Your Daily Phil: Tripping to transcend burnout: Shefa’s first psychedelics retreat
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on the initial estimates from this week’s GivingTuesday. We also spotlight a mind-blowing new initiative using psychedelics to treat Jewish professionals’ burnout, visit a pre-Hannukah party hosted by the nonprofit Toys for Hospitalized Children and cover an emerging clash between Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington CEO Ron Halber. We feature an opinion piece by Steven Windmueller about the future of North America’s Jewish federation system and one by Rabbi Ari Lamm and Zach Briton sharing takeaways from new research on engaging with Gen Z Christians about Israel; plus, Rachel Lerner responds to yesterday’s coverage of the Matan report finding Jewish organizations fall short on disability inclusion. Also in this issue: Hillel Halkin, Sudthisak Rinthalak, Reps. Blake Moore and Danny Davis.
What We’re Watching
The UJA-Federation of New York, in partnership with the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and other Jewish groups, is hosting a solidarity gathering near Park East Synagogue in Manhattan, after the synagogue faced disruptive protests last month over an event promoting immigration to Israel.
The Milken Institute will kick off its two-day Middle East and North Africa Summit in Abu Dhabi, UAE, covering topics including the “great AI adoption race,” venture capital, philanthropy, Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, global food security and more.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH EJP’S JUDAH ARI GROSS
American nonprofits brought in some $4 billion in donations on Tuesday, representing a roughly 11% increase from last year’s $3.6 billion, the nonprofit GivingTuesday estimated yesterday.
Long since moved beyond its Jewish beginnings, the GivingTuesday concept — launched at the 92nd Street Y in New York as a charitable rebuke of the consumerist Black Friday and Cyber Monday — now serves as the unofficial launch date for all nonprofits’ final push for end-of-year donations. Since its creation in 2012, the nonprofit says that $22.5 billion has been raised through the annual fundraising initiative.
“Year after year, millions of people across the globe make GivingTuesday a priority, not because it’s a trend or because it’s new, but because generosity is woven into how we care for each other,” GivingTuesday CEO Asha Curran said in a statement. “The fact that people show up so strongly not just on GivingTuesday, but every single day, in the spirit of generosity, speaks volumes about our ability to unite around a shared vision for a better world, especially during a year as challenging as this one — one full of upheaval, uncertainty and loss in communities and across sectors.”
According to GivingTuesday, some 19.1 million people made financial donations on Tuesday, a modest 3% increase from last year. In addition, 13.5 million people donated goods and 11.1 million people took part in volunteering, a 20% increase from 2024.
“The continued growth in participation signals that more and more people are recognizing the power of collective action to create lasting change,” Curran said.
MAGICAL EXPERIENCE
Shefa launches psychedelics retreat for Jewish professionals suffering burnout
Katherine wears many hats. Maybe too many. She is a graduate student studying the intersection of Jewish ecstatic prayer experiences and psychedelics. She owns a mindfulness retreat center, and she’s a chaplain in Boston-area hospitals. If she could, she’d cure her patients’ cancer, soothe their depression, but instead, she works 60-hour-plus weeks, letting her patients’ struggles seep into her psyche, powerless to offer anything but compassion. Because of her studies, she’s tapped into the latest research on the therapeutic use of psychedelics, so when she heard that Shefa, a Jewish psychedelic support nonprofit, was launching a retreat for Jewish professionals struggling with burnout, she jumped on it, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher.
Helping the helpers: In the post-pandemic and post-Oct. 7 period, Jewish professionals are increasingly experiencing low resilience and burnout, Rabbi Zac Kamenetz, CEO of Shefa, told eJP. He’s hoping the retreats help Jewish leaders care for themselves so they can care for their communities. The five-day retreat, titled the Idra Project, was held in Portland, Ore., during the final week in October with six participants. The retreat included two-day-long psilocybin ceremonies at the Cora Center, a licensed psilocybin service center supervised by the Oregon Health Authority, and plenty of rest and relaxation at an Airbnb where participants ate kosher meals, went on nature walks and studied Jewish texts. Psilocybin, also known as magic mushrooms, was legalized for use in licensed centers in Oregon in 2020, and this was Shefa’s first such retreat, with another scheduled for January.
