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Your Daily Phil: Instagram post reveals rifts in Israeli hospitals’ coexistence

EJP — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 15:09:04 +0000

Good Thursday morning! In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we examine how a recent controversy over Arab medical professionals in Israeli hospitals is threatening the long-hailed coexistence in Israel’s healthcare system. We look at the National Council of Jewish Women’s new strategic plan, which is leading some local sections to join and others to spin off, report on Rabbi Ben Berger’s appointment as president and CEO of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, and cover an emerging grassroots political strategy in Jewish communities across the country. We feature an opinion piece by Stacie Cherner highlighting insights from a new study of Jewish young adults commissioned by the Jim Joseph Foundation, and a piece by Rabbi Ami Hersh continues our preview of essays from the latest edition of the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education’s Peoplehood Papers series, “Cultivating Jewish Peoplehood at Camp,” produced in partnership with the Foundation for Jewish Camp. Also in this issue: Samantha and Scott Johnson, Ofir Libstein and Jack Ukeles. 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 Parents, alumni and other stakeholders of Camp Lavi are continuing their efforts to prevent the camp from being sold to another organization, launching a crowdfunding campaign that has so far raised more than $2.3 million. What You Should Know A QUICK WORD FROM eJPS JUSTIN HAYET Last weekend, the brother of an IDF soldierwounded in Lebanon accused Arabic-speaking staff at Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa of mistreating his sibling and three other wounded soldiers during an overnight shift, writing about it on Instagram.The post went viral, with Defense Minister Israel Katz ordering the Israel Defense Forces to investigate the alleged incident as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for a probe into whether the staff had acted on nationalist motives. Rambam flatly denied the allegations,saying it had examined the claims internally and found them to be baseless. It added that it refused to disqualify staff on the basis of their ethnicity. Top Israeli medical professionals and public health officials decried the post, with one calling it a “dangerous blood libel.” Israel’s healthcare system has long been hailed, internally and externally, as a beacon of shared society in Israel. “The paradigm we know is that hospitals are islands of sanity, coexistence and harmony between Jews and Arabs on all levels, Amnon Beeri-Sulitzeanu, co-CEO of the shared-society group The Abraham Initiatives, toldeJewishPhilanthropytoday. This latest incident revealed what Beeri-Sulitzeanu and his organization have found following extensive research into the healthcare system: the “islands of sanity, coexistence and harmony” are indeed real, but they are perilously close to crumbling. Read the rest of What You Should Know here. News COME ALONG OR GO ALONE NCJW rolls out new advocacy-focused strategic plan, inviting local sections to join or spin off When the National Council of Jewish Women, in a bid to stay relevant in fast-changing times, presented its new strategic plan to local sections last July, it gave them three options: integrate, affiliate or disaffiliate, with the second option offered only to a select few larger sections. To continue using the NCJW name, sections needed to align with the national organization’s shift away from community service to advocacy in four core areas — reproductive rights, gender pay equity, family economic security, and combating antisemitism and hate, with an increased focus on Israel advocacy,reportseJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher. Who’s in, who’s out:Five sections have already disaffiliated from the national organization — many spinning off into independent organizations with new names — and two sections, NCJW Houston and NCJW Sarasota-Manatee, in Florida, shuttered. With a December 2027 deadline for sections to decide which direction to take, NCJW expects 20 to integrate and five to affiliate. The status of the others is unclear. Read the full report here. Share TRANSITIONS Hillel’s Rabbi Ben Berger announced as president and CEO of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah When the National Council of Jewish Women, in a bid to stay relevant in fast-changing times, presented its new strategic plan to local sections last July, it gave them three options: integrate, affiliate or disaffiliate, with the second option offered only to a select few larger sections. To continue using the NCJW name, sections needed to align with the national organization’s shift away from community service to advocacy in four core areas — reproductive rights, gender pay equity, family economic security, and combating antisemitism and hate, with an increased focus on Israel advocacy, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher. Who’s in, who’s out:Five sections have already disaffiliated from the national organization — many spinning off into independent organizations with new names — and two sections, NCJW Houston and NCJW Sarasota-Manatee, in Florida, shuttered. With a December 2027 deadline for sections to decide which direction to take, NCJW expects 20 to integrate and five to affiliate. The status of the others is unclear. Read the full report here. Share NEW BATTLEGROUND Jewish leaders build up local grassroots organizing to counter radical forces in politics Until recently, the political strategy of the American Jewish establishment could be summed up in two ways: Elect pro-Israel lawmakers to Congress and, at a much smaller scale, educate state and local officials about Jewish values and causes. But a new model of Jewish political engagement is emerging to counter growing populist angst and surging antisemitism across the political spectrum: local efforts focused on school boards and city councils and statehouses,Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. Door-to-door:These Jewish activists are not shying away from the messy reality of politics: They aren’t here to make friends with everyone, acknowledging that not everyone is an ally. Their goal is to offer support — through door-knocking, organizing and their checkbooks — to candidates who have stood by the Jewish community in the post-Oct. 7 political firestorm, and to try to unseat those who have not. “All of these groups are starting to pop up because we realize that the infrastructure that the community has had in the past isnt enough and isnt working,” said Stefanie Clarke, a political strategist in Colorado who co-founded the Colorado Jewish Action Alliance. Read the full report here. Share Opinion DATA DIVE We need a fuller picture of Jewish young adults In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Stacie Cherner, director of research and learning at the Jim Joseph Foundation, shares what prompted the foundation to commission Project Prism, its new multi-method study of Jewish young adults ages 22 to 40, and some of the insights produced so far. “For years, conversations about Jewish young adults have often been framed through a familiar lens. Within the Jim Joseph Foundation, we’ve referenced ‘the 30%’ who are actively served by Jewish organizations and institutions (the audiences for our Deliberate Strategy) and ‘the 70%’ who are underserved or not served at all… [But m]easuring their level of institutional participation is only one data point among many that show how they relate to Jewish life, identity, purpose and community. On its own, this data point does not provide a full picture of Jewish young adults today.” Read the full piece here. Share PEOPLEHOOD PAPERS The power of Hebrew immersion “As an educator, there is nothing in my career that I have done that brings more pride than the development and growth of Sha’ar,” a Hebrew immersion program for young campers now in use in dozens of camps across the U.S., writes Rabbi Ami Hersh, director of Ramah Day Camp in Nyack (N.Y.) in an essay featured in the latest edition of the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education’s Peoplehood Papers, which was produced in partnership with the Foundation for Jewish Camp and previewed exclusively in eJewishPhilanthropy. “Hebrew is the living thread that binds the Jewish people across generations and geography, allowing us to speak to one another across time and space. The Sha’ar program gives campers in our community the ability to fluently and authentically communicate via the universal language of the Jewish people.” Read the fullpiece? Share Worthy Reads No Zionists Allowed:On his Substack “The Middle Ground,” Eli Kowaz, whose family was forced out of Iraq in 1951,reflectson a controversialNew Yorkmagazine cover story on Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) culture in New York that excludes Israel and blithely categorizes Zionism as racism.“So 20 pages celebrating the SWANA diaspora in New York City. The Jews of those countries appear only if they publicly disown the state that took many of them in. … [The author] ends her piece onsumud, the Palestinian Arabic word for steadfastness, referring to a quiet refusal to disappear. She should know she has spent thousands of words asking us to do just that.” Trust, Rest, Impact, Repeat:InCandid, David Rockefeller Foundations Lexi Fisheroutlineshow grantmakers can support nonprofit staff well-being through simplified reporting, capacity building and direct funding for rest and organizational sustainability. “Our experience has also reminded us that caring for the people doesn’t require large initiatives or highly structured programs. Many of our most meaningful interventions were relatively modest investments, informed by listening and accompanied by trust.” FleishigPhilanthropy:InThe Conversation, Leslie Lenkowsky, professor emeritus of public affairs and philanthropic studies at Indiana University,arguesthat Jewish philanthropist Nathan Straus’ targeted, practical retail giving — such as funding milk pasteurization — demonstrates that funders do not need grand, sweeping ambitions to achieve a monumental, lasting impact. “It should also show that donors do not have to aspire to “make all mankind good and happy” to make an important difference. In many ways, Nathan Straus was an old-fashioned do-gooder, responding to the needs he saw with innovative solutions. As a result, he wound up accomplishing a lot of good.” Major Gifts Samantha and Scott Johnson donated $1 million to Jewish Nevada — the largest security gift in the organization’s history — to fund guards and local grants, bolster statewide coordination via the Secure Community Network, and establish a $100,000 matching initiative to inspire additional community giving… Transitions TheWomen’s Philanthropy Institute CouncilatIndiana University’sLilly Family School of PhilanthropyappointedElaine Martynas its new chair… Rachel Nielsenwashiredby theMilwaukee Jewish Federationas its new chief operating officer Word on the Street Jewish InsiderinterviewsAndrew Grossas he enters his new role as theAmerican Jewish Committee’s New York regional director this week, highlighting his willingness to work with MayorZohran Mamdaniif he is willing to “tone down” his rhetoric on Israel… Michael Morris, publisher of theAtlanta Jewish Timesand stepson of the late philanthropist and GOP donorBernie Marcus, publicly accused Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) of misleading constituents by claiming to support Israel while repeatedly voting against military aid to Israel,reportsJewish Insider’s Marc Rod… The former head of theSouthern Poverty Law CentersIntelligence Project,Heidi Beirich, wasarrestedand charged with wire fraud and money laundering after federal prosecutors accused her of funneling donor money to pay hate-group informants; SPLC and its supporters have decried the investigation as politically motivated and baseless In a move largely seen as targeting Israel, theEuropean Broadcasting Unionannouncedchanges to next year’sEurovision Song Contestin which a winning country would “automatically be ineligible to host” if it was involved in an “armed conflict” or a “sensitive geopolitical situation” at the time… Calcalisthighlights a newlylaunched$20 million-$30 million venture fund,Ofir-SouthUp Ventures, named in memory of fallen regional leaderOfir Libstein; the fundaims to transform Israel’s war-affected Western Negev into a thriving technology hub by investing in startups that establish operations in the area… Thrive Capital’sJosh Kushnerand media executiveBob Igerbought a controlling stake in theLos Angeles Lakersfor $12.5 billion,Matthew Shea reports foreJewishPhilanthropys sister publicationJewish Insider… Israeli authoritieshaveissueda temporary gag order on details regarding the investigation into anIsraeli mother and daughter missing in Vienna… Acclaimed Israeli journalistOren Naharidiedtoday at 70, roughly a year after he was diagnosed with ALS… Jack Ukeles, Jewish communal researcher and strategic consultant who was one of the first to use data and policy planning to reshape organized Jewish life,diedat 88… Jerry Katzman, formerWilliam Morrispresident and veteran television packager who helped bring hit shows like “The Cosby Show” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” to the screen,diedat 89… Lucien Kalfon, the former president ofORT Franceand former director of the country’s Commission for the Restitution of Property and the Compensation of Victims of Antisemitic Spoliations,diedon Monday at 90 Sue Zelickson, an award-winning radio host, food writer and philanthropist who helped shape Minnesotas culinary scene,diedat 91… Pic of the Day Asaf Zamir A sign is seen yesterday declaring the area outside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art to be “Hostages Square,” following an official naming ceremony on Tuesday. In a post on Instagram, Asaf Zamir, Tel Aviv deputy mayor and Israel’s former consul general to New York, calls the demonstrations for the release of the hostages that were held in the square “the most important, brave, and significant social struggle since the establishment of the State… Every single protester turned this space into an example of hope and solidarity.” Birthdays David Dee Delgado/Getty Images Janet Yellen, treasury secretary through all four years of the Biden administration, turns80 Audrey I. Pheffer, member of the New York State Assembly for 24 years, since then she is the county clerk of Queens County, turns85 Morton Algaze, retired CPA and senior executive in Los Angeles, turns83 Robert A. Cumins, documentary still photographer of the American and international Jewish communities since 1970, turns78 Ruth Fay Kellerman, Beverly Hills, Calif., resident James M. Spiegelman, VP and chief of staff at The Aspen Institute, turns68 Susan Landau Finch, film producer, writer and director, turns66 Michael Landau, founder of the Council of Orthodox Jewish Organizations of Manhattan, he is also the executive chairman of LifeHealth Network Michael De Luca, co-chair and CEO of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, turns61 Jeffrey Mark Slash Coleman, storyteller, producer and writer, turns59 Maer Roshan, editor-in-chief ofThe Hollywood Reporter, turns59 Jeremy B. Bash, co-founder and managing director at Beacon Global Strategies, he was chief of staff at the CIA and the Pentagon during the Obama administration, he is a graduate of CESJDS, turns55 Dana Marlowe, president of Accessibility Partners, a Maryland firm that hires people with disabilities for tech jobs, she is also the founder of a nonprofit I Support the Girls Merrill Marc Moses, three-time Olympian water polo player, now assistant head coach at Pepperdine University, turns49 Eric Matthew Nelson, professor of government at Harvard University, he was the director of the Harvard Center for Jewish Studies, turns49 Joshua Michael Blackman, professor of law at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, turns42 Matthew Weiss, deputy general counsel and global head of contracts and litigation for Tower Research Capital, turns40 Sara Sorcher, weekend editor for The Washington Post Ari Polsky, management consultant at the Harold Grinspoon Foundation Maor Tiyouri, Israeli Olympic long-distance runner, she ran the marathon for Israel at the Paris Olympics in 2024, turns36 Nathan Jablow, counsel at CDR Jodie Michelle Singer, senior account supervisor at Edelman Adam Dahan, VP of business development at Azul Hospitality Group David Angel, head of investor relations at Israel Legacy Partners Elaine Hall Jonathan Gerber

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An Instagram post reveals cracks in the long-hailed shared society of Israeli hospitals

Justin Hayet — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 12:22:16 +0000

It started with an Instagram post. Last weekend, the brother of an IDF soldier wounded in Lebanon accused Arabic-speaking staff at Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa of mistreating his siblinghis sibling and three other wounded soldiers during an overnight shift. The soldiers brother, David Chesterman, posted the allegation on Instagram, and his uncle, Yehoshua Shani, chairman of the Gvura Forum, a right-wing group of bereaved families from the Oct. 7 terror attacks and resulting wars, shared it as well. The post went viral, with Defense Minister Israel Katz ordering the Israel Defense Forces to investigate the alleged incident as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for a probe into whether the staff had acted on nationalist motives. Rambam responded, saying it had examined the claims internally and found them to be baseless, adding that it refused to disqualify staff on the basis of their ethnicity. Israel’s healthcare system has long been hailed, internally and externally, as a beacon of shared society in Israel, with Arabs and Jews, religious and secular, men and women working together with the common goal of providing care to everyone —Arabs and Jews, religious and secular, men and women. For many funders, both in Israel and abroad, this aspect is a particular draw for supporting hospitals and healthcare programs, seeing them not only as important in their own right but also as a way to advance a more equitable Israeli society. “The paradigm we know is that hospitals are islands of sanity, coexistence and harmony between Jews and Arabs on all levels, Amnon Beeri-Sulitzeanu, co-CEO of the shared-society group The Abraham Initiatives, told eJewishPhilanthropy today. This latest incident revealed what Beeri-Sulitzeanu and his organization have found following extensive research into the healthcare system: the “islands of sanity, coexistence and harmony” are indeed real, but they are perilously close to crumbling. Arab citizens make up roughly a fifth of Israels population, yet a 2025 study in the Israel Journal of Health Policy Research found that in 2023, they accounted for a quarter of the countrys doctors, 27% of its nurses, and nearly half of its pharmacists. “National tensions are a feature of this system. Its not a bug, its a feature, because you have doctors and nurses working shoulder to shoulder, saving lives, while they belong to two nations in conflict,” Beeri-Sulitzeanu said, referring to Arabs and Jews. These cracks have widened since the Oct. 7 attacks. “There is a sense among many of the [Arab] hospital personnel that they are being watched, that their Jewish counterparts suspect them of not being loyal to Israel,” Beeri-Sulitzeanu said. Many Arab citizens, he noted, have relatives in Gaza and the West Bank and feel their own pain over the war. Once news of the incident moved beyond the Rambam campus, the pushback came fast, particularly from inside the profession itself. Mersham, an organization of medical workers, branded the campaign “racist incitement.” Dr. Hagai Levine, chairman of the Israel Association of Public Health Physicians, issued a statement condemning the allegations, calling them a “dangerous blood libel” and saying, “Incitement against the medical teams at Rambam is crossing a red line.” Whether hospitals and clinics will remain “islands of sanity, coexistence and harmony” or become yet another sectoral battleground in Israeli society remains unclear, but Beeri-Sulitzeanu is adamant that philanthropists can help decide if they choose to. “Is it their role to sit on the sidelines, or to push institutions to double down?” he asked.

