Your Daily Phil: One survivor to another: Freed Israeli hostage visits Holocaust survivor retreat
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we interview Julie Sandorf about her nearly 18-year tenure as president of the Revson Foundation and her concerns for the future of New York and the mayoral candidacy of Zohran Mamdani. We cover a recent summer retreat for Holocaust survivors in the Catskills and report on a new Anti-Defamation League study on the warning signs of school shooters. We feature an opinion piece by Samantha Vinokor-Meinrath and Rabba Yaffa Epstein about the relationship between Jewish text study and Israel education. Also in this issue: Cantor Daniel Singer, Salah Abu Hussein and Brandon Korff.
Ed. note: The next edition of Your Daily Phil will arrive in your inbox on Monday, Aug. 25, as eJewishPhilanthropy shifts to a four-day schedule for the rest of August. Shabbat shalom!
What We’re Watching
The American Jewish Committee is holding a web event this afternoon with the founders of The Dinah Project focused on justice for the victims of the sexual violence that took place on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Milken Institute’s Hamptons Dialogues kicks off this morning on Long Island. What we’re looking out for: On Friday, Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman will speak about K-12 education and the Alpha School, a project he has promoted in recent months that eschews DEI programming and focuses on AI-driven education.
On Saturday morning, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will speak with Michael Milken in conversation about global challenges and opportunities.
And on Sunday, there will be back-to-back sessions about the future of American cities, featuring NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein and Related Companies’ Stephen Ross. Rubenstein, who also owns the Baltimore Orioles, will again take the stage Sunday afternoon for a conversation about sports investments, which will also feature Len Blavatnik.
What You Should Know
When Julie Sandorf took over as president of the foundation named for Revlon founder Charles Revson in January 2008, the country was in the grip of the financial meltdown known as the Great Recession.
Under Sandor’s guidance, the Charles H Revson Foundation, a nationally focused philanthropy created in 1956 to support Jewish life, Israel and biomedical research, intensified its focus on the New York City metropolitan area, with the intent of creating frameworks for national impact through local civic life. Over the course of nearly two decades, the foundation funded local journalism, which had wilted under the financial pressure of the recession; propped up the city’s library system; and supported postdoctoral fellows across the city and the surrounding area, as well as helped create Manhattan’s Culture Pass and the Center for Pastoral Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Eighteen years later, many of the foundation’s funding priorities have been hit hard under President Donald Trump’s administration. At the same time, many fear that New York City itself is changing, with the possibility that a democratic socialist, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, may become mayor at a time of rising antisemitism in the most Jewish city in the world.
Following the recent announcement that she will be stepping down from her role at the end of the year, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim spoke with Sandorf about her time at Revson, the state of journalism, how she views the current political moment and what’s next for her.
ND: You’re moving on from the Revson Foundation after nearly two decades, two particularly eventful ones at that. Why now, and what’s next?
JS: Well, I should start by saying that it has been the greatest joy and privilege to serve the trustees of the Revson Foundation, a foundation that’s had really a remarkable history of punching above its weight class and taking risks and being pretty fearless about trying new ideas. It has been just a remarkable, remarkable experience…
So what’s next, and why now? I’m going to be 68 in December, and before I entirely lose what brain cells I have left, I would like to do some writing. I’d like to do some reflecting on the amazing opportunities that I’ve had professionally. And I’d like to be able to walk to a museum in the morning, if I feel like it, and explore areas of interest that because of both my professional life and my volunteer activities on boards, I haven’t had the time to do. And, you know, it’s time. It’s time. I feel like we are living in a time of generational change, and I have always been lucky in knowing when it is time to move off the stage.
ND: Under your leadership, Revson pivoted to focus deeply on New York City — housing needs, arts and culture, support for immigrants, etc. At the same time, Jewish life and Israel are a huge part of Charles Revson’s original commitments. It’s a particularly interesting time to be a funder at this intersection, with many fearing that the position of the city’s Jewish community is shifting for the worse. How do you view that and what do you make of Mamdani?
JS: … With respect to the [mayoral] election, oh boy. At Revson we look at civic infrastructure as the key pillars of a strong society. This is true in Israel, and it’s true in New York. Those pillars are strengthening our civic squares — I feel our greatest accomplishments has been the strengthening of our public branch libraries across the city, our work in journalism, our work to support vibrant open spaces and parks and our work to engage folks in civic life, through voting and through being informed citizens and exercising this incredible privilege we have in the United States.
