeaway from the Giving USA report

Nira Dayanim — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 11:25:17 +0000

While the Jewish community often thinks of itself as distinct and different, when it comes to giving, the trends and challenges in Jewish philanthropy are markedly similar to those in the wider community. And yet, for Jewish organizations, there are particular lessons that can be gleaned from the broader patterns in American charitable giving —as seen in the latest annual Giving USA report, which was released last month. Most significant of these is the profound shift underway as vast amounts of wealth move from the baby boomers to Gen Xers, two generations with vastly different outlooks and giving patterns, which Jewish organizations must prepare for, according to Avrum Lapin, president of the Lapin Group and a board member of the Giving Institute, which produces the report. Those incoming Gen X donors tend to treat Jewish issues as “one item on a menu” of many worthy causes and have less “brand loyalty” to legacy organizations, according to Lapin. A debate over how best to direct funds amid rising antisemitism is also starting to reshape the communitys funding landscape as Jewish philanthropy recalibrates after years of emergency giving. Charitable giving in the U.S. rose again last year, continuing modest but steady growth, the report shows, with increased giving by foundations and a continued shift toward donor-advised funds. Bequests jumped nearly 20% in 2025, the third time in the last four years that bequest giving has increased by that much or more,though Lapin cautioned that the year-to-year numbers are still too volatile to be considered a trend. As he does almost every year, Lapin spoke with eJewishPhilanthropy about the report, unpacking what last years numbers show, and what they still dont, as Jewish philanthropy works through a period of unusually rapid change. Many of the trends that he identified have been brewing for years —the shift toward foundations and donor-advised funds, for instance — and yet they represent the fundamental landscape of the philanthropic field. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity. Nira Dayanim: What trends in giving that revealed in the report do you think are most important for Jewish nonprofits and donors? Avrum Lapin: Over the past 40 years — with a couple of blips and drops along the way — were seeing giving that mirrors GDP. The patterns you see in the general philanthropic marketplace are reflected in the Jewish community. More people are using philanthropic tools (like donor-advised funds). You see the growth in foundations over time — over a two-year period, I believe its about 9.5% growth in giving by foundations. For the Jewish community, the issue isnt giving, its where the giving goes. The Jewish community is an extremely philanthropic community. Over the past two to three years, we went from a peak in emergency funding to easing off after the Jewish Federations of North America emergency campaign ended. The impact on the marketplace was profound. The donors were older, and it kind of sucked the oxygen out of the community philanthropically for a time. The communitys giving has been working its way back over the subsequent 15 months, from the last quarter of 2024 through 2025. I dont have numbers on this, but Im probably right that people returned to normal giving patterns, funding organizations they may have shorted during the emergency campaign for obvious reasons, and returning to the causes that represent their particular interests. Then the war in Iran distorted things again and created a little bit of misdirection. But for the most part, giving in 2025 continued along the path of recalibration. Were not here to talk about 2026, but for the Jewish community, giving locally is re-emerging, and giving to Israel is finding a new balance. In a past conversation, I compared it to a jigsaw puzzle, all the pieces were thrown into the air, and theyre falling back —some into place, some not. Theres an undercurrent in the Jewish community — one we hear all the time — about the effectiveness of the legacy organizations and their approach to antisemitism, and where the communitys investment should go. Some say we have to continue funding the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, local federations, Jewish Community Relations Councils, etc., and the people doing street-level work to combat or respond to antisemitism. Others argue this isnt working, that legacy organizations dont have solutions for the kind of antisemitism were focused on today. Instead of creating more committees, reports, analysis and research, that argument goes, we should invest in schools and local institutions. By empowering and strengthening the communitys internal capabilities, thats the best way to combat antisemitism — training students to be better ambassadors. ND: One data point I found particularly striking was that bequests jumped nearly 20% last year. Do you view that as anomalous, or as part of the great wealth transfer pattern people have been anticipating? AL: There is a great wealth transfer going on, and its not some recognizable, massive process where you see funds moving from one generational cohort to the next all at once. It happens donor by donor, family by family. Though I can tell you, on the ground, it is happening. Does the rise and fall of bequests in a given year reflect changes in whos making funding decisions — one generation or another? Perhaps, but a lot of times those are timing issues. You might see things spike the following year; it depends on how much money goes into any kind of testamentary or estate planning in a given year. I believe — though I may be wrong — that bequests actually went down over the two-year spread of 2024-25. But lets talk about the intergenerational transfer, because thats more important, and it also ties back to your earlier question about trends in giving. As leadership and control of philanthropic decision-making passes from baby boomers to Gen Xers, understand that the post-Holocaust generation, people 75 and older, are still here and still involved in philanthropic decision-making. So you basically have three cohorts operating at once. We can talk about millennials separately — thats a whole different topic. But the transfer between baby boomers and Gen Xers is profound, and you see this in the Jewish community as well. The baby boomer generation — individuals currently 60 to 75 or so — gave to the Jewish community, to a large degree, the way their parents did, and they also gave to everybody else. They supported the legacy organizations that were the foundation of the Jewish community: local federations, Israel Bonds, the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, Hillel and other foundational organizations. Gen Xers are making decisions differently. First, they are not giving to the Jewish community or to Israel first. Its a very generous generational cohort, but giving to Israel or to Jewish causes is one item on a menu, even amid the challenges of antisemitism people are facing. This generation has access to institutional leadership and institutional philanthropy in a way their parents generation didnt — and the analysis of how this plays out will need to happen over 2025-27: Will there be a return to the patterns of the older generation, which funded the emergency campaign? Or will this cohort continue the trend it followed before the emergency — supporting local organizations in addition to the Jewish community, and making decisions based on personal interest rather than the communitys broader interests? There is also absolutely no brand loyalty among Gen Xers. Theyll support an organization today, and if a similar organization down the street is perceived to do it better, theyll redirect their money there. Its loyalty to a product or an outcome rather than loyalty to the organization itself. Again, we dont know yet where all this is going. We see some return to pre-Oct. 7 patterns, but whether it goes all the way back, I dont know. Are Jews between 45 and 60 supporting the Jewish community? For sure. Are they returning to synagogues in many communities? Yes. But we dont know if its a sustained trend yet — well need more time and reflection before we can say a trend has been redirected. ND: You mentioned how Gen X or even millennial philanthropists might engage with Jewish causes differently than their parents, as one item on a menu. Does the spike in bequests change your thinking on how urgently Jewish institutions need to adapt to that generational shift, or is it just too unpredictable? AL: I mentioned the baby boomers and the Gen Xers because the Gen Xers are the ones now emerging into leadership positions. The millennial cohort is a bit of a mystery — a challenge for the Jewish community. The 20-somethings and 30-somethings have been profoundly affected by whats going on in Israel, in either direction, and they approach philanthropy differently. Setting the specific issues aside, the notion of social movements — being part of something that creates social change — is very much part of the millennial generation. Thats thematically related to, but not quite the same as, what Jewish organizations do: creating change and making a difference in peoples lives. But the millennial generation is caught up in the connectivity between volunteerism, social movements and philanthropy. The overlay in the Jewish community: First, theres the push-pull of whats happening in Israel. I can tell you my own kids, both in their 30s, believe in and support Israel, but theyre uncomfortable with whats going on, and they dont talk about it with their friends. Thats not the situation we want to be in. Expanding outward, on some level, this generation isnt going to be reached by legacy organizations — theyre not going to join a young-leadership program at the local federation. But they will engage with something impactful in their community that involves them and gives them context for being among other Jews their age with similar interests. So the dichotomy between the legacy approach and the community-building approach really comes into focus with the 30-something, millennial cohort, because it matters whether theyll be as engaged in Jewish communal and philanthropic work as their parents, who are now in their 50s. If the intergenerational transfer — however unorganized — is happening, whether its institutions approaching sunsetting foundations or approaching individuals in their orbit who are at that age and stage of life about testamentary giving [something now, something later], Id say its imperative that organizations engage donors who are now 60 and up. If youre dealing with someone who is 80, theyve probably already made their decisions — they can adjust them, but theyve largely decided. You want to approach people in their 50s and 60s who are thinking about wills, with kids still around the house — their estate planning looks much different than it will once their kids are grown and building their own families. ND: You mentioned that giving to foundations has decreased significantly, but giving by foundations has increased. What do you attribute the increase in giving by foundations to — spend-downs, or something else? AL: There are some notable foundations — the Russell Berrie Foundation a couple of years ago, the Marcus Foundation —Bernie Marcus, may he rest in peace — and other large players, including Michael Steinhardts, with all the issues that come along with that — that are spending down. Others are doing the same. Is that part of it? Maybe in a small way, but not significantly. There are always institutional funders that do that. What were seeing — and well have to see if it becomes a trend — I cant attribute the increase to any one thing, because in every three- to five-year cycle, there are foundations that announce theyre sunsetting, so it cant be attributed to that alone. Forget about the $617 billion given in total —that doesnt affect bequests. The 20-some percent is a timing issue. Next year it could be 16%, the year after 30% — it depends on how much goes into deferred giving. But it could have some connection to the transfer of wealth and the aging of the baby boomers, who range from the low 60s — people still working — to those 15 to 20 years older, who are retired and live differently financially. A lot of the bequests of the post-Holocaust generation are coming into play, so Id say there will be a steady stream. I cant tell you there will be sustained growth at 20-some percent — thats not a number you can predict — but it will continue. ND: With the top-line number up last year, even with federal cuts to nonprofits pulling things the other way — do you see rising need alongside rising philanthropic giving? Is that the same picture youre seeing in the Jewish philanthropic sector? AL: The top three classes of recipients are still religion, even though its a shadow of what it was, and though it has increased. I think the increases are more pronounced in the Jewish community, so that probably still holds the top spot. Education and human services tend to compete for second and third, depending on the year. After COVID-19, human services were much higher; I believe this [past] year, human services were still No. 2, followed by education. Education falling from the No. 2 spot is probably, as we discussed, a result of post-COVID changes and the federal budget cuts that began in early 2025. In the Jewish community, I think youre seeing a reflection of that. The particulars may be a little different, but not by much — the general trends and challenges are pretty much the same, layered with the uniquely Jewish, Israel-related issues we discussed, and the reentry into something more predictable historically. We dont yet know where things will settle, but were seeing some movement back. Then again, how did the war in Iran this year affect giving? We dont yet know. Well have to see — the Jewish people could use a little peace and quiet, which would give us an opportunity to get clearer numbers on this as well. ND: With all that in mind, what do you think is most important for Jewish nonprofits and donors to be aware of about last years trends in giving? AL: The good news is that there were no radical changes in giving patterns. Certain things were accentuated: Giving by individuals increased, but incrementally — its about 60-some percent now, versus 80-some percent 20 years ago. But 20 years ago, we didnt have as high a share of giving through foundations, and there were essentially no donor-advised funds, so individual giving accounted for a higher share. You almost have to combine individuals, donor-advised funds and family foundations and work it out from there. The big picture is that patterns and trends of giving havent changed radically nationally. Within the Jewish community, things are still evolving and unclear, and we cant make assumptions. For the Israel-based organizations we work with, were constantly telling them the expectations of five years ago arent the expectations of today. You have to build relationships, make connections and get your message out — its not a matter of showing up and going home with money. On the domestic side, the challenge of antisemitism and the communitys feeling of being besieged and hemmed in — without the sense of ownership of the American experience they might have felt 10 years ago — who would have imagined, 10 years ago, what were dealing with now in terms of antisemitism? And yet were at a stage where these things are becoming normalized. Well have to see how this internal conversation, between investing in the community, schools and synagogues versus investing in the broader communal structure, plays out. Were beginning to see some movement — not so much in 2025, because of the lingering effects of the emergency campaign and the community still emerging from it, but in 2026, its definitely become an issue to contend with.

