Who Owns the ORT Name?

from TotallyJewish.com (London): ORT Funding Questioned ECHOES of the acrimonious dispute that rocked relations between JNF UK and KKL were heard in the Jewish charitable world again this week as the chairman of America’s United Israel Appeal urged member organisations to suspend all funding to ORT. In a letter sent to, amongst others, the Jewish Agency and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Bruce Arbit expressed his concern over ‘no less than three lawsuits between ORT Israel, World ORT and ORT America’ regarding the use of the ORT name and how money was being spent. [Translate] Bookmark:  Read More →

Private Foundations – Preliminary Estimates of Madoff Exposure

Nicholas Kristoff writing in The New York Times: Madoff and America’s (poorer) Foundations Most of the discussion of the Bernard Madoff scandal has focused on the impoverished zillionaires who are now mere millionaires. Yet much of the money invested by Mr. Madoff was money destined for charities, and so the losers will include some good causes and truly disadvantaged people. A few private foundations have owned up to the money they’ve lost with Mr. Madoff, but most haven’t. So let me help them out. I’ve obtained a list of nearly all the private foundations that invested money directly with Mr. Madoff, at least at the time of their most recent tax filings. Even in the unlikely event that they cashed out since then, they may still have to repay the money to others. [Translate] Bookmark:  Read More →

Possible Backtrack by Brandeis

Brandeis University President Jehuda Reinharz remains committed to closing the school’s Rose Art Museum but has broached the possibility of keeping its $350-million collection, reports The Boston Globe. Meeting Wednesday with about 200 students, Mr. Reinharz said Brandeis might not need to sell the modern-art trove if its economic and philanthropic situation improves. “We have no particular mandate from the board of trustees as to when to sell, how to sell,” he told the Globe in an interview. University administrators disclosed at the meeting that Brandeis’s endowment has declined more than 20 percent, from $712-million to $549-million. [Translate] Bookmark:  Read More →

Think Tank for the Jewish Future

How can we envision our Imagined Community? Last week JInsider and The Jewish Week co-hosted a brainstorming session with top Jewish thinkers, activists and journalists. The focus of the conversation was to collectively design the potential of our Imagined Community. The blueprint below is a summary detailing priorities, barriers and possibilities discussed. First, two participants weigh in. Gary Rosenblatt in The New York Jewish Week: Toward Visioning A Model Community “The wrong people are sitting around the table [of many organizations] and there is a lack of democracy,” one woman said as most of us nodded in agreement. What we were saying, in various ways, was that the vacuum in leadership and lack of Jewish education reflected a loss of values. The community has lost its bearings, and it has... Continue Reading

NewsBits: Around the Jewish Web

Touching the world of Jewish philanthropy, here are a few items appearing on other Web sites you may find of interest. from The Jerusalem Post: US Jewish leader: Israel must take more financial responsibility US Jews expect Israel to accept more financial responsibility for its needs, Rebecca Caspi, senior vice president and director general operations of UJC-Israel, said Wednesday. Caspi said that due to the economic crisis, Israel no longer was at the forefront of American Jews’ attention. “Even people who understand the importance of Israel and who have family here find it easy to forget Israel,” said Caspi. “The economic slowdown coincides with other changes taking place anyway in the Jewish world.” Caspi said that fundraising proceeds for Jewish causes in the US have... Continue Reading

JFN Announces $5 Million for Nonprofits in Crisis

The Jewish Funders Network announced today the launch of a Crisis Loan Fund to assist nonprofits harmed by the Madoff Ponzi scheme. With an initial pool of $5 million, The Crisis Loan Fund will provide bridge financing and interest subsidies to eligible 501(c)(3) nonprofits facing budget shortfalls as a result of the scheme. The fund was created through a collaboration of JFN members. JFN has also launched a Pro Bono Resource Bank that offers consulting services to nonprofits who are struggling in this down economy. ”The Crisis Loan Fund represents an immediate first step to aid nonprofits who are already scrambling to meet increased demand with rapidly diminished resources,” said JFN President, Mark Charendoff, “it’s our hope that philanthropists will join with JFN  to continue to meet the... Continue Reading

The JAFI/UJC Letters

As we posted earlier this evening, in a ground-breaking move, the UJC/Federation system is considering a plan to end their exclusive funding relationship with the Jewish Agency and the Joint. Here are the letters, in full, between Richard Pearlstone and the UJC leadership. Re: The UJC Strategic Working Group Recommendations Dear Kathy, Joe and Howard: This letter is written with regret at a time that the very fiscal survival of the Jewish Agency for Israel (“JAFI”) is at stake. We fear that United Jewish Communities is on the way to abandoning its obligations and responsibilities to the hundreds of thousands of Jews we serve every day, with the clear result of deconstructing the historic partnership between JAFI and the federations of North America while continuing to broadcast a commitment to THE... Continue Reading

JAFI/JDC Future Funding Up for Discussion

In a ground-breaking move, the UJC/Federation system is considering a plan to end their exclusive funding relationship with the Jewish Agency and the Joint. More information coming shortly. update: correspondence between JAFI’s Richard Pearlstone and the UJC’s leadership can be found here - The JAFI/UJC Letters [Translate] Bookmark:  Read More →

Madoff – Lurking in the Background at Brandeis

Colleges and universities in America are big business – and big recipients of fundraising dollars. Despite this, it is unusual for the day to day business of these institutions to make the front page of major newspapers, let alone the major philanthropy trade press. Two recently concluded and public cases involved Princeton University and Fisk University. Princeton’s multi-year and very public legal dispute with a donors family, heirs to the A & P Supermarket chain, over control of an endowment was recently settled out of court. Fisk’s fight with the Georgia O’Keefe Museum over their art collection was closely followed in both the general media and the art and philanthropy trade press. Whether either of these institutions expected the public interest is difficult to know.... Continue Reading

Madoff – For Those Who Can’t Get Enough

from Boston Magazine: Dispatch: Reversal of Fortune I found myself seated at one of the Boston tables. For months I had been going out almost every night, researching a book on Palm Beach society, and these social occasions had grown increasingly tedious. But the atmosphere this evening was electric. In half a century, the Jewish population in Palm Beach had gone from a ghettoized minority to the island’s indisputably dominant cultural and intellectual force. And within that community, it was the Bostonians who ruled as the most charitable, the most intellectual, and the most cultured. They didn’t merely make cocktail talk; they had conversations, over topics ranging from the tiniest nuances of Palm Beach society to the great issues of the world. from Vanity Fair: Madoff in Manhattan Great... Continue Reading

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