FESTIVAL OF LIGHT
Toys for Hospitalized Children hosts pre-Hanukkah party for cancer patient families
Twinkling lights, menorahs and tables piled high with latkes and sufganiyot gave the glow of a classic Hanukkah celebration for the 130 people who gathered in Manhattan’s Moise Safra Center on Tuesday night. But two details set this gathering apart: it was held a full two weeks before the first night of the festival of lights, and most of the attendees were cancer patients and their families. Hosted by the nonprofit Toys for Hospitalized Children, the “pre-Hanukkah Wonderland” was designed to deliver a dose of seasonal joy to the group of 12 patients and their families — many of them Israelis temporarily living in New York while undergoing treatment at nearby Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and other local hospitals, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim from the event.
Like family: Some of the families attending Tuesday’s event have been in the states for several years, with their loved ones in and out of treatment. It is Yifat Isergan’s third year in New York, as her daughter, Maya, undergoes treatment. “She was waiting for this party with all her people, with all her family. It’s great for her, because treatments and hospitals, it’s not easy. But she’s happy. She’s happy, I’m happy,” Isergan told eJP. “The situation is difficult. So thank God for this. We need this. It’s like family. This is like my family.”
HEATED EXCHANGE
Sen. Van Hollen attacks D.C.’s JCRC chief Ron Halber as Netanyahu ‘apologist’
A spokesperson for Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) attacked Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington CEO Ron Halber by name, accusing the Jewish leader of being an “apologist for the Netanyahu government” yesterday in response to Halber’s own criticisms of the Maryland senator to reporters earlier in the day, reports Marc Rod for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider. The comments reflect a remarkable breach between a leading representative of the D.C.-area Jewish community and a senator whom Halber said had once been an ally on a range of issues.
Shots fired: “Sen. Van Hollen, I think, has dramatically lost his way with support for Israel,” Halber told reporters at a JCRC breakfast event in Washington’s Maryland suburbs. “His social media is filled with a lack of empathy for Jewish suffering. It’s filled with a lack of empathy for Israel’s strategic position. It’s almost like [he] cannot wait for the next opportunity to jump down Israel’s throat.” A Van Hollen spokesperson fired back, accusing Halber of failing to represent “the diversity of views that… are held by the Jewish community of Maryland” and of becoming “an apologist for the Netanyahu government.”
Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
Bonus: At the JCRC breakfast, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore announced that, in his 2027 budget request to the state legislature, he would be maintaining support for $10 million in funding for Maryland’s Protecting Against Hate Crimes Grant Program, which offers funding for nonprofits and religious organizations, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
WINDS OF CHANGE
Revisiting communal philanthropy: A deeper look at the federation model and its future
“As Jewish communities struggle to reenvision their communal enterprise, we are seeing federations in communities with declining Jewish populations and facing diminished resources confronting existential questions; and at the same time, in other regions of the country we are witnessing the growth of new institutional possibilities as communities demonstrate new levels of vitality,” writes Steven Windmueller, professor emeritus of Jewish communal studies at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “Once a system bound by a common focus, today one finds the federation world in search of alternative visions, different sets of managing and organizing models and diverse programmatic options.”
From movement to marketplace: “The notion of locality or community remains a unique and defining element of federations’ work — federations are distinctively reflective of their communities, their cultures, histories and traditions — and umbrella structures continue to provide key services. Their challenge in today’s uncertain environment and going forward is both to build upon their prior success and to mobilize their communal partners to appreciate the new avenues of Jewish giving and acknowledge the changing characteristics and priorities of our communities. … In the context of an emerging 21st model of Jewish life, old notions of institutional turf no longer apply — no one owns ‘the’ Jewish response to our communal future. A marketplace of Jewish life needs to come forth, but one that practices transparency, coordination and commitment to experimentation and innovation.”
FAITH-INFORMED
New research indicates how to talk to young American Christians about Israel
“From Steph Curry to Patrick Mahomes, Caitlin Clark to Justin Bieber, some of today’s biggest icons in American sports, music and culture openly weave their Christian faith into their public identity on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and beyond,” write BZ Media CEO Rabbi Ari Lamm and chief partnership officer Zach Briton in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “Far from being niche, Christianity is, in many ways, at the center of Gen Z’s cultural world.”
