The parents of fallen American Israeli soldier Omer Neutra, whose body is being held captive by Hamas in Gaza, denounced the Israeli government’s decision to resume the war against the terror group in the Strip, saying the move puts the remaining hostages in peril, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross. Speaking to journalists yesterday on the sidelines of the Ruderman Family Foundation’s annual conference at the University of Haifa, Ronen and Orna Neutra said that they did not believe that the strikes launched by Israel against Hamas in the predawn hours of Tuesday morning would pressure the terror group into releasing additional hostages. “There’s an understanding by the two governments — the American and the Israeli —  that [renewed strikes] are the way to return the hostages. We are not at all convinced that this is the case,” Ronen Neutra said.

The people, the institutions: The Neutras, who are both Israeli but have lived in Plainview, N.Y., for many years, expressed amazement and appreciation for the national and local American Jewish communities’ outpouring of support for them, alongside disappointment with the mainstream American Jewish communal organizations, whom they said did not sufficiently support the cause of the hostages. “What we’ve experienced within the communities from the people, it’s unbelievable support throughout this past year,” Orna Neutra said. “When they announced that Omer had been killed, thousands of Jews from all of the metropolitan New York area came to his memorial service and shiva. They stood in line, waiting in the cold to come in.” Ronen pointed toward the mainstream Jewish communal organizations’ inclination for deference to Israel as the reason why these groups were less forceful about the hostage issue. “The wall-to-wall support that most of the Jewish organizations have for Israel, no matter what the government does, worked against us,” he said. 

Read the full report here.

As President Donald Trump set his sights on Columbia University this month, pulling $400 million in federal funding and moving to deport a former graduate student who led last year’s anti-Israel encampment, predictably partisan responses emerged. The president’s detractors cried that he is mounting a full-scale attack on higher education and liberal values. His supporters cheered what they see as a president hell-bent on fighting campus antisemitism and progressive excess. New York Times columnist Bret Stephens sees merit in both views — and thinks taking the center path is actually very Jewish. “Why be Jewish unless you can make fine-toothed distinctions between different situations?” Stephens told Gabby Deutch for eJewishPhilantropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider, in an interview yesterday on the sidelines of a Miami gathering for Zionist rabbis organized by the Leffell Foundation, Paul E. Singer Foundation and Maimonides Fund.

Case by case: The funding cuts to Columbia, where antisemitism has flourished since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and ensuing war, do not bother Stephens. “They are not entitled to the money. They have a multibillion-dollar endowment. Figure it out,” he said. But while Columbia may have deserved it, for instance, Johns Hopkins University — which lost $800 million in federal funding as a result of Trump’s decision to freeze USAID projects — did not, Stephens argued. Though he may not be troubled by Trump’s targeting of Columbia as an institution, he thinks the arrest of its former student and protest leader Mahmoud Khalil was a step too far. “The current claim, which is that he was saying things we don’t like, strikes me as a violation of the spirit of the First Amendment,” Stephens said. “It sends a chill down every green card holder, which included my wife for her first 16 years in America.” He added: “We should not have to forsake our liberalism to fight this battle.”

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“To paraphrase Ecclesiastes, there is a time to bank resources and capital, and there is a time to spend; a time to be silent and a time to speak,” writes Shai Franklin, a former former Jewish community executive and now a lobbyist and consultant, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.

Step up because you can: “The Jewish establishment — including supporters of President Donald Trump — has largely been caught off guard by the ‘new normal’ since Jan. 20… Unlike nonprofits, which depend on fundraising and often must defer to the interests of their lay leaders, foundations and donor-advised funds have far more flexibility to fund, to act and to speak up. Decades from now, family names may be remembered by how they responded when so many causes and constituencies were being threatened and even shut down… Now is the time to ensure grantees have the resilience and adaptability to transition to a new reality where government support and even protection cannot be assumed. Waiting this out, perhaps until after the next congressional or presidential elections, is effectively sitting it out. As important as endowments are for generating interest revenue and undergirding a legacy of impact, and as risk-averse as foundations normally need to be, for many causes today is the rainy day you’ve been saving for.”

Read the full piece here.

“Without a passionate and committed workforce, nonprofits cannot reach their full potential in providing the support and programs crucial to the Jewish future. While the high turnover rate and shortage of professionals in this sector — from teachers to administrators to clergy — is often talked about, not enough is said about the long-term effects of these challenges,” writes Josh Joseph,executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Orthodox Union, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “The assumption is that these challenges would naturally resolve if only salaries went up and finally drew adequate numbers of people to the field and ensured that they stayed. But this might be the wrong way to look at it.”

Value-adding the pipeline: “While employees in all fields aspire to earn more money, 50% of nonprofit employees surveyed by the National Council of Nonprofits cited stress and burnout as primary reasons for leaving their jobs. This is another symptom of the failure of nonprofit organizations to nurture a pipeline of talent. Organizations need processes that encourage employees to join, stay and grow along the way. If that pipeline works well, the supply, too, will inevitably grow. This model has proven itself in the corporate world over the last half-century. The nonprofit world should consider pursuing a similar, but tailored, approach. Building this pipeline is an investment, and it should be prioritized and viewed as such rather than as a cost, an idea recently explored by Joshua D. Margolis and Gali Cooks in eJewishPhilanthropy [‘A talent investment mindset: The next frontier for Jewish communal innovation,’ March 7]. Margolis and Cooks wisely suggested several approaches to seeing talent as an investment, including establishing a healthy culture, offering training and professional development. I would like to build on that and explore how organizations can take such practical suggestions to the next level by thinking about the pipeline itself.”

Read the full piece here.

“In a world increasingly shaped by shallow discourse, where social media rewards outrage over understanding, this is what we must rebuild: the skills to listen, to care, to sit with complexity, and to hold space for one another,” writes Rebecca Voorwinde, CEO of the Bronfman Fellowship, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “Our young people — both Israeli and American — see through the public discourse. They are frustrated by the dishonesty, the posturing, the lack of real engagement. They are looking for something deeper.” 

Genuine encounters: “A few months ago, I sat in a room with young Israeli and American Jews who were engaging in the kind of conversation that has become increasingly rare: one that was unscripted, unfiltered and deeply honest… The young Israelis we brought to the U.S. did not come to offer polished talking points. They spoke candidly about their experiences, their grief, their anger and their fears for the future, and they offered a wide spectrum of political views and ideas about what their country needs to move forward in safety… They gained strength in these exchanges because their American Jewish peers truly listened and shared their own range of views, questions and feelings. It reminded them that the Jewish story is not just an Israeli or an American one, and that both distinct communities remain invested in the future and can bolster each other.”

Read the full piece here.