Your Daily Phil: A major boost to Rome’s Jewish school
Good Tuesday morning.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on a new survey of Jewish teenagers about antisemitism, and feature an opinion piece by Arielle Levites and Gage Gorsky encouraging a culture of sharing among researchers and organizations working in service of Jewish communal life. Also in this issue: Darren Walker, Benj Pasek and Ora Horn Prouser. We’ll start with a major donation to the Jewish community in Rome’s school.
The Jewish community in Rome plans to significantly expand and improve its school, subsidize tuition and shore up its finances through a “once-in-a-lifetime” €25 million ($27.6 million) initiative that has mostly been funded by the Lauder Foundation and the Yael Foundation, the president of community, Victor Fadlun, told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross.
In total, the two foundations pledged €14 million ($15.5 million) toward the project. This represents the first major collaboration between the Yael and Lauder foundations, both of which support Jewish schools and education initiatives around the world, and the two organizations added that there will be more partnerships to come.
“I have been waiting decades to partner with people like Uri and Yael [Poliavich, the founders of the Yael Foundation], and this partnership represents the best news for Jewish schools in Europe over the past 20 years,” Ronald Lauder said in the statement.
Uri Poliavich added that the partnership with the Lauder Foundation “is especially vital as parents and children are seeking out Jewish educational alternatives due to rising Antisemitism. Jewish schools need to become centers of excellence, competing with the best non-Jewish schools in their countries or regions, to attract students who will become tomorrow’s Jewish leaders.”
According to Fadlun, the plan has three main components: the purchase of an abandoned school building, the renovation of another and renting out a third in order to provide a steady income stream to the community. “We are planning to make a gentle revolution in the didactic sector of the community, in our schools,” he said. “It’s a project that I can define as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
The Scuole Ebraiche di Roma (Hebrew School of Rome) — one of the largest Jewish schools in Europe — currently operates out of two buildings in Rome, the main building within the city’s Jewish ghetto and a second building outside the ghetto that houses the kindergarten. In total, the school educates roughly 1,000 pupils from kindergarten through high school. Under the new plan, the Jewish community will purchase an abandoned, derelict building located adjacent to the ghetto from the Roman municipality.
The community will renovate that building, which will become the high school, as well as the existing schoolhouse in the ghetto. The kindergarten building will be rented out, which Fadlun, a real estate investor by profession, said the community expects will bring in roughly €800,000 ($883,000) each year. “That will ensure cash flow every year to manage the school,” he said.
With the additional space from the new building, the community will be able to increase the number of students by approximately 25%, Fadlun said. He added that the revenue from renting the kindergarten will also allow the school to subsidize the tuition of additional students.
SURVEY SAYS
Most Jewish teens feel their antisemitism concerns are being ignored — poll
A large majority of Jewish teens worldwide — 78% — feel that their concerns over rising antisemitism are being dismissed or minimized by authorities, according to a new survey published at the start of the school year, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Haley Cohen.
Personal experience: The study, conducted by Mosaic United, a joint initiative with Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism and private philanthropy, along with academic research firm Tovanot, spotlighted several concerning trends of Jewish high school students between ages 14-18 amid the global rise of antisemitism, sparked by the Israel-Hamas war. Of the nearly 800 respondents, nearly half (47.4%) reported experiencing antisemitism personally — including physical threats, online harassment and derogatory comments — with the majority of incidents occurring in school. More than 30% of respondents also reported avoiding wearing Jewish symbols out of fear, and 22% said they hide their Jewish identity.
Checking a blind spot: “We’ve all seen what’s happened on college campuses but we wanted to capture the experiences of high school students to better understand how antisemitism is affecting young people globally, and our goal is to provide data to guide some sort of intervention,” Alana Ebin, director of the organization’s Mosaic Teens department, told eJP.
Time to listen: Ebin said that she expected antisemitism among teens to come from peers, but was surprised by the high percentages that were reported in the U.S. coming from teachers, curricula and administrators. “That points to a larger systemic issue of what’s happening in education and is raising red flags,” she said. “Close to 80% of teens had their experience minimized or dismissed when they reported it. We’re currently living in a time when society promises to listen and honor marginalized voices, but Jewish voices of teenagers are being flat-out dismissed and that’s unacceptable.”
A NEW RESOURCE
Why we’re sharing our instrument for measuring social connectedness
“In 2022, the Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education (CASJE), housed at George Washington University, was awarded a research grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to study Shabbat dinner and social connectedness,” write CASJE’s managing director, Arielle Levites, and Stanford University postdoctoral fellow Gage Gorsky in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
A Jewish touchstone: “By now many of us are familiar with the loneliness epidemic: the idea that many Americans feel isolated from others and lack meaningful and supportive relationships in their lives. (Our research team member, Julianne Holt-Lunstad, was lead scientist on the U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on the subject.)… A focus on our collective connectedness is woven into the basic layers of Jewish religious, spiritual and cultural expression over millennia, and it is evident in how Jews develop new forms of community in the U.S. today. Connecting as Jews, even outside of explicitly religious spaces, has historically been a mechanism to support resilience in the face of exclusion from areas of social and public life. All of this suggests a critical role that Jewish engagement organizations can play at this time.”