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ADL and League of United Latin American Citizens launch partnership to combat anti-Latino hate

Jay Deitcher — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:57:29 +0000

In 2024, Ray Serrano walked into his first meeting of the Community Solidarity and Safety Coalition, organized by the Anti-Defamation League and the National Urban League and made up of leaders representing various religious movements and marginalized communities. Everyone in attendance was brought together by domestic tragedies. For Black representatives, there was the 2015 Charleston, S.C., church shooting that left nine dead. For Jewish attendees, there was the 2018 Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooting that killed 11, and for the LGBTQ members, there was the 2016 Orlando, Fla., Pulse nightclub massacre that killed 49. “For us, it was Walmart in El Paso, [Texas],” Serrano told eJewishPhilanthropy. Twenty-three people murdered at an El Paso Walmart in 2019. It was the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern American history. Twenty minutes before the shooting, the gunman, Patrick Crusius, posted a four-page anti-Hispanic and anti-immigrant manifesto online, titled The Inconvenient Truth, brimming with conspiracies about Latinos displacing white Americans and taking over the economy and government. That coalition meeting forged a partnership between the ADL and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the nations oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization, where Serrano serves as the national director of research and policy. Last month, at the 2026 LULAC National Convention in Fort Worth, Texas, the ADL announced that LULAC would be the latest partner in its Embed program, with the ADL co-funding a new position to research anti-Latino hate. The announcement comes during a time when ADL has come under increasing fire from both sides of the aisle. From the right, the group has caught flak for its criticism of Christian nationalism and other conservative movements, while on the left, the organization has been denounced for shifting away from its broader civil rights agenda to focus on antisemitism. (Though the organization says it remains committed to fighting all forms of hate.) In the early 2020s, the ADL began co-funding Embed positions with partner organizations, working with LGBTQ group GLAAD and The Asian American Foundation, with the goal of fostering relationships with other marginalized communities and combatting extremism. The LULAC-ADL partnership will fund a part-time position for a researcher within the ADL Center on Extremism who will track and collect data that will lead to the first-ever State of Anti-Latino Hate report. That will be used to develop strategies to combat anti-Latino bigotry alongside the FBI, law enforcement and local communities. The goal is to launch the report at next year’s LULAC convention, which will be held in El Paso, to mark the eighth anniversary of the Walmart massacre. The report will “draw more attention to the idea that xenophobia and anti-Latino hate is not just a Trump thing or Republican thing, its a disease thats in there, its been there for a while, and it seems to come out in certain forms and certain environments,” Serrano said. “We cant legislate ourselves out of this. Its a culture we have to change. We have to change the national narrative.” Serrano theorized that anti-immigrant and anti-Latino legislation is caused by hate groups, often seemingly under the guise of political organizations, pushing legislation. The partnership is “a very smart partnership,” he said, because “the resources that ADL can provide in terms of training to track extremism and hate are resources that we so badly need.” Although discussion for the partnership was in motion before last year, after the 2025 Capital Jewish Museum shooting in Washington, “the conversation took a different dynamic,” Serrano said. In May 2025, Israeli Embassy employees Sarah Milgrim and her soon-to-be fiancé, Yaron Lischinsky, were shot dead while leaving an American Jewish Committee young leader event. Elias Rodriguez, the gunman who said he killed the staffers “for Palestine,” is Latino. “It echoed when Max Sevillia, whos the [senior] vice president [of national affairs] for ADL, came to our [2024] national convention in Las Vegas, there were a few students that were kind of heckling him and wearing the Palestinian head garb,” Serrano recalled. “A lot of us took a step back, saying, ‘Well, we need to do more work in the Latino community. Somehow theyre not seeing that the struggle of Jews is the struggle of Latinos.’” When the partnership was announced at this year’s LULAC National Convention, conference organizers were concerned ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt would be heckled, too, and they took murmurs of a possible protest seriously. “We don’t treat our guests this way,” Serrano remembers board members saying. Prospective protestors are “vilifying a partner that is really trying to right things, trying to track hate, trying to eradicate hate in all forms.” In the end, Greenblatt’s announcement was well received, and both young and old LULAC members were excited to see partners coming to the table to combat hate, Serrano said. Post-Oct. 7 and after the Trump administration took office the second time, ADL has outwardly narrowed its focus to “prioritize fighting antisemitism above other concerns,” Greenblatt wrote in an Oct. 16, 2025, opinion piece in eJP. The organization deleted numerous webpages related to civil rights and extremism, especially after the FBI publicly cut its formal ties with ADL —though the organizations still work closely together — after online blowback over its Glossary of Extremism, a digital database that included Turning Point USA, the organization co-founded by slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The ADL has not changed its work to condemn hatred and racism and still seeks to cultivate coalitions with other minorities, Oren Segal, ADL’s senior vice president of counter-extremism and intelligence, told eJP. “As somebody who oversees our extremism work and terrorism work at ADL, many of the same extremist networks and online spaces that fuel antisemitism also fuel anti-Latino hate, anti-Black racism, anti-LGBTQ violence,” Segal said. “This has always been true. And our work protecting the Jewish community, the nature of that work has always meant that we are seeing threats against other communities, and weve never ignored that.” Believing ADL can only focus on antisemitism and no other forms of hate is “a false choice,” Segal said. “Hate operates in places where theres more than one target.” The ADL Center on Extremism “doesnt have the luxury to ignore other types of hate, because of how it fits into this landscape that were dealing with, even just to protect the Jewish community.” Segal hopes the report can turn the anecdotal stories of anti-Latino hate into data that can disrupt hate and threats targeting the Latino community. For Serrano, the partnership “is very near and dear,” he said. “I grew up in Idaho in the ‘90s.” He remembers neighbors with swastikas and confederate flags in their windows. “This stuff is not out of the blue. Its the legislation. The acts of violence, the hate, the kind of the vitriol that you see online. Its always organized, and its often organized to [target] multiple groups,” he said. “Its not just [targeting] one group. Its Jews; its Latinos. Its also the same idea: the tropes that we’re foreign invaders.” It’s probably “the hardest time” Latinos have “ever experienced,” Serrano said. “We cant do this alone. We need partners. We need the NAACP. We need the ADL. We need Asian Americans Advancing Justice. We need a million other organizations. To see our struggle in their struggle, and their struggle in our struggle. In some ways, I think were starting to get it.”

