Make Yourself a Friend at a Jewish Summer Camp by Amy L. Sales The Ramah camps, a jewel of the Conservative movement, set their clocks to Ramah time, which is an hour off from time in the real world. When I first visited these camps when I was working on a national study of Jewish summer camps, I found the shift curious. Summer days are long and lazy and although people at camp are aware of meal time, swim time, and tefillah time, they seem unconcerned with 10 o’clock versus 11. I have come, however, to appreciate the symbolism of the time change. It is another way in which camp is set apart from life back home, separate from the rest of the world, a cultural island. It also reinforces the message that camp is not about time. It’s about life lived in the here and now. The research, … Continue Reading
Hartman Institute Expands to North America
The Shalom Hartman Institute is building on the work it has long done in Jerusalem by expanding programming directly to North America. Yehuda Kurtzer has been selected to spearhead this new initiative. Two years ago, Kurtzer was selected from over 200 other applicants as the first Charles R. Bronfman Visiting Chair in Jewish Communal Innovation at Brandeis University. In announcing the expansion, Donniel Hartman, the Institute's president, said, “The vitality and independence of the North American Jewish community requires us to have a North American base of operations to ensure that we sufficiently serve this community. North America has its own unique challenges. We need to make sure that we service the Jewish community there at the highest level, which is tough to do at a 6,000-mile … Continue Reading
Fundraising Continues Strong at Brandeis
Brandeis University enjoyed another strong fundraising year in fiscal year 2010, securing $72 million in donations. It was the fifth consecutive year in which the total exceeded $70 million. The target for the all-important Annual Fund, which supports student financial aid and other urgent needs, also was exceeded, by 30 percent. The positive results for the fiscal year that ended June 30 came despite continued economic turbulence around the world and a presidential transition at Brandeis. Jehuda Reinharz, PhD ’72, who has served as president since 1994, will step down on January 1, 2011, and be succeeded by Frederick Lawrence, who is currently dean of the George Washington University Law School. During fiscal year 2010, Brandeis received seven new commitments of $1 million to $4.25 million, … Continue Reading
Jim Joseph Foundation Makes $5.2m Grant to DeLeT
The Jim Joseph Foundation has awarded a three-year, $5.2 million grant to the DeLeT teacher education program at Brandeis University and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. The grant extends a donor relationship between the foundation and DeLeT that began two years ago. According to an evaluation commissioned by the foundation, DeLeT represents a “paradigm shift” in the preparation of Jewish day school teachers, integrating graduate coursework with a yearlong immersive field experience in partner schools. As of this summer, the program will have prepared more than 130 Jewish day school teachers, working in 40 schools across the U.S. DeLeT, the Hebrew word for “door,” stands for Day School Leadership through Teaching. Philanthropist Laura Lauder founded the … Continue Reading
Brandeis Names New President
Frederick M. Lawrence, dean of the George Washington University Law School and one of the nation’s leading experts on civil rights and free expression, has been named president of Brandeis University. Lawrence, 54, will become the university’s eighth president on Jan. 1, 2011. He will succeed President Jehuda Reinharz, who announced last October that he was stepping down after more than 16 years as president. Reinharz will join the Mandel Foundation, an international philanthropy, as president when he departs Brandeis. During his long tenure, Reinharz has overseen the physical redevelopment of the Brandeis campus, raised $1.2 billion for the university, substantially increased the diversity of the student body, and made it possible for any qualified student seeking a Brandeis education to … Continue Reading
Allocating Federation Money: The Continuing Saga
The global Jewish media, including eJewish Philanthropy, has recently been somewhat pre-occupied with both the new strategic direction of the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) and the very public discussion of how declining overseas dollars are allocated by the Jewish federation system, including the percentage split between JAFI and the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). As to the latter, while on the one hand all three organizations bemoan the public nature of the debate, all three are playing the media the best they can. As crunch time appears to be coming on many funding fronts, one forgets that this debate over splitting allocations between JAFI and JDC is anything but new - in fact, it has been ranging on and off since before the establishment of the State of Israel. Today we are just … Continue Reading
Behind the Scenes at America’s Largest Jewish Charity
Mission, Meaning, and Money: How the Joint Distribution Committee Became a Fundraising Innovator a review by Stephen G. Donshik Mark Rosen teaches at the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program at Brandeis University and he has written a seminal study in how a major American Jewish organization with world wide impact has broadened its base of support through creatively working with its board of directors, its donors and supporters, its staff, and with local Jewish Federations throughout North America. Recently, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (or the JDC as it is known) has been in the spotlight because it is considering a separation from the decades-old way its funds are allocated. Over the last 50+ years, the effort to raise and allocate funds has always been … Continue Reading
Pulling Back the Curtain on The Joint
Mark Rosen provides an inside look at how the JDC became a fundraising innovator. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), a global humanitarian organization, is a fundraising powerhouse; the JDC raises more than $100 million annually from a variety of sources. This figure is even more impressive, though, when you consider that the organization, which originally operated solely on funds provided by the North American system of Jewish Federations, didn’t begin its own development phase until the late 1990s. In his new book, “Mission, Meaning, and Money: How the Joint Distribution Committee Became a Fundraising Innovator,” Mark I. Rosen, of the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program at Brandeis University, explores how the JDC was able to establish such a successful … Continue Reading
Fundraising Challenges at Brandeis
from thejusticeonline.com (an independent student publication at Brandeis University) Alumni pool to increase It will take Brandeis another 25 years to have a pool of alumni comparable to that of older private universities that can rely on more alumni for fundraising, according to an initial report by the Faculty Development Advisory Committee that highlights both the successes and challenges of the Office of Development and Fundraising. ... "While our fundraising from alumni has gradually increased. We are still heavily dependent on gifts from non-alumni 'friends'," the report states. At other older universities, the largest share of giving comes from alumni and in particular alumni bequests. At Brandeis, the average age of an alumnus is young at 42, the report notes, and the first … Continue Reading
Reinharz to Head Mandel Foundation
Once he steps down as president of Brandeis, Jehuda Reinharz will become president of the Mandel Foundation, an internationally recognized philanthropy that provides leadership to non-profits in the United States and Israel. Morton L. Mandel, foundation chairman and chief executive officer, made the announcement Wednesday at a meeting of the foundation's Board of Trustees in Cleveland, Ohio. Mandel, who will continue to lead the foundation, said Reinharz is the first person to be named to the new position of president and will be his eventual successor and CEO. ... Reinharz will remain in office until a new president is selected and arrives on campus, or as late as June 30, 2011. Reinharz will also return to The Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry at Brandeis. The Mandel … Continue Reading
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