Your Daily Phil: Ashkelon mayor suspected of embezzling post-Oct. 7 donations
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on an investigation into Ashkelon Mayor Tomer Glam, who is suspected of embezzling funds donated to the southern Israeli city in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks. We interview Jeffrey M. Solomon, the new chair of the Foundation for Jewish Camp, and take a first look at Robert Kraft’s latest commercial aimed at combating antisemitism. We feature an opinion piece by Rabbi Jill Levy arguing for more research on and resources to support Jewish day camp; and one by Mikhael Kesher about an approach to bringing nuanced Israel education to kids in part-time Jewish learning programs. Also in this issue: Shuki Friedman, Henrietta Szold and Guy Gilboa-Dalal.
What We’re Watching
The Yael Foundation’s two-day annual conference wraps up today in Vienna. If you’re there, say hello to Rachel Gutman, who is reporting from the confab for eJewishPhilanthropy.
First Lady Melania Trump is hosting former hostages Keith and Aviva Siegel at the White House this afternoon for a private sit-down.
The 37th Israel Film Festival opens tonight in Los Angeles.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH EJP’S JUDAH ARI GROSS
Earlier this week, Israeli Police announced that they had detained an unnamed mayor of a southern city, along with several municipal employees and local businessmen, on suspicion that they had embezzled millions of shekels in charitable funds that had been donated to the city in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks and resulting war. This morning, it was revealed that the mayor was Ashkelon’s Tomer Glam.
During and following the 2023 Hamas attacks, Ashkelon, located just a few miles north of the Gaza Strip, came under regular bombardment, as a significant percentage of the city’s 170,000 residents lacked bomb shelters and other fortifications. A number of international funders, including Jewish federations, the British United Jewish Israel Appeal, P.E.F. Israel Endowment Funds, the Gerald and Gail Ronson Family Foundation, the Jewish Agency and more, donated millions of shekels to the city’s philanthropic fund, the Ashkelon Foundation.
According to police, “donations received by the local authority worth millions of shekels, which were donated by various figures in Israel and abroad for the welfare of residents… made their way into the personal pocket of the mayor and his associates.”
The alleged embezzlement raises concerns that donors may be less willing to provide assistance in the future out of concern that the funding will again be diverted. A 2023 study on the subject that was published in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly found that donations to organizations that experience “diversions” — an illicit use of funds, including embezzlement or theft — decrease by some 5% on average, but more when the matter is reported in the press. Addressing the matter requires improvements to governance, the authors noted.
The police investigation arose after a local city council member, Eva Tuati, who had been requesting information about the community foundation’s activities throughout the war — to no avail — filed a freedom of information request to obtain it. Tuati told the Israeli nonprofit news outlet The Hottest Place in Hell, which first reported on the matter in September, that when she received the documents, they “were missing vital information; raised suspicions and questions; and obscured more than they revealed.” These gaps in the legally mandated reporting prompted the police probe into the matter, resulting in the detention of Glam and 11 other suspects this week.
Through his attorney, Glam has denied wrongdoing. “The mayor did not put one shekel in his pocket unjustly or illegally and did not provide money or favors to associates,” his attorney said in a statement. “He understands that the police must investigate and expressed hope that the probe ends quickly and will show that it is all noise and empty clatter devoid of substance.” Glam, who has since been released from house arrest, has been barred from the Ashkelon municipality for a week.
Glam was detained for questioning shortly after delivering a speech at a conference in Eilat for municipal treasurers in which he stressed the need to safeguard public funds. “My mother always told me — when the money is yours, do with it what you want. When the money belongs to the public, act far more responsibly.”
ENTRANCE INTERVIEW
‘You find your people at camp’: New FJC Chair Jeffrey M. Solomon dreams of doubling enrollment
There is a direct connection between Jeffrey M. Solomon, who recently became board chair of the Foundation for Jewish Camp, and Central Perk, the iconic coffee shop from the TV show “Friends.” And that link was forged at Jewish summer camp, where a 10-year-old Solomon befriended pop artist-to-be Burton Morris, who created much of the iconic artwork seen in the background of the long-running sitcom. At a time when the Jewish world yearns for “Jewish joy,” this is “the moment” to turn to camp, Solomon told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher. “You find your people at camp,” he said in an interview over Zoom, sitting in front of a painting of a coffee cup by his camp friend Morris that hangs in his home office in Boca Raton, Fla.
JD: What are you excited about as you start your term?
SM: When I first joined the board 10 years ago, we were still finding our way. We did a lot around affordability. We had a big program called “One Happy Camper,” which we still have, that provides scholarship money so that every Jewish child who wants to go to camp can go to camp. But over the last 10 years, with great leadership from our previous chairs and our previous CEO, we’ve moved beyond that.
After the post-Oct. 7 “Surge” of Jewish identity and revival, families are looking for ways to ensure that their children are having positive Jewish experiences, that there are safe spaces for them to be authentically Jewish without recrimination or without people questioning it. What I’m most excited about is extending that and making it available to more children. Every summer, we have about 200,000 campers and staff members between day camps and overnight camps. What would need to be true for that to be 400,000 or 500,000?