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Learning about Judaism in unexpected places

Contributing Author — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 07:33:59 +0000

When Emma, a young Jewish woman in her early thirties, moved back home after college and found herself weighing the cost of a synagogue or a gym membership, she chose the gym. By most conventional measures used to track Jewish engagement, that choice would likely have categorized her as an unaffiliated, unengaged young American Jew drifting away from communal life. But Emmas Jewish story does not end there. It is only the beginning. Missing the Jewish community she had found at her college Hillel, Emma turned to a website she had come across, myjewishlearning.com, and started exploring. One link led to another. She discovered that synagogues were livestreaming their Friday night services and landed on one from a Reform congregation in San Antonio, Texas, far from where she resided. She tuned in every Friday night, she said, because you have to have good singing. The same website led her to something else she had never imagined: a Torah-learning yoga retreat at a Jewish farm in Connecticut, which she loved so much that she signed up again the following summer. What had begun as a casual search on a half-remembered website had become, link by link, a meaningful Jewish life rooted in learning. Emmas story is at the heart of our new book, Judaism Mediated: Learning About Jewishness through the Cultural Arts (NYU Press), and it illuminates something important about where Jews encounter Judaism today — and where researchers, communal leaders, and funders might fruitfully turn their attention. American Jewish institutional life is, by many measures, undergoing significant change. A 2021 Pew Research Center survey found that only 12% of American Jews attend weekly religious services, and more than half say religion is not important in their lives. These numbers have generated considerable communal conversation about Jewish continuity, prompted serious reflection at board meetings and inspired substantial investment in programs designed to deepen Jewish engagement among younger generations. But the same Pew survey contained a finding that received far less attention: Over 70% of American Jews reported that they often or sometimes participate in Jewish cultural activities such as cooking Jewish food, reading Jewish literature, watching television shows with Jewish themes and visiting Jewish museums. This figure points to a community seeking Jewish connection across a range of spaces outside traditional institutions. The question our book asks is simple but surprisingly understudied: What are American Jews learning in these cultural spaces, and what does that learning mean for how they understand themselves as Jews? For the past several years, we have been studying American Jews (and non-Jews) as they engage with Jewish cultural arts in a range of settings: a national museum of American Jewish history in Philadelphia; an online Passover concert that raised millions for COVID-19 relief; a 30,000-member Facebook community devoted to the Israeli television show Shtisel; a live performance of Ladino music in Boston; Broadway shows grappling with anti-Jewish hatred. In each of these spaces, we sat with audiences, conducted interviews, observed interactions and asked participants: What do you make of all of this? What are you thinking about and learning? What we found consistently surprised us. Learning about Judaism, based on their answers, is rarely a linear process. It is episodic, meandering, often serendipitous, and deeply shaped by the interests and experiences that people bring with them. Emma did not set out to learn about Judaism when she joined the YMCA, but one encounter led to another, each a link in what we came to think of as a chain connecting websites to synagogues to retreat centers, with Emma at the center of each new discovery. This kind of learning does not often show up in demographic surveys. It is not captured by questions about synagogue membership. But it is real, it is widespread and it is reshaping what Jewish engagement looks like among 21st-century American Jewry. What surprised us even more was who we found doing this learning. Again and again, non-Jews showed up in these spaces, not as intruders or outsiders, but as genuinely engaged participants in conversations about Jewish history, culture, identity and experience. This finding challenges us to think differently about Jewish learning, not only what it is, but who is doing it and why it matters. What does it mean when non-Jews are enthusiastic consumers of Jewish cultural productions? What happens to Jewish culture when it travels beyond the boundaries of the Jewish community? And what might American Jews learn about their own tradition from the questions that outsiders bring to it? These questions are not peripheral: understanding where and how Jews and non-Jews are learning about Judaism is central to understanding Jewish life in America today. It has never been more necessary, nor more consequential. We do not pretend to have all the answers. Our book argues, however, for a more expansive understanding of what counts as Jewish education and who counts as a Jewish learner, one that takes seriously the full range of spaces where Jews and non-Jews alike are encountering, questioning and making meaning of Jewish life today. The museum visitor who spends several hours reading about the history of American Jewish immigration and walks out with a new understanding of Jewish life in Colonial America. The Shtisel fan who joins an online community of 30,000 strangers and finds herself in genuine conversation about Haredi life, gender and tradition. The concertgoer who hears Ladino sung live for the first time and leaves wanting to know more about the diversity of Jewish heritage. These are learners of Judaism, discovering, exploring and finding meaning in Jewish life in a variety of cultural arts spaces. Emma may or may not ever join a synagogue. She has sat with Torah text in a yoga pose in a field in Connecticut. She has found a way of learning and expanding her knowledge of what being Jewish is and its importance in her life. She needed the freedom to follow her curiosity wherever it led and a cultural ecosystem rich enough and diverse enough to meet her with meaningful Jewish content and experiences. American Jewish life has that ecosystem. The spaces where Jews and non-Jews are learning about Judaism are more numerous, more varied and more generative than our communal conversations often acknowledge. Our book, we hope, is a contribution toward seeing Jewish learning in the unexpected places where it is happening today. Sharon Avni is a professor of literacy and linguistics at the City University of New York (CUNY-BMCC). Laura Yares is a professor of religious studies and Jewish education at Michigan State University.

