Good Wednesday morning!

Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, and Israeli Russian businessman Roman Abramovichannounced on Tuesday a new five-year strategic partnership aimed at strengthening Yad Vashem’s endeavors in the areas of Holocaust research and remembrance.

Abramovich, the owner of the English Premier League Chelsea Football Club, is considered to be one of the wealthiest men in Israel, and has given more than $500 million to Jewish causes around the world. He also played a leading role in Chelsea’s “Say No to Antisemitism” campaign, launched in January 2018, which educates team members about antisemitism and the Holocaust. The partnership with Yad Vashem continues Abramovich’s global charitable work in promoting Holocaust research and education.

Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan told eJewishPhilanthropy that he met Abramovich during the “Say No” campaign, and began discussions about a potential partnership when Dayan assumed the chairmanship last summer.

The pledged funds — the specific amount has not been made public — will help to support Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust Research, and will also back the creation of two new versions of the museum’s Book of Names, which contains information on more than 4.8 million individuals killed during the Holocaust. The new books are expected to be ready for use by 2023. “One of the new Books will be permanently featured at Yad Vashem, while the second will serve as a traveling commemorative display, raising global awareness of the murder of some six million Jews during the Shoah,” Dayan told eJP. “Both versions will be displayed for the public to see. The Book of Names is an additional way for people to connect to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust.”

The partnership will also bolster Yad Vashem’s efforts to expand and develop its mapping of the deportations of Jews from across Europe, its project documenting “killing sites” around the former Soviet Union and its research into Holocaust history broken down by region.

“These findings have majorly contributed to our understanding of the events and history of the Holocaust as well as being the basis for meaningful Holocaust education and remembrance,” Dayan told eJP. “This new strategic partnership will expand and bolster Yad Vashem’s research activities, at a time when Holocaust distortion, denial and politicization are rising alarmingly worldwide.”

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS

Cooperman’s credo: capitalism with a heart

Ben Gabbe/Getty Images

In a virtual conversation last week with brothers of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, investor Leon Cooperman outlined a philosophy that could be described as “work hard, give hard,” reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Ben Sales. The chairman and CEO of Omega Advisors, who joined the Jewish fraternity as an undergraduate at Hunter College before going on to manage a hedge fund for 25 years, has a net worth of $2.5 billion, according to Forbes.

Overview: Cooperman encouraged his audience, should they grow wealthy, to donate generously. According to the most recent available tax forms, the Leon & Toby Cooperman Foundation gave $22 million in charity in 2019 and the beginning of 2020, including to a range of Jewish organizations. A recent article in The Washington Post, headlined “The Moral Calculations of a Billionaire,” depicted both Cooperman’s success — it reports that he made $700 million in 2021 — and his intention to give away almost all of his wealth. The article included Cooperman’s relatively modest lifestyle: He hunts for specials at Costco and drives a Hyundai, a detail he also mentioned in the AEPi talk. 

‘Share your success’: “When you have achieved financial security, share your success with others less fortunate than yourself,” he said on the call. “In the Biblical sense, we are our brothers’ keeper, and we have a moral obligation to help others in need.” Following the Post article, he said, he’s gotten 300 requests for donations. “When you read these letters — and I read them all — the amount of suffering out there is legendary.”

Read the full story here.

intermarriage is an opportunity

Conservative Judaism’s new narrative on Jewish intermarriage

Shuttetrstock

“When I was newly pregnant in 2001, my partner of another faith and I went ‘shul shopping,’ visiting multiple Jewish congregations to find our spiritual home and community. We arrived at the Shabbat service at a Conservative synagogue and sat down. An usher approached and asked my spouse, ‘Are you Jewish?’ The usher held a kippah and tallit in their hands, ready to hand them over if they answered ‘yes.’ The intention was a good one, however the impact was that we felt alienated and did not join that synagogue. Identity is personal and being asked about one’s religion questions one’s right to be in a Jewish space,” writes Keren R. McGinity, an interfaith specialist at United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. 

