NewsBits: Around the Jewish Web
Touching the world of Jewish philanthropy, here are a few recent items you may find of interest.
from Religion and State in Israel:
Millionaire Guma Aguiar lawyer’s warning letter to blogger
Aguiar’s lawyer sends “cease and desist letter” to Israeli Rabbi/blogger telling him, among other things, that publishing personal opinion on how donations were made and to whom to donate border on infringement of privacy and a violation of the Aguiars’ right of privacy.
from The Jerusalem Post:
Netanyahu pressured by UJC not to end Falash Mura aliya
The United Jewish Communities (UJC), the chief fundraising body of American Jewry, pressured Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Thursday in a bid to persuade the government not to follow through on a section of the 2009 Economic Arrangements Bill that could ultimately end the immigration of Ethiopia’s Falash Mura community into Israel.
In a letter signed by UJC President and CEO Howard Rieger and the organization’s chairman Joe Kanfer, the UJC urges the prime minister to uphold a decision from last September for Israel’s Interior Ministry to check the eligibility for aliya of some 3000 Falash Mura waiting in Ethiopia for permission to immigrate.
from The Forward:
Succeeding Yourself Out of Business
… as the financial difficulties in Jewish higher education show, the wholesale success of Judaic studies at the collegiate level carries a cost: the reconfiguration, the eclipse, or even the disappearance of what had once been a mainstay of the community – its very own academic institutions of higher learning.
from The Dallas Morning News:
$15 million gift kicks off Dallas Jewish Community Foundation initiaiive
A $15 million lead gift from philanthropists Carol and Steve Aaron kicks off the Create a Jewish Legacy Bequest and Endowment Initiative (CJL). The CJL is the Foundation’s biggest initiative since the launch of the 1999 Community Capital Campaign for the 21st Century, which raised more than $62 million during a six year campaign and focuses on sustaining the local Jewish community through legacy gifts to local organizations.
“This is a unique approach to development in the current economic climate and proves our undaunted intention to address the community’s needs well into the future,” said Stuart Prescott, Chairman of the Create a Jewish Legacy steering committee.
from The Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties:
Despite recession Teen Philanthropists raise $162,000 for grants to nonprofit organizations
Last year, 100 Bay area Jewish teens raised over $204,000 to help people in need across the globe. The teens who raised the money for those grants were all board members of one of four Jewish Community Teen Foundations: San Francisco/Marin, the South Peninsula, the North Peninsula and the East Bay. This year, despite the continuing recession, these teen philanthropists are poised to announce $162,000 worth of grants to support nonprofit run programs in the Bay Area and throughout the world.
The program, initiated by the San Francisco based Jewish Community Endowment Fund, teaches teens to be strategic philanthropists and agents for change.