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I studied in Israel. Here’s why I’m concerned about the new higher education law.

Contributing Author — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 06:35:00 +0000

I became a Zionist walking the stone streets of Jerusalem and the peaceful paths of kibbutzim, and equally so in the country’s classrooms and lecture halls. As a college student studying abroad, I discovered a country that challenged me intellectually and formed my understanding of Jewish peoplehood; and when I returned to Israel during rabbinical school, my relationship with the land and people deepened through both experiential and academic learning. I wrestled with complexity and gained my own vocabulary of Jewish identity and theology. These experiences shaped the rabbi and the Zionist that I am today: the organization I lead within the Reform movement supports educational initiatives in Israel, including the training of future clergy. That is why I am worried about the legislation passed last week by the Knesset permitting universities and colleges to offer segregated master’s and doctoral degree programs. This statute is about far more than Israel’s universities. It demonstrates this government’s disregard for gender equity and religious pluralism, damaging the already embattled relationship between Israel and world Jewry. Supporters argue that the new law will make it easier for Haredi Israelis to pursue advanced degrees while honoring their religious customs. Increasing access to master’s and doctoral degrees is an important goal. Israel has always thrived when new populations seek growth and opportunity. However, these policies risk the pluralistic and democratic foundations of the State of Israel at a time when these values are already being eroded. Gender-based exclusion on university campuses can and has already expanded to public buses and billboards. By expanding gender segregation for advanced degrees, this law undermines one of Israels most fundamental promises: that public institutions belong to all Israelis equally. As someone who has dedicated my rabbinate and my career to advancing womens leadership in Jewish life, I believe deeply that womens equality is not only a social value but a Jewish value. Right now, Israels leaders have an opportunity and a responsibility to strengthen their relationship with Jews around the world. Yet to millions of Reform Jews, this legislation declares: your Judaism and your beliefs are not welcome here. Reform Judaism is the largest Jewish movement in North America. Several hundred Reform teenagers are spending their summer in Israel this year, and nearly 600 Israeli shlichim (emissaries) and teenagers are attending Reform Jewish summer camps, because we treasure building deep, meaningful relationships between Israel and North America. We aspire to create lifelong connections with the Jewish State through study and cultural exchange, just as I experienced as a student. The majority of North American Jews experience Judaism in egalitarian communities where women, men and all people take equal part in Jewish life. We are proud to ordain women as rabbis and cantors. We celebrate women who serve as lay leaders, scholars and advocates. Gender equality is inherent to our understanding of God, Torah and Israel, with each person created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of the Divine. My own commitment to gender equity deepens my Zionism. My Zionism strengthens my dedication to helping Israel live up to the ideals of its founders and become the best version of itself. This higher education law joins a series of debates — over egalitarian prayer at the Kotel, conversion and women’s integration into the Israeli army — that furthers the divide between Israel and world Jewry. In the final days of this Knesset session, anti-democratic bills were passed politicizing the role of the country’s attorney general and the Basic Law on Torah study. Each issue is different. Together, however, they leave many Reform Jews wondering whether there is a place in Israels future for the Judaism that has shaped generations of committed Zionists. Soon, Israeli students and those from abroad will begin their studies at Israeli universities for the fall semester. I pray that they will experience what I did years ago: a country that invites them into the sacred past, present and future of our people. Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch is the CEO of Women of Reform Judaism.

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Your Daily Phil: Worlds, not words, collide in rare interdenominational Tel Aviv gathering