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NCJW rolls out new strategic plan focused on advocacy, inviting local sections to join or spin off

Jay Deitcher — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 12:04:48 +0000

When National Council of Jewish Women, in a bid to stay relevant in fast-changing times, presented its new strategic plan to local sections last July, it gave them three options: integrate, affiliate or disaffiliate, with the second option only offered to a select few larger sections. To continue using the NCJW name, sections needed to align with the national organization’s shift away from community service to focus more on advocacy in four core areas — demanding reproductive freedom, advancing economic opportunity, safeguarding civil rights and fostering safer communities, with an increased focus on Israel advocacy.While the organization isnt completely doing away with community service —something NCJW leaders say it will always be involved with —service is expected to be coupled alongside advocacy. Five sections have already disaffiliated from the national organization — many spinning off into independent organizations with new names —and two sections, NCJW Houston and NCJW Sarasota-Manatee, in Florida, shuttered. With a December 2027 deadline for sections to decide which direction to take, NCJW expects 20 to integrate and five to affiliate. The status of 20 others is unclear. Experts told eJewishPhilanthropy that a new framework was needed for the struggling 133-year-old organization, which once boasted hundreds of local sections and is now down to roughly 50. The changes, they said, will strengthen the organization’s national voice. For some of the sections, including NCJW Colorado and NCJW Miami, the decision to integrate was simple. They had already shifted most of their work away from community service to advocacy, and the change meant that the national organization would support sections with fundraising and cover administrative tasks, freeing volunteers to focus on the organization’s mission of advancing social change through a Jewish lens. “Everything that we were doing falls within those four categories anyway,” NCJW Colorado’s board president, Michelle Reiff, told eJP. Working more closely with the national organization meant they would be in tune with successful initiatives in other sections, especially around issues such as gun safety, a topic particularly relevant in Colorado, a state that had 77 mass shootings between 2014 to 2023. The five-year plan, christened NCJW Forward, came after years of polls by an outside consulting firm, surveying over 2,500 leaders at local sections about their interests and needs. Even though the planning began before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 —ending the constitutional right to an abortion — that decision proved that “that we needed a movement that could be more nimble, that could be stronger, that could be better equipped to respond together,” Jody Rabhan, NCJW’s CEO, told eJP. By integrating, sections will come under the banner of the larger organization, giving up their individual 501(c)(3) statuses. They will have access to the national office’s administration, operating out of its headquarters in Washington, including its finance, human resource and information technology departments as well as the larger organization’s computing platforms, which NCJW plans to increase investment to better connect sections with one another. For Reiff, having access to the national organization’s administration takes a load off the local section. NCJW Colorado’s has one “very part-time” bookkeeper who will be let go once the section is fully integrated, which will happen over the next couple months. Although its membership has grown recently, NCJW Colorado’s board has shrunk, and Reiff finds herself acting as treasurer and managing communications and overseeing membership. “According to my husband, Im doing it 24/7,” Reiff told eJP about her role with the organization. She estimates half her time is spent on administrative issues. Handing off those tasks will allow her and other volunteers to focus on fundraising, building relationships and supporting local advocates. In recent years, NCJW Colorado has transferred community service initiatives to other local organizations: a backpack drive was taken over by the local Jewish Family Services; a bookmobile was picked up by the library; and a doctor’s appointment transportation program was acquired by the city. The Colorado section had already been focused on advocacy and national programming such as the annual Repro Shabbat, where rabbis spoke to their congregations about abortion and reproductive rights. The NCJW set the goal of engaging 1 million “changemakers” by 2030, which will be bolstered by the organization launching the NCJW Center for Leadership, a leadership academy where, according to Rabhan, new and established leaders can get “skilled up” in courses based on advocacy, leadership and building community. “Were really leaning into building our leaders, investing in Jewish womens leadership like never before,” she told eJP. The NCJW is not only the oldest Jewish women’s grassroots organization in the country, but it’s one of the oldest women’s organizations of any kind, according to Steven Windmueller, emeritus professor of Jewish communal service at the Jack H. Skirball Campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. The changes NCJW is making exist alongside trends “beyond the Jewish world,” Windmueller told eJP. “Its sort of reflective of whats happening to mainstream historic institutions in trying to sort of recapture the marketplace of where they were and what they represented and what they should represent in a new sort of environment or era.” NCJW was formed in 1893, the same year Colorado became the second U.S. state to grant women full voting rights. It was a time when most women did not work outside the home and antisemitism was surging through America and the world. The organization provided Jewish women a voice. NCJW leaders set up port and dock stations to support new immigrants from Europe and created sections where they helped pass nearly every piece of civil right legislation in America. But in today’s America, many gendered organizations are struggling as Americans no longer box themselves in by gender, Windmueller said. Even Hadassah, The Womens Zionist Organization of America, which was founded in 1912, has experimented with couples’ memberships and now offers an associate membership to male allies. In addition, young people today tend to support initiatives, but not join organizations as members. NCJW too is shifting away from being membership based, instead depending on donations and fundraising instead of dues. This move mirrors a similar shift made by Bnai Brith International, the world’s oldest Jewish service organization, founded in 1843, which once operated with a lodge model. No longer depending on memberships will make the sections more inviting for younger members and elderly, Reiff said. Both young and older potential members often have very little disposable income. Her section has around 500 members. Since her section began the transition away from membership, she is seeing more people attending their lunch-and-learn sessions and showing interest in joining their leadership council. The plan will lead to a “more uniform presence for a national legacy organization,” Windmueller said. “That couldnt happen with the distributive leadership that it had operating around the country.” The Jewish Women’s Action Alliance Arizona, formerly NCJW Arizona, is one of the sections that disaffiliated after a century of working as part of NCJW. “National organizations, by very definition, believe in advocacy from the top down, and we feel strongly about advocacy percolating from the bottom up,” Civia Tamarkin, president of JWAAA, told eJP. Integrating or affiliating, she said, would hamper her section’s ability to respond to the needs of their local community. They don’t want to require national approval to sue, file amicus briefs or make decisions for the advisory committees they sit on based on issues that are extremely local in nature. Tamarkin also worried that aligning could impact Ruth Place, a community-trauma recovery center run by JWAAA that the organization hopes will one day become its own nonprofit. Another area of dispute between JWAAA and the national organization was the plan’s focus on Israel advocacy, something JWAAA does not do, feeling there are enough organizations that advocate for Israel, while their focus is needed locally. Meanwhile, the national organization is looking to create stronger partnerships with feminist advocates in Israel as part of its strategic plan. In addition, Tamarkin’s organization holds views that may not be in line with the national organization. This includes criticizing the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism in state laws regarding education, calling it “unworkable” and a poor fit for the classroom. The disaffiliation, effective July 1, was done under a “very cordial and respectful manner,” Tamarkin said. “[National] understood our needs.” Other than the name, the JWAAA hasn’t changed, she said, and it is amenable to working with the national organization on common goals in the future. The amount local sections will be able to continue advocacy and service work on issues other than of the four core focus areas has been understood differently by all of the state and local representatives whom eJP spoke to. To some, the core areas are seen as a limit, preventing advocacy work on other topics, while to others, they are meant as a shared starting point. Jessica Silver, a lawyer and co-board president at NCJW Miami, a section that also incorporated, believes that many sections are misunderstanding what it means to align with the national priorities. “There are some older members who have done things a very specific way for a really long time, and its maybe hard for them to wrap their minds around [you] can still do it that way,” Silver told eJP. “The process is slightly different, but you still actually are retaining that freedom.” Rabhan said that the national organization chose only four topics because they “give them the opportunities to continue to show up in their communities where they need to, where there are hot issues.” Local sections can continue to work on their own individual issues, she said. “Our strength has always come from our local leaders, our local folks who are doing the work in their communities, who are in coalition, who are in relationship with the people making change, and thats what this new structure is really built to support.” Still, sections are choosing to leave. “Were excited for them and looking forward to working with them,” Rabhan said. Under the new model there are currently no new sections set to launch in the locations where sections disaffiliate. I dont want to put the cart before the horse as were still building the regional model, she said, when asked if new sections will launch in disaffiliated cities in the future. According to Laura Monn Ginsburg, NCJWs immediate past resident, local sections will implement “adaptive advocacy,” where the organization focuses on key issues and local sections interpret those issues for their specific communities. “Advocacy around abortion access is going to look very different for me in Minnesota than it is for my colleagues in Miami.” In Miami, Silver said that she doesn’t expect the plan’s changes will impact the local section’s work running food and backpack drives and organizing knitting groups where women make blankets for cancer patients. While the national office will not be financially supporting those local initiatives, NCJW and other local sections can continue to fundraise for local programs under the national organization’s nonprofits status, she said. The organization also hopes to launch a new website and hire new staff. Currently, NCJW has around 30 employees, and by the end of next year it expects to have 41, including three new regional directors based in Chicago, Minneapolis and Miami, with plans to have as many as eight. The directors will support sections, perform outreach and fundraise, bringing a local flair to the national messaging. For a long time, NCJW was something that you came to because you knew somebody that was in it,” Monn Ginsburg said. “You had a mom; you had an aunt; you had someone in your family that was in it.” These changes are “about making it less of a well-kept secret, and more about having these multiple pathways for folks to come in and be part of NCJW.” For Monn Ginsburg, this restructuring is critical for the future of NCJW, whose history demonstrates how things have changed. Her name and photo sits on the wall of presidents in the Washington offices beside those of her predecessors, but the presidents representing the first half of the organization’s existence are listed as Mrs., followed by their husbands’ names. Those leaders couldn’t have a mortgage or credit card in their own names. They couldn’t work outside the home. “Weve evolved from settlement houses to voting rights, social services to reproductive freedom, local advocacy to national leadership,” she said. “Weve never been doing anything but reinventing ourselves and reinventing the world around us to make it better, and then saying, ‘OK, great. Now that we did that, what are we reinventing from here?’” For Reiff, it’s the legacy of the organization that made her and other NCJW Colorado leaders want to integrate. Her section was founded the same year as the national organization. “Everybody really values that connection, being able to call ourselves part of NCJW, and I dont think anybody here wants to lose that,” she said. Reiff joined NCJW when she moved to Colorado in 1985, seeking community. Since then, she raised a family and became a lifetime member. Her kids went off to college, and she got more involved. The community NCJW offers her is only growing.

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The power of Hebrew immersion

Contributing Author — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000

The following essay, published here as part of a collaboration betweeneJewishPhilanthropyand theCenter for Jewish Peoplehood Education, is from the latest edition of CJPE’sPeoplehood Papersseries,“Cultivating Jewish Peoplehood at Camp,”produced in partnership with theFoundation for Jewish Camp.
The sky had just opened up and we were in the midst of a fairly typical July rainstorm, or what we lovingly refer to in camp as “liquid sunshine.” In the course of helping everyone move to cover, Shira, a 9-year-old camper, was having a conversation with her counselor, Dor. Shira was crying and Dor, a 23-year-old Israeli shaliach (emissary), was trying to help her calm down. Shira was sad because the rain had curtailed her time playing ball with her friends. In this moment, Dor did exactly what he had been trained to do. He kneeled down so he was at eye level with Shira. Using a calm voice, a listening ear and tremendous patience, he helped her relax. Within a couple of minutes, he was able to redirect her, and they moved together to their next activity. While this might seem like just another day at camp, what made this remarkable was that the entire interaction between Dor and Shira was in Hebrew. Shira was a camper in the Sha’ar Hebrew Immersion program at Ramah Day Camp in Nyack, located in Nyack, N.Y. This program, designed for non-native Hebrew speakers, enables young campers to participate entirely in Hebrew in their summer day camp experience. As an educator, there is nothing in my career that I have done that brings more pride than the development and growth of Sha’ar. Hebrew is the living thread that binds the Jewish people across generations and geography, allowing us to speak to one another across time and space. The Sha’ar program gives campers in our community the ability to fluently and authentically communicate via the universal language of the Jewish people. In 2013, Ramah Nyack piloted Sha’ar for 17 children entering kindergarten who were non-native Hebrew speakers. We now annually enroll around 150 campers from kindergarten through fifth grade. This model was initially conceived by our partners at the Arevim Philanthropic Group. Their extensive work on Hebrew education in the day camp setting and their constant support in the early years of Sha’ar’s growth inspired us to push for excellence as we established this program. From our pilot program in 2013, we are proud that Sha’ar programs have spread to all of the other Ramah day camps and over a dozen other camps around the country through the continued efforts of the Kayitz Kef network. At the most basic level, Sha’ar is a summer day camp program conducted in an immersive Hebrew environment. Counselors, mostly Israeli, commit to speaking entirely in Hebrew to their campers — no English — though campers can always express themselves in any language they choose. Campers play, swim, dance, transition between activities, and even eat in a Hebrew environment. At another level, there is much more going on than meets the eye. The Sha’ar program was designed in partnership with educators from Middlebury College’s Language Schools and is based on the proficiency approach to language acquisition, regarded as the gold standard in the field of language education. This approach immerses campers in a natural Hebrew environment where they can quickly apply their skills to real-life situations. Counselors are trained in this approach, which encourages active participation and language production. We have consistently noted that we begin to hear language production from most campers during the third week of camp. Language production continues to grow throughout the summer. These results are lasting. We have consistently seen that within the first two weeks of the summer, returning campers — regardless of Hebrew usage during the year — are back to the same level of Hebrew proficiency that they had obtained at the end of the previous summer. Passing food during lunch, kicking a ball during sports and drawing with various art supplies all become rich opportunities for language comprehension and, eventually, production. Camp has become a Hebrew-language playground and the campers are “wrapped in the language” for the summer. As noted in previous studies by Rosov Consulting, Sha’ar campers gain a significant increase in their Hebrew fluency and a deeper appreciation for Israel and Israelis. The Rosov reports also indicate that 98% of Sha’ar parents believe that participation in this program helps campers form early and enduring relationships with their Israeli counselors and Israel in general. It is inspiring to be in such a language-rich environment and we routinely see North American staff members push themselves to improve their own Hebrew abilities, further enhancing the already deep relationships that develop between the Israeli and North American staff members. Each summer, Sha’ar has allowed us to significantly elevate Hebrew education in our camp and create a stronger bridge between the North American and Israeli Jewish communities via personal relationships. On a quiet Shabbat afternoon near the end of the summer, I spoke with Dor about the encounter with Shira that I had observed during the July rainstorm. I shared with him that what he accomplished in that moment was a very high-level display of shlichut — of representing Israel as an educator and ambassador. He remarked: “I didn’t understand what Zionism meant until I left Israel and came to camp this summer.” Shlichim have routinely reflected on the impact Sha’ar has had on them and their understanding of both shlichut and tzionut (Zionism). Dor, Shira and hundreds of others leave camp every summer enriched by Sha’ar, ready to reenter the world with greater Hebrew abilities, a deeper connection to Israel and our global Jewish people and relationships across the continents that will last a lifetime. Rabbi Ami Hersh is the director of Ramah Day Camp in Nyack (N.Y.).

