Your Daily Phil: 10 years boosting day schools; 30 years fighting Israeli poverty
Add EJP on GoogleGood Wednesday morning!
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we interview Paul Bernstein as he marks 10 years since helping found Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools, and speak with GillesDarmon, the founder and president of the Israeli aid nonprofit Latet, as his organization marks 30 years of fighting poverty in Israel. We feature an opinion piece by Steven Windmueller envisioning a 21st-century version of North America’s Jewish federation system, and a piece by Jeffrey Cahn advocating for self-defense training to join the security measures becoming standard for Jewish communities. Also in this issue: Rabbi David Levy, Talia Dekel-Fleissig and Danny Ben-Moshe.
Today’s Your Daily Phil was curated by eJP Opinion Editor Rachel Kohn and Israel Editor Justin Hayet. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
Fifty-nine senior leaders from major Jewish communities and organizations across dozens of countries are convening in Jerusalem this week for the J50 Forum as Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs pushes to advance a joint declaration affirming that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.
This evening, ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran will mark its 20th anniversary with a gala event at the rehabilitation village in southern Israel.
Canary Publishing, a nonprofit press devoted to Jewish writers, is officially launching today.
In Jerusalem, the family of slain American Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin will gather in Jerusalem for the unveiling of a hand-crafted mural in his honor, nearly two years after his murder.
And Solu, a Chicago-area group that links communities through service, is dedicating Hersh’s Fridge, a food supply depot, this morning in Skokie, Ill., in honor of Goldberg-Polin. The kosher refrigerator supplies food to families throughout the Chicago region.
What You Should Know
Ten years ago, when Paul Bernstein began as the founding CEO of Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools, the philanthropic dollars funneled into Jewish day schools amounted to a trickle. The majority of funding came from a single donor, The Avi Chai Foundation, which was sunsetting its grantmaking in 2019. With many day schools still reeling from the 2008 financial crisis and struggling with enrollment, many Jewish leaders questioned if non-Orthodox day schools had a future.
In the 10 years since Prizmah launched, day school enrollment has surged, with both the COVID-19 pandemic and Oct. 7 massacres leading many parents to move their children from public schools to private Jewish ones. Today, 101,000 students are enrolled in non-Haredi day schools, a 7.5% increase over five years ago. Success has triggered more investment from funders, and day schools are now a major focus of the Jewish Funders Network, as well as Jewish Federations of North America.
In an interview with eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher marking the 10th anniversary, Bernstein discussed Prizmah’s most productive moves, bridging denominational differences and how success can create new challenges.
News
Q&A
After 30 years, Latet’s founder still insists Israel’s poverty is an existential threat
Thirty-one years after he first made aliyah, and 30 years after he founded Latet, one of Israel’s largest and most influential poverty prevention nonprofits, Gilles Darmon spoke with eJewishPhilanthropy’s Justin Hayet for a wide-ranging conversation about why he frames poverty as an existential threat to Israel, the limits of what philanthropy can do and why he believes the country is finally wealthy enough to solve its own problems.
Justin Hayet: How has the ecosystem in which poverty exists changed over the past 30 years?
Gilles Darmon: Significantly. According to Israel’s National Insurance Institute, food insecurity increased significantly between 2000, 2010 and 2020. Since we started to measure, the number of families in food insecurity has grown; we now talk about 867,000 families.
The environment became more challenging. Poverty and food insecurity became a problem. It is unsustainable for Israeli society — it is an existential threat. You cannot keep a strong economy with such a level of poverty. You cannot keep a strong army with such a gap of social inequality between such large groups of the population. You cannot keep a good level of education when you have more than 1 million children in food insecurity.
Opinion
WINDS OF CHANGE
The remake: Bringing the federation model into the 21st century
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Steven Windmueller, emeritus professor of Jewish communal studies at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles, proposes a restructuring to better support the Jewish federation system’s mission of building broad-based Jewish participation and belonging.
“When envisioning a 21st-century federation, seven distinctive functions emerge, requiring new configurations of roles, resources and responsibilities on the local, regional and/or national scale.”
SAFETY FIRST
When all else fails: Filling a gaping hole in our communal security strategy
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Jeffrey Cahn, executive director of Romemu in New York City, argues that there is more the Jewish community can do to ensure individuals’ safety when even our best practices fail — and that isn’t a question of if, but when, he emphasized.
