Your Daily Phil: Australia marks shloshim of Bondi Beach massacre
Add EJP on GoogleGood Friday morning!
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we interview UJA-Federation of New York CEO Eric Goldstein, and report on yesterday’s national memorial in Australia for last month’s Bondi Beach terror attack. We also speak with North Carolina political and philanthropic leaders about the recent antisemitic vandalism at Charlotte’s Shalom Park. We feature an opinion piece by Menachem Z. Rosensaft calling for memorial plaques honoring two French Nazi collaborators to be removed from New York City’s “Canyon of Heroes,” and one by Tiffany Harris about cultivating constructive dialogue skills among Jewish communal professionals. Also in this issue: Robyn Faintich, Emily Damari and Danielle Amit and Marvin Schotland.
Shabbat shalom!
What We’re Watching
The World Economic Forum wrapped up this morning in Davos, Switzerland. Some of those who are staying for the weekend will be attending tonight’s Shabbat dinner in the Alpine town. Though not an official WEF event, the exclusive annual dinner will bring together roughly 150 conference attendees. Anne Neuberger, the Biden administration’s deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology, and Henry Schein Board Chair and CEO Stanley Bergman, will be the dinner’s main speakers this year, joined by Michelle Bolten, the chief of staff to the vice chairman of BlackRock. Rabbi Menachem Berkowitz, who received his semicha from Chabad last week, will give tonight’s d’var Torah, and professor Ricardo Hausmann will share his thoughts on current events, with a focus on Venezuela.
Manhattan’s Temple Emanu-El will hold a special interfaith service tonight honoring Cardinal Timothy Dolan as the longtime Catholic official retires as the archbishop of New York.
The two-day JLI Leadership Summit starts on Sunday in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
The Israeli government is kicking off its second international conference on combating antisemitism on Monday morning; few Jewish leaders are slated to participate in the gathering, which was largely boycotted by Jewish figures last year over the involvement of far-right European leaders.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH EJP’S JUDAH ARI GROSS
Last week, UJA-Federation of New York CEO Eric Goldstein, who is stepping down this summer after nearly a dozen years at the helm of the country’s largest Jewish federation, cut the ribbon on the new “Beit Nova” center for survivors of the massacre at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, which his organization had supported with a $2 million donation.
This was one of Goldstein’s many visits to Israel in the past two years — he flew back to New York shortly after the ceremony — as his organization has emerged as, by far, the Jewish federation that has donated the most funds to Israeli causes in the wake of the attacks. Donating roughly $325 million since Oct. 7, 2023, UJA-Federation of N.Y. has provided more than a third of all the donations made through the North American federation system’s Israel emergency fund.
In recent months, the federation has faced scrutiny for some of its donations, such as a $1 million pledge for IsraAid’s operations in Gaza and more recently, the organization supported the launch of the Arab-Jewish shared society-focused AJEEC-NISPED’s new center, which was named in honor of slain peace activist Vivian Silver. At the same time, the federation has found itself standing in opposition to a mayor, Zohran Mamdani, whom much of the Jewish community views warily for his long history of anti-Israel activism. Last month, at a UJA event, the federation’s board chair, Marc Rowan, declared Mamdani an enemy of the Jewish community, sparking backlash from Jews on the political left.
This week, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross spoke with Goldstein about how he and the organization are handling this complicated period.
Judah Ari Gross: I wanted to check in with you both as you are nearing the end of your tenure and because this appears to be a particularly complex time for UJA-Federation of New York. Generally speaking, how are you navigating this highly politicized point in time?
Eric Goldstein: This is a fraught moment in the community, resulting from the crises around us: the events of Oct. 7, [2023,] not only what happened in Israel, but the reverberations in America. The reverberations in America were deeply unsettling to so many in our community. People we thought were allies were silent or worse, and so it’s increased the level of fear and uncertainty about living in the largest Jewish community in the world outside of Israel. That said, I think that we are a strong, vibrant community, and I believe we will continue to be a strong, vibrant community.
JAG: I know that the Celebrate Israel Parade is still several months away, but are there already tensions around an event like that, between the Jewish community and City Hall? Are there concerns within the Jewish community about having such a public event in the wake of the Bondi Beach attacks and the arson fire in Jackson, Miss.?