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We need a fuller picture of Jewish young adults

Contributing Author — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 08:30:00 +0000

For years, conversations about Jewish young adults have often been framed through a familiar lens. Within the Jim Joseph Foundation, we’ve referenced “the 30%” who are actively served by Jewish organizations and institutions (the audiences for our Deliberate Strategy) and “the 70%” who are underserved or not served at all by Jewish communal institutions (the audiences for our Emergent Strategy). That framework is an important strategic lens through which we view our work. Yet we also know that to more effectively serve and design for all our desired audiences, we need to better understand the nuance that often gets lost in larger strategic outlooks. People today exhibit a range of complexities, contradictions and subtleties in their life. For Jewish young adults, we see these qualities in the many different modalities and ways they engage or don’t engage in Jewish practice and with communal organizations. Measuring their level of institutional participation is only one data point among many that show how they relate to Jewish life, identity, purpose and community. On its own, this data point does not provide a full picture of Jewish young adults today. We know that any serious strategy for the future of Jewish life will require us to deeply understand both the young adults who are most engaged and the majority who are not. This positioning led us to commission Project Prism, a multi-method study of Jewish young adults in the United States conducted in partnership with Sense Worldwide, with NORC at the University of Chicago serving as the quantitative survey partner. Why we wanted a multi-method approach Sense Worldwide, which led this project through multiple complementary research approaches, specializes in uncovering the cultural, emotional and behavioral dynamics that shape people’s decisions. This research often reveals insights that individuals themselves may struggle to articulate directly, thus helping organizations turn understanding into action. Project Prism combines online qualitative research, a nationally representative survey, consumer culture analysis, semiotics and machine learning. These methods together create a more complete picture than any one method could on its own. Moreover, NORC’s expertise in rigorous probability-based survey research helped ensure that the findings would reflect the diversity and complexity of Jewish young adults across the United States, producing findings that reduce sampling bias and that can be generalized with confidence. The result is a dataset representing more than 2,000 Jewish young adults between the ages of 22 and 40 (including many whose lives rarely, if at all, intersect with Jewish organizations or communal institutions), spanning a remarkably broad spectrum of backgrounds, family structures, religious identities, levels of participation, geography and life experiences. What we are learning There is a lot going on in the lives of young Americans; to understand Jewish young adults in the U.S. today, we have to start from the texture of their everyday lives. The pace is fast, the demands are layered and the emotional load is constant. Given this context, the insights from Project Prism are eye-opening in some instances and affirming in others. Here are just five examples: It’s heartening to see that a lot of meaningful Jewish life is happening informally and “off-site.” Three out of four Jewish young adults say they do something Jewish in their lives on a regular basis, often at home with family or friends, and 45% of all Jewish young adults say this is the only mode of participation for them. For Jewish young people, informal participation is often substantial, social and meaningful. Celebrating holidays with friends or family, enjoying Jewish food and other cultural practices, and talking about Jewish topics with friends and family are the most common recurring informal activities. This is significant because it suggests that for many young adults, Jewish connection is not disappearing; it is simply taking place in more informal, flexible and lived ways.
Jewish young adults don’t lack a sense of purpose. They’re finding purpose closer to home — but the role that Jewish identity contributes to a purposeful life is underdeveloped. While 68% of Jewish young adults report they have a high sense of direction or purpose in life, only 23% say being Jewish plays a strong role in that. The primary sources of purpose in life are helping others, personal growth, work or career, and supporting family. The broader cultural research shows this generation is responding to instability, overload and institutional distrust by investing in activities where their effort leads to a visible result. An opportunity exists to connect the everyday sources of meaning young people already trust and pursue —helping others, supporting family, sharing meals and connecting with neighbors — to a larger Jewish framework of continuity, ethics and belonging. Immersive, ongoing and socially intensive experiences were especially likely to generate a sense of belonging and to have a lasting positive impact. Respondents most commonly reported they felt a sense of belonging in experiences of Israel travel programs, Jewish summer camp, bar or bat mitzvah experiences and regularly participating in Jewish teen and campus groups. Belonging or fitting in, not mere exposure to a program, is what appears to convert participation into a lasting positive legacy for Jewish experiences. Merely attending an activity is less predictive of later positive outcomes than whether the participant felt they belonged.
A key driver of participation in Jewish experiences is already feeling connected to Jewish people or communities. When designing for Jewish life, we’ve generally thought of connection as an outcome, but it is actually also one of its preconditions. Jewish connection is relational before it is institutional. While connection depends on close and emotionally grounded relationships, we know young adult life today does not make those relationships easy to build. Jewish organizations and institutions do contribute to feelings of connection, but these feelings are generally built on top of a foundation created by family, friendships and shared culture. There is an opportunity to design experiences for young adults who do not have two Jewish parents (58% of the respondents) or who say they were raised either partly Jewish or not Jewish (55%). These Jewish young adults report a lower sense of connection, have fewer Jewish background experiences and are less likely to participate in Jewish experiences currently. However, many say they are open to engaging more in Jewish life. Because they report less familiarity with the norms of Jewish spaces, we should not assume a universal approach is the answer to engaging these young people. This research, conducted December 2025 through April 2026, was a natural opportunity to learn how events impacting Jewish people in the U.S. and internationally in the last few years have reshaped feelings of connection and engagement. Eleven percent said the recent events caused them to engage more in Jewish spaces, 18% said they engaged more selectively, 11% said they engaged less and 10% said they disengaged in participating in Jewish spaces altogether. Among the 39% who said they engaged more selectively, less or disengaged, the most common barriers cited were hostile or toxic conversations, lack of room for nuance and one-sided messaging in those spaces. These barriers to participation are being raised across a spectrum of backgrounds and identities. These insights are illuminating. Many young adults live vibrant Jewish lives outside traditional institutional frameworks. Others are deeply curious yet remain disconnected from existing opportunities. Still others carry multiple identities that shape how Judaism fits into their broader lives. For anyone who aspires to design Jewish learning experiences that resonate with the full diversity of Jewish young adults, we need to fill our field’s knowledge gap with more timely and rigorous studies of these people. We need to learn where they show up, how they make meaning and construct identity, how the broader culture shapes their lives, and how Judaism fits (or doesn’t fit) within that larger picture. In turn, we need to act on these new insights, thinking about the current opportunities that are most impactful, and thinking about new opportunities yet to be created or scaled. It’s also important to acknowledge the broader challenges around connection and belonging in young adulthood today. The research shows that across the sample, building close, emotionally grounded relationships takes real effort in the context of busy schedules, declining third spaces, more mobile lives and the pull of online or curated forms of connection. In that sense, the Jewish-specific findings sit within a bigger social picture: young adults are trying to build meaningful connections in a world that does not always make that easy, which highlights the important role the Jewish community could play in their lives. As the world experiences rapid change, Project Prism gives educators, organizations, innovators and funders an accurate and fuller picture of how Jewish young adults experience their lives. By investing in deeper understanding today, we hope to help the field create more relevant, resonant and impactful Jewish learning experiences for tomorrow. Stacie Cherner is the director of research and learning at the Jim Joseph Foundation.

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Hillel’s Rabbi Ben Berger announced as president and CEO of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah

Jay Deitcher — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 20:45:21 +0000

The Modern Orthodox seminary Yeshivat Chovevei Torah announced today that Rabbi Ben Berger will serve as president and CEO, replacing Rabbi Dov Linzer, who served as president and rosh yeshiva for seven years and will continue in that role. Berger comes to the school after spending eight years at Hillel. Ordained at YCT in 2009, Berger, 47, served as director of the Wexner Heritage Program at The Wexner Foundation and, for the past eight years, at Hillel International, first as vice president for Jewish education and then as the senior vice president for education, community and culture. The common thread through his career, he told eJewishPhilanthropy, is supporting leaders. During Berger’s time at Hillel, he led staff through the COVID-19 pandemic, the Oct. 7 massacres and the fraught post-Oct. 7 period. “I was able to lead a team that was adaptive, flexible and responsive to the needs of our time and our moment,” he said. “Through all of the chaos of that [moment, we were] still able to deliver on a mission of educating Jewish students to meet their Jewish identities with pride and with depth and knowledge and connection and love.” His experience at Hillel also offered him the opportunity to hone his fundraising, public speaking and writing skills and manage dozens of programs. When Linzer announced he was stepping down as president, Berger was recruited onto the YCT search committee to find a replacement. After nine months, he realized, “Maybe its my turn.” Returning to YCT, which is housed at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, just north of Manhattan, is a “homecoming,” Berger said, to the institution that forged his identity. Founded in 1999, YCT is a Modern Orthodox seminary that promotes “open and inclusive Orthodoxy” and is known for expanding the role women serve in Orthodox Judaism. During its over 25 years, the school has ordained 158 rabbis in America and graduated 62 rabbis and rabbaniyot, female rabbis, in its Rikmah rabbinic leadership program in Israel. Berger credits his teachers at YCT with instilling in him a “sensibility to be able to bring serious Torah to everyday lives and to make it real and to connect it to the human condition and human needs.” His last day at Hillel is on Sept. 4 and he begins at YCT in mid-October. “We are thrilled by Ben’s appointment to the position of president and CEO of YCT which is a seamless transition from Rabbi Linzer’s dedicated leadership,” Steve Laufer, YCT’s board chair, said in a statement. “The combination of his experience and skills, coupled with his long-term commitment to the yeshiva’s mission makes him the ideal person to lead the yeshiva into its next chapter — from 25 years to the half-century mark.” Returning to YCT is surreal, Berger said. “Just to be in this position of going back home. To share the title with Rabbi Avi Weiss [YCT’s founding leader], Rabbi Asher Lopatin and Rabbi Dov Linzer [who will remain rosh yeshiva], who are the three presidents of the institution over its 25 years, to share the same title as the three of them, whom I admire so much, is just almost overwhelming. But also to be able to go to a place that I so deeply believe in and whose mission is so critical for our world is just one of the greatest honors I could ever imagine.”

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Your Daily Phil: Close encounters of the Jewish kind

EJP — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 15:20:38 +0000

Good Wednesday morning! IIn today’s edition ofYour Daily Phil, we consider the importance of in-person experiences in building Jewish identity. We spotlightSeed the Dream Foundation’s role in helping to fund and build outMaccabi USA’s Israel Connection program, and report on New York City MayorZohran Mamdani’s meeting with rabbinical leadership. We feature an opinion piece byMarshall Einhornurging funders, federations and other Jewish organizations to take sports engagement more seriously as a tool for deep Jewish connection, and a piece byJamie Simoncontinues our preview of essays from the latest edition of theCenter for Jewish Peoplehood Education’sPeoplehood Papersseries, “Cultivating Jewish Peoplehood at Camp,” produced in partnership with theFoundation for Jewish Camp; plusKeren R. McGinityspotlights a need for programming to support a more egalitarian approach to nurturing Jewish identity at home, particularly in intermarried households. 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 TheMamram Alumni Association, which unites veterans of the Israel Defense Forces’ elite computing unit, will host an invitation-only founders meetup today at Google in Tel Aviv, featuring a fireside panel with Israeli Mapped in New York’sGuy Franklin. Jewish relief groups arebeginning to provide emergency response services following the 7.4 magnitude earthquake that struck western Colombia earlier this week… What You Should Know A QUICK WORD FROM eJPS JUDAH ARI GROSS Face time isnt just an app on your phone its a recipe for forging Jewish identity. Each in its own way, the news stories and opinion pieces making up today’s edition ofYour Daily Phildemonstrate a profound, if somewhat banal, truth about the creation and reinforcement of Jewish identity: There is no substitute for significant in-person experiences. Lost in the shuffle in the debates about social media campaigns,the fights about effective messaging, the rise of artificial intelligence and internal ideological squabbles is the simple fact that study after study has shown that the more time that Jews spend with other Jews, the deeper their connection to their Jewish identity and the Jewish People will be. This is clearest with Jewish day schools—it’s hard to beat roughly seven hours a day, five days a week, for 13 years. But, as the articles below argue, things like family life, sports, Israel travel and summer camps can do some heavy lifting as well. Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here. News GOOD SPORT How Seed the Dream saw an opening and helped rewrite the Israel travel playbook with Maccabi USA When Marcy Gringlas and Joel Greenberg’s youngest child, Ellie, competed at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, Gringlas noticed that while some athletes stayed for a few days of touring, many flew home almost as soon as the medals were handed out. “We saw an unbelievable window and opportunity to build and deepen the connection these kids have to Israel,” GringlastoldeJewishPhilanthropy’s Justin Hayet. That revelation led to the creation of Israel Connect, a weeklong extension of the Games, allowing participants a chance to tour the country and interact with their peers off the court. Planting a seed:“Theres something really beautiful happening with this cohort of athletes coming together from around the world in Israel, Gringlas said. That was the seed we started in 2017, and weve done it three times over the last nine years — each time learning and improving and listening to what the kids are saying, but also understanding that were dealing with the realities of whats happening in Israel right now.” Read the full report here. Share TRUST, BUT VERIFY Rabbis hope meeting with Mamdani brings belated change in Israel rhetoric, but remain skeptical A roundtable with New York City rabbis held at City Hall on Monday gave participants a chance to voice growing concerns about New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Israel rhetoric they felt had before gone unheard — with several attendees saying that the strong collective message, and Mamdani’s reaction, gave them hope he would change tack,report Will Bredderman and Matthew KasselforeJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publicationJewish Insider. Airing concerns:Howard Wolfson, a longtime advisor to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg,said that he was “glad”Mamdani had heard the feedback from Jewish leaders, but argued that “action, not just talk,” would help “create the conditions for a new relationship.” Wolfson added: “A good start would be to stop referring to American orgs that represent many Jews as monsters.” Read the full report here. Share Opinion A WINNING APPROACH Sports unite — let’s use them In an opinion piece foreJewishPhilanthropy, Marshall Einhorn, CEO of Maccabi USA, reflects on the 2026 Maccabiah held last month in Jerusalem andhighlightswhy sports are a particularly promising vehicle for Jewish connection for today’s young adults. “[Y]oung Jews looking to engage are seeking nonpolitical spaces built on friendship, culture and community — somewhere to just be Jewish together, without first having to defend a position or choose a side. This is something many of our core institutions struggle to provide, but that is precisely what the Maccabiah offers.” Read the fullpiece here. Share PEOPLEHOOD PAPERS Rooted in love: Investing in the future of Jewish peoplehood at scale Foundation for Jewish Camp CEO Jamie Simon makes the case for Jewish camping as “one of the most effective, scalable and proven investments” in an essay to be featured in the latest edition of the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education’s Peoplehood Papers, which was produced in partnership with the Foundation for Jewish Camp and previewed exclusively in eJewishPhilanthropy. “Jewish teens consistently report that camp is the place where they feel most comfortable being their full, authentic selves. Surrounded by an immersive Jewish community, they experience the joy of Jewish life and a deep sense of belonging. That foundation of confidence and connection gives young people the courage to step forward, take responsibility and begin to see themselves as leaders.” Read the fullpiece here. Share READER RESPONDS Let’s make an egalitarian approach to fostering Jewish identity in the home a communal priority In an opinion piece foreJewishPhilanthropy, Keren R. McGinity, a research associate at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and author of two books on Jews, gender and intermarriage,respondsto two recent op-eds ineJewishPhilanthropyfocused on engaging men in Jewish life (“Engaging men and boys in Jewish life: What we know, what we don’t know and what we can do,”May 26;“What happens when students lead Jewish learning: An experiment in Jewish male engagement,”June 19). “By investing in developing a model of Jewish manhood that includes Jewish parenting for those who wish to become parents, we can foster greater gender equality and simultaneously teach that Jews of all genders have responsibility for Jewish parenting, regardless of who they marry.” Read the fullpiece here. Share Worthy Reads The Rebbe’s Reach:InJerusalem News Syndicate, Rebecca Szlechterexaminesthe emerging partnership between Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue and the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. “‘This reflects Chabad’s growing integration into mainstream denominational Judaism in America,’ according to Adam Ferziger, a rabbi and a Jewish history professor at Bar-Ilan University… ‘The achievement of this merger with a historic mainstream, Modern Orthodox synagogue in Manhattan is a testament to Chabad’s evolution and integration.’” Youth Movement:The New Yorker’s Bernard AvishaiprofilesIsraeli satirist Lior Schleien, who through his “Free Israel” movement engages in dialogue with right-leaning young Israelis that is filmed and shared online. “But Schleien has empathy for his young audiences. They are, he says, sheltering from missiles and dealing with a government that incites them to hatred. ‘They’re told that, if we just keep bombing the whole Middle East, then God — who is Jewish and on their side — will fix everything. It’s hard on them.’” Major Gifts PhilanthropistDavid RubensteingiftedtheAnti-Defamation Leaguean archival pigment print of the stone engraving of the Declaration of Independence, which is now mounted in the lobby of its New York offices… Transitions Michal Slawny Cababia, who recently completed her term as the North American representative of theWorld Zionist Organization, became a member of the Knesset for the Yesh Atid Party following the resignation ofYoav Segalovitz… ProfessorCyrille Cohen, dean ofBar-Ilan University’s Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, was elected today by the school’s Supreme Academic Council to serve as its next rector… Monika Levinwashiredby theJewish Federation of Broward Countyto serve as its new chief marketing officer… Eli Nagler,Emily ShteinhauzandDaniel Cohenjoinedthe board of trustees of New York’sJCCA Services(formerly known as Jewish Child Care Association)… TheNew England Jewish Labor CommitteeannouncedLauren Banisteras its new executive director following the departure ofJonathon Feinberg… Zenobia FriedjoinedTamid Groupas its new major gifts officer… Word on the Street IsraelandVenezuelaagreedto renew consular ties after nearly 17 years of estrangement, following a change of government inCaracasand Israeli earthquake aid that created the right environment for rapprochement between the once-friendly nations… Colegio Moral y Luces Herzl-Bialikin Caracas hasjoinedtheWorld ORTnetwork as the school repairs earthquake damage to its building… Clothing magnateJay L. Schottensteinwas spottedthis week at the engagement party of the daughter of the controversial and influentialRabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto; in a show of respect, when Schottenstein, a major funder of religious initiatives, arrived at the event, Pinto was seen encouraging the patron to sit in the seat where he’d been sitting at the center of the table… AmbassadorYehuda Kaploun, the State Department’s antisemitism envoy, said last month that he would be able to resolve all remainingHolocaust restitutionissues before the end of the Trump administration, two sources with knowledge of the remarkstoldJewish Insider’s Marc Rod; his claim raised skepticism amongexperts in the field, as the U.S. has been working on the matter for decades… TheWashington Free Beaconreportsthat Californias attorney general orderedArc of Justice, the foundation ofCode Pinkco-founderMedea Benjamin, to cease operations after it missed three straight years of tax filings and couldnt account for $51 million in assets… Wizco-foundersAssaf RappaportandYinon Costicawillfinancethe acquisition of Israel’s Reshet 13 television channel by themselves after other Israeli tech entrepreneurs floated as backers never transferred funds… David Sacks’ Craft Ventures isseekingroughly $1 billion for its first fund since he left his White House AI post… TheUniversity of Pennsylvanianamed a 19-member consultative committee of trustees, deans, faculty and student leaders, including trustee emeritaJulie Beren Platt, to help guide the search for its 11th president as current PresidentLarry Jamesonprepares to step down… The Leverprofileshedge fund managerStephen Mandel, an increasingly powerful Democratic donor who has steered more than $24 million this primary season into groups that back centrist candidates against the partys progressive wing… Ari Emanuels events firmMariagreedto buy West End theater ownerATGEntertainmentin a deal theFinancial Timesvalued at about £4.5 billion ($6.1 billion) Janet Klein, a Philadelphia preservationist and philanthropist who served on theFairmount Park Commissionand thePhiladelphia Historical Commission,diedat 96… Pic of the Day Maayan Toaf/GPO Jewish Theological Seminary Chancellor Emerita Shuly Rubin Schwartz presents an honorary doctorate to Israeli President Isaac Herzog today at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem. Herzog was meant to receive the degree at JTS’ commencement ceremony in May but was forced to cancel due to scheduling issues, his officesaid at the time. “The State of Israel and Diaspora Jewry are both facing their own challenges, but the Jewish People have a shared destiny and a shared responsibility,” Herzog said at the ceremony. “The conferral of an honorary degree from the distinguished institution of JTS in New York upon the president of the State of Israel at the Presidents Residence in Jerusalem is not only a great honor for me but also an occasion that is in its very essence a bridge between parallel and complementary worlds. It sends a message from Jerusalem that we — on both sides of the ocean — are inseparable. We are one.” Birthdays Presley Ann/Getty Images for the Museum of Contemporary Art Barry Armyan Bernstein, co-founder and chairman of the film and television company Beacon Pictures, turns79 George Soros, Hungarian American investor, currency trader and political activist, born György Schwartz, turns96 Sheldon Stanford Ellis, retired Beverly Hills, Calif., attorney Gail Parent, Emmy Award-winning television screenwriter, television producer and author, turns86 Martin Elias Peter Seligman, professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and author of many self-help books, turns84 Lester Scheininger, attorney in Ontario, Canada, who served as president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, turns79 Karyn Allison Posner-Mullen, U.S. diplomat, turns75 Fredi Bleeker Franks, member of Houstons Congregation Emanu El, she worked for more than 40 years at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Stuart Steinberg, sales manager of Illi Commercial Real Estate in Woodland Hills, Calif. Noah Gal Gendler, Israels former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Albania, turns69 Haim Jelin, former member of Knesset from the Yesh Atid party, turns68 David Horovitz, founding editor ofThe Times of Israeland formerly the editor-in-chief ofThe Jerusalem Post, turns64 SirBradley Fried, former chairman of Goldman Sachs International, now CEO of Ki Corporation, turns61 Rachel Kadish, award-winning writer of fiction and nonfiction and the author of several novels and a novella, turns57 Claudia Kreiman, senior rabbi at Brooklines (Mass.) Temple Beth Zion Anya Hoerburger, chief strategy officer at NYCs Educational Alliance Jay Chernikoff, Scottsdale, Ariz.-based real estate investor David Fine, co-founder at Understory Ariel Applbaum, head of strategy and innovation at EquipmentShare