Continuity crisis: “The Conservative movement has evolved in its thinking about intermarriage since my family, and undoubtedly many others, had that personal experience. The ‘continuity crisis’ narrative that dominated communal discourse for decades was based on assumptions that people who intermarry cease to identify as Jewish, be involved in the community or raise Jewish children. This linear thinking equated intermarriage with extinction, labeled it a ‘threat’ to Jewish continuity, and held communal consciousness in a vise grip until quite recently.” 

Today there is growing momentum to be more inclusive: “It simultaneously ignored change over time, and the rise of new ethnicity, feminism and evolving gender roles found in more interdisciplinary research. Today, Jewish families look different than they did according to the heteronormative and Ashkenormative thinkers who ignored the diversity within the Jewish community. Leaders in the Conservative movement are increasingly eager to embrace the complexity of Jewish families, and there is growing momentum to be more inclusive of interfaith couples, which are often faith/faithless rather than dual faith, or mixed heritages. When I asked Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal, CEO of USCJ and the Rabbinical Assembly, he responded: ‘Intermarriage is an opportunity, not a curse. We need to stop seeing intermarriage as a failure or betrayal, [and start] seeing that these are people engaged in loving relationships. We need to support them and engage them in loving ways in Jewish life.’”

Read the full piece here.

Worthy Reads

Pride of Columbus: In Columbus Monthly, David Ghose profiles the Schottenstein family, which, for generations, have been business power brokers in the Ohio capital. “The Schottensteins might be? Columbus’ most remarkable family. With their profound achievements, enduring influence and far-and-wide reach, they have shaped the city in numerous ways, from retail, to real estate, to homebuilding, to civic affairs, to religion, to philanthropy. And they’re not done. Yet few fully understand what the Schottensteins have accomplished or how they all connect to each other. They consist of hundreds of descendants of two Lithuanian peasants, Yoneh and Chaya Gerzhevsky. With so many family members — and so many branches — it’s hard to keep track of such an expansive genealogy…. So what’s it like to be part of this sprawling, brawling, impactful and high-profile family? For some, their name makes them feel special, a member of Columbus royalty, providing community goodwill, access and financial resources. For others, it can create false impressions and make them feel like they’re under a microscope.” [ColumbusMonthly]

‘4D’ Spiritual Communities: Facing economic challenges and possibilities, religious leaders need to examine their communities through a “multi-dimensional economic reality of religious institutions,” and acknowledging the four dimensions: personal, organizational, local and systemic, Elizabeth Lynn writes in the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy’s Insights newsletter. “They are interconnected, not separable. Attention and resources put toward one dimension will likely pull attention and resources away from other dimensions. But the act of naming may make it easier to work through those hard decisions together and to see not only old challenges but also the places where new opportunities abound.” [Insights]

‘Charity’ or ‘Philanthropy’?: Surveying a number of nonprofit professionals, Rob Webb asks in Non Profit Pro what developing a “culture of philanthropy” really means, and how it differs from a “culture of charity” in the day-to-day life of a nonprofit professional. “My takeaway from this informal, totally unscientific social media survey is this: When you reduce fundraising to a transaction, you are creating a culture of charity. When I think of charity, I think of one-time giving appeals like a disaster. I want to help but I have no intention of developing a relationship with the organization I am giving to. When I think of philanthropy, I think of a nonprofit that puts people first and truly cares about their best interests. That philosophy permeates in everything they do and includes staff, board members, donors, volunteers and the people they serve.” [NonProfitPro]

Pic of the Day

Image courtesy of David Polonsky and Michael Faust

“Legend of Destruction,” the art-driven story of the Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire, debuted Sunday on Israel television. The film is comprised of 1,500 individual paintings by Academy Award-nominated artists David Polonsky and Michael Faust, where each scene can be minted as an NFT.