“One idea is to train people on how to save as many lives as possible in the event of a successful mass casualty attack, like in the very worthy program just announced by CSS and AFMDA to teach synagogue volunteers traumatic wound treatment. I’d like to suggest another response, one that could help minimize casualties in the first place: offer self-defense training to every Jew.”
Worthy Reads
Bigger Than AIPAC: In The Times of Israel, Michael J. Lewis, who worked at AIPAC for 40 years, argues the pro-Israel lobby has become “toxic” to many Americans, tracing its declining sway in Congress to its failed 2015 fight against the Iran nuclear deal and its 2021 move into direct political giving. “Ultimately, AIPAC is of course only an instrument to further a greater cause. AIPAC is not the cause itself. If there is a better instrument out there – or a better instrument can be created – to advance this cause; so be it.”
Haute Dishonor: The New York Times’ Bret Stephens weighs in on the Met’s canceled John Galliano retrospective, arguing the museum drew the wrong line by celebrating the designer rather than merely displaying his designs. “The error of the Galliano retrospective was not the desire to display his outstanding body of work for the public. … The outrage was the highly personalized form of the honor being bestowed on Galliano himself, above all through the Met Gala, which violated the principle of separation by celebrating the execrable creator along with his extraordinary creations.”
Transitions
Rabbi David Levy was hired by Jewish Federations of North America as its new executive director of the Israel Education Travel Alliance…
Daniel Lee joined the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, which is due to shut down in two years, as its president and CEO…
Mayela Calderon was appointed as the director of philanthropy at Cantor Fitzgerald…
Michal Braverman-Blumenstyk is leaving her post leading Microsoft‘s Israel R&D center after 13 years…
Word on the Street
EHillel International is opening its first stand-alone undergraduate office at Clemson University, where Talia Dekel-Fleissig, who led the Jerusalem Press Club until it closed yesterday after 13 years, plans to formally launch the Tel Aviv-based Israel Press Club on Israeli Election Day next month, to serve foreign correspondents and visiting journalists…
Coefficient Giving, the San Francisco grant maker formerly known as Open Philanthropy, plans to increase its 2026 giving to GiveWell’s top-rated global health charities from $175 million to $1 billion, letting nonprofits scale up ahead of an anticipated wave of AI-industry wealth. The group is funded by Good Ventures, the foundation of Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna…
California’s state Legislature passed a bill on Monday adding Jewish as an ethnicity option on state forms that collect demographic data. The bill, which now awaits Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature or veto, has raised some historical concerns around government records of Jews, while its proponents say the state’s privacy protections should prevent improper use of the data…
An Oakland, Calif., coffee shop that is facing discrimination lawsuits from two Jewish patrons is shutting down as it prepares for its legal fights…
“The Colorful Life,” a Wassily Kandinsky painting that was returned to the heirs of Dutch Jewish collector Emanuel Albert Lewenstein, will be up for auction at Christie’s in London next month, where it is expected to fetch more than $30 million…
In an interview with Variety, Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera said there are no Israeli films featured at the festival this year because there was only one Israeli submission. Asked if the festival is boycotting Israel, Barbera responded, “No, not at all. Never. It is absolutely important to say that we have no prejudice against anyone anywhere in the world. If there had been a Russian film, an Israeli film of good quality, we would undoubtedly have invited it”…
Touro University, in partnership with the National Jewish Advocacy Center, launched a teaching fellowship last month led by Rabbi Mark Goldfeder that seeks to train its first cohort of 10 scholars to build undergraduate and graduate courses on antisemitism within their own disciplines…
The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh recorded its strongest fundraising year ever with $80 million raised in overall resource development for fiscal year 2026…
“Cancelled,” an Australian documentary by filmmaker Danny Ben-Moshe about Jewish creatives shut out of the industry amid rising antisemitism, was rejected by ABC, SBS and the Sydney and Melbourne Film Festivals before the Jewish Independent Film Festival agreed to launch it…
New York State awarded $100,000 to the nonprofit Chazaq to support youth and educational programming that serves children, teens, families and seniors through Jewish education, culture and heritage…
In a post on X, Jon Polin, father of slain hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, urged American Jews attending U.S. events featuring current and former top Israeli officials on the speakers circuit to press them with pointed questions about how they steered the war and hostage crisis…
David Zini, head of Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service, met with FBI Director Kash Patel at the agency’s headquarters in Washington…
18Forty’s Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin published a new book, “I Read This Over Shabbos”…
Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced on Tuesday that he is launching a defense tech company and that Palantir CEO Alex Karp will be its first lead investor…
Michael Brooks, veteran Hillel professional who led University of Michigan Hillel for many years as its executive director, died on Monday at 80…
Pic of the Day
Aharon Bar-Oz, 89, presents a letter that was written to him by famed Israeli songstress Naomi Shemer to the National Library of Israel last month. The missive was sent to him in mid-June 1967, at the end of the Six-Day War, in response to a postcard that Bar-Oz had sent to Shemer from the battlefield, telling her that her song, “Jerusalem of Gold,” had inspired him and his comrades.