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How Seed the Dream saw an opening and helped rewrite the Israel travel playbook with Maccabi USA

Judah Ari Gross — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 12:36:31 +0000

Most philanthropists name their foundation after themselves. Marcy Gringlas and her husband, Joel Greenberg, named theirs after a conviction: that a strategic, well-placed gift can grow into something far, far larger. Gringlas and Greenberg’s Seed the Dream Foundation has planted many anchor investments in philanthropic projects in their portfolio, but few as personal as Maccabi USAs Israel Connect. When Ellie, her youngest child, competed at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, Gringlas noticed that while some athletes stayed for a few days of touring, many flew home almost as soon as the medals were handed out. “We saw an unbelievable window and opportunity to build and deepen the connection these kids have to Israel,” Gringlas told eJewishPhilanthropy, reflecting on her foundation’s engagement with Maccabi USA —the U.S. branch of the Maccabi World Union. Now 28, Gringlas’ daughter Ellie works for a major sporting team as a coordinator of community impact, and she serves on the board of Maccabi USA. Israel Connect keeps Team USA in the country once the competition ends. This year, more than 700 athletes, coaches and delegation members stayed on after the Games for the program —nearly half the American contingent. Over several days, they traced Jewish history, met Israelis and volunteered. This year, for the first time since the Oct. 7 terror attacks, participants also toured the Gaza Envelope. Gringlas and the Philadelphia-based Seed the Dream Foundation transformed that window into a wider and more collaborative funding strategy. In 2017, Seed the Dream became the original anchor donor of Israel Connect. “Theres something really beautiful happening with this cohort of athletes coming together from around the world in Israel, Gringlas said. That was the seed we started in 2017, and weve done it three times over the last nine years — each time learning and improving and listening to what the kids are saying, but also understanding that were dealing with the realities of whats happening in Israel right now. Gringlas said that offering these experiences to high schoolers is critical. “By the time these kids are going to college, its too late,” she said. “The American athletes were trying to impact, were providing a foundational experience,” Gringlas said. The message is clear: “Youre not alone, there are lots of people out there like you, and were going to empower you. With sports as its entryway, Maccabi USA CEO Marshall Einhorn told eJP that Israel Connect measures success by “how many young Jews leave feeling more connected to the Jewish people.” Einhorn praised the partnership with Seed the Dream, saying that, unlike traditional foundations that just write a check, the foundation “really facilitated significant growth in the quality and content of our educational programming… as a thought partner.” Gringlas describes her style of philanthropy as both “active and collaborative.” “We are not those funders that just write a check,” she said. She traces the instinct to Philadelphia, a city that she says has long leaned on the just-write-me-a-check mindset of philanthropy that Seed the Dream rejects. “Were funding you because we want you to succeed, she said, “and if we have any expertise or information of value, we want to share it, including sitting with you and planning.” That mindset led Seed the Dream to do more than fund Israel Connect. The foundation arrived with a model it had already built, the Building Israel Connections Engagement Project, or BICEP. On college campuses, BICEP runs a yearlong slate of Israel education through partner Hillel and Chabad chapters that reach thousands of students across the country. Gringlas and her team brought that playbook, its data and its contacts to the athletes Israel Connect trips. Participants on Israel Connect sing together. (Courtesy/Maccabi USA) Seed the Dream recalibrated the concept of the mifgash, the encounter with Israeli peers. The foundation built a social-action track, connecting the American participants with Israeli groups doing tangible good, such as volunteering at kibbutzim in the South or with organizations like Save a Childs Heart. It added experiential education — bringing in speakers and soldiers and organizing firsthand visits to explain the countrys realities; Israeli athletes also joined the cohort. Seed the Dream credited its partnership with Maccabi USA with maintaining Israel Connect’s participation level over the years and bringing on additional, major funders to support the program. In 2017, when it launched, 900 participants took part in Israel Connect, followed by 1,200 in 2022. This year, even with the looming uncertainty of war with Iran, 700 teens participated. Since Seed the Dream provided the anchor funding for the program in 2017, the Paul E. Singer Foundation, Crown Family Philanthropies and the Tina Snider Foundation have joined the roster of Israel Connect funders, though Seed the Dream declined to specify their levels of support, with a spokesperson saying that it does not share specific grant amounts. This increased financial support, especially this summer with record ticket prices and a historically strong shekel, was critical to Israel Connect’s survival. In June, Israel Educational Travel Alliance told eJP that Israel travel costs are up 75% since 2019. The same pressure ran across the season of Israel travel, from Birthright to RootOne to the Maccabiah. The entire season came close to cancellation as Israel settled into a stop-and-go rhythm of war with Iran. “We are clearly aware that this is a reality — something that every Israel project and program has to deal with, grapple with and address at this moment,” Gringlas said. “We are aware and communicating with our grantees about the impact this has on their programs.” While the past nearly three years of war in Israel have made educational travel programs more complicated, Gringlas, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, said that it has also reinforced the need for them. “[The] Oct. 7 [terror attacks] changed the world, changed everything and also changed us,” she said. Despite these challenges, many funders like Gringlas are doubling down on Israel travel this year, particularly through the prism of the Maccabiah Games and Jewish sports in general. As eJP reported last month, the Samueli Foundation recently pledged $6.25 million to support the JCC Maccabi Games expansion in Israel over the next four years. “[Funders] have to be able to pivot,” Gringlas said. This is the world we live in now, and we have to keep our eye on the prize of what were trying to accomplish here,” she said. “Theres real power in bringing Jewish teenagers together through sports, in that environment, to have them see theyre not isolated — feeling this pride in their Jewish identity, this curiosity about who they are.”

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Want Jewish continuity? Put Jews together in a room (or a camp or a basketball court or a tour bus)

Judah Ari Gross — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 12:32:04 +0000

Face time isnt just an app on your phone its a recipe for forging Jewish identity. Each in its own way, the news stories and opinion pieces making up today’s edition of Your Daily Phil demonstrate a profound, if somewhat banal, truth about the creation and reinforcement of Jewish identity: There is no substitute for significant in-person experiences. Lost in the shuffle in the debates about social media campaigns, the fights about effective messaging, the rise of artificial intelligence and internal ideological squabbles is the simple fact that study after study has shown that the more time that Jews spend with other Jews, the deeper their connection to their Jewish identity and the Jewish People will be. This is clearest with Jewish day schools —it’s hard to beat roughly seven hours a day, five days a week, for 13 years. But, as the articles below argue, things like sports, Israel travel and summer camps can do some heavy lifting as well. What several of the pieces share in common is that they also represent initiatives that solve a problem or take advantage of an existing opportunity. Jewish parents have to find a way to occupy their kids for the summer. Many Jewish teens want to play sports. Athletes participating in the Maccabiah Games have already flown to Israel. So let’s send them to Jewish summer camp; have them compete against other Jewish teens in Maccabi Games; and take them around and teach them about Israel and its people, instead of just competing. In her opinion piece, Keren R. McGinity argues for ensuring that the people who will be spending the most time with Jewish children —their parents —are equally capable of imparting Jewish identity. (For McGinity, whose focus is on interfaith families, this means empowering Jewish dads in mixed-religion couples to play a more active role in parenting.) Though in a markedly different way, even the meeting between New York City rabbis and Mayor Zohran Mamdani demonstrates the importance of in-person experiences, not for the meeting itself,but as it relates to how Mamdani was elected in the first place. A recent New York Times piece examined this year’s run of electoral victories by Mamdani and other candidates associated with the Democratic Socialists of America, finding that a key element of their campaigns was their ground game, allowing them to outflank better-known and better-funded opponents. In generations past, American Jews felt obligated to be involved in Jewish communal life —for positive reasons and, in some cases, because antisemitism kept Jews out of other spaces —and while this still exists to a certain extent, it is easier than ever for American Jews to disaffiliate entirely. From 2013 to 2020, the Pew Research Center study of American Jews found that the share of Jews “of no religion,” who have “low levels of religious participation… comparatively weak attachments to Israel, feelings of belonging to the Jewish people and engagement in communal Jewish life” grew from 22% to 27%. As we are in the dog days of summer, camp, sports and Israel travel are highlighted in today’s edition, but they are far from the only method of significant in-person experiences. After-school programs, early childhood education and youth groups also have critical roles to play. If Jewish funders and the organizations they support care about Jewish continuity, their focus must be on engagement —going out there and getting more Jews into more rooms with more Jews.

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Let’s make an egalitarian approach to fostering Jewish identity in the home a communal priority

Contributing Author — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 08:45:00 +0000

There is an old Jewish joke about a woman calling up her mother and informing her that she married an unemployed gentile man and they have nowhere to live. The mother doesn’t object; instead, she invites her daughter and new son-in-law to sleep in her bed. When the daughter protests, asking where her parents will sleep, the mother responds: “Don’t worry sweetheart: Papa will sleep on the sofa, and I am going to drop dead.” The joke’s reliance on the Jewish mother’s hyperbolic response to the intermarriage news, contrasted with the Jewish father’s ability to sleep peacefully despite it, plays on multiple stereotypes. But while Jewish mothers have been mocked and ridiculed since time immemorial for their protective response to perceived threats to Jewish continuity (see Tovah Feldshuh’s character in the Netflix hit “Nobody Wants This” as popular culture’s latest contribution to the trope), the role of Jewish fathers ensuring Jewish continuity has received comparatively sparse attention. I was therefore delighted to see the focus on engaging Jewish boys and men in two recent eJewishPhilanthropy articles. Authors Zack Wainer, Isaac Kurtz and Doron Kenter astutely point out that if we focus only on avoiding “manels” and not on the gender representation in audiences, we are missing most of the story (“Engaging men and boys in Jewish life: What we know, what we don’t know and what we can do,” May 26). And after witnessing male college students transform from passive to active Jewish learners in the Mensches to Men program (M2M), authors Rabbi Rob Gleisser and Mollie Feldman ask an excellent question: “What other experiments might invite young men to see themselves as contributors, leaders and builders of Jewish life?” (“What happens when students lead Jewish learning: An experiment in Jewish male engagement,” June 19). Who raises Jewish children is impacted by gender dynamics and roles. Extant scholarship about the children of intermarriage that takes gender into account contends that more Jewish children are raised by Jewish mothers married to gentile fathers than by Jewish fathers married to gentile mothers. The 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Survey found that among intermarried Jewish women, 47% raised Jewish children, compared to 28% of intermarried Jewish men. In the study of 90 young adults of Jewish intermarriage, A Flame Still Burns (2005), 77% of Jewish mothers encouraged their children to identify as Jewish, compared to 45% of Jewish fathers. A 2015 Brandeis study found that among the millennial children of intermarriage who went on Birthright and had some formal Jewish education, 51% had a Jewish mother and 37% had a Jewish father. The most important takeaway from the 2025 meta-analysis by staff at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, Gender Dynamics and Engagement in Jewish Life, is that “[t]he concentration of gender differences among families with only one Jewish partner could be related to the fact that among Jews in particular, women are more likely than men to take on the role of transmitting religious identity to their children.” Why are men less likely? In my research, I’ve found that intermarried Jewish men have not raised Jewish children equally effectively as have intermarried Jewish women because they still see their primary role as providers. And gentile women who married Jewish men and demanded their children be raised Jewish have unfairly shouldered responsibility for making Jewish homes and raising Jewish children. The success of the Mother’s Circle, a program that introduces women of other faith backgrounds to Jewish practices and holidays, compared with the lack of success of a pilot for a similar educational program for Jewish men, reinforces this point. Partners who are Jewish-adjacent often have the bewildering experience of being married to someone for whom having Jewish children is very important but who has not been empowered as a Jewish father. “Fortunately,” as Adam Teitelbaum wrote earlier this year in Sapir, “Judaism has its own conception of masculinity, one rooted in the power of responsibility for one’s family, community and society.” The “rules” of American masculinity that encourage men to “win” — to get ahead, make more money, buy more toys, build bigger houses — leads to competing priorities that can inhibit Jewish men from prioritizing Jewish fathering relative to their careers. Judaism’s model of manhood underscores the importance of teaching values; that words matter, and actions speak louder than words. If we embrace Judaism’s model for manhood, we can assert that responsibility for one’s family extends beyond providing to include Jewish parenting. Efforts around egalitarianism have focused on eliminating barriers to women’s full participation in Jewish life without the corresponding focus on men’s full participation in family life, specifically Jewish parenting. Women are now admitted to rabbinical school, ordained, counted in a minyan, and wrap tefillin. As Rabbi Pamela Barmash wrote in a halachic responsa titled “Women and Mitzvot”: “Egalitarianism, the equality of women in the observance of mitzvot, is not just about the participation of women: it is about fostering the fulfillment of mitzvot by all Jews.” Jewish egalitarianism must be implemented beyond the bima to enable intermarried Jewish men to better integrate work and family. To accomplish this cultural shift, educators and engagement professionals can lift up the idea of equal parenting as a Jewish value and simultaneously revitalize the concept of l’dor v’dor (from generation to generation). For many men, particularly those without substantive Jewish education, what and how to teach their children is perplexing. This presents a tremendous opportunity to offer creative programming for single and intermarried Jewish men, as well as non-binary Jews. Jewish literacy will also increase as new parents can learn alongside their preschool-age children. By investing in developing a model of Jewish manhood that includes Jewish parenting for those who wish to become parents, we can foster greater gender equality and simultaneously teach that Jews of all genders have responsibility for Jewish parenting, regardless of who they marry. By placing greater social and cultural value on men’s roles as fathers, and by enfranchising men to participate in something that truly matters, we will increase the proportion of children raised Jewish and raise the likelihood that your grandchildren will be Jewish. Keren R. McGinity, a research associate at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, is the author of two books on Jews, gender and intermarriage.