Survey says: “The Pew Research Center’s most recent Religious Landscape Study found 45% of Gen Z (18-29-year-olds) identify as Christians. With faith-forward members of this cohort increasingly the drivers of Gen Z culture, the question is not whether young Christians matter but what actually works to engage them positively about Israel. To find out, BZ Media, with support from Maimonides Fund, commissioned research firm Makor Analytics to survey 1,200 young American Christians ages 18-39. The results from the July 2025 study reveal that the narratives most likely to spark curiosity, resonance and ‘shareability’ among this group are not geopolitical arguments or culture-war hot takes — they are biblical, covenantal stories rooted in faith.”
READER RESPONDS
A Jewish education for all our children
“According to Matan’s new study, ‘Closing the Inclusion Gap,’ 20-25% of Jews have disabilities, mirroring the broader population (“New study shows Jewish groups lagging behind secular community on disability inclusion,” eJewishPhilanthropy, Dec. 3). However, fewer than one-third of Jewish schools employ a learning specialist. That gap leaves parents and children vulnerable to misinterpretation, mislabeling and, in too many cases, exclusion. It doesn’t have to be this way,” writes Rachel Lerner, former dean of the School for Jewish Education and Leadership at American Jewish University in Los Angeles, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “Imagine if, instead of pushing families out, schools were equipped to bring services in. … This is standard practice in many public settings. Jewish families should not get less support in Jewish spaces.”
More pathways for belonging: “Yes, sometimes a school just isn’t the right fit. As both an educator and the parent of two children with disabilities, I’ve lived on both sides of that conversation. … What if Jewish families weren’t ‘asked to leave’ or ‘invited to find another place,’ but instead guided within the Jewish community? What if schools coordinated their expertise — one specializing in dyslexia, another in intellectual disabilities, another in autism — so that every child had a pathway to belonging? We talk endlessly about Jewish continuity. But continuity requires communities that can hold all of our children, not just the easy ones.”
Worthy Reads
He is Me, I am Him: In Mosaic, American Israeli author Hillel Halkin reflects on his pseudonym and creation, Philologos, who penned a long-running column for The Nation, The Forward and Mosaic, which wrapped up in September. “In time, Philologos took on a personality of his own. Like the protagonist of an autobiographical novel, he both was his author and he wasn’t. He and I had similar opinions and—to the limited extent that he acquired one—a similar history; yet he was breezier than I was, lighter-hearted, more confident, more willing to go out on a limb. Whereas I might have prefaced something I said with a ‘perhaps’ or ‘one might speculate that,’ he simply went ahead and said it. Not that he was disregardful of the truth. Though he liked nothing better than digging up facts that solved some linguistic problem or puzzle, he never played fast-and-loose with them. But he also didn’t much care, as I would have done, whether anyone agreed with him or not. He was not a real person and had no need to fear what others might think of him.” [Mosaic]
Eyeing Overhead: In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Craig Kennedy argues that legislators should widen their focus beyond foundations’ payout rates. “Most discussions about boosting foundation giving — including my own columns — have focused on raising funders’ annual payout rate. Often lost in that conversation, however, is the role funder expenses play in depleting dollars going to charities. Under current law, foundations are allowed to count all program-related expenses, such as personnel costs, travel, and rent, toward the 5% they’re required to give away each year. Every dollar spent on big salaries or fancy offices in pricey locations ultimately takes money away from charitable groups. … If Congress doesn’t address the expense issue, a higher payout requirement would likely be diluted by a simultaneous rise in expenses.” [ChronicleofPhilanthropy]
Word on the Street
Thai officials confirmed that the remains of Thai national Sudthisak Rinthalak, who was killed on Oct. 7, 2023, were transferred on Wednesday to Israel; the body of one Israeli, Ran Gvili, remains in Gaza…
Community Security Service announced it will join the Joint Threat Intelligence Partnership, a national threat monitoring and assessment network launched in September by the Anti-Defamation League and Community Security Initiative of New York…
Reps. Blake Moore (R-UT) and Danny Davis (D-IL) launched the bipartisan Philanthropy Caucus to “highlight and enhance the impact of nonprofit work and philanthropic giving in local communities” in Congress…
Jewish Insider spotlights a recent trip to Auschwitz by the New York City charter school Success Academy…
New England Patriots owner and philanthropist Robert Kraft has been named a finalist for the Football Hall of Fame…
