Vibrant Jewish Campus Life Benefits the Entire Community

by Rabbi Hershey Novack This article articulates to the St. Louis Jewish community that their support of local Jewish campus life benefits the entire St. Louis community. More broadly, these themes resonate in similar communities throughout the country. A version of this article first appeared in the St. Louis Jewish Light. In 2008, Jewish Living magazine identified the Washington University campus area as the epicenter of one of the Top 10 Jewish communities in America, describing the school as “popular with Jews from around the country, known for its kosher kitchen and strong Hillel and Chabad programs with plenty of activities.” Indeed, St. Louis is a great city for Jewish college students. Some believe that college students are the only ones who benefit from a high caliber of Jewish... Continue Reading

What About a Charity’s Impact?

from The Chronicle of Philanthropy: Charities and Watchdog Groups Clash Over Monitoring Systems Battles between charities and the watchdog groups that help donors decide where to give escalated last week when a major trade association released drafts of two reports by scholars who say the watchdogs may do more harm than good. The studies, paid for and released by the Direct Marketing Association’s Nonprofit Federation at a meeting here, charge that the watchdog groups use evaluation systems that are confusing and simplistic. What’s more, they said, because the watchdog groups are influential, charities often take steps that are not smart in the long-term simply to garner high ratings. The watchdog organizations they studied are the American Institute of Philanthropy, Better Business Bureau’s Wise... Continue Reading

Limmud Fest: Expanding Jewish Horizons Under The Stars

by Ariel Kahn In its gorgeous new Suffolk location, this year’s Limmud Fest was blessed with some sunshine and an extraordinary degree of good cheer. Marketed as “the hottest festival in the British Jewish calendar”, the volunteer-run residential festival attracted a record 650 participants for four days of non-stop Jewish learning and culture. The sunny rolling hills of the South Downs were home to over 150 sessions of learning, the majority of which took place outdoors – a true celebration of Judaism without walls and a chance to embrace the Hebrew month of Ellul in the tradition of reflection and learning for which it is known. First timer Mikey Franklin, a London-based policitcal activist and educator summed up his experience in four words: “Fabulous, tiring, exciting, engaging.” The... Continue Reading

New Programs Assist Doctors With Aliyah

Israel has a doctor shortage and as a result a new series of initiatives has been launched – spearheaded by the Jewish Agency (JAFI) – to facilitate the aliyah and absorption of doctors into the country’s health system. Within the framework of one of the programs, 30 doctors made aliyah this week and headed to JAFI’s Beit Canada absorption center in Ashdod. During their first year in Israel they will learn Hebrew and take a preparatory course for the Israeli medical licensing exam. Those who pass the exam will begin working in hospitals connected to the Clalit health fund and the Ministry of Health. A second group of 16 doctors will be arriving at Kibbutz Merhaviya in October as part of the “First Home in the Homeland” project. This program is aimed at doctors with more... Continue Reading

In Boca, There Goes the Neighborhood

from The Jewish Week: JCC, Synagogues In Holy War In Boca … the JCC’s decision has ignited a war in this heavily Jewish Broward County community. As synagogues around the country struggle with membership numbers and count on the High Holy Days to sign up congregants, thereby padding their coffers, rabbis here are seeing the JCC’s action as “usurpation” and an “invasion.” There are even fears that Boca synagogues might ban a representative of the Jewish federation, which funds the JCC, from making his annual High Holy Day pitch. And as JCCs around the country shed their old image of being merely a gym and a pool and instead search for a new mission – including offering services and religious programming, particularly aimed at the large numbers of unaffiliated Jews – the... Continue Reading

Happy Birthday Ralph!

Today, Ralph Goldman turns 96. And he can still be seen, as active as ever, bustling around Jerusalem, Blackberry in hand. Here in Israel, Ralph’s achievements are part of legend. He is the father of its JCC movement and founder of the Brookdale Institute and The Israel Center for Social Policy Studies, (now named the JDC Myers Institute and the Marilyn and Henry Taub Center for Social Policy Studies, respectively) and ESHEL. Before that he was a guiding spirit behind Malben, the program that gave Israel its first, rudimentary social services infrastructure in the early days of statehood. And before even that, he was the advisor to Prime Minister Ben-Gurion on relations with the U.S. Jewish community and the founder of the Israel Education Fund. Prior to statehood he was a member of Teddy Kollek’s... Continue Reading

After Katrina, Creating Community All Over Again

The New Orleans Jewish Day School Reemerges From Disaster by H. Glenn Rosenkrantz Metairie, LA – Kindergarten classroom, destroyed. Administrative offices, gone. First and second grade facilities, upended. Materials and resources, washed away or damaged. And that was just on the first floor. Hurricane Katrina’s rage and the resulting floodwaters five years ago this week spared precious little, and the New Orleans Jewish Day School – situated here on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain just west of the city – was no exception. “The storm demolished us,” said Dr. Bob Berk, head of school. “The school was wiped out.” Nearly 100 students, from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade, had barely begun the academic year when Hurricane Katrina changed everything. For the school and... Continue Reading

What Do Fundraising and Anne Frank’s Tree Have in Common?

by Barbara Maduell “I was in Montana, conducting feasibility study interviews.” That was the dry, seemingly boring answer I gave to friends and colleagues who asked me where I went last week. In fact, interviewing an organization’s stakeholders is a critically important part of the planning process for any special campaign initiative. The one-on-one conversations provide candid community feedback about the strength of an organization’s mission, identify potential leadership and major donors, develop compelling campaign messages, and clarify next steps to ensure that staff and volunteers are prepared for a time-consuming yet exhilarating and transformative effort. One of the interview questions we always ask donors is whether they feel satisfied with the way in which our client organization solicits,... Continue Reading

PresenTense: Managing a Worldwide Staff

from NTEN (Nonprofit Technology Network): “Google Was Our First Office”: Managing a Worldwide Staff [PresenTense] PT used technology from day one, says Simi Hinden, the director of the online community. A print magazine is one of PT’s main activities, providing an additional channel for the global community of young Jews to exchange ideas. “Google was our first office”, Simi explains. They used Google docs to help share documents with the volunteers worldwide as they worked on the magazine. They also used wufoo.com, which helps create online forms, process applications for programs, manage magazine applications, subscriptions and more. CRM PT started using Salesforce.com in 2008, taking advantage of its free licenses for nonprofits. Salesforce helps manage PT’s contacts,... Continue Reading

Lynn Schusterman: Unintimidated Philanthropist

by Eetta Prince-Gibson The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation (CLSFF), chaired by Lynn Schusterman from Tulsa, Oklahoma, is a primary supporter of Bat Kol, the Israeli organization for religious lesbians. CLSFF is one of the largest Jewish-centric philanthropic foundations and donates, according to most estimates, some $70 million annually to a wide range of primarily, but not solely, Jewish projects. Bat Kol is part of ROI, one of CLSFF’s flagship projects, which, according to its publications, “aims to support young leaders worldwide who are making Jewish life more exciting and accessible.” In and extensive and telephone interview with The Jerusalem Report, Schusterman, 70, discusses her support for ROI, her engagement with the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender)... Continue Reading

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