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Rooted in love: Investing in the future of Jewish peoplehood at scale

Contributing Author — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 08:15:00 +0000

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Sports unite — let’s use them

Contributing Author — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 00:41:00 +0000

Sports have an extraordinary ability to reach broad audiences, build pride and engagement and unite communities. Just ask any New Yorker how they felt for two weeks this June; the Knicks united one of the most diverse cities in the world in ways not seen in a generation. And the FIFA Men’s World Cup captivated the globe this summer. The USA had its most exciting run in decades, the tiny nation of Cape Verde punched way above its weight and Spain’s team hoisted the trophy with more than 1.5 billion people watching, but the tournament’s most powerful stories weren’t on the pitch. What happened in the stands and in cities across the country — that’s what continues to resonate. For six weeks, strangers who didnt share a language discovered they shared the same hopes, the same rituals and the same joy. The Maccabiah, often referred to as the Jewish Olympics, is one of the largest sporting events in the world as well as one of the largest gatherings of global Jewry of any kind. Just like the World Cup, the 2026 Games were a shining example of the unifying power of sports. Last month, Maccabi USA brought an incredibly diverse delegation of 900 American Jews to Israel to compete alongside 4,000 Jewish athletes from 40 countries. Even though it came a year later than planned — postponed due to the 2025 war with Iran — and with fewer athletes than usual due to geopolitical uncertainty, the latest edition of the Maccabiah was worth the wait. The opening ceremony featured a parade of participating nations, each delegation decked out in its country’s colors, and culminated in the full stadium belting out a stirring rendition of Hatikvah. It was a beautiful reminder of both the amazing diversity of our people and the ties that bind us. I watched in awe as teens and adults alike bonded through practice and competition, and listened to the myriad languages spoken on the field of play and in the stands. With participants coming from around the globe, I also recognized that many would never have considered visiting Israel if sports hadnt opened the door, and that they likely returned home with a different view of the Jewish State than what is often depicted in the media where they live. For those of us who fund, build and run Jewish institutions, this matters now more than ever. Younger Jews today construct their Jewish identities differently from previous generations. They are less likely than their parents or grandparents to define their Jewishness through religious observance or attachment to Israel. A Pew Research Center survey of American Jews, for instance, found that only about a third of Jews under 30 say caring about Israel is essential to their Jewish identity, compared with roughly half of Jews over 65. But more recent research from the Jewish Federations of North America also points to an opportunity: young Jews looking to engage are seeking nonpolitical spaces built on friendship, culture and community — somewhere to just be Jewish together, without first having to defend a position or choose a side. This is something many of our core institutions struggle to provide, but that is precisely what the Maccabiah offers. Nobody asked our athletes what their politics were before they warmed up. Nobody asked them whether or how they practiced their Judaism before they took the field. They just needed to show up, stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Jewish athletes from around the world, and compete. In this way, sports are the vehicle, not the destination. More than 700 members of the USA delegation stayed after the Maccabiah’s closing ceremony for our Israel Connect program. For an additional week, they walked Jerusalems Old City, explored Tel Aviv’s Shuk HaCarmel, prayed at the Kotel and cried together at the Nova Music Festival memorial. Most were between 14 and 24 years old, exactly the demographic that research suggests is searching hardest for somewhere to belong. The Knicks NBA Championship parade lasted a day. The World Cup lasted a month. But the impact of Maccabiah endures long after the final medal is awarded, because what were cultivating is lifelong Jewish pride, connection and community. None of this happens by accident. Since its founding in 1948, Maccabi USA and our supporters have understood three simple yet profound principles, well before the data validated them. First, to ensure Jewish continuity, we need to meet each generation wherever they are on their Jewish journey. Second, sports will forever be a welcoming and accessible gateway to Jewish engagement, especially for athletes with no prior Jewish connections. And third, the synergy between Judaism and sports — two crucial identity markers — creates a powerful sense of belonging, transforming meaningful experiences into lifelong connections to the Jewish community and Israel. That’s why we need more funders, federations and other organizations to take sports engagement more seriously as a tool for deep Jewish connection. Jewish leaders often ask how to fight antisemitism. The better question is how to build a Jewish identity so strong that antisemitism never becomes a deterring force in a young Jew’s life. Sports build confidence and leadership skills while offering a welcoming path to Jewish engagement and a proven method for bridging difference. If we’re serious about the future of Jewish continuity, sports shouldn’t be on the sidelines of our communal strategy, but at the center. The organizations investing enormous resources to fight antisemitism and strengthen Jewish life at legacy institutions should invest just as creatively in the non-traditional spaces where Jewish identity is waiting to be formed: on the court, in the pool and at the rink. The next generation isn’t waiting inside our institutions for us to find them. They’re already building community on the playing field. We should meet them there. Marshall Einhorn is the CEO of Maccabi USA, a 501(c)3 nonprofit that sends delegations of American Jewish athletes for Jewish sports experiences in Israel, Latin America and Europe.

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Your Daily Phil: Can a board game predict American Jewry’s future?

EJP — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 14:50:38 +0000

Good Tuesday morning! In today’s edition ofYour Daily Phil, we cover theTzomet Games new report, the latest developments in theCamp Lavisaga and why D.C. is, once again, down to only one kosher sit-down restaurant. We feature an opinion piece byTamar Krieger Kalevabout what American young adults need to succeed in Israel, a goal — and for some,thegoal — of Zionist education; and we continue our preview of essays from the latest edition of the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education’s Peoplehood Papers series, “Cultivating Jewish Peoplehood at Camp,” produced in partnership with theFoundation for Jewish Camp, with a piece byNatana Shek. Also in this issue:Patti Lipoma KraftandJonathan Kraft,Terri LudwigandJoseph Sitt. 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 TheGreater Miami Jewish Federationlaunched an emergency relief fund after a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in western Colombia on Monday rocked more than 20 municipalities across the country, killing more than 100 people. In a post on X, Israeli Foreign MinisterGideon Sa’aroffered the Colombian government “any assistance that Israel can provide.” Tomorrow afternoon in Israel, theJewish Theological Seminarywill present PresidentIsaac Herzogwith an honorary degree at a ceremony at the Presidents Residence in Jerusalem,formalizing a degree awarded to him in May. What You Should Know A QUICK WORD FROM eJPS JUDAH ARI GROSS For more than a year, hundreds of Jewish professionalsacross the United States and around the world have been playing a game forcing them to consider: What will American Jewry look like in 2050? Launched last May,Tzomet Games —the brainchild ofJewish entrepreneur and philanthropist Phil Siegel—aimed to inspire its players to think beyond solving today’s crisis or even devising a short-term strategy, and to make long-term plans to advance a desired future —something few Jewish organizations do on a regular basis. Tzomet Gamesis now releasingits report based on its first year of operation, examining both what key topics emerged from the future-focused games and how that compares to what contemporary Jewish leaders are speaking about in their public remarks. Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here. News NO SALE Drazin backs out of Camp Lavi sale, leaving camp in limbo — source On Sunday night, mental health nonprofit Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services, Inc. agreed to hand its winning bid for Camp Lavi in Lakewood, Pa., to the second-place bidder, ensuring that the Modern Orthodox camp would continue operating in its current format. But just before the tentative agreement was to be legally recognized on Monday morning, the second-place bidder said he would not offer his original bid, scuttling the deal and throwing the fate of the camp into limbo,eJewishPhilanthropysJay Deitcherhas learned. Bidding war gone awry:Late Sunday night, negotiations between Ohel andShlomo Drazin, owner of Montreal-based real estate company Rester Management,allegedly grew tense. According to a source, it was hoped that Drazin would match Ohel’s $8.75 million bid, but Drazin didn’t follow through. His second-place bid had been for $8.5 million, but now he was offering $7 million, the source said. Read the full report here. Share KOSHER CORNER D.C. has a kosher restaurant problem. Owners say to blame the math For years, people had been clamoring for more kosher dining options in D.C., so when sushi restaurant Oro Nami opened last year — and even offered the luxury of kosher dining out after 8 p.m., a rarity in this town — it seemed their prayers had been answered. That was until the restaurant shut down in May, after less than a year in business,reports Gabby Deutch foreJewishPhilanthropys sister publicationJewish Insider. Location, location:While demographics usually bear the brunt of the blame — just 5% of the Washington area’s Jews are Orthodox and most of them live in Maryland, according to a 2017 study — Dani Klein, who runs the popular blog “YeahThatsKosher,” said that the layout of the city doesn’t help. ‘There isn’t a concentrated district [in D.C.] where all the Orthodox Jews work. There isn’t a district where everybody is going to a particular museum,” he told JI. Read the full report here. Share Opinion ANSWERING THE CALL When Zionism becomes an educational outcome: 5 shifts to prepare our students for a future in Israel In an opinion piece foreJewishPhilanthropy, Tamar Krieger Kalev,executive director of the Tzemach David Educational Foundation, where she leads The Future Is Calling,proposeshow educational institutions and the wider community can address the gap between “what students are increasingly choosing and what their education has prepared them to do” when it comes to making a successful move to Israel. “Taken together, these five shifts represent a movement from exposure to ownership. None requires abandoning existing Israel programming. Instead, all require treating readiness — linguistic, academic and personal — as an explicit, measurable institutional outcome, rather than an assumed byproduct of connection.” Read the fullpiecehere. Share PEOPLEHOOD PAPERS Philanthropy with purpose: Building endowed capital for generational impact Natana Shek, chief Jewish identity and engagement officer at Federation CJA of Montreal,reflectson the impact of the federation’s decision 20 years ago to create an endowment fund dedicated to Jewish overnight camping in an essay to be featured in the latest edition of the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education’sPeoplehood Papers, which was produced in partnership with the Foundation for Jewish Camp and previewed exclusively ineJewishPhilanthropy. “The lesson for Jewish communities everywhere is clear: to build vibrant, resilient Jewish life, we must think long-term. This isphilanthropy with purpose— not simply reactive generosity, but strategic investment in the future of Jewish peoplehood. We must invest in experiences that deeply shape identity and belonging; and we must ensure those investments are secure, endowed for generations, so that our children and grandchildren inherit not only our institutions but also our values, pride, purpose and connection to the Jewish People.” Read the fullpiece here. Share Worthy Reads Break Less, Give More:InFortune, tech founder Max Simkoff and JVS Bay Area CEO Lisa Countryman-Quirozurgethe new wave of AI millionaires to fund existing nonprofits rather than rebuild the sector in techs image. “There are countless other nonprofits across the country with a track record of doing this kind of nimble and effective work on a range of urgent social issues. What they share is a funding gap that AI philanthropy could close.” Age as an Asset: In theJerusalem News Syndicate, Steve Rosenbergarguesthat older American Jews represent an underused communal asset. “Your grandchildren are not counting on you to solve every problem they face. They are counting on you to leave them with stronger roots, wiser counsel, deeper relationships and the confidence that comes from knowing that they are part of a people that has faced difficult chapters before — and always found a way to write the next one.” Major Gifts Rice University trustee Patti Lipoma Kraft and her husband, Jonathan Kraft, the president of The Kraft Group, have given a gift to fund the university’s football practice pavilion as well as endow the Kraft Family Professorship in Jewish Studies… TheGates Foundationawarded$540 million to theUniversity of Washingtons Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation— the largest charitable gift in the universitys history — to expand its Global Burden of Disease study over a 10-year period… Transitions Dan Blaserwasnamedpresident of the board of directors of theJewish Communal Fund… Jamie Field, who first sought career help from the U.K. Jewish employment charityResourcein 2007, has beenappointedchair of its board of trustees… RabbiDan Rossis returningtoYale Universityto serve as a Jewish chaplain; he was previously a senior Jewish educator at theSlifka Center For Jewish Lifeat Yale from 2018-2019… Mesila International, a global nonprofit providing financial counseling and education to Jewish communities, has namedMoshe Schapiroits next CEO Word on the Street A group of rabbis spanning denominations privatelyurgedNew York MayorZohran Mamdaniin a meeting on Monday to weigh how his rhetoric on Israel affects New York Jews safety amid rising anti-Jewish hate crime… IsraelsMinistry of Social Equalityslashedfunding for LGBTQ programs across 20 local authorities by more than 90%… The Times of IsraelspotlightsSafe for Jews, Israeli developerShay Yaish’s Hebrew and English website that uses AI, government advisories and open source information to rate countries and cities on safety for Jewish travelers… A campaign sign for Rep.Randy Fine(R-FL), one of Congress’ only Jewish Republicans, was defaced with a swastika as he faces antisemitic primary challengerDanBilzerian,Jewish Insider’sMarc Rod reports… TheSan Francisco StandardprofilesAnthropics eight co-founders — each of whom reportedly owns 1.7% of the AI company and stands to gain roughly $16.6 billion in a long-rumored IPO — spotlighting their pledge to give away 80% of their wealth in what could become the Bay Areas largest philanthropic windfall in years… Inc.profilesBallmer GroupCEOTerri Ludwig, who is helpingSteveandConnieBallmersplit their economic mobility philanthropy into three independent local nonprofits in Michigan, Los Angeles County and Washington state… Thor Equities’JosephSittmakes the casefor Israel to donate a plot of land in Jerusalem to house the “Abraham Organization”… Jewish Insider’sHaley Cohen highlightsa new app calledSabbath, built by Jewish founderBen Springwater, that lets users lock away distracting apps for one day each weekend for what he calls Shabbat with training wheels” In a new interview, British actressHannah Waddingham, who hosted the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest,praisedthat year’s Israeli entrant, singerNoa Kirel… Holly Sue Engelman, former president ofSilver Academy JewishDaySchoolin Harrisburg, Pa., and a fixture of the local Jewish community,was struck and killedby a car on Saturday. She was 55… Pic of the Day Dani Machlis Nadav Goldstein-Almogs parents embrace beside the portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer inaugurated in his memory at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Nadav, a university graduate, served as vice president of business development and innovation at Kafrit, an Israeli company founded at Kibbutz Kfar Aza. He was murdered with his eldest daughter, Yam, 20, at their Kfar Aza home on Oct. 7, 2023. The device, donated by Kafrit and the Goldstein family, is now used by students and researchers across geology, archaeology and other fields. Birthdays Aspen Strategy Group Ilana Marcus Drimmer, senior advisor for communications and engagement at the Aspen Strategy Group and the Aspen Security Forum, she is an Emmy Award-winning producer with over 20 years of experience in broadcast television… Doris Feder, longtime Democratic Party activist in N.Y.s Orange and Rockland counties, turns94… Peter David Eisenman, architect best known for the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin and the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., turns94… Elizabeth Holtzman, former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, she also served as Brooklyn DA and NYC comptroller, turns85… Jacob S. Segal, principal of Investors Research Group based in Los Angeles… Lois Weinsaft, former senior vice president for international affairs at the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles… David Rubenstein, co-founder of The Carlyle Group, in 2024 he became the principal owner of MLBs Baltimore Orioles, turns77… Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky, U.S. trade representative during the Clinton administration, she is chair of Parkside Global Advisors, turns76… Linda E. Rosenzweig, senior counsel for benefits and employment at the Wagner Law Group… Lenore Solomon… Carolyn Dorfman, artistic director and choreographer of an eponymous dance company based in Union, N.J.… Leonid Mikhelson, CEO, chairman and major shareholder of the Russian gas company Novatek, turns71… Jeffrey Snyder, board member emeritus of AIPAC… Daniel A. Dan Wolf, former member of the Massachusetts Senate, he is the founder of Cape Air, turns69… Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz, publisher ofYated Neeman, a weekly English-language Haredi newspaper and magazine based in New Jersey, turns68… David Dudi Amsalem, Israeli minister of regional cooperation, turns66… Isaac Yitz Applbaum, co-founder and partner of MizMaa Ventures and wine columnist forJewish Insider… Simon Falic, chairman at Duty Free Americas, his family owns Israels Psagot Winery… Nadav Argaman, former chief of the Shin Bet, turns66… David Brooks, staff writer atThe Atlantic, turns65… Sharon Kam, clarinetist who performs internationally as a soloist, turns55… Andrew Lorraine, MLB pitcher for seven teams, he has also been the pitching coach for Team Israel, turns54… Alex Bernstein, NFL offensive lineman for four seasons, he is now the managing partner of Oakland, Calif.-based North Venture Partners, turns51… Marc Bistricer, chief investment officer and CEO of Toronto-based investment firm Murchinson… Yoni Bloch, co-founder and CEO of Israeli interactive video firm Eko, turns45… Adam Podlesh, NFL punter for seven seasons with the Jaguars and Bears, he was then a financial advisor in the Jacksonville office of Merrill Lynch, turns43… Avraham Yaakov Tarkieltaub, reporter forMishpacha Magazineknown as Jake Turx, turns40… Yelena Shuster, Ukrainian-born and San Francisco-raised journalist and copywriter… Daniel Weitz… Sara Ginzberg, M.D., complex general surgical oncology fellow at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center…