ALL-OUT BLITZ
Robert Kraft’s latest Super Bowl ad targets antisemitic bullying
For New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Sunday’s Super Bowl is about more than his team’s 12th chance at the title. It’s also a national platform for his latest 30-second ad aimed at tackling antisemitism, with more than 100 millions viewers set to tune in, reports Haley Cohen for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider. Titled “Sticky Note,” the commercial features a Jewish student who is bullied in the halls of his school, with a sticky note reading “dirty Jew” put on his backpack. In a show of allyship, a classmate approaches the student and puts a blue square piece of paper over the note. “Do not listen to that,” he says.
Taking on hate: The commercial is the third annual Super Bowl ad produced by The Blue Square Alliance against Hate — the nonprofit founded by Kraft, which rebranded in October from the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism. Last year’s ad sparked criticism from some Jewish activists for not focusing on — or even mentioning — antisemitism, as rapper Snoop Dogg and former Patriots quarterback Tom Brady exchanged deliberately vague insults. This year’s ad takes a more direct approach, addressing antisemitism head-on. “For the third straight year, the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate is proud to show up on sports’ biggest stage and speak directly to more than 120 million Americans with an urgent message: stand up for each other and stand up to hate wherever you see it,” Kraft said in a statement.
Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
Bonus: After being named as a finalist, Kraft was not selected for the NFL Hall of Fame, sources told ESPN.
EYE ON DAY CAMP
The ‘good problem’ highlighting a critical area for investment
According to the 2023 census conducted by the Foundation for Jewish Camp, the largest gains in camp enrollment are coming from day camps, writes Rabbi Jill Levy, director of Ramah Day Camp Greater DC, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “Day camps meet real needs: they are local and community-building; more affordable than many overnight camps; and deeply immersive while also structured so children return home each night. Yet day camps are still too often framed as secondary, as feeders rather than destinations. ”
Why it matters: “While overnight camps benefit from decades of data documenting their long-term impact, day camps have not yet been afforded the same level of rigorous study or shared best practices. Historically, philanthropic funding has been disproportionately directed toward overnight programs as a direct result of these impact studies. The current lack of investment is not a reflection of a lack of efficacy in day camps but rather a gap in commissioned research. To ensure equitable support and data-driven growth, we must prioritize capturing the unique value proposition of the day camp experience.”
NARRATIVE EDUCATION
Teaching hope: Israel education for today and tomorrow
“For decades, we’ve spoken about the importance of teaching Israel with nuance, but rarely have we trusted our youngest learners to join that conversation,” writes Mikhael Kesher, director of Israel education at The Jewish Education Project, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. A new curriculum for fourth and fifth graders, HaTikvah: Our Hope for Israel, “sits at the intersection of two imperatives: helping children to know Israel and Israelis more intimately, and helping them to imagine what a better, more hopeful future for Israel might look like.”
Building empathic literacy: “This approach reflects current research at the intersection of Israel education and developmental psychology, which shows that upper-elementary learners are capable of wrestling with questions about fairness, identity and justice when adults trust them to do so. Avoiding these topics doesn’t protect children; it leaves them to form opinions without Jewish context or guidance. By positioning educators as facilitators of values exploration, the unit helps reclaim Israel education as a deeply Jewish practice — one grounded in dialogue, empathy and the courage to hold complexity.”
Worthy Reads
Downplaying the Truth: In The Jewish Journal, Peter Himmelman argues that public figures invoking the tragedy and horrors of the Holocaust without including that Jews were specifically targeted are not just doing a disservice to the memory of the victims but distorting history. “Again and again, Hitler framed Jews as the carriers of an idea that threatened his ability to dominate: that law stands above rulers, that truth exists outside power, that the weak have moral standing, that the wise use of restraint is strength. These were the very ideas Nazism sought to destroy. The murder of Jews was therefore not incidental to the Nazi project. It was its metaphysical center.” [JewishJournal]
Don’t Stand Idly By: In The Times of Israel, Shuki Friedman calls on the Israeli government and the nonprofit sector not to turn a blind eye to the homicide rate in Arab communities in Israel, with a murder a day taking place since the start of 2026. “This indifference is a strategic and first-order moral mistake, and it is even more dangerous when it comes from those who constantly preach ‘governance’ and ‘sovereignty.’ Anyone who thinks the rampant violence in Arab towns is ‘their problem’ is, in effect, abandoning Israeli sovereignty in significant parts of the country. … Beyond the clear security and governance interest, there is also a Jewish moral issue that cannot be ignored. A Jewish state cannot accept a reality in which blood is spilled like water in its streets, even when that blood is not Jewish. The data also shows a shocking rise in the murder of innocent women and children. Indifference in the face of this daily screaming is a moral stain on Israeli society as a whole. A posture of ‘sitting idly by’ in the face of this horror does not reflect national strength, but a collapse of values.” [TOI]