EG: Look, it’s deeply unsettling for the Jewish community to have a mayor who doesn’t believe that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish homeland, who thinks that Israel is genocidal. It creates enormous cognitive dissonance. It’s something that is really, you know, a stab in the heart for us, and there’s no getting around that. On the other hand, let’s understand that we have the first Jewish woman speaker of the city council, Julie Menin. The largest vote-getter in the citywide election was Mark Levine, who got a lot more votes than Zohran Mamdani and who ran as an unapologetic Zionist. His son served in the IDF. Mark speaks Hebrew. When he was borough president, he did a sort-of sister community with Bat Yam [outside of Tel Aviv]. You have significant, significant numbers of people who are very supportive.
I think the lesson of what’s happened for our community is that we all knew our members of Congress, we knew our senators from New York, but we were much less conversant about who was our city council member, who was our state senator, our state assembly member. We weren’t as civically engaged in local government. Now we didn’t think we really needed to be, but this is a moment of recognition that, as a community, we need to take nothing for granted. We need to be smart.
DARKNESS AND LIGHT
Chabad of Bondi marks shloshim of Bondi Beach victims as country holds national day of mourning
At the Sydney Opera House on Thursday night, the sons of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, Reb Yaakov Levitan, Boris Tetleroyd, Alex Kleytman and Zev Weitzen — five of the 15 people killed by terrorists at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in the Australian city in December — recited the Mourner’s Kaddish. The event, titled “Light Will Win,” was organized by Chabad of Bondi to mark the shloshim of the victims, a 30-day milestone in the Jewish mourning cycle, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim. The gathering at the city’s iconic Opera House, which marked a national day of mourning in Australia, was attended by Australia’s highest-profile political officials, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who officially apologized to the Jewish community for the attack. “I am deeply and profoundly sorry that we could not protect your loved ones from this evil,” Albanese said.
Too little, too late: In the month since the attack, Chabad has fundraised for those affected by them, raising some $6 million to date, according to Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, executive director at Chabad’s world headquarters in Brooklyn, N.Y. While the Australian government has covered most of the victims’ immediate expenses, such as hospital care, Kotlarsky is concerned about having enough to meet the victims’ long-term needs. “I’m a little surprised all the campaigns together did not really bring in the money that these people are going to need to live on,” he told eJP. “The $6 million that was raised is not going to be nearly enough.”
DISTURBING THE ‘PEACE’
North Carolina political leaders condemn antisemitic vandalism at Shalom Park
Political and philanthropic leaders in North Carolina are condemning the Nazi symbols and antisemitic graffiti discovered earlier this week at Shalom Park, a 54-acre campus that is home to a Jewish Community Center, Jewish federation, community foundation, two synagogues, a preschool, a school, a library and a day camp, among other Jewish services, including a dedicated multi-car security detail, reports Emily Jacobs for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
Show of solidarity’: “These ugly, hate-filled images left in Charlotte’s Shalom Park are unacceptable. My heart goes out to the Jewish North Carolinians who had to bear witness to this hateful ignorance,” Gov. Josh Stein, who is Jewish, told JI. “Every person, regardless of religious background, deserves to live and worship without fear or intimidation. I am dedicated to doing everything I can to root out antisemitism in North Carolina.” Tom Lawrence, president and CEO of the Leon Levine Foundation — the main funder of Shalom Park — spoke out following the incident, noting the community’s support in the wake of the vandalism. “While this moment demonstrates that there are still pockets of hate in our community, it does not define who we are. In response, friends, neighbors, and allies have come together in a powerful show of solidarity,” said in a statement to JI.
Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
Garden State grumbling: Nearly 100 New Jersey rabbis wrote to now-former Gov. Phil Murphy and members of the New Jersey Assembly this week expressing concerns about reporting from Jewish Insider that Murphy and other Democratic leaders had blocked passage of legislation to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, JI’s Marc Rod reports.
