Your Daily Phil: After bankruptcy, nearly 2 dozen camps sell at auction
Add EJP on GoogleGood Wednesday morning!
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on the $440 million sale of 27 summer camps from the Shabsels brothers‘ collapsed portfolio, and interview DaraHorn about her newest book. We feature an opinion piece by Isaac Zablocki spotlighting Israeli cinema’s role in shaping perceptions of the country and its people, as well as the industry’s post-Oct. 7 struggles; and the Rev. Terry Kyllo, Rabbi Jason Levine and Michael Trice reflect on the role of faith communities and interfaith relations in the U.S. as Americans mark the country’s semiquincentennial. Also in this issue: Steve Gamer, Michelle Rubin and Paul Feinberg.
Today’s Your Daily Phil was curated by eJP Managing Editor Judah Ari Gross, Opinion Editor Rachel Kohn and Israel Editor Justin Hayet. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
Israel’s Education Ministry, Ministry of Immigration and Absorption and Nefesh B’Nefesh launched the National Educator’s Aliyah Program earlier today, seeking to fast-track the immigration and professional placement of qualified North American Jewish educators as the country works to fill a shortage of 4,000 teachers in its school system.
The Jewish Federations of North America’s National Young Leadership Cabinet retreat concludes today in Minneapolis.
Oral arguments begin today in a federal court in Washington inNational Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation, Inc. v. Drummond, in which the Jewish charter school aims to get Oklahoma state funding, potentially paving the way for state funding of religious schools. Read eJP’s coverage of the case here.
This evening, the remains of Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl’s grandparents, Shimon Leib and Rivka Herzl, will be reinterred in Israel’s Mount Herzl National Cemetery in Jerusalem.
What You Should Know
Two months after the Shabsels brothers declared bankruptcy, the camping empire that they once controlled has been auctioned off, with 23 properties sold at auction, four sold in private sales and one still pending, a New Jersey bankruptcy court announced yesterday, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher reports.
In total, the 23 campsites — some of which are home to more than one camp — sold for $368.3 million, and debtors are still analyzing bids for Camp Lavi in Pennsylvania. Outside of the auction, four additional properties — Camp Achim, Camp Chen-a-Wanda, Camp Mesorah and Pine Forest Camp — sold in private sales for $71.7 million.
David Greenfield, CEO of the New York City-based Met Council anti-poverty group, had hoped to bring together a team of philanthropists to purchase one of the camps and run it as a nonprofit under his organization as a way to make camp more accessible to those who can’t afford it, but he said he lost out to “passion bidders” with deep pockets. “People were overpaying for some property as a result,” Greenfield told eJP. “If you’re a billionaire, an extra million dollars is not going to make or break you. That’s not a big deal. If you’re a nonprofit, an extra million dollars is the difference between whether your camp breaks even or loses money every year.”
News
BOOKSHELF
Dara Horn’s shocking new title hides a serious argument about fighting antisemitism
If you thought People Love Dead Jews — Dara Horn’s 2021 essay collection examining society’s reverence for remembering deceased Jews while failing to support the living ones — was an awkward book to read in public, just wait until you get your hands on Horn’s newest title: The Final Solution to the Jewish Question. Horn is in on the joke; she likes to say that both titles make great beach reads because no one will dare sit within several feet of you, reports Gabby Deutch for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
Building a narrative: But despite borrowing its title from the name of the Nazis’ infamous plan to rid Europe of its 11 million Jews during World War II, Horn’s latest book, which will be published on Sept. 1, is not a Nazi manifesto. “I am providing a solution [to rising antisemitism]. Not a solution in terms of, like, ‘Here’s 10 policy points we should implement,’” Horn told JI. “It’s, ‘Here’s the story we need to be telling about who we are, to ourselves and to everyone else,’ and this is the story that is going to inspire people to imagine a better future.”
Opinion
ART WITH IMPACT
Beyond making films: The next challenge for Israeli cinema
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Isaac Zablocki, senior director of the Carole Zabar Center for Film at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan and CEO and co-founder of the ReelAbilities Film Festival, draws attention to the role of Israeli cinema in ensuring that Israeli stories beyond news headlines and social media rage-bait reach audiences all over the world.