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When Zionism becomes an educational outcome: 5 shifts to prepare our students for a future in Israel

Contributing Author — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 08:26:00 +0000

Jewish day schools have long understood the importance of Israel education, weaving it into mission statements, curricula, celebrations and school trips. This work has succeeded: It has cultivated generations of students who feel emotionally connected to Israel as the Jewish homeland. That connection still matters. But for a growing number of students, its no longer the ultimate outcome. Across the Jewish world, students are rethinking their identity, their sense of belonging and their role in the Jewish future — and whether that future includes living in Israel, not just visiting or loving it from afar. Hundreds of hours of conversations between day school guidance counselors and staff and members of our organization have revealed that more Jewish students than ever are seriously weighing a future in Israel. Students’ aspirations are evolving, but our religious educational systems have not kept pace. We must define the steps needed to move Israel education from connection to ownership. Until we do, we are missing a critical opportunity. Based on our work with students, educators, universities and families through The Future Is Calling, we see five critical shifts Jewish schools can make to better prepare students for a life in Israel, adapting to produce graduates with the knowledge, skills and mindset needed to successfully integrate. 1.) Create academic pathways for students considering Israel Many Jewish day schools have built academic programs around one primary outcome: preparing students for American higher education. For generations, this made sense when American higher education was truly the barometer of success. Trends in aliyah aside, this is no longer the case for multiple reasons. Parents recognize that the private school-to-American Ivy League education is no longer the best path to a lucrative future; and young adults no longer perceive high salaries as the best holistic measure of overall happiness. So while our day schools have developed sophisticated systems to help students navigate the American undergraduate application process successfully, including extracurricular involvement, AP scores, leadership experiences and a well-rounded profile, students pursuing higher education in Israel are often preparing for a different environment. The definition of college readiness must evolve for students interested in Israel. This may include stronger STEM preparation, advanced coursework, partnerships with Israeli universities and greater subject-area specialization than their American counterparts. The Future is Calling has started missions to Israel specifically for high school guidance counselors in order to familiarize them with the Israeli higher education processes firsthand and to facilitate engagement with American day school alumni who are also Israeli university students and alumni, so that the pathways to success are no longer theoretical and their advice can be shaped by personal experience. 2.) Cultivate independent, purpose-driven learners Beyond academic preparation, a successful transition to Israel requires independence. One of the fundamental differences between American and Israeli educational environments lies in the outcomes they are designed to achieve, as outlined above. Israeli institutions, particularly within the dati-leumi (national-religious) space, prepare students for a broader transition into adulthood where the goal is not only academic success, but the development of young adults ready to take responsibility for themselves and their communities. Pathways such as the IDF, sherut leumi and higher education all prepare them for meaningful participation in national life. Israeli academic institutions, and society as a whole, expect young adults to advocate for themselves, make decisions, navigate uncertainty and take initiative. Students are expected to problem-solve, seek opportunities and take ownership of their choices. Most American students are capable of developing these skills, but not enough are given the opportunity to practice them before they get to Israel. In the context of college admissions, students learn to optimize by building the strongest resume, pursuing activities that strengthen an application and making decisions based on what they believe others will value. Yet while those skills can be valuable, they do not always help students answer deeper questions that shape a meaningful life, such as: Who am I? What do I value? What kind of life do I want to build? Where do I believe I can contribute most meaningfully? We believe that students who thrive in Israel, meaning they are happy, self-sufficient and genuinely engaged in their community, are often those who have developed a strong internal compass. They make choices based on purpose rather than approval. They are comfortable asking questions, taking initiative and navigating challenges. Jewish schools should intentionally cultivate these qualities by creating more opportunities for student ownership, reflection, leadership and meaningful decision-making. This can and should include encouraging parents to step back and staff problem-solving with young adult students directly, more calls for students advocating for help or solutions independently, offering options for solutions rather than an expectation for staff to “fix things,” and more. Students who understand themselves will be better prepared not only for Israel, but for adulthood itself. Every student will benefit from this type of preparation. 3.) Make Hebrew a language for living, not just a subject for learning Perhaps no issue illustrates the gap between intention and outcome more clearly than Hebrew. Too many students graduate from Jewish day schools after 12 years of Hebrew instruction unable to comfortably navigate basic daily interactions once they get to Israel. They may be able to analyze a text or perform well on an assessment. But they struggle to order a coffee, have a conversation with an Israeli peer, participate confidently in a university class or manage everyday interactions to feel truly at home. We believe that the American public school system hasn’t taught foreign languages with a goal of fluency for many years, so Jewish schools have to stop following the model they are handed. Educators in this space describe some parents as having a complicated relationship with their children speaking Hebrew fluently. When is not a shared means of communication, it triggers fears of distance — literally and figuratively, consciously and not. The Future is Calling has invested in a pilot optional ulpan within select gap year seminaries and yeshivas for the coming year, as well as additional programmatic opportunities for Hebrew immersion. Yet this does not mitigate the necessary changes K-12 in the Diaspora. If Israel is a realistic future for our students, fluency cannot be viewed as an enrichment goal. It must be a core outcome. Schools must prioritize spoken Hebrew alongside textual learning; invest in teacher development; create immersive opportunities; and measure success by ability to communicate in everyday situations. 4.) Move from Israel-programming to an Israel-ecosystem Israel cannot remain a separate category within Jewish education. It cannot exist only in a class, on a trip or during a celebration or a special program. If Israel is truly central to Jewish identity, it must be integrated into the broader educational experience. Students often encounter Israel as something external: a place they visit, learn about or discuss at specific moments throughout the year. These experiences matter, but they can unintentionally reinforce the idea that Israel exists apart from their everyday lives. The goal should be to create an ecosystem where Israel feels natural and accessible. This requires sustained engagement. Schools can build partnerships with Israeli institutions, create opportunities for Israeli and North American students to learn together, integrate Israeli perspectives across disciplines and invest in our educators having meaningful experiences in Israel themselves. Our new Nelech program, in partnership with Ohr Torah Stone, is one example of a 10th-grade semester abroad that allows students to keep up their core curriculum requirements from home while studying part of the day in an Israeli classroom with Israeli students. The feedback from our pilot year on feelings of integration and the authenticity of an Israeli experience is cause for optimism that this model, and others built by day schools themselves, will have an important impact. Teachers are particularly influential; students experience Israel not only through the curriculum but through the attitudes of the adults around them. While employing Shlichim has been a valuable step, the next evolution is to foster authentic, firsthand connections for all educators. By funding travel and immersion experiences, schools can equip teachers with personal familiarity, empowering them to demonstrate by example that Israel is a professional and personal priority. An Israel ecosystem also recognizes that there are many ways to engage with Israel. For some students, it may be higher education. For others, it may be service, entrepreneurship, technology, culture or community building. The goal is not one predetermined outcome, of course, but that Israel becomes a real possibility. When Israel is woven into the fabric of Jewish education, students will stop seeing it only as a place they visit. They will see it as a place where they can belong. 5.) Change what we celebrate Schools communicate their values not only through curricula but through the accomplishments they celebrate. Every college announcement, alumni feature, award ceremony and community conversation sends a message about the futures we consider successful and aspirational. The question isnt whether we celebrate success. Its whether weve defined it broadly enough. For years, that message has centered on acceptance into elite American universities. These achievements deserve recognition, but should no longer serve as the default measure of success. Students cant imagine a future theyve never seen modeled. If we want them to see Israel as a real place to build meaningful, ambitious lives. We need to show them alumni studying medicine and engineering in Israel, serving in competitive IDF units, contributing to Israeli society through sherut leumi (national service), building companies — proof that an Israel-facing path can demand just as much rigor and ambition as the ones we already celebrate. Israeli universities should not be positioned as a backup or a second-tier option. Instead, they should be presented as serious, world-class opportunities that require thoughtful preparation. A concerted effort must be made to educate our guidance counselors and ourselves to help students understand the excellent choices available to them. Creating this shift requires intentionality: Schools should engage alumni living in Israel by finding opportunities for them to speak to students; guidance counselors should present Israeli institutions alongside American options; and we should recognize Israel-based pathways as milestones worthy of genuine celebration, promoting these opportunities with the same visibility as traditional milestones across all community channels. From inspiration to belonging Taken together, these five shifts represent a movement from exposure to ownership. None requires abandoning existing Israel programming. Instead, all require treating readiness — linguistic, academic and personal — as an explicit, measurable institutional outcome, rather than an assumed byproduct of connection. There is an important tension in this conversation, one that deserves to be acknowledged. If Jewish schools and communities are successful in helping students see Israel as a place to create meaningful futures, more graduates may ultimately choose to remain in Israel. For Diaspora communities that have spent generations building vibrant Jewish institutions, this possibility raises complex and important questions. But complexity should not be a reason to avoid preparation. The risk of inaction is a widening gap between what students are increasingly choosing and what their education has prepared them to do. For generations, we have taught our students that Israel is the homeland of the Jewish People. We have taught them to pray for Jerusalem, celebrate Israel’s achievements, understand its history and stand with its people. The next step is to ask whether our educational systems fully reflect the implications of that belief. If we truly believe that Israel is our home, then we have the responsibility and the privilege to prepare the next generation not only to love Israel but to build a life there, should they choose to answer its call. Tamar Krieger Kalev is executive director of the Tzemach David Educational Foundation, where she leads The Future Is Calling, guiding Jewish day school students toward a meaningful future in Israel. A curriculum designer and leadership trainer, she previously served as the director of education innovation at Kohelet Yeshiva High School and director of student activities at SAR High School.

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After a year of playing, Tzomet Games compares its simulations to real-world Jewish leaders’ rhetoric

Judah Ari Gross — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 07:23:17 +0000

For more than a year, hundreds of Jewish professionals across the United States and around the world have been playing a game forcing them to consider: What will American Jewry look like in 2050? Launched last May, Tzomet Games —the brainchild of Jewish entrepreneur and philanthropist Phil Siegel —aimed to inspire its players to think beyond solving today’s crisis or even devising a short-term strategy, and to make long-term plans to advance a desired future —something few Jewish organizations do on a regular basis. “Some of the organizations that we ran the game with asked, ‘OK, this is great, but how does this help us build our three-year work plan?’” Barak Sella, an American Israeli educator, researcher and activist who serves as a consultant for Tzomet Games, told eJewishPhilanthropy. “And I had to push back and say, ‘Look, this is not about a three-year work plan. You dont need to play the Tzomet Game to build a three-year strategic work plan. You can hire any consultant, any expert, any strategist to help you with that. What the game is doing is talking about a longer-term goal and a longer-term perspective, which work plans do not address.” The game presents groups of players with one of four scenarios that imagine American Jewish life in 2050, written by author Dara Horn. Over the course of the roughly two-hour game, they draw cards detailing different possible developments. In some cases, they would choose which of those developments would lead the American Jewish community to their selected future and when they would have happened, and in other cases, a development would be forced upon the players to grapple with. At the end of the game, the players would have constructed a 25-year timeline that is meant to lead coherently from today to whatever future they selected. Beyond giving participants an opportunity to think strategically in the moment, from the start, Siegel planned to document the games meticulously, allowing his team to examine the participants’ decision-making process. Tzomet Games is now releasing its report based on its first year of operation, examining both what key topics emerged from the future-focused games and how that compares to what contemporary Jewish leaders are speaking about in their public remarks. To make the comparison, Sella and Siegel examined 15 public, transcribed speeches by leading American Jewish figures, such as Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of Jewish Federations of North America, speaking JFNA General Assembly; Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee, at the AJC Global Forum 2025; Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, at the ADLs Never Is Now summit; and Bret Stephens, New York Times columnist and editor-in-chief of Sapir, delivering this year’s State of World Jewry Address. “Our data validates that, on some issues, the leaders actually get it,” Sella said. In the game, antisemitism was a key feature in much of the discussions about the Jewish future, even in the positive scenarios; it is also a common topic in the real-world speeches. Jewish education was also regularly highlighted in both, as were improving Israel-Diaspora relations, increasing engagement, institutional reform and maintaining bipartisan support for Israel. On other issues, Jewish leaders did not address topics that were found to be hugely significant in imagining the future of American Jewry, chiefly demographics. Though they routinely came up in the games — and are, in reality, a major force in Jewish communal dynamics —migration patterns, birthrates, conversions and in vitro fertilization were not mentioned in any of the 15 public speeches. “Corporations use really, really complicated data sets to predict: If there is a high schooler in Madison, Wis., where is he going to be when hes 30, and which city is he going to live in, and what are going to be his spending patterns so I can know where I have to place my next retail outlet. If we look at our Jewish history, migration in the U.S. had a huge impact on how our community was formed,” Sella said. “Migration to the suburbs post-World War II was maybe one of the most impactful events that shaped Jewish life. Not thinking now about potential Jewish migration in the U.S. and how Jewish life is going to be different in 25 years is a missed opportunity. We should be thinking and we should be making bold decisions around where Jews are going to be and make investments that reflect those demographic trends,” Sella said. American Jewish leaders also did not regularly discuss geopolitical issues —the two-state solution, the Middle East and great-power competition —despite these having a profound influence on American Jewish life. Artificial intelligence, though it was discussed in some speeches, was also a blindspot in the public remarks, Sella said. Where it did come up, it was primarily about concern over how these new systems can be used. “This might seem like a banal insight because if you open any news site everything is about AI, but if you look at the major Jewish speeches in the last year, AI is actually not central to them at all and if it is mentioned in some way its usually in a defensive manner as a threat,” he said. “But in the game simulations, AI is imagined as something much more diverse, as something that is a threat, but is also the major tool and major pathway for a thriving community.” According to Sella, this disparity matters because a better grasp of how AI can be used effectively could give a massive leg up for Jewish communities. He compared it to other areas in which Jewish groups were slow to embrace new, world-changing technology, and then had to rush to catch up. “If you could go back 20 years in the past to 2006 and tell all the major Jewish leaders, ‘Look, theres something new. Its called social media. You dont really understand it yet. Its a bit scary. You might not think that its going to change our lives or maybe you do, but you dont understand how, but its going to change everything about how we communicate, how we understand each other, how society is built and works. And you should invest 50% of your resources now in shaping your strategy around social media,” he said. “The data [from the games] show that it is similar with AI. The players are looking at AI as something extremely central. AI is going to upend, potentially, our economic system. That is also going to influence the Jewish community in ways that its hard to understand.” As the speeches needed to be both publicly available and transcribed, Sella acknowledged that this significantly limited the pool of speakers: 13 of the 15 speakers are men; and none of them is Sephardi, Haredi, LGBTQ or a Jew of color. This lack of representation is significant as the demographics of the American Jewish community now include more of all of those groups. “I was looking for speeches that were documented fully and transcribed. … And I also wanted people who represent large Jewish constituencies,” Sella said. “I was looking specifically for speeches that explicitly address the priorities for the Jewish future, and unfortunately there werent a lot of speeches that fit that criteria so firmly, not only talking about the crisis that were in or the spiritual crisis, but talking about, ‘Heres what the Jews should be doing in the next 10 years.’” Sella noted that the speeches are an imperfect indicator of Jewish communal priorities. People can speak repeatedly about things that they are not effectively addressing and omit areas that their organizations are focused on. But they do offer general insight into what leaders care about and what they think their audiences care about, he said. Going forward, Sella said that Tzomet Games now plans to expand in two directions: getting more people to play the current game through a digital version and creating bespoke versions for specific communities and organizations. “Our goal in Tzomet Games is not to lay out the vision for the Jewish future. Were not trying to be the next Herzl,” Sella said. “What we are trying to do is give the Jewish community the tools to bring forward the next Herzl and to make sure that the Jewish community is ready to support that vector in any way that we can.”