When I reflect on the primary election, Mamdani ran a great campaign. His campaign embodied “small-d democracy,” all things that we believe in. Engaging citizens, engaging people on the future of our city. He’s very talented at doing that. And I also admired the positivity and hope and optimism that he brought to that campaign.
As a Jew and a 42-year resident of the city of New York, I would like to know where the red lines are between freedom of speech and freedom of protest and breaking the law and harassment and assault and larceny and destruction of public property and private property. I would like to know where he would, as mayor, draw that line. Because I am a true believer in freedom of speech and freedom of peaceful protest, but all too often in New York City, especially since Oct. 7, that line was crossed with little consequence. I would also love to know who he would see as his leadership cabinet and his agency commissioners. I worked closely with city government for almost my entire career, and effective city government is all about who gets hired, period. So those are my questions. I am eagerly awaiting those answers.
ENJOYING EVERY MOMENT
Holocaust survivors enjoy brisket, comedy and crafts at annual Catskills summer retreat, meet freed Israeli hostage
Lillian Feintuch was 5½ when the Nazis took Hungary, sweeping her family from their home into the ghetto. This past Tuesday, she sat at a brown folding table smiling proudly over a bejeweled silver and pearl necklace she had made. It’s all part of the programming at this year’s five-day Adolph and Lotte Rosenberg Summer Retreat for Holocaust survivors, which wraps up on Thursday at the Hudson Valley Resort and Spa in the Catskills. “This is an amazing place to be,” she told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher at the gathering in Kerhonkson, N.Y. “For the rest of the year, I think about the good times that I’m having here.” This year’s programming included magic shows, morning walks, an Orthodox comedian, kugel making and plenty of bingo.
Survivor to survivor: A partnership between Blue Card and Nachas Health and Family Network — two nonprofits that support financially insecure survivors — this year’s retreat was attended by over 40 survivors, mostly from the predominantly Orthodox Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. On Tuesday, a bus of volunteers, including former Israeli hostage Andrei Kozlov, visited the group. “It’s really impressive someone can put something like this together,” former Israeli hostage Andrei Kozlov, who endured Hamas’ captivity for 247 days, told eJP. “It’s important to bring joy into [the lives] of people like this.”
Time-limited mission: As joyous as every year’s retreat is, there is also a sense of loss, Masha Pearl, executive director of Blue Card, told eJP. Over the next decade, the survivor population is expected to shrink by 70%. Most in attendance at the retreat were young children during the Shoah. “Over these years [that the retreat has run], we’ve lost some survivors that were very near and dear to us, and we were grateful that we were able to make an impact in their lives,” Pearl said. “It’s definitely a rare opportunity, and it’s a time-limited mission.”
WARNING SIGNS
New ADL report highlights white supremacist forum inspiring school shooters
In December 2024, Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow opened fire at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisc., killing two and injuring six before taking her own life. A month later, Solomon Henderson shot and killed one person and wounded another at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tenn., before also killing himself. What ties the two heinous acts together, a new report from the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism suggests, is an online community of white supremacists increasingly recruiting and inspiring school shooters like Rupnow and Henderson, reports Haley Cohen for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
An ounce of prevention: The research, published Thursday as an interactive timeline, analyzes the two school shootings that occurred weeks apart. Despite happening in different states, the report found overlapping online activity between the young perpetrators. The ADL said it plans to share the timeline with 16,000 school superintendents, urging them to “consider how their students may be able to access the type of dangerous content highlighted in the timeline while on their campuses and in their classrooms.”
Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
FUNDAMENTALLY INTERTWINED
Why Jewish texts matter in Israel education
“An inherent pedagogical challenge at the heart of Israel education is the question of how we can connect young Diaspora Jews to Israel in authentic, personally meaningful and sustainable ways,” write Samantha Vinokor-Meinrath, senior director of knowledge, ideas and learning at The Jewish Education Project, and Rabba Yaffa Epstein, TJEP’s senior scholar and educator-in-residence, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Foundational reading: “Jewish texts have served as a means of inspiration and meaning over millennia. Today, they have a new challenge and embody a new opportunity. They must become as integral in the way we teach about Israel as they have been in the way we teach about other aspects of Jewish heritage. Our canonical texts can provide our learners with a shared language, a sense of rootedness in their history as members of the Jewish people and a meaningful framework within which to grapple with their heritage in all its complexity. Jewish texts show us that while we may often describe our current moment as ‘unprecedented,’ the existential dilemmas of today have been present throughout our collective history; and as such, we have core wisdom to consult about the questions of this moment.”