“By supporting distribution, expanding theatrical partnerships, strengthening educational outreach and creating new opportunities for exhibition across North America, we can ensure that these stories continue to spark conversation, challenge assumptions and connect people through shared humanity.”
WE CAN RELATE
America at 250: Faith communities need each other, and America needs us, too
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, the Rev. Terry Kyllo of Paths to Understanding: Gathering Neighbors, Growing Trust, Rabbi Jason Levine of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle’s Jewish Community Relations Council and Michael Trice of the Center for Ecumenical and Interreligious Engagement at Seattle University encourage “honest and brave dialogue” between faith communities in this polarized time in America.
“This is the hard-won gift of the interfaith movement: learning, over generations, how to stay in relationship. Not papering over differences, but celebrating our deep commonalities while genuinely respecting where we diverge. That practiced capacity to remain at the table when leaving would be easier is a necessary muscle the interfaith movement has been building for decades. America needs it now.”
Worthy Reads
Savings and Loan: In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Antony Bugg-Levine argues for philanthropic foundations acting as local lenders as smaller banks in rural areas shut down. “We cannot wait for commercial lenders to do this on their own. The number of banks in the United States has shrunk 75 percent since the mid-1980s, leaving especially rural areas without local lenders who can tailor loans to local opportunity. … Fortunately, foundations and nonprofits are stepping in to the gap, motivated by the recognition that expanding access to finance is crucial to meet their mission objectives.”
Beyond Zionism: In Haaretz, former Israeli deputy attorney general Yehudit Karp calls for creating a deeper sense of Israeli identity that includes the country’s non-Jewish population. “The time has come to move from the language of becoming to the language of being. From being Zionist to being Israeli, which should be our shared civic identity. Not an Israeli identity that erases the story of Zionism or the state’s connection to the Jewish people, but a civic sense of being Israeli built on principles that were laid out already in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.”
Major Gifts
The Bank of Jerusalem pledged to build a new rehabilitation center at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva after the hospital was hit by an Iranian missile last summer; the bank did not disclose the amount, but said it was in the hundreds of thousands of shekels…
Satmar Hasidic philanthropist Yoel Landau pledged $1 million to launch a fund providing legal aid to Haredi yeshiva students facing arrest for refusing Israeli military service…
Transitions
The Simon Wiesenthal Center named Steve Gamer its chief development officer as the group nears its 50th anniversary, the organization told eJewishPhilanthropy…
Real estate executive and philanthropist Michelle Rubin was appointed to chair the board of Los Angeles Jewish Health, the region’s largest single-source senior care provider, succeeding Judy Friedman-Rudzki…
Moldova will install Rabbi Menachem Mendel Axelrod as its first chief rabbi in 12 years at a ceremony later this month, filling a post that has been vacant since 2014…
Word on the Street
Antisemitic assaults across the United Kingdom jumped 82% in the first half of 2026, according to data from the Community Security Trust…
The United Kingdom’s Charity Commission opened an inquiry into eight U.K. charities operating in West Bank settlements as the commission examines whether their spending served genuine charitable purposes…
State Department antisemitism envoy Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun criticized Canadian officials’ “muted” response to a series of recent antisemitic attacks around the country, suggesting that Ottawa put in place visa restrictions and terrorism listings to restrict entry to those who seek “to sow discord”…
In a debate between CNN commentators David Axelrod and Van Jones about Michigan’s Senate primary, Axelrod described AIPAC as a foreign agent, saying, “Should essentially an agent of any foreign government, whether it’s Israel or any other, be able to spend … $30 million in a race like this to influence the outcome of that race?” Van Jones responded, “I don’t think that they’re an agent of a foreign power. I think they’re American Jews”…
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani disbanded the business-led advisory board of the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City as he reshapes the nonprofit’s donor network amid deepening friction with the city’s corporate establishment…
In The Detroit Jewish News on his 100th birthday, optometrist Paul Feinberg reflects on three decades of service to Jarc, a Detroit-area nonprofit serving people with developmental disabilities, that included free eye care for people with developmental disabilities and a four-generation family giving tradition through the Shirley and Paul Feinberg Wellness Fund…
In The New York Times, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison defended his bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, casting the merged company as a modest player against tech giants and vowing to keep CNN and CBS News independent…
Appearing on CNBC’s Squawk Box the same morning, TKO Group CEO and WME executive chairman Ari Emanuel proposed putting an editorial board in place to run CNN, to ease fears that Ellison could end up controlling the network and CBS…
Avi Nesher‘s Oct. 7 drama “Our Loves” will be screened in the Toronto International Film Festival, which producers cast as a breakthrough for Israeli cinema fighting global boycotts…
Magen David Adom is urging the Israeli public to donate blood as the country’s national blood bank drops to a low level, echoing a similar shortage in the United States…
Archaeologists led by the Israel Antiquities Authority uncovered the bimah and main prayer hall of Vilnius’ Great Synagogue, once the heart of Lithuanian Jewry, in the first dig at the site after a Soviet-era school above it was razed last year…
Pic of the Day
Nearly 3,000 Jewish teen athletes from across North America and around the world gather on Monday for one of two opening ceremonies of the 2026 JCC Maccabi Games in Toronto. The other opening ceremony was held in Kansas City; the two cities are hosting this year’s Games.