EJP — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 16:44:27 +0000

In today’s edition ofYour Daily Phil, we speak withJewish Council for Public AffairsCEOAmy Spitalnickabout her organization’s efforts to engage with teachers’ unions to address antisemitism. We cover a rare gathering at Tel Aviv’sAnu Museumthat brought together non-Orthodox Diaspora rabbis and Israeli religious Zionist leaders, and spotlightYadinKaufmann’sefforts to transform tech leaders into philanthropists throughTmuraandA Good Option. We feature an opinion piece byMina RushaboutThe iCenter’s legacy for the field of Israel education, a piece byMarina Rosenbergreflecting on the 32nd anniversary tomorrow ofthe AMIA bombingin Buenos Aires and a piece byRabbi Abi Dauber Sterneabout what it takes to meaningfully engage with the complexity of theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict. Also in this issue:Daniel Lubetzky,Michael KoplowandRabbi David Bashevkin. Have a tip?Email us here. Shabbat shalom! Follow us on Whatsapp Follow us on Telegram What Were Watching American Friends of Soroka Medical Centeris hosting a Shabbat dinner tonight atFifthAvenue Synagoguein Manhattan to raise support for the hospital. Jewish Council for Public AffairsCEO AmySpitalnick willjoin a fireside chat on Saturday at theAmerican Federation of TeachersConvention, hosted by AFT PresidentRandi Weingarten,alongside educatorDebbie Almontaseron countering antisemitism, anti-Muslim hate and division.More on this below. The Jerusalem Film Festivalconcludes on Sunday. What You Should Know A QUICK WORD FROM eJPS JUDAH ARI GROSS As some organizations, institutions and movementshave become increasingly anti-Zionist and alienating for Jews in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks and the war against Hamas in Gaza, two distinct approaches have emerged in response: one (call it Circle the Wagons) called out their leaders and, in some cases, cut all ties with them; the other (call it Seat at the Table) engaged with them, encouraging them to see the error of their ways. That latter strategy scored a victory this month,getting the National Education Association —the country’s largest labor union —toadopt new rulesahead of its convention last week to prevent a repeat of last year’s event, in which members voted to cut all ties with the Anti-Defamation League. In addition to preventing measures that would alienate Jewish members, at this year’s convention, members also passed resolutions that were “good for the Jews,” including one that recognized Jews as a protected ethnic minority, according to Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, which worked closely with NEA and its Jewish caucus over the past year and spearheaded the effort to change the rules and pass the new resolutions. “We need to offer solutions that incentivizeand help leaders do the right thing,” Spitalnick toldeJewishPhilanthropythis week. “Beating union and other leaders over the head just hasn’t worked. Not only has it not worked, it’s just made it harder.” Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here. News TISHA B’AV PREPARATION In rare gathering, non-Orthodox Diaspora rabbis, Israeli religious Zionist leaders share post-Oct. 7 experiences In an all-too-rare occurrence, roughly a dozen American non-Orthodox rabbis and a similar number of figures from Israel’s religious Zionist community gathered on Thursday night at Tel Aviv’s Anu Museum of the Jewish People to share their lived experiences and worldviews aheadof next week’s Tisha B’Av fast, when Jews mourn, among other things, the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem because ofsinat hinam, baseless hatred,reportseJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Grossfrom the event. Quiet understanding:At any point, their conversations could have turned into a debate, even a nonconfrontational one — about who is responsible for the deaths of Palestinian civilians or whether Diaspora Jews are justified in feeling alienated from Israel — but they didn’t. Instead, they just listened to each other. “We were sharing our lived experiences,” Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of New York City’s Park Avenue Synagogue told eJP after the event. “No one was confrontational.” Read the full report here. Share ISRAELI PHILANTHROPY The long game: Yadin Kaufmanns 24-year bet on tomorrows tech philanthropists Israeli tech founders, the conventional wisdom has it, are cash poor but potentially equity rich. Inside that simple truism, Yadin Kaufmann found a model for how the drivers of wealth in the Startup Nation could also become philanthropists and spread some of that wealth: Instead of asking a startup founder for money from his own wallet, Tmura asked for a sliver of equity from startups while it was still cheap enough — and abstract enough — to give away. If the company eventually exits, then the proceeds from the liquidated equity gets donated to Israeli nonprofits,reportseJewishPhilanthropy’s Justin Hayet. Going global:Twenty-four years later, 978 companies have donated equity, 200 companies had “exits”, and Israeli nonprofits have collected $37.8 million in philanthropic funds. And Kaufmann didnt stop with Israeli tech founders. Two years ago, he founded an American version of Tmura — A Good Option — in his hometown of New York City, where he grew up before making aliyah in 1985. Now, the nonprofit has attracted 10 companies that have already donated equity. Read the full report here. Share Opinion HAKARAT HATOV The iCenter’s legacy is measured in the field’s educators In an opinion piece foreJewishPhilanthropy, Mina Rush, executive director of classroom education for StandWithUs — and creator of the IsraelLINK interactive Israel education platform, a project supported by The iCenter — looks back on The iCenter’s formative impact on the field of Israel education as we know it today. “When The iCenter was founded nearly 18 years ago, Israel education occupied a very different place within Jewish education. Israel was often taught through isolated historical events, current events or celebrations. Educators cared deeply about Israel, but few had opportunities to study Israel education as a discipline or to develop a sophisticated pedagogical approach for helping learners build meaningful, enduring relationships with Israel. The iCenter recognized this need long before much of the field did.” Read the full piece here. Share ZACHOR AND MORE The AMIA tragedy does not belong to the past In an opinion piece foreJewishPhilanthropy,one day before the 32nd anniversary of the suicide bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and wounded more than 300, Marina Rosenberg, senior vice president for international affairs at the Anti-Defamation League, notes that the Argentine Jewish community, like others in the Diaspora, has experienced a surge in antisemitic incidents since the Oct. 7 attacks. “Violence never appears out of nowhere. First come words that dehumanize, then conspiracy theories that erode public trust and narratives that turn the ‘other’ into a threat. That violence finds fertile ground when the lessons of history, from the Holocaust to the AMIA attack itself, are no longer passed on with the force they demand.” Read the full piece here. Share SWEAT EQUITY Complexity doesn’t just need to be embraced — we need the muscles to carry it In an opinion piece foreJewishPhilanthropy, Rabbi Abi Dauber Sterne, co-director of For the Sake of Argument and a member of the Field Advisory Committee for the Reimagining Israel Education framework, observes that Israel education must help students develop the capacity to engage with complexity, not just expose them to it “A student can learn that Israel contains multiple narratives and still emerge with a simplistic way of thinking. In the Reimagining Israel Education framework, complexity is not merely the recognition that an issue has many sides. It is the willingness to hold competing truths in tension, to remain open to ambiguity, to question ones assumptions and to revise ones views when confronted with new evidence.” Read the fullpiece here. Share Worthy Reads Peace Tank:In a post on X, philanthropist Daniel Lubetzkywarnsagainst growing calls discouraging cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians. “Real progress comes from building bridges, not burning them. Lasting peace is built through dialogue, cooperation, and the courage to see one another’s humanity, not through division or extremism.” Reset Nation:In Israel Policy Forum’s “Koplow Column,” the organization’s chief policy officer, Michael Koplow,arguesthat beneath the political chaos in Israel and the U.S. the potential political shake-up could lead to somewhere better. “A reset is coming… If policymakers who want to right the ship and Israeli and American Jewish leaders who want to build a more enduring partnership focus on the structural realities that extend beyond the tenure of any given government, then the current moment can be one of hope rather than despair.” Shomer Shabbat:InThe Wall Street Journal, Rabbi David Bashevkinexplainswhy a weekly “digital detox” is insufficient for improving our collective attention spans. “The answer isn’t simply that we’re addicted to our phones. It’s that unplugging isn’t enough. A Sabbath isn’t merely the absence of technology. It is the presence of something richer.” Voucher Blind Spot:InProPublica, Jennifer Smith Richards, Megan O’Matz, Mollie Simon and Jennifer Berry Hawesreportthat states are pouring public funds into private-school voucher programs while doing little to vet who operates them, monitor curricula or track student welfare. “And while the majority of American students still attend public schools and the largest share of funding goes to public districts, EdChoice estimated that last year alone, states allocated $10.6 billion to programs that can be used to pay for private schools — a 29% increase over the previous year.” Major Gifts Friends of the Israel Defense Forcesand Israel’sMinistry of Defensehave signed an agreement to build Israels first rehabilitation center dedicated solely to IDF veterans with moderate to severe traumatic brain injuries. FIDF is contributing $10 million to the project, which is slated to open by 2030 The William and Flora Hewlett Foundationunveileda five-year, $100 million initiative funding independent groups tackling AI, biotechnology and quantum computing security risks… Transitions William Fosterwasselectedto serve as the next president and CEO of thePew Charitable Trusts… Word on the Street In an interview withAl-Arabiya, Israeli PresidentIsaac Herzogdescribedpeace with Saudi Arabia as