Cranking It Up: In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, George Anders reports on a study of how funders and nonprofit leaders in the U.S. have been responding to the impact of federal funding cuts. “Over all, 38% of foundation leaders said they had increased their volume of unrestricted or multiyear grants in the previous year. Separately, 22% said they had made significant changes to their grant-making strategy in the previous year. In addition to boosting their overall giving rate, some funders accelerated their review cycles, making rapid-response grants to nonprofits in crisis. … Even so, foundations and nonprofits often aren’t on the same page. What grant makers see as decisive action may seem too small or hesitant to some nonprofits operating under stress.” [ChronicleofPhilanthropy]
Word on the Street
Republican and Democratic senators urged senior UBS executives in a hearing yesterday to reconsider the Swiss banking giant’s continued refusal to hand over more than 150 documents to an investigator probing Credit Suisse’s support for Nazi Germany during and after World War II, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports…
The descendants of French-Jewish art dealer Max Julius Braunthal, who was forced to sell a painting by Camille Pissarro under duress in 1941, are suing the Metropolitan Museum of Art for ownership of the work, which had been bequeathed to the museum more than two decades ago by its former chairman…
In an interview with The New York Times, former Israeli hostage Guy Gilboa-Dalal recounts his experiences in captivity, including the numerous sexual assaults he endured over the course of two years…
The Baltimore Jewish Times interviews filmmaker Abby Ginzberg about her recent documentary, “Labors of Love: The Life and Legacy of Henrietta Szold,” about the U.S.-born founder of Hadassah…
The National Jewish Advocacy Center announced that it has acquired the Zachor Legal Institute…
The two Human Rights Watch staffers comprising the organization’s Israel bureau resigned after the NGO refused to publish a report that called Israel’s refusal to allow Palestinians the “right of return” a “crime against humanity”…
HIAS is shutting down its office in Vienna, through which passed most of the Soviet Jews bound for the United States, in light of federal funding cuts…
New NYPD data show that Jews were targeted in hate crimes 31 times in January in New York City, a decrease from the month before but a 182% increase from the same time last year…
Barbara Landow, a longtime benefactor of the Washington-area Jewish community, died last month at 90…
Elaine Grossinger Etess, the third-generation owner of Grossinger’s Catskill Resort Hotel, died last Tuesday at 98…
Rochel Pinson, the oldest Chabad-Lubavitch emissary, who helped expand the movement’s footprint across North Africa while living in Morocco and Tunisia, died at 102…
Transitions
Daniel Blain, the CEO of JewishAkron in Ohio, has stepped down from his position after four years in the role based on a “mutual agreement” with the board that the organization needed fresh leadership…
Pic of the Day
Joey Weisenberg and Rabbi Deborah Sacks Mintz perform a post-Shabbat concert last Saturday night at the Hadar National Shabbaton, which was held in East Brunswick, N.J.
Some 600 people attended the weekend gathering, which focused on the theme of “Building Communities of Depth and Dignity.”
Birthdays
Author, psychotherapist and group fitness instructor, her book Not Fade Away: A Memoir of Senses Lost and Found is about the genetic condition that has made her almost completely blind and deaf, Rebecca Alexander turns 47…
One of the founders of the Jewish Community of Greater Stowe (Vt.), Barbara Gould Stern… Co-founder and chair of Sage Publications, an academic publishing company, she was international president of B’nai B’rith Girls at 19, Sara Miller McCune turns 85… Attorney, bank executive and philanthropist, donor of the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County, Adrienne Arsht turns 84… Torrance, Calif., resident, Patrick B. Leek… Senior counsel at the global law firm Dentons, Evan Wolfson turns 69… Director of English language programming at Herzog College in Alon Shvut, Israel, Shalom Berger turns 66… Actress, best known for her award-winning role in the 1986 science fiction action film “Aliens,” Jenette Elise Goldstein turns 66… Member of the state Senate of Maryland, representing portions of Montgomery County, Brian J. Feldman turns 65… Former mayor of Anchorage, Alaska, Ethan Avram Berkowitz turns 64… Former kickboxing champion, ultra-distance cycling champion and IDF soldier, Leah Goldstein turns 57… President and COO of Blackstone Group and chairman of the board of Hilton Worldwide, Jonathan D. “Jon” Gray turns 56… The first Jewish mayor of Los Angeles, he then served as the U.S. ambassador to India until 2025, Eric Garcetti turns 55… Television writer and producer, best known for his work on two ABC dramas, “Lost” and “Once Upon a Time,” Edward Lawrence “Eddy” Kitsis turns 55… Executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council, Howard Libit… Senior vice president and chief policy officer at J Street, he was previously director of Jewish outreach for Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign, Ilan Goldenberg… Washington-based economic policy reporter for The New York Times since 2014, Alan Rappeport… CEO at Aeris Medical Group PLLC in Minneapolis, Noson “Nelson” Weisbord turns 43… Senior manager in the NYC office of Monitor Deloitte, he previously held a series of White House, OMB and Commerce Department positions, Justin Meservie turns 43… Client operations and legal project manager at Ropes & Gray, Abigail Dana Cable… Professor emeritus at Northeast Forestry University in Harbin, China, Dan Ben-Canaan… Jan Winnick…