Worthy Reads
Lost and Found: In The Times of Israel, Cantor Daniel Singer examines the Jewish history of Superior, Wis., including his family’s and Bob Dylan’s, after the town’s long-lost Torah ark from its Lithuanian synagogue, Agudas Achim, suddenly resurfaced. “It had been sitting for more than a decade in an antique store in Two Harbors, Minnesota, a relic of a community thought long erased. … The timing was uncanny. At that very moment, my colleague Rabbi Andy Bachman was in Superior, working with the Wisconsin Jewish Federation to preserve abandoned Jewish cemeteries across the state. He offered to cross the bridge to Duluth to say Kaddish at my father’s grave. … My father, an English Literature professor and librarian, was also a local historian who devoted his life to documenting Superior’s lost stories: from sports heroes and shipbuilders to the Jewish community. To learn of the ark’s rediscovery just as a rabbi was reciting my father’s poem over his grave — on the eve of Tisha B’Av, no less — felt like more than a coincidence. It was a reminder that memory is fragile, but it can be saved.” [TOI]
Front-Load for Success: In The Wall Street Journal, Emil Barr offers somewhat countercultural advice for others in pursuit of excellence, impact and building wealth. “I’m 22 and I’ve built two companies that together are valued at more than $20 million. I’ve signed up my alma mater as a client, connected with billionaire mentors and secured deferred admission to Stanford’s M.B.A. program. When people ask how I did it, the answer isn’t what they expect — or want — to hear. I eliminated work-life balance entirely and just worked. When you front-load success early, you buy the luxury of choice for the rest of your life… I plan to become a billionaire by age 30. Then I will have the time and resources to tackle problems close to my heart like climate change, species extinction and economic inequality. The formula is simple: Sacrifices I make now are an investment in decades of choice later.” [WSJ]
Qatari Quagmire: In Mosaic, Danielle Pletka, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, proposes a crackdown in foreign funding of American universities to address antisemitism on college campuses. “Is Qatar the only driver of campus anti-Semitism? Absolutely not. The resurgence of Marxist thought, critical race theory, and the ‘intersectionality’ that demands that Jews must be reviled along with racism, fossil fuels, ‘settler colonialists,’ and social conservatives deserves a significant chunk of the blame. But there should be little doubt that, in a campus environment hostile to Israel, Zionists, and Jews, the contributions of a country well known for its support for the Muslim Brotherhood and its Hamas progeny is a significant factor. And Qatar isn’t going away any time soon.” [Mosaic]
Word on the Street
Salah Abu Hussein, an Israeli national who has been imprisoned in Lebanon for the past year, was returned to Israel today following negotiations between the countries and with assistance from the International Red Cross…
Brandon Korff, who spearheaded the $35 billion sale of Paramount Global, is seeking residency status in Israel, in what Israeli officials are describing as a vote of confidence in the country…
In The Conversation, Sarah Webber reviews the laws regarding donations made with stolen funds following the recent scandal involving Matthew Christopher Pietras, who gave millions of dollars to cultural institutions that he allegedly pilfered from his employers…
New Jersey’s Jewish Community Voice interviews Zev Eleff, president of Gratz College, about his forthcoming book about American exceptionalism…
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry criticized what it called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “clumsy intervention” and “inflammatory and provocative” comments made in the wake of Canberra’s cancelation of a visa for far-right Israeli MK Simcha Rothman; in response, Netanyahu lambasted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as a “a weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews”…
B’nai Brith Canada issued an open letter calling on Prime Minister Mark Carney to reverse his plans to recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly next month…
A group of 80 Modern Orthodox rabbis signed on to a letter calling for Israel and its supporters to act with “moral clarity” in regards to the humanitarian situation in Gaza…
Kyoko Uchida breaks down new research in Candid about a coalition-building approach to community improvement…
The New York Yankees drafted a shortstop who in 2021 had scrawled a swastika on the dorm room door of a Jewish student; Core Jackson, whose acquisition despite the incident was approved by Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner, has expressed remorse for his actions, telling The Athletic he was “blackout drunk” at the time and had no memory of the incident…