his ultimate aspiration while warning that Irans repeated violation of agreements makes deals with Tehran untenable… Maccabi USAannounced that its 900-member delegation returned from the 2026 Maccabiah Games in Israel with over 300 medals, led byMinnesotaswimmer and Female MVPIsla Georges eight medals, LouisianasGavriellaSmith sweeping three tennis golds and New YorksBrendan Millersetting three Junior Maccabiah records in swimming… TheJewish Newsspotlights“Nabatele,”an inflatable synagogue hovering above the Venice Lagoon that its creator, Jewish Ukrainian artist and architectAnna Kamyshan, said is modeled on the wooden shtetl synagogues of Europe but is airborne to evoke the centuries when Jews had no nation of their own on which to build… CBS Newsreportsthat a federal grand jury in New York is criminally investigatingNeville Roy Singham, husband ofCode Pinkco-founderJodie Evans, over potential foreign-agent registration violations and tax fraud linked to nonprofits under his control… Former U.S. National Security CouncilcoordinatorBrett McGurkwillreleasehis book “Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7 Hostages” in October… Judith Myers Langenthal, a longtime Baltimore Jewish community leader who was a founding member of theJewish Womens Giving Foundationand served as president of theJewish Museum of Maryland,diedon July 14 at 90… Pic of the Day Courtesy/Save a Childs Heart A new heart-lung machine is inaugurated on Wednesday at the National Heart Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia.The $200,000 machine, which is expected to double the number of children treated locally for heart conditions, was provided by the Israeli nonprofit Save a Child’s Heart and the American Jewish Committee. The event was attended by AJCs Wayne Sussman, SACH Executive Director Simon Fisher, Israeli Ambassador to Zambia Ofra Farhi, Dr. Chabwela Shumba, senior medical superintendent at the National Heart Hospital, along with senior Zambian health officials. Read eJP’s coverage of the donation here. Birthdays Ziv Koren/Azrieli Group Ian Seidenfeld, para table tennis player, he won medals at the 2020 (gold) and 2024 (bronze) Summer Paralympics, turns 25 FRIDAY Joyce Goldstein, chef and two-time James Beard Foundation Award winner, now a consultant to the restaurant and food industries, turns 91 Harry Hauser, retired executive director of the North American Association of Synagogue Executives, turns 83 Shlomo Ben-Ami, professor emeritus at Tel Aviv U, he served as a member of Knesset, minister of foreign affairs and ambassador to Spain, turns 83 Charley Steiner, Emmy Award-winning play-by-play announcer on radio for the Los Angeles Dodgers, turns 77 Rabbi Moshe Waldoks, co-editor of the classic The Big Book of Jewish Humor, turns 77 Peter J. Neufeld, civil rights and criminal defense attorney, he is the co-founder with Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project, turns 76 Robert K. Yass, former chairman of the Board of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford, he is now a lecturer at UConn law school Lance Jonathan Sussman, Ph.D., rabbi emeritus at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park, Pa., turns 72 Nechemia “Chemi” J. Peres, managing GP and co-founder of Pitango Venture Capital, he serves as chairman of The Peres Center for Peace Innovation, turns 68 Stacy Helen Schusterman, CEO of Samson Energy Company, co-founder of Granite Properties and chair of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies Steven Lebowitz, business development team lead at Quorum Joshua Seftel, television and film director, turns 58 Elizabeth Natalie Bitty Schram, actor best known for playing Sharona in the television series Monk, turns 58 Rabbi Shalom Axelrod, rabbi of the Young Israel of Woodmere (Nassau County, N.Y.), turns 57 David A. Steinberg, founder and CEO of Zeta Global, turns 57 Gary Gulman, stand-up comedian, he was a finalist on the NBC reality-talent show Last Comic Standing in two seasons, turns 56 Joshua Anthony Josh Frydenberg, treasurer of Australia until 2022, now chairman of Goldman Sachs Australia and New Zealand, turns55 Cory Efram Doctorow, blogger, journalist and science fiction author, turns 55 Simon Amiel, executive vice president of North America at Birthright Israel Naomi Knopf, chief impact officer at the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey Matthew E. Berger, president and CEO of Mashber Strategies, developing campaigns to fight antisemitism and respond to different types of hate Shannan Butler Adler, public television host Boaz Toporovsky, former member of the Knesset for the Yesh Atid party, turns 46 Brett Goldstein, Emmy Award-winning actor, comedian, podcaster and writer, turns 46 Josh Nathan-Kazis, news director at Jewish Currents, previously at Barrons and the Forward Jared Sorhaindo, senior account manager at Red Banyan Melanie Ettleson, growth strategy and operations lead and executive director at JPMorgan Chase Arabella Rose Kushner, daughter of Jared and Ivanka, turns 15 SATURDAY Jonas Alster, Israeli nuclear physicist and professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University, turns 93 Roald Hoffmann, theoretical chemist, 1981 Nobel laureate in chemistry, he has also published plays and poetry, born Roald Safran, turns 89 Jan Meisels Allen, president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of the Conejo Valley and Ventura County, Calif. Stephen Mandel, former three-term mayor of Edmonton, Alberta, turns 81 Yehude Simon Munaro, former prime minister of Peru, turns 79 Donald Fehr, longtime executive director of the MLB Players Association and then the NHL Players Association, turns 78 Felisa Bluwal Pivko, Beverly Hills resident Leonard Grunstein, finance, real estate and nursing home executive, turns 74 Mark Weitzman, antisemitism scholar and one of the authors of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, he is the COO of the World Jewish Restitution Organization Elihu Ben-Onn, former Israeli Police spokesman, he is now a senior national radio broadcaster in Israel and an international talk-show host, turns 72 Elihu Rubin, Seattle-area consultant Elliott B. Broidy, former finance chairman of the RNC, turns 69 Martin Peled-Flax, former minister for congressional affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, he was previously the Israeli ambassador to Belarus, turns 68 Philip Wagman, partner at Clifford Chance Yitz Woolf, CEO and co-founder at Lets Bench, a publisher of customized keepsake prayer books and benchers Jeffrey Michael Kosseff, associate professor of cybersecurity law at the U.S. Naval Academy and formerly an attorney at Covington Burling, turns 48 David Kamin, deputy director of the White House National Economic Council until 2022, now a professor at NYU law school Rabbi Joui Hessel, wellness specialist at the Central Conference of American Rabbis Alexander Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, turns 43 Gadi Schwartz, reporter for NBC Nightly News and Today, turns 43 Molly Tolsky, editorial director for culture and lifestyle at 70 Faces Media Lauren Friedlander, freelance graphic designer Shuli Karkowsky, CEO of Moving Traditions Julia Krieger, senior spokesperson at the U.S. Treasury until 2023, now the head of U.S. public affairs at Coinbase Philip Rosenstein, deputy editor for crypto at SoFi Jacqueline Dubrovich, foil fencer who competed for the U.S. at the 2020 and 2024 Summer Olympic Games, she won a team gold medal at the 2024 games, turns 32 Yosef Tarshish, freelance Jewish education consultant for BBYO Izi Doenyas, Istanbul, Turkey, resident Ted Rosenberg SUNDAY Uri Bar-Lev, retired Israeli airline pilot, he successfully thwarted an in-flight hijacking by Leila Khaled in 1970, turns 95 Edwin Arthur Ed Schlossberg, interactive designer, author and artist, in 1986 he married Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late JFK, turns 81 Uriel Uri Rosenthal, retired professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam and Leiden University, he served in the Dutch Senate and then as the minister of foreign affairs of the Netherlands, turns 81 Ian Schrager, hotelier and real estate developer, the creator of the boutique hotel concept, he was the co-founder of NYCs Studio 54 in 1977, turns 80 Sandra F. Cahn, co-founder of Limmud FSU, she co-founded UJA-Federation of New Yorks Womens Executive Circle Linda Meyer Russ, Jewish communal activist in Connecticut Jayson Stark, sportswriter for The Athletic and author of three books on baseball, turns 75 Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks Coffee Company, he owned the NBAs Seattle SuperSonics from 2001 to 2006, turns 73 Deenie Silow, retired judicial assistant at the Montgomery County (Pa.) Court of Common Pleas Rabbi Yaakov Neuburger, rabbi of Congregation Beth Abraham in Bergenfield, N.J., and rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University in NYC, turns 71 Edward Scott Eddie Lampert, former chairman and CEO of Sears Holdings (owner of retailers Sears and Kmart), turns 64 Ronen Pinchas Hoffman, Israels ambassador to Canada until 2023, turns 63 Eric Lichtblau, Pulitzer Prize-winning NY Times reporter until 2017 and author of The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitlers Men, turns 61 Yael Abecassis, Israeli actor, model and film producer, turns 59 Ofir Gendelman, spokesperson to the Arab media in the Israel Prime Ministers Office, turns 55 Raja Krishnamoorthi, member of Congress (D-IL-8), turns 53 Shai Stern, co-chairman and CEO of CheckAlt, an independent provider of treasury and lockbox solutions Ramona Leor Shelburne, senior writer and NBA Insider for ESPN, turns 47 Chad Prince, former soccer star at the University of Virginia, now working in the healthcare industry, turns 47 Shai Abuhatsira, former deputy mayor of the city of Haifa, now a real estate developer, turns 46 Oz Pearlman, ultra-marathon runner, he performs as a mentalist and magician, turns 44 Alexis Blair Wolfer, associate partner at McKinsey Company Ezra David Beren, CEO of Clever Bee Academy in Hewlett, N.Y. Tamara Zieve, Israel editor at Jewish Insider, turns 41 Yanky Schorr, director of operations at Tide Realty Capital Isaac Arnsdorf, White House bureau chief at The Washington Post Caroline Mendelsohn Lawrence, venue coordinator at JW3 London, a U.K.-based charity engaged in Jewish arts, culture and community Jacob Steinmetz, first-ever Orthodox Jewish player selected in the MLB Draft, picked No. 77 overall in 2021, now on the minor league injured list, turns 23 Dr. George Ban, former EVP and CEO of the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation Zach Houghton