That postcard was donated to the National Library in 2010, along with other documents belonging to Shemer, and was on display, where it was, by chance, seen by Bar-Oz’s daughter, who recognized her father’s handwriting. She informed the library that a response letter existed, prompting the donation last month and “closing the circle of correspondence after 59 years,” the library said.
Shemer’s letter, which had been framed and displayed in Bar-Oz’s home, reads: “To Aharon Bar-Oz, greetings and salutations. I’m glad that you and the entire unit can now be congratulated on your victory, and it’s nice to hear that I could help you from afar, at least by way of the song. Blessings to you all, Naomi Shemer.”
Birthdays
Eric Lefkofsky, serial entrepreneur, co-founder and chairman of Groupon, he is also the founder and CEO of Tempus AI, turns 57
Diane Troderman, trustee of a foundation she helped found with her husband, Harold Grinspoon, turns 85
Robert Shapiro, attorney who was part of the “Dream Team” that successfully defended O.J. Simpson in 1995, he co-founded LegalZoom, Shoedazzle and RightCounsel, turns 84
Yossi Vardi, one of Israel’s earliest high-tech entrepreneurs, turns 84
Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer, rabbi of Baltimore’s Shearith Israel Congregation since 1987 and president of the Baltimore Vaad HaRabonim, turns 82
Tobi Kelmer, Lincolnwood, Ill., resident
Richard Mandelbaum, tech entrepreneur and principal at Xynetics Group, turns 80
Yaakov Litzman, member of the Knesset for the United Torah Judaism party from 1999 to 2022, turns 78
Steven Kocen, SVP at Southern Bank & Trust, he is an honorary director of Ohef Sholom Temple in Norfolk, Va.
Harvey Levin, television producer, attorney, legal analyst and celebrity reporter, he is the founder of celebrity news website TMZ, turns 76
Jon Feltheimer, CEO of Lionsgate film and television studio, turns 75
Lee Wunsch, retired president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston (1999-2017), turns 74
Nick Hanauer, author, entrepreneur and venture capitalist, turns 67
Daniel Klaidman, investigative producer for CBS News
James Rosen, chief Washington correspondent for Newsmax, turns 58
Guy Rolnik, founder of Israeli media organization TheMarker and a deputy publisher of the Haaretz daily newspaper, he is also a clinical professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, turns 58
Raney Aronson-Rath, editor-in-chief and executive producer at PBS’ “Frontline,” turns 56
Eliyahu David “Eli” Groner, former director-general of the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, turns 56
Ohad Moskowitz, contemporary Jewish religious music vocalist, known by the mononym “Ohad,” turns 52
Jess Fassler, chief of staff for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
Richard Rubin, D.C.-based U.S. tax policy reporter for The Wall Street Journal
Jonathan Kite, actor, comedian and impressionist, turns 47
Joseph Weisenthal, executive editor of news for Bloomberg, the co-anchor of “What’d You Miss” on Bloomberg Television and co-host of the “Odd Lots” podcast on Bloomberg Podcasts, turns 46
Ethan Zorfas, partner at Axiom Strategies, turns 41
Margot Edelman, lead of the global tech practice at Edelman
Seth Zweifler, chief of staff at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School
Rob Kaminsky, professional baseball pitcher in the Los Angeles Angels organization, turns 32