An investigation by the Danish newspaper Politiken found that Ronald Lauder, who reportedly floated the idea of the United States “buying” Greenland from Denmark to President Donald Trump, has been taking ownership stakes in Greenlandic companies…
The LAPD arrested two individuals following an incident at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in which anti-Israel protesters demonstrating outside an event aimed at bridge-building with the city’s Korean community disrupted the event and vandalized property inside the temple; Mayor Karen Bass called the incident “abhorrent” and said it “has no place in Los Angeles”…
A man suspected of attacking two Jewish students at DePaul University in 2024 pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges of battery; hate crimes charges against the assailant were dropped…
New York State Assemblyman Micah Lasher, a candidate for Rep. Jerry Nadler’s (D-NY) congressional seat, and state Sen. Sam Sutton introduced legislation that would ban protests within 25 feet of places of worship, following an incident last month in which dozens of anti-Israel demonstrators protested outside an event at the Park East Synagogue…
Eva Ruth Palmieri, a prominent figure in the Italian Jewish community who supported interfaith work, died last week…
Charlotte “Chuckie” Holstein, a civic leader in Syracuse, N.Y., who also served in leadership roles in the American Jewish Committee, died on Tuesday at 100…
Major Gifts
The Katz Amsterdam Charitable Trust — the joint philanthropic foundation of Vail Resorts executive chairperson Rob Katz and his wife,?Elana Amsterdam — awarded $3 million in grants for mental health and substance use programs in 11 communities…
OpenAI’s foundation announced yesterday that it was allocating $40.5 million in grants to 208 nonprofits across the U.S. this year, primarily focused on workforce training for youth, mental health support for veterans and artificial intelligence literacy…
Pic of the Day
The parents of slain Israeli American hostages Omer Neutra and Itay Chen in Washington on Wednesday, after the families met with several dozen members of Congress on Capitol Hill.
Spotted at the gathering: former U.S. ambassadors to Israel Dan Shapiro and Jack Lew; David Cotter, former director for hostage and detainee affairs for the National Security Council; Jeremy Bash, former chief of staff at the CIA and Department of Defense; Matan Sivek, founder of the D.C. Hostage and Missing Families Forum; Ilan Goldenberg, senior vice president and chief policy officer at J Street; David Gillette and Samantha Margolis, executive vice president of policy and government affairs and chief of staff at AIPAC, respectively; Jessica Bernton, director of congressional affairs at the American Jewish Committee; and Toby Dershowitz, senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Birthdays
First-round pick in the 2016 National Hockey League draft, he is a center for the NHL’s Florida Panthers, Luke Kunin turns 28…
Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, author of six books and winner of the 1980 National Book Award, A. Scott Berg turns 76… Television director and producer, Dan Attias turns 74… Register of copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office, her firing earlier this year by President Donald Trump is pending at the U.S. Supreme Court, Shira Perlmutter turns 69… Digital creator, Tony Sarif turns 67… Dermatologist in the Philadelphia area, Merle M. Bari Shulkin, MD… Founder and lead guide of the Adventure Judaism program based in Boulder, Colo., she is the author of 13 books, Jamie Korngold… Fashion director and chief fashion critic of The New York Times since 2014, Vanessa Victoria Friedman turns 58… Publisher and founder of FlashReport on California politics and principal of the Fleischman Consulting Group, Jon Fleischman… Co-founder and co-managing member of Manhattan-based hedge fund Knighthead Capital Management, Ara D. Cohen… Actor best known for playing Stuart Bloom in 108 episodes of the CBS sitcom “The Big Bang Theory,” Kevin Sussman turns 55… Screenwriter and producer, he co-created ABC’s “Once Upon a Time,” Adam Horowitz turns 54… Principal at Proxima Media and founder of Relativity Media, Ryan Kavanaugh (family name was Konitz) turns 51… Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-OH) since 2023, Gregory John Landsman turns 49… Childhood chess prodigy, martial arts competitor and author, the film “Searching for Bobby Fischer” is based on his early life, Joshua Waitzkin turns 49… Born in Ramat Gan, now living in New Jersey, Grammy Award-winning violinist, Miri Ben-Ari turns 47… Israeli composer of stage works, orchestral works, ensemble works and classical music, Amir Shpilman turns 45… Comedian and former host of the ChangeUp baseball program for DAZN, one of his viral videos was “10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Jew,” Scott Rogowsky turns 41… Co-chief of the civil rights and human trafficking unit at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan, Sam Adelsberg… Former senior campaign director at The Hub Project, Sarah Baron… Israeli fashion model, as a 14-year-old she became the lead model for Dior, she served in the IDF from 2019-2021, Sofia Mechetner turns 25..