Sharing is caring: “[W]ith the quantitative phase of our data collection complete, we are happy to share the survey instrument we developed to help us understand and measure social connectedness, along with a short guide for nonprofit leaders that shares more about how the survey questions were developed and tested and how to think about adapting the survey instrument for use in other contexts… [W]e want to contribute to a culture in which we share tools for measurement across organizations, and help non-specialists think about how to adapt existing tools for measuring their own goals… Measurement tools like our survey instrument can help organizations committed to this work better understand who needs support most right now and how well they are doing in meeting those needs.”
Worthy Reads
What Rosenwald Saw Differently: In The Atlantic, outgoing Ford Foundation President Darren Walker spotlights the ideology of Jewish American businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, a black sheep among the “traditional pantheon” of late 19th-early 20th century philanthropists. “[Andrew] Carnegie accepted that inequality was a natural, even inevitable, by-product of capitalism, and so not a condition that philanthropy (itself a ‘creature of capitalism,’ as Henry Ford II later said) bore any responsibility to address… Rosenwald approached his philanthropy with a set of commitments that powerfully inform my own. He sought, in his words, ‘permanent rather than palliative measures,’ to address the root causes of inequality, not merely its symptoms. He said, ‘What I want to do is try and cure the things that seem wrong.’ He didn’t say ameliorate or alleviate consequences. He said ‘cure’ — and he meant it, even if curing the disease would implicate the people and systems that were engaged in the healing… [W]e must reckon with the inequality that makes philanthropy both necessary and possible: economic inequality, social inequality, religious inequality, racial inequality. This was Rosenwald’s project, as it ought to be our collective project today.” [TheAtlantic]
A Season to Come Together: In the Jewish Journal, Michael Berenbaum reflects on the divisions he witnessed during a recent visit to Israel over how to mark the first anniversary of Oct. 7 and offers suggestions for the day for his Los Angeles Jewish community. “Kibbutzim and settlements in the south directly impacted by the Hamas pogroms and hostage-taking have withdrawn from participation in the government-sponsored commemoration. President of Israel Isaac Herzog has offered to host the event and to make it scrupulously non-political: not a rallying point for the government and its policies, not a protest point for those — seemingly the majority of Israelis — opposed to the conduct of the war and/or the failure to have a ceasefire that will free the hostages. The minister in charge of the commemoration has rejected his offer, a rejection that even the Jerusalem Post editors described as childish. So a day that should unite Israel and bring the Jewish people together has divided Israel, fragmented Israel. The politics of war and the hostage negotiations, which divide Israel, will be manifest in the conflicting commemorations… Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) is read on Succoth, the festival immediately preceding Simchat Torah. ‘For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven… a time to weep, a time to laugh.’ There is also a time to come together not a time to tear apart. This commemoration must be a time to weep and a time to come together, a time to show what unites us, not what divides us and a time to demonstrate resilience and resolve.” [JewishJournal]
Eye on Iran: In The Times of Israel, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt calls on both presidential candidates to consider the threat posed to the United States by Iran. “It’s not news that the Iranian regime is a global threat to the Jewish people. That’s been the case for decades. But it is news that Tehran is vastly expanding its campaign against America while it races toward building a nuclear weapon… Earlier this year, ADL saw indications of the Iranian regime’s influence on the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas movement on college campuses. Some scoffed when we warned about this. However, this past summer, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence confirmed that Tehran is “seeking to encourage protests, and even providing financial support to protesters… Stopping Tehran and its terrorist proxies must be a central topic in the presidential debate this week. The candidates must be pressed for concrete plans. We need honest policies rooted in reality.” [TOI]
Around the Web
Politicians will not be invited to speak at London’s main communal commemoration of the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacres in order to drive home the organizers’ message that the event is not “a protest or a demonstration and [that it has] no political dimension”…
Songwriter Benj Pasek became the eighth Jew (and 20th person overall) to win an “EGOT” — the rare quartet of Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards — at Sunday night’s Emmys for his work on the series “Only Murders in the Building”…
The JCC Krakow, Poland, laments that donations for Ukrainian refugees, who flocked to the city in the wake of Russia’s invasion, have dried up as the war reaches its third year…