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Philanthropy with purpose: Building endowed capital for generational impact

Contributing Author — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 06:24:29 +0000

The following essay, published here as part of a collaboration between eJewishPhilanthropy and the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education, is from the latest edition of CJPE’s Peoplehood Papers series, “Cultivating Jewish Peoplehood at Camp,” produced in partnership with the Foundation for Jewish Camp and coming out this week. Imagine a Jewish community of fewer than 90,000 people that consistently ranks among the top in North America for per-capita giving to its Jewish federation. A community where Jewish life is not only surviving but flourishing; where schools and Jewish organizations are strong; where our youth are resilient, united in their commitment to Israel and proud of their Jewish identity; where participation in Jewish life is not our bottleneck, but the capacity to meet the rising demand is. Now imagine that within this same community, families can access financial support, for formal and informal Jewish educational experiences and social services, through a single, secure, centralized portal, a one-stop gateway designed to ensure that every Jew, regardless of background or circumstance, can have easy access to Jewish life. Then stop imagining. Because this is not a dream. This is Montreal’s Jewish community. At the heart of this success lies a century-old truth and a deliberate philanthropic strategy:investing in Jewish overnight camping as a cornerstone of Jewish continuity.Decades before engagement strategy became a buzzword, our community understood that Jewish camping is more than a summer experience, it is a generational investment in Jewish identity, leadership and belonging. A legacy rooted in vision More than 105 years ago, Montreal’s Jewish leadership had the foresight to establish a Jewish community camp, a place built on Jewish traditions, Zionism and Jewish joy. This was not simply about recreation or education; it was about shaping a future where Jewish values and pride would be interwoven into the very fabric of our youth. Through the decades, thousands of children experienced their first Shabbat under the stars, sang Hebrew songs around campfires and gained a sense of connection and purpose that would continue long after the summer ended. Camp became a formative space, one where Jewish identity was lived, not just taught. We have invested in a legacy rooted in a vision of lived Jewish peoplehood. Building capital for generational impact Recognizing the powerful return on this investment, 20 years ago Federation CJA, Montreal’s federation, took a bold step tosecure an endowment fund dedicated to Jewish overnight camping.The purpose was twofold: to expand access for families through financial support, and to strengthen the quality and sustainability of the camps themselves. Through this visionary act of philanthropy, Federation CJA built something extraordinary: a designated endowment that ensures our community’s youth can have transformative Jewish summer experiences regardless of financial constraints.This is philanthropy not just for today, but for generations to come. The power of Jewish overnight camp Why camping? Because the data is clear, and the outcomes are profound. Study after study has shown that Jewish overnight camp yields the highest return on investment of all Jewish identity-building experiences. Camp alumni are dramatically more likely to value being Jewish, support Jewish causes, marry Jewish partners and give to federation later in life. They show higher levels of attachment to Israel and to Jewish communal life. They are more likely to take on leadership roles in Jewish organizations as adults. In short, Jewish camping doesn’t just fill summers; it deeply shapes lives and strengthens communities for decades. Federation CJA has turned this evidence into strategy. The investment in Jewish camp has a ripple effect, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of engagement. Camps become feeders for youth movements, Israel experiences, volunteerism and leadership programs. Parents connect through their children’s experiences. Generations bond around shared values and memories. This is not accidental. It is the product of intentional philanthropy, strategic focus and collective vision. The Montreal model: Strength through strategy This alignment of values, infrastructure and deep investment in Jewish camps is a part of the bedrock of what has made the Montreal Jewish community not just good, but great. Federation CJA’s foresight to invest in endowment capital across the full Jewish journey, from classroom to camp to Israel, has enabled new generations to connect deeply, meaningfully and joyously to Jewish life. It is a virtuous cycle: strong identity fuels engagement, engagement strengthens community and community inspires ever-greater philanthropy. Philanthropy with purpose The lesson for Jewish communities everywhere is clear: to build vibrant, resilient Jewish life, we must think long-term. This isphilanthropy with purpose — not simply reactive generosity, butstrategic investmentin the future of Jewish peoplehood. We must invest in experiences that deeply shape identity and belonging; and we must ensure those investments are secure, endowed for generations, so that our children and grandchildren inherit not only our institutions but also our values, pride, purpose and connection to the Jewish People. The Montreal Jewish community’s story is one of vision, courage and commitment to the Jewish People today and in the future; a model of what happens when philanthropy aligns with purpose. Our journey shows the direct correlation between investing in Jewish overnight camp and cultivating one of the most dynamic, generous and united Jewish communities in North America. Through endowment, foresight and faith in our youth, Federation CJA continues to prove thatwhen we invest in camping, we directly invest in our community’s future, for this generation and for every generation to come. Natana Shek is the chief Jewish identity and engagement officer at Federation CJA of Montreal.

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Drazin backs out of Camp Lavi sale, leaving camp in limbo — source

Jay Deitcher — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 05:10:12 +0000

On Sunday night, mental health nonprofit Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services, Inc. agreed to hand its winning bid for Camp Lavi in Lakewood, Pa., to the second-place bidder, ensuring that the Modern Orthodox camp would continue operating in its current format. But just before the tentative agreement was to be legally recognized on Monday morning, the second-place bidder said he would not offer his original bid, scuttling the deal and throwing the fate of the camp into limbo, eJewishPhilanthropy has learned. While Ohel remains the winning bidder, a source involved in the proceedings, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told eJP that the nonprofit is working with parents to find a potential new buyer willing to purchase the camp and keep it running as is. Camp Lavi is one of more than two dozen summer camps — several of them Jewish — that went up for auction after their owners, the New York-based Shabsels brothers, declared bankruptcy in June after the brothers double pledged assets and missed bond payments, racking up over $344 million of debt. Ohel was the highest bidder for Camp Lavi in the auction for auction for the Shabsels’ properties, which ended on Aug. 3. The nonprofit had planned to use the site to run its own programming rather than keep the camp going. This caused Camp Lavi parents to launch a campaign calling for the sale to be halted, including a change.org petition that, as of yesterday, was signed by more than 4,300 people, including politicians and rabbis. In response to the outcry, by Sunday, Ohel had decided to drop the bid; the nonprofit serves the same community that attends the camp, and the parent-led campaign had the potential to impact its reputation and donor base. Instead, as eJP previously reported, Ohel reached a verbal agreement to pass the sale to the runner-up, Shlomo Drazin, owner of Drazin Capital. Drazin is reportedly connected to American Youth Camping, which also purchased five other properties from the Shabsels’ portfolio and also includes the hedge fund Rubric Capital’s David Rosen as a partner. Drazin agreed to run Camp Lavi as is. But late Sunday night, negotiations between Ohel and Drazin allegedly grew tense, the source told eJP. According to the source, it was hoped that Drazin would match Ohel’s $8.75 million bid, but Drazin didn’t want to. His second-place bid had been for $8.5 million, but now he was offering $7 million instead; Ohel would then have to take a $1.75 million loss as a result, as they would still be expected to cover the difference. Monday began as planned, with the Committee of Concerned Parents of Camp Lavi withdrawing its objection to the sale of the camp to Ohel, which they had filed a week prior to the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey; and Ohel offered to allow Drazin to take the bid for $8 million and the nonprofit would cover the $750,000 deposit and his expenses for the sale. Still, Drazin refused to budge, according to the source, leaving the sale at a standstill. Christine M. Gravelle, chief judge of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey, was expected to make a decision about the sale at 11 a.m. As of Monday night, however, Ohel still holds the winning bid, with 10 days until the sale closes, five business days after camp season ends at Camp Lavi. Ohel is meeting with camp families and seeking other interested parties who would run the camp grounds in its current format, the source said, but everything needs to be decided by the board. Drazin declined to be interviewed for this piece, and Ohel did not return requests for comment. Correction: A previous version of this report incorrectly identified Shlomo Drazins business as Rester Management, which is a firm owned by a different person of the same name.

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Your Daily Phil: KKL-JNF allocates NIS 859 million for northern Israel recovery

EJP — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 13:02:22 +0000

Good Monday morning! In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund’s allocation of NIS 859 million ($286.3 million) for recovery efforts in northern Israel, and have the scoop on mental health nonprofit Ohel pulling out of the purchase of Camp Lavi after outcry from campers’ parents. We feature an opinion piece by Frayda Leibtag about the evolution of Israeli philanthropy, and kick off a weeklong preview of essays from the latest edition of the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education’s Peoplehood Papers series: “Cultivating Jewish Peoplehood at Camp,” produced in partnership with the Foundation for Jewish Camp, with a piece by Diana Bloom. Also in this issue: Frimet Roth, Miriam Belsky and Reed Rayman. 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 A federal bankruptcy court in New Jersey will meet today to review a new plan for the sale of Camp Lavi in Lakewood, Pa. More on this below. What You Should Know A QUICK WORD FROM eJPS JUSTIN HAYET The board of Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund approveda NIS 859 million ($286.3 million) investment plan for northern Israel, the largest outlay the organization has ever directed at the region, the group announced yesterday. The three-year package designates the North as a single arena— stretching from the valleys of northern Israel, through the Galilee and up to the Golan Heights — and pledges funding toward infrastructure, housing, education and culture throughout the region. With its semi-public, semi-private status,KKL-JNF has been at the center of a roiling debate in Israel in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks and resulting nearly three years of war about the role of government and philanthropy in the reconstruction process. Drawing on its large, land-funded budget, KKL-JNF has supplemented government allocations, becoming one of the central forces underwriting the Norths recovery. Read the rest of What You Should Know here. News SCOOP Ohel agrees to halt purchase of Camp Lavi, allowing sale to operator who will keep it as is After a week of turmoil in the East Coast Jewish summer camp world, a parent-led campaign persuaded Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services Inc. to hand its winning bid for Camp Lavi in Pennsylvania to the second-place bidder, ensuring that the Modern Orthodox camp will continue operating in its current format,eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher has learned. A final decision will be made by the New Jersey bankruptcy court judge at 11 a.m. on Monday. Bowing out:Camp Lavi in Lakewood, Pa., was one of more than two dozen summer camps —several of them Jewish —that went up for auction after their owners, the New York-based Shabsels brothers,declaredbankruptcy in June. Initial reports of the sale of the camp to Ohel, a mental health nonprofit that primarily caters to the Orthodox community, drew concern from the stakeholders of Camp Lavi, which also primarily serves the Orthodox community. Under the emerging agreement, Ohel, which had planned to use the site to run its own programming, will drop its winning bid, allowing the camp to be sold to the runner-up, American Youth Camping, which will keep the camp as is. Read the full report here. Share Opinion THE NEW FOUNDERS Philanthropic entrepreneurs: Israeli giving, 13 years on In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Frayda Leibtag, a public affairs strategist based in Israel, explores the ethos of Israeli philanthropy and how giving culture and infrastructure evolved before and since the Oct. 7 terror attacks. “Philanthropy is now being discussed not as something successful Israelis might do in retirement, but as a component of a deal itself, baked into ‘exits’ and IPOs. Younger founders are treating giving as part of their identity as builders, not a milestone to reach later. What I could not have predicted was that the deepest cultural shift would not come from prosperity. It would come from crisis.” Read the full piece here. Share PEOPLEHOOD PAPERS What camp teaches us about accountability and belonging Leaders interested in the development of young Jews into engaged and reliable participants in communal life should take a lesson from the way Jewish camps teach accountability “as a lived value and as an enabler of joy, not a threat to it,” writes consultant Diana Bloom, in an essay that will be featured in the latest edition of the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education’s Peoplehood Papers, which was produced in partnership with the Foundation for Jewish Camp and previewed exclusively in eJewishPhilanthropy. “At camp, accountability lives in culture, not checklists. It is not about rigidity or compliance. It is about honoring the trust placed in us and our obligations to one another. It shows up in shared norms, clear expectations and common language. When accountability is framed as care rather than punishment, it becomes a way to help people succeed rather than a mechanism for assigning blame.” Read the full piece here. Share Worthy Reads No Signal:InThe Atlantic, educator Russell Shawlamentsthat daily photo feeds, facial-recognition software and parent chat groups have turned summer camp into another arena for hovering, parental intervention. “Camp meant independence from home and school — and this was a feature, not a bug. Children without their parents were forced to navigate the world on their own. They learned to make friends without mediation (no play dates!), resolve conflicts without referees, and experience homesickness without rescue. But at many camps, all of that is being renegotiated.” A Mother’s Longing:InThe Times of Israel, Frimet Roth marks the 25th anniversary of the Aug. 9, 2001, Sbarro pizzeria bombing that killed her 15-year-old daughter Malki andrenewsher plea for the U.S. to extradite attack planner Ahlam Tamimi, who was released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal and lives freely in Jordan. “For us, though, the loss of Malki, of her radiant smile, her generous heart, her magnificent flute playing and melodious singing, her prolific artistic works, her warm embrace of everyone surrounding her – friends and family – is always a source of pain and longing.” Team Effort:InSmartBrief’, Seth Katzen, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Delaware,encouragesnonprofits to involve their communities in strategic planning efforts, citing his federation’s recent experience. “Together, we updated [the federation’s] mission and vision, identified the values that will guide our decisions and established community impact priorities to shape future investments and aspirations. Yet the most enduring impact of this process may not be found in the final report. It may be found in the relationships, understanding and trust that were strengthened along the way.” Major Gifts Investor Michael Moritzs Crankstart Foundation, with the nonprofit Lever for Change, launched a global competition offering $10 million to $50 million each to up to three organizations for workable plans to improve life in San Francisco… Transitions Miriam Belskyhas been appointed executive vice president ofthe TruBob Fund, a new national initiative supporting Jewish day schools established by philanthropistsTrudy Elbaum GottesmanandRobert W. Gottesman… Rabbi Jeremy R. WeisblattwasnamedCEO ofThe Marjorie Lewis Katz Jewish Community Centerin Margate, N.J.… Apollo Global Managementin recent monthsappointedpartnerReed Raymanto lead itsAI sectorand develop relationships to help the firm land more large AI infrastructure financings,The Informationreports… Randall FriedjoinedCalifornia Jewish Action Networkas its deputy executive director… Sara Sternstein HassonwashiredbySAR Academy High Schoolas its director of development… PresidentDonald Trumpannounced on Sunday that White House Staff SecretaryWill Scharfwill replaceDavid Warringtonas White House counsel effective Sept. 1,Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss reports… Word on the Street Chabad of the Upper EastSideand Manhattans 136-year-oldPark East Synagogueannounceda partnership that installs Chabad rabbis in the congregations leadership, includingRabbiBen-Tzion Krasnianski,and brings its Young Professionals, Friendship Circle and other programs to the historic shul beginning on Rosh Hashanah… TheNational Council of Jewish Womens Arizona chapterdisaffiliatedfrom its national organization on July 1 and rebranded as theJewish Womens Action Alliance Arizona, opting to preserve its independent nonprofit status and local advocacy work.. The Harvard CrimsonexaminesHarvard Chabads extensive efforts and negotiations with public officials to enable its five-storyCenter for Jewish Lifemonths to resolve a complex zoning issue that is still being litigated… A House Democratic reportallegesthat theTrump administrations politically-orientedFreedom 250nonprofit misdirected donors away from the congressionally chartered, bipartisanAmerica250… The U.K.’sCharity Commissionhas openeda statutory inquiry into theAl-Khair Foundationover allegedHamasties and restricted its finances, after an employee of an overseas partner organization was arrested in the U.K. and charged by U.S. authorities with conspiring to provide material support to the group… The Chronicle of Philanthropyreportsthat a wave of leadership turnover at major U.S. foundations — including theFord Foundation,Pew Charitable Trusts,RockefellerBrothers Fundand theScherman Foundation— is bringing in CEOs expected to step out of the back office and take visible public roles defending grantees amid rising skepticism from populist movements and the Trump administration… Israelrevokedthe travel authorizations of at leastseven American Jewswho joined “protective presence” efforts aiding Palestinian farmers in the West Bank… TheAssociated PressspotlightstheJews of Cochin, India,as the last remaining members of the community —the majority of which moved to Israel in the 20th century —work to preserve remnants of the past… Haverford Collegesettleda lawsuit filed by a handful of students and the group Jews for Haverford over administrators handling of antisemitism on the Pennsylvania liberal arts campus… On Friday, theAmerican Psychological Associationpostponedfor the second time this year a vote recognizing theAssociation of Jewish Psychologistsas an official ethnic group, drawing condemnation from theADLandJewish Medical Association,Jewish Insider’sHaley Cohen reports… The InformationprofilesAnthropicCEODario Amodei, diving into his unorthodox leadership style and his tendency to rely on a small inner circle while ignoring outside advice — as the company approaches its IPO. Also detailed: a meeting withJared KushnerandIvanka Trumpabout potential Anthropic funding (Kushner passed).… PhilanthropistMacKenzie Scottannouncedshe will self-publish her third novel for free on her Substack… Will Shakin, a New York-raised lone soldier who moved to Israel after the Oct. 7 terror attacks and served in Gaza,diedby suicide at the age of 25 in New York after struggling with unrecognized PTSD. His family is now in talks with IsraelsDefense Ministryfor aMount Herzlmilitary burial as he was not immediately designated a combat-trauma casualty… Sandra Abrams, a longtime Atlanta real estate broker and philanthropist devoted to theWilliam Breman Jewish Homeand theJewish Federation of Greater Atlanta,diedAug. 7 at 89… Pic of the Day Courtesy/Hagai Sheli A child with a disability surfs with an instructor on Friday atCharles Clore Beach in South Tel Aviv, as part of an event, “Accessible Friday at the Beach,” organized by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality and the HaGal Sheli nonprofit. Jewish and Arab children from the city took part in the event, according to HaGal Sheli, which offers surf therapy to an array of populations, including at-risk groups, trauma survivors and people with physical, sensory or cognitive disabilities. “For me, accessibility is not just a ramp or a designated chair — it is the right of every child, every adult and every family to enjoy the beach with dignity, safety and equality,” Zippi Brand Frank, deputy mayor of Tel Aviv-Yafo who oversees the city’s beaches and parks, said in a statement. “The beach is a public space that belongs to all of us, and therefore it must be accessible to everyone. Accessibility is not a favor done for someone, but a basic right.” Birthdays Michael Giladi/Flash90 Rabbi David Yosef, Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel and Rishon LeZion since 2024, turns69 Robert N. Feldman, CEO at Royal Health Services in Beverly Hills Shimon Schuldiner, professor emeritus of biochemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, turns80 David Bistricer, NYC-based real estate developer, he is the founder and principal of Clipper Equity, turns77 Gill Marcus, former governor of the South African Reserve Bank, the first woman to hold that position, turns77 Rabbi Jack Moline, Conservative rabbi who served as executive director of the Interfaith Alliance, turns74 Joseph S. Allerhand, retired co-leader of the securities litigation practice at Weil, Gotshal Manges, he is the co-president of NYCs Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty Edward Salkind, certified registered nurse anesthetist for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Jami Bernard, author, media consultant and former film critic for theNew York Postand theNew York Daily News, turns70 Danielle Spera, former director of the Jewish Museum of Vienna, she was a founder of the German-language magazineNudevoted to Jewish politics and culture, turns69 Steven Mitchell Glazer, former member of the California state Senate, turns69 Andy Levin, former member of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-MI), now a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, turns66 Yaron Oz, professor of physics and astronomy at Tel Aviv University, turns62 Reuven Michael Carlyle, tech entrepreneur, he served as a Washington state senator until 2023, turns61 Jeremy Ring, former member of the Florida state Senate, he authored a book about his time as one of the first employees of Yahoo, turns56 Sharon Afek, deputy attorney general of Israel, turns56 Jason P. Reyes, regional chief technology officer in the South Texas office of Technologent Eytan Sosnovich, senior director of development for the NYC-based Tikvah Fund Sophie Vershbow, marketing and editorial consultant Jacob Cohen, senior vice president of commodities compliance at Citibank