Participants came from 90 Jewish communities across 12 countries, including Israel, Ukraine, Argentina, Great Britain and Mexico.
Birthdays
Natan Sachs, former director of the Center for Middle East Policy at The Brookings Institution, now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute
Robert Rosenkranz, chairman of Delphi Capital Management, he is the founder and chairman of Open to Debate, a public policy debate series, turns 84
Avraham Duvdevani, former chairman of the World Zionist Organization who later served as chairman of the Jewish National Fund, turns 81
Yael German, former Israeli ambassador to France following seven years as a member of the Knesset, turns 79
Jon Winokur, author of 25 nonfiction books, including The Portable Curmudgeon, Zen to Go and Advice to Writers, turns 79
Efraim Zuroff, historian, Nazi hunter and director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem until 2024, turns 78
Sonja Kohn, banker, once known as “Austria’s woman on Wall Street” and founder of Bank Medici in 1994, turns 78
Yuli-Yoel Edelstein, former Soviet refusenik, he served as speaker of the Knesset for seven years, turns 68
Howard Leib, intellectual property and entertainment attorney based in Ithaca, N.Y., he is an adjunct professor of law at Cornell, Syracuse and Touro
Jonathan Andrew Kestenbaum, member of the British House of Lords, he was chief executive of the Office of the Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks and then chief executive of the United Jewish Israel Appeal, Baron, turns 67
Murray Huberfeld, former hedge fund executive
Seth Swirsky, songwriter, author, political columnist and noted baseball memorabilia collector, turns 66
Neil Rubin, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Jewish History at Baltimore’s Beth Tfiloh Dahan High School
Jeffrey Kupfer, president at ConservAmerica, he is an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University
Jonathan Elihu Silverman, actor who starred in “Weekend at Bernie’s,” his father and grandfather were both rabbis, turns 60
Gavriel David Rosenfeld, president of the Center for Jewish History in NYC and professor at Fairfield University, turns 59
Roy Folkman, former member of the Knesset for the Kulanu party, turns 51
Cintra Pollack, investment and foundation manager at Denver-based Race Street Management and a board member of JFNA
Matt Mandel, vice president of federal affairs at the Computer & Communications Industry Association
Arthur Gregg “A.G.” Sulzberger, chairman of The New York Times Company and publisher of The New York Times, turns 46
Yuri Foreman, professional boxer who held the WBA super welterweight title from 2009 to 2010, in 2014 he was ordained as a rabbi and then known as the “Boxing Rabbi,”‘ turns 46
Zvika Krieger, former director of responsible innovation at Meta/Facebook, now a consultant, he is also the spiritual leader of Chochmat HaLev, a progressive spiritual community in Berkeley, Calif.
Jacob Penn Cooper Hurwitz, member of the comedy duo Jake and Amir, turns 41
Gil Vermouth, longtime member of the Israeli national soccer team who also played in Europe’s UEFA Champions League, turns 41
Lila Cohn, co-founder of Cadence, an AI-driven performance nutrition platform designed specifically for active women
Michael E. Snow, website manager at Upsun
Lisa Geller, senior practice associate at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Anyu Silverman, senior director of bridge building at Repair the World