The National Post finds that the Canada Revenue Agency wouldn’t meet with senior officials at the Jewish National Fund for years as it tried to bring itself in compliance with the agency’s rules for charities…
After last year’s unprecedented rise in antisemitic incidents, colleges and universities have the legal obligation to ensure a safe and inclusive return of Jewish students to their campuses, writes Sharon Nazarian, president of the Younes and Soraya Nazarian family Foundation, UCLA adjunct professor and board member of the Anti-Defamation League, in an opinion piece in USA Today…
A survey by the Jewish Democratic Council of America found that 68% of American Jews plan to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris and 25% for former President Donald Trump…
Emily Boskoff begins her new position as executive director of Minnesota Hillel, following her last role as Israel education regional director for Hillel International…
Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., hired Stephanie Marshall as assistant chaplain for Jewish life. She most recently served as Jewish education manager at the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston…
American Jewish University has appointed Meng “May” Zhang as the university’s director of equity, compliance and Title IX, effective Sept. 9…
The 8200 Alumni Association and Generative AI for Good are hosting the “Hack the Hate Conference” today in Tel Aviv, designed to harness Israeli technological innovation to fight the rise of online antisemitism…
Elan Ezrachi, a Jerusalem-based consultant on matters of Jewish peoplehood and Israel education, has published a novel, “HaShlicha” (the emissary), about an Israeli woman’s experiences as a Jewish Agency emissary in New York in the 1980s; the book is currently available in Hebrew, but an English translation is in the works …
The California Legislative Jewish Caucus announced the election of Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino) and state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) as co-chairs of the Caucus for the 2025-2026 legislative session and the election of Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay) and Sen. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) as vice chairs…
Menachem Rosensaft, general counsel emeritus of the World Jewish Congress, expounds on why Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance won’t condemn Tucker Carlson and his Holocaust-denying associates…
Ora Horn Prouser, CEO and academic dean at the Academy for Jewish Religion, explains in a Times of Israel opinion piece why the seminary is seeing what she terms “tremendous growth” while others are seeing a declined enrollment and a dearth of interest in becoming rabbis and cantors…
Alan Shawn Feinstein, a Rhode Island-based philanthropist focused on education and kindness, died on Saturday at 93…
Pic of the Day
An apartment building in the northern Israeli coastal city of Nahariya was struck yesterday by a Hezbollah drone, causing property damage but no injuries. The building is home to members of the newly created urban kibbutz, Ruth, which was established by members of the Shomer Hatzair movement.
“The building that was hit by the latest Hezbollah drone was my building. It’s the home that I have lived for the past year with 22 other members of Urban Kibbutz Ruth,” wrote Lev Littman, one of the residents, in a Facebook post about the incident. “Despite the fact that there were no injuries, the damage to our property and to our home and the harm to our feeling of security are not easy [to deal with].”
Birthdays
Writer, columnist and author of four New York Times bestsellers, Amity Ruth Shlaes…
Chairman of Shamrock Holdings, Roy Disney’s private investment company, Stanley Gold… Retired realtor in Southern California, Dianne Varon… Former EVP and general counsel at Chicago’s futures broker Rosenthal Collins Group, Gerald Fishman… Past president of Congregation Ahavas Israel in Passaic, N.J., Howard Penner… Retired coordinator at Truman Heartland Community Foundation, she had been a Hebrew teacher at Congregation Beth Torah in Overland Park, Kan., Henri Goettel… Houston attorney, and Republican party activist, Gary M. Polland… Denver attorney and politician, he served in the Colorado House of Representatives for eight years, Joel Judd… Executive assistant to the office managing partner of the E&Y office in Tampa, Nancy Carol Finkel… U.S. senator (R-WY), Cynthia Lummis… Retired VP at Goldman Sachs, now a part-time elementary school teacher, Matthew Fried… Real estate attorney in South Florida, Steven A. Greenspan… Editor of Mideast Dig, Richard Behar… Former acting administrator of the DEA, now a senior counsel at D.C.’s Crowell & Moring, Charles Philip “Chuck” Rosenberg… Founder and managing director at Beacon Global Strategies, Andrew Shapiro… New York City trusts and estates attorney, Lawrence Ira Garbuz… Co-founder and partner of One Madison Group, Jonathan Soros… Television writer and producer whose work includes “The Big Bang Theory,” Eric Kaplan… Executive director of the Mid-Atlantic region of Agudath Israel, Ariel Sadwin… Writer, actress and comedian, she was a writer for “Saturday Night Live,” Sarah Schneider… Principal at Blue Zone Partners and managing partner at Precision Infrastructure Management, Charles Szold… Chief foreign correspondent for Fox News based in Tel Aviv, his upcoming book, Black Saturday, covers the events of Oct. 7 and the war that followed, Trey Yingst… PR strategist, Josh Nass… Jennifer Meyer…