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Philanthropic entrepreneurs: Israeli giving, 13 years on

Contributing Author — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 12:25:00 +0000

In August 2025, Shmuel and Anat Harlap pledged $180 million to Rabin Medical Center in Petach Tikva, among the largest gifts ever made by Israeli philanthropists to an Israeli institution. Earlier that year, when cybersecurity company Wiz announced its sale to Google for $32 billion, the founders pledged 1% of company stock to charity, a stake worth $320 million at the time of the deal. These are gifts from Israelis at a scale that would have seemed not merely unlikely but inconceivable when I published what may have been the first English-language series on Israeli philanthropic culture in 2013. The data from that time told a different story. Israeli philanthropy represented 0.74% of the country’s GDP, compared to 2.1% in the United States. Only 4% of donations came from affluent Israelis giving more than NIS 100,000 ($33,000), despite roughly 10,000 individuals having the means to do so. A 2008 survey found that 67% of the Israeli public was suspicious, cynical and skeptical of philanthropy. The Zionist enterprise had been built on checks from abroad. The Israelis I spoke with in 2013 returned, again and again, to the same idea: army service and high taxes were civic contribution enough. Thirteen years later, the distance between those numbers and the gifts of 2025 is the story of how Israeli philanthropy evolved. The wealth came first, then the builders The transformation starts with economics. Israel today is home to 186,000 millionaires holding roughly $791 billion in assets, and median wealth grew 30% in 2024, the fifth-highest rate of any country in UBS global wealth report. Tech “exits” reached $58.8 billion in 2025, a 340% increase over the prior year, continuing a decade-long surge that has minted new fortunes at a pace no one modeled in 2013. What used to be a few dozen names with the means to give meaningfully has become a class. Wealth creates capacity. It does not, on its own, create culture. The core argument I made in 2013 was that Israels emerging donor class would give like entrepreneurs: with vision, defined goals, accountability and active engagement in the causes they chose. Not checkwriters — builders. In some corners, that prediction had already been proven. Tmura, the public-service venture fund founded in 2002 by Yadin Kaufmann, spent two decades quietly building the equity-pledge model: companies donate stock, typically 0.5 to 1% of share capital, and Tmura converts the proceeds of exits into grants for education and youth causes. The Wiz founders’ pledge followed the same playbook.Today, Tmura holds equity from more than 825 Israeli companies, has seen 165 successful exits, and has generated over NIS 100 million ($33 million) for charity. The infrastructure caught up. Donor-advised funds, which did not exist in Israel until 2019, have moved fast on the same logic. Keshet, the first Israeli DAF, has accumulated NIS 1.3 billion ($433 million) in assets since launch, distributing NIS 665 million ($222 million) in grants to more than 1,300 nonprofits, with NIS 420 million ($140 million) deposited in 2025 alone. Philanthropy is now being discussed not as something successful Israelis might do in retirement, but as a component of a deal itself, baked into exits and IPOs. Younger founders are treating giving as part of their identity as builders, not a milestone to reach later. The business tool kit had arrived, and so had a generation prepared to use it. What I could not have predicted was that the deepest cultural shift would not come from prosperity. It would come from crisis. The test The judicial reform protest movement of 2023 became an unlikely rehearsal. For nine months, foundations and individual donors learned to fund civil society at speed, coordinate across organizational lines and mobilize the public. The networks and instincts built during that period had been tested before they were needed at scale. When the Oct. 7 attacks came, they were ready. Brothers in Arms, which had built a civil society operation with tens of thousands of volunteers, redirected its entire network within days for logistics, communications, and community support. One Heart, one of Israels most experienced civilian emergency organizations, mobilized 50,000 volunteers across a network of situation rooms. The capacity was already there. The domestic upheaval followed by war activated it, and the entrepreneurial toolkit made the response possible. The crisis made it necessary. A coalition reflex has emerged alongside MONGO, the “my own NGO” impulse that long defined Israeli giving and produced an unusually fragmented sector. The Jewish Funders Network now counts over 160 Israeli families in its membership and held its 2024 international conference in Tel Aviv. In the months following the Oct. 7 attacks, Israeli First Lady Michal Herzog convened a coalition of major foundations and philanthropists from Israel and the United States to coordinate long-term rebuilding, with an explicit ambition not simply to restore what was lost, but to build something better. That philosophy has not been lost on Diaspora funders watching from overseas. As Israeli giving has grown, international donors increasingly treat Israeli buy-in as a signal of organizational credibility, something worth building before heading abroad to fundraise. The corporate and institutional sides have matured in parallel. Total donations through the Maala ESG Index reached NIS 960 million ($320 million) in 2024, up from NIS 590 million ($196) in 2022. As Israels first generation of tech wealth begins handing off to its heirs, a family office ecosystem is taking shape with philanthropic advisory at its core, professionalizing how the next chapter of Israeli giving will be planned and deployed. The new founders Israeli philosopher and author Micah Goodman writes in The Eighth Day that todays Israelis see themselves as the new founders of the next version of Israel, carrying the spirit of the founding generation into a new moment. Looking at what Israeli philanthropy has built over the past decade, and especially what it built under fire, that framing feels precise. Every generation of Israelis has been called to build. The halutzim (pioneers) built the land. Later generations built the institutions. This one is building the social infrastructure: the networks, the foundations, the culture of giving that will hold the country together for the generation that comes next. They are doing it not by importing a model wholesale, but by taking what they know, meeting a crisis and forging something distinctly their own. Frayda Leibtag is a public affairs strategist based in Israel who has worked at the intersection of the private, public and nonprofit sectors.

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What camp teaches us about accountability and belonging

Contributing Author — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 12:04:37 +0000

The following essay, published here as part of a collaboration between eJewishPhilanthropy and the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education, is from the latest edition of CJPEs Peoplehood Papers series, “Cultivating Jewish Peoplehood at Camp,” produced in partnership with the Foundation for Jewish Camp and coming out this week. Accountability is often misunderstood as oversight or enforcement. In many settings, it appears only when something goes wrong. At camp, it means something else entirely. It is not about control. It is about care. By accountability, I mean doing what you said you would do, the way you said you would do it, when you said you would do it, in service of the people who are relying on you. Jewish camp is one of the few environments where responsibility, relationship and Jewish identity are fully intertwined. At its core is the lived experience of Kol Yisrael Areivim Zeh Bazeh, the understanding that we are responsible for one another in practice, not only in theory. In my experience supervising and training both seasonal and year-round camp staff, I have seen what happens when a culture of follow-through is intentionally supported and what happens when it is avoided. When roles are clear and systems reinforce shared ownership, people rise to the occasion. When expectations are vague or sidestepped in the name of being nice, confusion and frustration follow. Camps cultivate reliability as a pathway to Jewish Peoplehood, the lived sense of shared belonging. At camp, accountability lives in culture, not checklists. It is not about rigidity or compliance. It is about honoring the trust placed in us and our obligations to one another. It shows up in shared norms, clear expectations and common language. When accountability is framed as care rather than punishment, it becomes a way to help people succeed rather than a mechanism for assigning blame. Much of this learning happens without formal systems. Camp teaches accountability through modeling, proximity and the visible impact of people’s actions. You cannot disengage quietly, because people see you and rely on you. A counselor who forgets to remind their campers to bring a bathing suit to the lake quickly sees the impact. A Unit Head who does not clarify expectations before an activity feels the ripple immediately. The effects are tangible. One of the less visible lessons is helping staff understand that when they say they will do something, someone else is planning around it, relying on it or being shaped by it. Camp is a fast-moving environment where responsibilities overlap and interruptions are constant. Rather than relying on individuals to simply remember everything, camps reinforce shared habits that support one another’s reliability. Staff internalize the idea that consistency depends on systems and habit. They create structures that support their commitments and develop practices that make follow-through more reliable and shared. Camps give young people real responsibility early, not as a reward, but as an expectation. Staff are responsible for safety, for moments that shape a child’s experience and for the morale of those around them. These responsibilities are not hypothetical. They show up every day. For camp, what matters most is not perfection. It is staying accountable when things do not go as planned. When accountability is avoided, strong performers notice. Avoiding difficult feedback may feel compassionate in the moment; it weakens standards and demotivates those who are meeting expectations, signaling that responsibility is optional. Growth happens when people are trusted and then held to clear standards with dignity. Camp creates this environment intentionally. Responsibility is given before people feel fully ready, with support provided along the way. Over time, this shapes a deeper understanding of Jewish Peoplehood: belonging carries obligation. Camp staff learn accountability by watching how leaders respond when situations break down. Written policies matter far less than lived behavior. When leaders own their mistakes, others learn to do the same. At camp, a culture of accountability begins with leadership, and leadership is not limited to senior roles. When challenges arise, effective camp leaders start with self-reflection. Everyone has the opportunity to lead by setting clear expectations and taking responsibility when things do not work as planned. Jim Collins describes this leadership discipline as choosing to look in the mirror rather than out the window when things fall short. In a camp setting, this means examining whether expectations were clear, support was sufficient and systems were designed to help staff and campers succeed before assigning blame. It also means asking: What could I have done more of, less of, or differently to set this up for success? Modeling accountability also requires resisting the urge to be everything to everyone. Leaders who prioritize being liked over being effective erode trust. When the work of building a safe and trusting community matters more than approval, consistency becomes stabilizing. Camp teaches that belonging comes with responsibility. At camp, a counselor shows up early because campers are waiting. A staff member steps into a difficult conversation because a teammate needs support. You act, not because you fear consequences, but because others depend on you. In this environment, leadership is practiced at every level, through the expectations people set and the ownership they take for how things unfold. This lesson extends directly to Jewish Peoplehood. Staff do not stay engaged or take initiative because they are worried about discipline. They do so because they care deeply about the mission, about their campers and about the community they are helping to build. Caring for community means showing up consistently, staying when things are hard and taking responsibility even when not formally assigned. Peoplehood is not theoretical. It is behavioral. Camp staff often describe the need to think one step ahead. At camp, accountability is practiced as a way of setting yourself and the people around you up for success. A programmer checks the weather before an outdoor activity and adjusts the plan. A division head confirms staffing before a large program begins. A staff member leaves dinner early to prepare materials for the evening program, so no one is scrambling while campers wait. People learn to confirm expectations, clarify timelines, and plan their day with others in mind. Learned in an environment where people rely on one another constantly, this way of working extends beyond camp. Those who carry it into communal spaces describe asking for clarity, following through reliably, and building systems that create cognitive ease and reduce overwhelm. Camp teaches that accountability is rooted in habits and structures that allow people to stay focused on the mission and vision of their organizations. What camp uniquely offers is a proactive approach to responsibility that builds trust and makes reliability the norm, because they care deeply about the work and about one another. Accountability is an act of care. Camps teach accountability as a lived value and as an enabler of joy, not a threat to it. Jewish camps are training grounds for people who understand that belonging carries responsibility. If the Jewish people want engaged, reliable adults, we need to pay close attention to how camps teach accountability so early, so effectively, and so humanely. Camp does not teach responsibility through lectures. It teaches it through lived experience. Through daily reliance, shared purpose, and real consequences, young people learn that their actions affect others and that belonging carries obligation. We need people who know how to be accountable to one another, who follow through not because they are monitored but because they understand that others are depending on them. We need leaders who clarify expectations, who take ownership when things fall short, and who build systems that make reliability easier rather than harder. These habits do not emerge automatically in adulthood. They are practiced and reinforced in formative environments. Camp is where many first learn that accountability is an expression of care. It is where responsibility becomes relational, where trust is built through consistency, and where Jewish Peoplehood is experienced not as an idea but as a shared practice. In this way, the principle of Kol Yisrael Areivim Zeh Bazeh, that we are responsible for one another, becomes not just something we say, but it is something we live. If we value communities rooted in mutual responsibility, we need to recognize camp not only as a place of joy and identity, but as a training ground for the kind of adults our communal future depends on. Diana Bloom is an accountability consultant who works with Jewish community professionals and lay leaders to strengthen leadership, communication, and organizational effectiveness, with particular experience in residential camp settings. Bloom teaches in the Jewish professional studies masters program at the Spertus Institute and serves on the faculty of the Foundation for Jewish Camp’s Cornerstone Fellowship.

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