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The long game: Yadin Kaufmann’s 24-year bet on tomorrow’s tech philanthropists

Justin Hayet — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 13:14:35 +0000

Israeli tech founders, the conventional wisdom has it, are cash poor but potentially equity rich. Inside that simple truism, Yadin Kaufmann found a model for how the drivers of wealth in the Startup Nation could also become philanthropists and spread some of that wealth. Kaufmann entered Israel’s venture capital arena in 1987 just as the countrys tech sector was getting its footing. He recalls spending the next 15 years watching fortunes get made and noticing how little of that money ever found its way into Israel’s nonprofit ecosystem. “All this wealth being created,” he remembers asking himself, “why arent we seeing more money supporting philanthropy from Israel?” His answer was Tmura, meaning “return,” which he launched in 2002. The idea was simple: Instead of asking a startup founder for money from his own wallet, Tmura asked for a sliver of equity from startups while it was still cheap enough — and abstract enough — to give away. If the company eventually exits, then the proceeds from the liquidated equity gets donated to Israeli nonprofits. Twenty-four years later, 978 companies have donated equity, 200 companies had exits and Israeli nonprofits have collected $37.8 million in philanthropic funds. In recent years, Tmura has averaged 50-60 new companies signing up each year. Kaufmann didnt stop with Israeli tech founders. Two years ago, he founded an American version of Tmura — A Good Option — in his hometown of New York City, where he grew up before making aliyah in 1985. Now, the nonprofit has attracted 10 companies that have already donated equity. Udi Mokady, former chief executive of Israeli cybersecurity giant CyberArk, donated equity long before his company was a household name in the Israeli startup world. Mokady said the board resolution to commit equity to Tmura was the easiest one he ever brought to a vote. “The team just loves it,” he said. “I think you get great ROI for all the right reasons when the team is involved in giving back.” The money is only half of what Kaufmann is after. “Were not only creating more dollars,” Kaufmann said. “Were creating more philanthropists. Were enabling people to be philanthropists years before they could through traditional models.” Kaufmann said that founders say the donation changes how the company feels from the inside — it shows up in recruiting pitches, retention conversations, the story a company tells about itself. Eight Tmura companies have crossed $1 million in donations so far, among them Waze. Former Waze CEO Noam Bardin, whose companys Tmura equity donation was transformed into $1.5 million when Google bought Waze in 2013, said he keeps coming back to that same vote when he talks about why the model works. Speaking at a joint Tmura and A Good Option event earlier this year, he framed it as something that runs alongside the job rather than competing with it: “Youre not asking people to go and volunteer time, youre telling them to build a better product, do a better job, and well also help some people. Thats what I love about this organization — its aligned with what we do.” Asked about the vote itself, Bardins answer was short: “Everyone was involved.” Building off the connections that placed Tmura as a major player in the Israeli tech ecosystem, Kaufmann looked east to his hometown. Kaufmann saw a similar disconnect in American Jewish philanthropy that he had observed in Israel two decades earlier. Young Jewish tech entrepreneurs dont have much cash or free time yet, but that did not mean altruism wasn’t on their minds. So Kaufmann did what any other entrepreneur would do: he started a second venture, A Good Option, which seeks to engage American and Israeli-American tech foundations in New York the same way Tmura does for Israeli techies in Tel Aviv. Launched in 2024, A Good Option has 10 companies under its umbrella, and Kaufmann has recruited Sivan Aloni Olidort, an Israeli “super-connector” and former senior advisor to the consul general in New York, as executive director. Kaufmann noted that traditional American Jewish nonprofit requests — money or time — typically dont fit young tech entrepreneurs’ lifestyles as they lack spare cash before an exit and spare time while building their companies; equity, he said, is the resource Tmura has found a way to tap into instead. Ron Gonen, founder and CEO of Closed Loop Partners, who has donated to A Good Option, told eJP that the model resonated with him because it aligned with core Jewish values. When I learned about A Good Option and its Israeli predecessor, it aligned with all of these Jewish values in a beautiful way — it involves tikkun olam, it involves business and entrepreneurship, it involves Jewish community, Gonen said. “Ive tried to build my career around being mission-driven — building organizations that protect our environment and create economic value. Being able to turn that into a donation of shares for Jewish causes was as aligned as you could get.” Gonen intends to give his donated equity to three organizations: the Israel ParaSport Center, BBYO and MEET, which creates collaborative technology, educational and entrepreneurial opportunities for Israelis and Palestinians to work together. Kaufmann maintains that reaching donors early, before they even have liquid funds, builds a habit that outlasts any one moment. He sees a straight line between how he used to invest and how he thinks about giving now. “When I was investing, we always placed major emphasis on the quality of the entrepreneurs, rather than on trying to predict the future.” “We looked to invest in people who were smart, honest, hard-working and leaders — and who we thought would be able to respond well to the inevitable changes in the business landscape.” The nonprofits get the same test. “Theyre dynamic, innovative initiatives started and run by people who share those same qualities. These social entrepreneurs very likely could have been successful in the private sector too — but they chose instead to focus on addressing a social need.”

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In rare gathering, non-Orthodox Diaspora rabbis, Israeli religious Zionist leaders share post-Oct. 7 experiences

Judah Ari Gross — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 12:49:59 +0000

The conversation could have just ended in the same tired old arguments. One pointed, rhetorical question, one dismissive rejoinder, and participants would have been back to the same debates about universalism and particularism, about the morality of war, about loyalty and grievances and politics and threats. But it didn’t happen. Instead, they listened to each other, empathized with one another and then sang together. In an all-too-rare occurrence, roughly a dozen American non-Orthodox rabbis and a similar number of figures from Israel’s religious Zionist community gathered on Thursday night in Lady Sarah Cohen Hall at Tel Aviv’s Anu Museum of the Jewish People. The meeting, spearheaded by Tracy Frydberg, the director of the Tisch Center for Jewish Dialogue, was held ahead of Thursday’s Tisha B’Av fast, when Jews mourn and contemplate,among other things,the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, a tragedy that is traditionally attributed to sinat hinam, baseless hatred, when Jews turned against each other on sectarian grounds, allowing the Romans to swiftly conquer them. Opening the event, Naama Klar, director of the museum’s Koret International School for Jewish Peoplehood, asked the attendees why “baseless hatred” is so widely understood to be the reason why the Temple was destroyed, when the Talmud provides other explanations. “Because it’s the right answer,” Klar quipped, saying that connectivity was and remains a critical component of the Jewish People’s continuity. The evening’s event —titled “Tisch B’Av” and organized to coincide with the end of the Hartman Institute’s Rabbinic Leadership Initiative, which brought many American rabbis to Israel —aimed to strengthen that connectivity by bringing together two groups that often do not see eye to eye with each other and, in some cases, refuse to even share a stage with one another. At times, this is due to progressive Jewish leaders not wanting to speak alongside far-right Israeli figures, but more commonly it is because of Orthodox Israelis refusing to recognize and, in their view, legitimize non-Orthodox Judaism. (Disclosure: Frydberg consulted with this reporter ahead of time about whom to invite to the event.) This was not the case at the event, which featured an onstage discussion led by Frydberg between Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, of the Conservative Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City, and Rabbanit Yafa Giser, the founder of Yesodot, which connects religious values with democratic ones, who is also a resident of the West Bank settlement of Ofra. The two were selected to speak as Giser recently wrote an opinion piece in the religious Zionist Makor Rishon newspaper about the need for her community to engage with and appreciate Diaspora Jewry, which she said was inspired by Cosgrove’s essays and speeches. In her remarks, Giser, who personally recruited many of the Israeli participants for the event, noted that Orthodox refusal to engage with non-Orthodox Judaism is waning. “Nearly everyone I invited [to this event] responded in the affirmative,” she said. Those who didn’t attend, she added, cited scheduling issues and not ideological disagreement. Both Giser and Cosgrove stressed that the need for maintaining Jewish unity is the central challenge facing the community today. “The task at hand is not, so much, to stand on principle — though a principle it is —but the task at hand is to keep the Jewish People together,” Cosgrove said. After their shared remarks, the attendees split into small groups for discussions about their personal experiences during and after the Oct. 7 terror attacks, as well as broader thoughts about the meaning of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish People and what Israeli Jews and Diaspora Jews can teach one another. The participants did not come from the extremes —the farthest left of the American rabbinate and the farthest right of Israeli society —yet they did represent markedly different, even opposing, political and religious outlooks within the Jewish community. One discussion group consisted of Rabbi Sharon Brous, the founder and CEO of Los Angeles’ Ikar community; Rabbi Judith Schindler, a Reform rabbi, professor and social activist; Rabbi Azi Horvitch, who previously worked as a visiting Orthodox campus rabbi at Princeton University and now leads a congregation in northern Tel Aviv; and Rabbi Doron Perez, the head of the religious Zionist Mizrachi movement and president of the World Zionist Organization. In their discussion, which this reporter also participated in, Perez shared his family’s experience of having his son, Capt. Daniel Perez, being taken hostage on Oct. 7 and only learning, 163 days later, that he had, in fact, been killed in the attacks, and then having to wait another year and a half for his remains to be returned for burial. Brous and Schindler, who were not initially familiar with Perez’s story, let out audible sighs and leaned in close as Perez described his family’s travails for more than two years until Daniel’s body was returned and his appreciation that if his son had to die, that at least he did so after fighting valiantly for more than two hours and saving hundreds of people through his actions, according to army estimates. They asked how his experiences changed his relationship to the state —it did not increase or decrease his commitments to Zionism and Israel, but it did make them “more real,” he said. Perez, in turn, asked Brous and Schindler about what they went through post-Oct. 7, seeing erstwhile colleagues and friends from interfaith initiatives and social justice activism suddenly abandon them. The American rabbis also described their struggles keeping together their communities as their members grappled — and still grapple — with Israel’s prosecution of the war against Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian civilian death toll, as well as the policies and rhetoric of Israeli leaders that are at odds with their own values and push them away from Israel. At any point, their conversation could have turned into a debate, even a nonconfrontational one — about who is responsible for the deaths of Palestinian civilians or whether Diaspora Jews are justified in feeling alienated from Israel — but it didn’t. Instead, they just listened to each other. And the same was true in other groups as well. “We were sharing our lived experiences,” Cosgrove told eJP after the event. “No one was confrontational.” Cosgrove said his group included a rabbi focused on interfaith work from a West Bank settlement and another rabbi whose mixed Arab-Jewish community of Lod was rocked by internecine violence in 2021. Cosgrove described struggling with his support for Israel, while also “trying to make sense of an Israel… that doesn’t seem to love us as much as we love it.” “[The Israelis] didnt pounce and say Well, why didnt you say this? Nor did the Americans say that to them,” he said. At the end of the discussions, Brous compared the night’s event to Mishnah Middot 2:2, which describes how, while most pilgrims to the Temple Mount walked around the courtyard counterclockwise, those in mourning or otherwise “broken-hearted” would walk in the opposite direction, allowing their pain to be seen and acknowledged by the community. She also acknowledged that the event could have ended as just yet another shouting match and thanked Frydberg and Anu for trusting us that we could do this. Brous concluded by leading the group —men and women, Reform, Conservative and Orthodox, Diaspora Jews and Israelis, leftists and settlers —in the traditional Hebrew hymn “Acheinu,” which translates to “our brothers.” “Our brothers, the whole House of Israel, who are given over to distress and captivity, who stand either on the sea or on dry land: May the Makom (God) have mercy upon them, and bring them out from distress to relief, and from darkness to light, and from subjugation to redemption, now, swiftly, and soon.”

