The Center for Leadership Initiatives announced that 35 young Jewish innovators would receive seed funding for their projects to support the realization of innovative Jewish ideas worldwide. The funds, alongside general support of the overall ROI program, were provided by philanthropist Lynn Shusterman. Selected projects range from web initiatives to music, art and film, and from community activism and education to environmental projects. Grant recipients are in their twenties or early thirties, and hail from Europe, South America, North America, the FSU, South Africa, and Israel. According to Yonaton Gordis, Executive Director of the Center for Leadership Initiatives, "The ROI Grants were created to serve as seed funds that will enable ROI ...

Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance and education center in Jerusalem, has launched two YouTube channels in advance of today's Holocaust Remembrance Day. The channels, in English and Arabic, went live Tuesday. The English channel contains testimonies from Holocaust survivors, including archival footage, historians’ lectures on key issues related to the Holocaust, footage from visits to Yad Vashem, including those of President George W. Bush in January 2008, and Pope John Paul II in March 2000, as well as human interest stories, such as family reunions. The Arabic channel has testimonies and archival footage about the Holocaust, with Arabic subtitles. “We know that YouTube is one of the most popular websites today. This ...

We hope you all had a relaxing and enjoyable Pesach. Judging from both our Web traffic counts, and "out-of-office" automated replies, we know many of you took some time off last week. Here, hopefully in easy to read form, is a summary of the various posts added during Chol HaMoed. As you will notice, not much happened in our Jewish world, but a couple of significant studies were released in the broader American philanthropic community you might want to check out. In Our Global Jewish World: A New Capacity Building Grant for Birthright Israel The Birthright Israel Foundation will be the recipient of the largest grant ever provided by the Jim Joseph Foundation. The $17.5 million gift, to be distributed over the next ...

A new study at an Irish university suggests that gossip influences generosity, reports Reuters. NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Worried about what people are saying about you? Concerns about gossip could influence behavior, including generosity, researchers said. "As it turns out, the act of gossip can indeed be quite powerful," said Jared Piazza of Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Read more here. Perhaps the Jewish Funders Network should pass the study details over to the Israeli philanthropists who participated in their recent Conference here in Jerusalem. See our previous post, Israeli Philanthropists: Afraid of Transparency.

around the Jewish media world this first morning of Chol Ha-Moed... Donor wants more aid to Jewish cause In a sign of the times for Jewish philanthropy, it is also serving to link up American Jewish donors and foundations with a new breed of Israeli philanthropists. "There's a change in the Israeli mentality. The hard years after the founding of the state taught Israeli society to schnor, to take money from America or from Europeans with guilty consciences. That mentality is changing. Israelis aren't suffering so much anymore. There's a small layer in society that can contribute greatly." Now, he believes, Israeli philanthropists should take the lead in Jewish philanthropy in order to inspire overseas Jews to do the same. "If Jews ...

The Birthright Israel Foundation will be the recipient of the largest grant ever provided by the Jim Joseph Foundation. The $17.5 million gift, to be distributed over the next five years, will provide $5 million in trip support, and an additional $12.5 million as a matching grant for building community initiatives among young adults after the trip. The program’s success has been remarkable, and that success has generated unprecedented demand from young Jewish adults to travel to Israel. Over 160,000 young Jews worldwide—110,000 of them from the North America—have participated in the Taglit-Birthright Israel trips since the program’s inception in 2000. “It is our goal, and our hope, to allow every qualified young person who applies to have the ...

In a front page article in today's Jerusalem Post, it seems there is a possible deal in the works to settle the very public, and not so nice, feud between the Jewish Agency and Nefesh B'Nefesh. It's all about ego, influence, posturing and money. Yup; basically cold hard cash, prestige and bragging rights. JAFI, the quasi-government body responsible for Aliyah, plays a part in facilitating the process for all potential Olim world-over. NBN, working solely with those from Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., is a nimble, entrepreneurial organization who helps selected Olim integrate into Israeli life. They both do good. Some services certainly overlap and could possible be eliminated by one or the other. But the prize, being ...

I finally caught up with Yossi Abramowitz last night. If you remember, he was the energetic CEO of Jewish Family and Life who resigned two years ago to move to the Negev and sort-of retire. Or for those of you in a different demographic, his wife, Rabbi Susan Silverman is the sister of Sarah. We were part of a small host group of Israeli bloggers invited to meet with the visiting American Internet gurus here for a whirlwind trip to attend an Innovation Israel blogging expedition. Rebecca Markowitz, who is part of eJewish Philanthropy's tech team, wrote a great post for IsraelPlug on the visit. Back to Yossi, I know many of you wonder what he could ...

Compass is a new guide that will highlight the most inspiring, innovative and sustainable Jewish projects in Europe today. Inspired by Slingshot, Compass is a project of the Westbury Group, a network of 25 international Foundations with a shared interest in enhancing Jewish life in Europe. Compass will feature the 50 most inspiring organizations in Europe today in a Zagat-style guide. With Compass, the sponsors hope to create a map of European Jewish activity that will inspire and encourage donors, supporters and innovators across the Jewish world. They are now seeking nominations. This is a great opportunity to gain recognition from a project or organization that you are involved with or know about. The guide aims to identify organizations which ...

We have all seen stories of how media exposure has helped facilitate change. Certainly the downfall of New York's last governor was accelerated by a New York Times article.

But what about the blog-o-sphere. And particularly in our Jewish world, what place do blogs play and what place (in an ideal world) should they play.

The blog world has been instrumental in bringing into the open the apparent on-going strife at the UJC. Whether it is from anonymous bloggers at Disunited Jewish Communities or a long established communal leader and critic like Richard Wexler blogging with particular insight at UJ Thee and Me, blogs have made a visible impact. The former even bearing mention in a recent ...