DISHONORABLE MENTION
NYC plaques honoring antisemitic war criminals are an abomination
“As International Holocaust Remembrance Day approaches next week, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, City Council Speaker Julie Menin and Comptroller Mark Levine have a golden opportunity to join together and put an end to the memorialization of two odious French World War II war criminals on the sidewalks of lower Manhattan,” writes law professor Menachem Z. Rosensaft, general counsel emeritus of the World Jewish Congress, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
The backstory: “Marshal Philippe Pétain and Pierre Laval were, respectively, the French chief of state and the head of the Vichy regime from 1940 until 1944. They oversaw and were responsible for the promulgation of draconian antisemitic laws and enabled the deportation of thousands of Jews from France to Nazi death camps in German-occupied Poland. On their watch, approximately 77,000 Jews living in France were murdered during the Holocaust, and yet black granite markers engraved with their names are on prominent display on Broadway’s so-called Canyon of Heroes in lower Manhattan. … As the son of two survivors of the Nazi camps of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, I call on Mamdani, Menin and Levine to join forces and take the necessary steps to permanently and publicly rid the lower Manhattan sidewalks of these two plaques. If they do, they will significantly advance the cause of Holocaust remembrance. Anything less, on the other hand, would signal to the young people of whom Menin spoke at Park Avenue Synagogue last weekend that the oft-expressed repudiation of Nazis, Nazi collaborators and Nazi ideology is hollow — that Holocaust education is an anachronism that can be ignored without consequences.”
CAPACITY BUILDING
In polarizing times, Jewish professionals need constructive dialogue skills
“During my years as a Moishe House resident and host in Washington, D.C., we witnessed polarizing events including the murder of George Floyd, multiple presidential elections and growing antisemitism,” writes Tiffany Harris, chief program officer of Mem Global, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “In that environment, there were countless moments, big and small, that required deep listening, empathy and genuine curiosity to navigate. In today’s political climate, these skills are in even more demand.”
A mental muscle: “To help us with this critical work, I turned to the Constructive Dialogue Institute. In 2022, we began using their Perspectives curriculum to train our staff in viewpoint diversity so they could navigate complex and often emotionally charged conversations. Constructive dialogue is not about winning an argument or proving that the other side is wrong. It is about developing mutual understanding without giving up our own beliefs.”
MAASEH AVOT SIMAN LEBANIM
What ancient Egypt’s Jewry can teach American Jewry
“This week’s Torah portion, Parshat Bo, tells the final chapter of ancient Egyptian Jewry, the first Great Diaspora of the Jewish People. Its archetypal story is laid out in Genesis and Exodus and the details of its arc of rise and decline offer insights for American Jewry,” writes Gidi Grinstein, founder and president of the think tank Reut USA, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
A long shadow: “The chapters of Genesis that describe this first Jewish Diaspora in Egypt foreshadow recurring dynamics and dilemmas that transcend that moment in Jewish history. Examples include the arrival of a powerless few and their rise to power and privilege; Joseph’s considerations of where to settle his family so it can flourish with distance from Egypt’s authority; the Israelites having distinct economic domains (here herders in a land of agrarians); suspicion of dual loyalty; anti-Jewish legislation, weaponization of law-enforcement against Jews and an attempt of their elimination; and debate within families about how to survive under oppression.”