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JCPA’s ‘engagement approach’ scores wins with teachers’ unions

Judah Ari Gross — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 12:42:54 +0000

In the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks and the war against Hamas in Gaza, as some organizations, institutions and movements have become increasingly anti-Zionist and alienating for Jews, two distinct approaches have emerged in response: one called out their leaders and, in some cases, cut all ties with them; the other engaged with them, encouraging them to see the error of their ways. That latter strategy scored a victory this month, getting the National Education Association —the country’s largest labor union —to adopt rules ahead of its convention last week to prevent a repeat of last year’s event, in which members voted to cut all ties with the Anti-Defamation League, preventing the union from using the group’s resources on antisemitism and Holocaust education. (That resolution was ultimately not adopted by the union, after its executive committee rejected it.) In addition to preventing measures that would alienate Jewish members, at this year’s convention, members also passed resolutions that were “good for the Jews,” including one that recognized Jews as a protected ethnic minority, according to Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, which worked closely with NEA and its Jewish caucus over the past year and spearheaded the effort to change the rules and pass the new resolutions. “We need to offer solutions that incentivize and help leaders do the right thing,” Spitalnick told eJewishPhilanthropy this week. “Beating union and other leaders over the head just hasn’t worked,” she said. “Not only has it not worked, it’s just made it harder.” This weekend, Spitalnick, along with other colleagues from JCPA, will also attend the annual convention of the American Federation of Teachers — the country’s second-largest teachers union —where she will participate in a “fireside chat” about antisemitism with AFT’s president, Randi Weingarten, with whom JCPA has also worked closely on antisemitism-related issues. This included launching a resource hub on antisemitism for AFT earlier this year with the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History. Due to differences in how AFT’s convention operates, there likely will not be anti-Israel or antisemitic resolutions passed, though Spitalnick said her organization will be monitoring the situation closely. “There are no major concerns at this point. But never say never, because you never know,” she said. And yet, alongside these discrete victories for the “engagement approach” with K-12 educators, two fundamental questions still remain: One, do these higher-level developments at teachers unions actually trickle down and improve the experiences of the teachers and the students? And two, are there organizations that simply are too far gone, where engagement serves as a “fig leaf,” offering an imprimatur of progress that masks deep-seated, unresolved issues? To Spitalnick, NEA’s rules changes were only ever “just an initial step forward, not the endgame in any way, shape or form,” she said. “I explicitly said that they were not a silver bullet.” Since last year’s conference, JCPA has collaborated with NEA on antisemitism issues, including holding a joint webinar in January for Holocaust Remembrance Day with NEA President Becky Pringle. Spitalnick stressed that the “engagement approach” does not preclude criticizing the organization in question, noting that during that webinar, she “did call out the bad things that happened last year” at the NEA convention, namely the “intimidation and harassment that [Jewish teachers] felt.” Spitalnick added that NEA is particularly sensitive to criticism today in light of congressional Republican calls to revoke its national charter. “That doesnt mean we dont call it out when [antisemitism] happens, but it needs to be done in a way that shows people you want to actually help them do better, as opposed to leveraging it as a broader political agenda,” she said. On the second point, Spitalnick acknowledged that there can be institutions or individuals that are irredeemable, but she said she believed that wasn’t the case here. “There are organizations who are willing to engage constructively,” she said. “And then there are those who never will.” For Spitalnick, the daughter of two public school teachers, the teachers’ unions were both willing to engage and represent institutions that are too important to abandon. “Do we believe as a community that democratic infrastructure and institutions, which include unions, are important or not?” she said. “This has been the broader question that the Jewish community has been grappling with over the last few years as real concerns of antisemitism are used to undermine democratic institutions. So whether its academic freedom or research funding or due process and civil liberties or unions, we need to ask the question,” she said. “Do we want to push them and improve them to do better on antisemitism —and on a variety of issues — or do we throw the baby out with the bathwater?” Spitalnick also warned that if major Jewish groups do not engage with these organizations, fringe ones —whose views on Judaism, antisemitism and Israel lie far outside the mainstream —will do so instead. Spitalnick also acknowledged that the “engagement approach” is not a panacea. JCPA also worked with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), a leader in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, with Spitalnick taking part in a webinar hosted by Ocasio-Cortez in June 2024. The following day, Ocasio-Cortez denounced a pro-Hamas rally outside an exhibition memorializing the massacre at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, calling the protest antisemitic. Yet the congresswoman has also since endorsed candidates and voted in favor of pieces of legislation that were widely opposed by mainstream Jewish leaders. “The goal is not to get someone to agree with you 100% of the time,” Spitalnick said. “Its to move the needle in the right direction.”

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