An Israeli academic is suing the University of California, Berkeley, alleging that the school, where she had taught a class in 2022, had invited her to apply for another teaching position and rejected her application because she is Israeli; in the lawsuit, Yael Nativ said that the chair of the school’s theater department told her that she would not be offered a position because “[t]hings are very hot right now and many of our grad students are angry” over the political situation in Israel and Gaza…
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into Haverford College, three months after the President Wendy Raymond dodged questions regarding antisemitism on the Pennsylvania university’s campus at a congressional hearing…
Major Gifts
Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, raised $23 million at its recent 2025 Founders Dinner in Miami to support its medical center in Jerusalem; the bulk of the funds came from Ernest and Evelyn Rady, Eva Cantor and Jane Winer, who each made multimillion-dollar pledges worth a combined $18 million…
Pic of the Day
Members of Kibbutz Sufa in the Gaza border region inaugurate a new community garden in memory of three members who were killed in the Oct. 7 attacks: Bernard Cohen, Ofir Erez and Ido Hubara. The garden was donated by JNF-KKL Scotland, and the ceremony marked the first communal gathering in the kibbutz since Oct. 7, 2023.
“After a long and difficult period, we are finally returning home, step by step. The return to Sufa is not only a physical return, but also a return to our shared life, our values, and the resilience that has always guided us,” Amit Weitz, community director of Kibbutz Sufa, said at the event. “We will forever remember our friends who were murdered and fell in the horrific massacre, and their heroism until their last moments. We thank JNF-KKL Scotland for its contribution and look forward to a safe and peaceful return to a full and joyful life in the kibbutz.”
Birthdays
President of Maimonides Fund, Mark S. Charendoff…
Retired owner of Effective Strategy Consultants, South Florida resident, Irwin Wecker… Senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit (with chambers in Chicago), the first woman appointed to this court, Judge Ilana Kara Diamond Rovner… President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology until the end of 2022, L. Rafael Reif… Former chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, he was the first Jewish chief justice in Ohio history, Eric S. Brown… Israeli-born pawnbroker and star of the reality television series “Beverly Hills Pawn,” Yossi Dina… Mexican writer, playwriter and journalist whose work is related to diversity and its obstacles, Sabina Berman Goldberg… Businessman and collector of modern and contemporary art, he is a partner in the NFL’s Washington Commanders, Mitchell Rales… Israeli physician who was a member of the Knesset, he now serves as mayor of Ashdod, Dr. Yehiel Lasri… Photographer best known for his fashion and celebrity images, Jerry Avenaim… Israeli career diplomat who served for six years as Consul General in New York, Ido Aharoni… United States secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent… Co-founder of BlueLine Grid, he was previously an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles and a member of the Los Angeles City Council, Jack Weiss… Member of the philanthropic leadership group for the UJA-Federation of New York, Chavie N. Kahn… Partner at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts-KKR where he is the global head of public affairs and a co-head of global impact, Ken Mehlman… President of Berger Hirschberg Strategies, Rachel Hirschberg Light… Co-founder of Google, Sergey Brin… MLB pitcher for nine teams in a 16-season career, he was the starting pitcher in three of Team Israel’s first four games in the 2017 World Baseball Classic, all of which the team won, Jason Marquis… District attorney of San Francisco, elected in 2019 and recalled in 2022, Chesa Boudin… Head coach of the Temple University Owls men’s basketball team, Adam Fisher… President at Bold Decision, Adam Rosenblatt… Missions manager for domestic and overseas travel at the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, Erica N. Miller… Communications director at Breakthrough Energy, David Abadian Heifetz… Pop singer and songwriter, Madeline Fuhrman… Associate editor at Simon & Schuster, Tzipora (Tzippy) Baitch… An Argov fellow at Reichman University and a Lauder fellow at the World Jewish Congress, Noa Rakel Perugia… Lynn Sharon… James Barton…