Worthy Reads
A Critical Boundary: In a blog post on Jewish GPS, education consultant Robyn Faintich responds to Wednesday’s story in eJewishPhilanthropy about the struggle over a Hebrew charter school in Oklahoma. “We cannot credibly oppose Christian nationalist efforts to embed religion into public education if we are willing to blur those same boundaries ourselves. If we are disturbed by Bibles in every classroom, we should be equally disturbed when publicly funded Jewish schools drift toward religious instruction. Hebrew charter schools work because they are grounded in language immersion, not religion. Once that line erodes, the entire model becomes vulnerable, along with the constitutional protections minority communities depend on.” [JewishGPS]
Under Scrutiny: In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Eden Stiffman reports on concerns among funders and nonprofits about OpenAI Foundation’s independence and accountability. “The maker of ChatGPT finalized a controversial restructuring last October. During that process and in the months since, it’s been a source of concern for nonprofit and foundation leaders who say its unusual structure blurs the boundaries between philanthropy and corporate power. The foundation is tightly linked to OpenAI’s for-profit business and shares all but one board member with the company. Because it is not actually a foundation, it is not required to pay out a minimum share of its assets each year — so nonprofits can’t necessarily expect any windfalls from its huge reserves. It has also issued subpoenas to nonprofit critics as part of ongoing litigation tied to its restructuring. Together, those features have unsettled nonprofit and foundation leaders watching the deal closely.” [ChronicleofPhilanthropy]
Day-to-Day Hate: In The Washington Post, Or Moshe, who spent more than two years working in the international department of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, warns that antisemitism is increasingly being accepted as a part of society even as attacks against Jews escalate in their brutality and frequency. “I have learned something painful and consistent. Jewish pain is rarely allowed to stand on its own. Instead, it is weighed. Qualified. Contextualized. Explained away. Violence against Jews is treated as a reaction rather than an atrocity. Fear is treated as an exaggeration. Mourning is treated as politics. … Antisemitism today does not always look like the caricatures people expect. It does not always announce itself with slurs or symbols. Sometimes it presents itself as moral clarity. It claims righteousness while denying Jews the right to safety, dignity and self-defense. It insists that Jewish fear is suspicious. That Jewish vulnerability is strategic. That Jewish deaths require footnotes.” [WashPost]
Word on the Street
Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Princess Reema Bandar Al Saud and Israeli President Isaac Herzog both shared optimistic remarks about the region’s future at a lunch, hosted by Meta President Dina Powell McCormick and philanthropist David Rubenstein, following a signing ceremony inaugurating the new Board of Peace in Davos, Switzerland, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports…
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency spotlights OneTable as the Shabbat meal-focused organization restructures, including cutting a quarter of its staff last month…
Former hostage Emily Damari got engaged to her girlfriend, food influencer Danielle Amit, at a party celebrating the British-Israeli citizen’s one-year anniversary of her release from Hamas captivity…
President Donald Trump said he had rescinded his invitation for Canada to join his newly created Board of Peace, amid a deepening rift between Washington and Ottawa and days after Prime Minister Mark Carney warned that the world was “in the midst of a rupture”…
The NYPD arrested two teenagers in connection with the vandalization of a playground in Gravesend Park, Brooklyn, in which dozens of swastikas were graffitied on structures at the playground in two separate incidents; the teens are facing aggravated harassment charges, with one of them facing an additional charge of criminal mischief as a hate crime…
Former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the school’s anti-Israel protest movement, will likely be rearrested and deported to Algeria, a top Department of Homeland Security official said Wednesday, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports…
California state Sen. Scott Wiener announced on Thursday that he is stepping down from his role as one of the co-chairs of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, capping off nearly two weeks of controversy and frustration among Jewish leaders in the state after the San Francisco Democrat declared Israel’s actions in Gaza to be a genocide, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports…
Israel’s bobsled team, led by Israeli American athlete AJ Edelman, secured a slot in next month’s Winter Olympics in Milan, making history as the country’s first Olympic entrant in the sport; read more about Edelman’s yearslong effort to get an Israeli team to the Olympics here…
Baltimore-based entrepreneur, political fundraiser and philanthropist Michael Bronfein, the co-founder and CEO of the cannabis-focused Curio Wellness, died on Wednesday at 70…
Marvin Schotland, who led the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles from 1989-2022, died on Jan. 7 at 78…
Transitions
Tawanda Mutasah has been named the next president and CEO of the American Jewish World Service, beginning next month; Mutasah, who succeeds Robert Bank, comes to AJWS after holding a series of top roles at a number of organizations that are often deeply critical of Israel, including Oxfam America, Amnesty International and Open Society Foundations…
The Anti-Defamation League has elected three new board members: Stacie Hartman of the Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP law firm; Rev. Johnnie Moore, vice chancellor and managing director of Middle East studies at Pepperdine University; and Matthew Segal, the co-founder and co-CEO of the media company ATTN…
Monica Nolan started serving as executive director of Jewish Social Services in Madison, Wis., earlier this month…
Pic of the Day
Middle and high school educators participate in a two-day Holocaust education program last weekend that was organized by the West Orange, N.J.-based Jewish Foundation for the Righteous. Some 23 educators from eight states participated in the program, which “placed special emphasis on the opportunities and challenges of artificial intelligence in Holocaust education and research,” the foundation said.
Birthdays
Israeli peace activist and author, whose fiction and nonfiction books have been translated into more than 30 languages, David Grossman turns 72 on Sunday…
FRIDAY: Real estate developer, Bruce Ratner turns 81… Professor of biological chemistry at Weizmann Institute of Science, David Wallach turns 80… Educational consultant, trade association and non-profit executive, Peter D. Rosenstein turns 79… Manager of Innovative Strategies LLLP, he is a board member of the Baltimore-based Zanvyl and Isabelle Krieger Fund, Howard K. Cohen… Israeli archaeologist and professor at the University of Haifa, Estee Dvorjetski turns 75… Former Mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa turns 73… President of Lazard, Raymond J. McGuire turns 69… Broadway theater owner, operator, producer and presenter and president of the Nederlander Organization, he is a 13-time Tony Award winner, James L. Nederlander turns 66… Former president of Staples Inc., she serves on the boards of Burlington Stores, CBRE and CarMax, Shira Goodman turns 65… Former CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Camp for 15 years, Jeremy J. Fingerman… Journalist and co-author of Game Change and Double Down: Game Change 2012, John Heilemann turns 60… Palm Beach, Fla., resident, formerly of Greenwich, Conn., Hilary Bangash Cohen… Journalist, screenwriter and film producer, in 2009 he wrote and produced “The Hurt Locker” for which he won two Academy Awards including for Best Picture, Mark Boal turns 53…Film director, comic book artist and musician, S. Craig Zahler turns 53… Israeli set and production designer for the television and film industries, Arad Sawat turns 51… Fourth rebbe of the Pittsburgh hasidic dynasty, Rabbi Meshulam Eliezer Leifer turns 47… Founder and executive director of Jew in the City, Allison F. Josephs… Strategic communications consultant, Arielle Poleg… Head of Meta’s Instagram, Adam Mosseri turns 43… Manhasset, N.Y., native who competed for Israel in figure skating, she was the 2014 Israeli national champion, Danielle Montalbano turns 37… Retired in 2024 as a soccer player for DC United, he also played on the U.S. men’s national soccer team, Steven Mitchell Birnbaum turns 35… NYC native who competed for Israel in pairs figure skating, she and her partner won silver medals in the 2008 and 2009 Israeli championships, Hayley Anne Sacks turns 35…
SATURDAY: Canadian architect and urban renewal advocate, she is a member of the Bronfman family, Phyllis Barbara Lambert turns 99… Born in Tel Aviv, 2011 Nobel Prize laureate in Chemistry, professor at Technion and Iowa State University, Dan Shechtman turns 85… Singer-songwriter and one of the world’s best-selling recording artists of all time, Neil Diamond turns 85… Chairman of the Sazerac Company and of Crescent Crown Distributing, two of the largest domestic distillers and distributors of spirits and beer in the U.S., William Goldring turns 83… Professor of modern Jewish history at New York University, Marion Kaplan turns 80… Politician and lawyer who was an official in the Reagan, Bush 43 and Trump administrations, Elliott Abrams turns 78… Professor of alternative dispute resolution and mediation at Hofstra School of Law, Robert Alan Baruch Bush turns 78… Ukrainian-born comedian, actor and writer, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1977 and is noted for the catchphrase “What a country,” Yakov Smirnoff turns 75… Conductor, violinist and violist, who has performed with leading symphony orchestras worldwide, Yuri Bashmet turns 73… VP of strategy at LiveWorld, Daniel Flamberg… Founder of an online software training website which was acquired by LinkedIn in 2015 for $1.5 billion, Lynda Susan Weinman turns 71… Burlingame, California-based surgeon at Peninsula Plastic Surgery, Lorne K. Rosenfield M.D…. Beryl Eckstein… Former senior correspondent for Fox News for 24 years, now a senior correspondent at Newsmax, Rick Leventhal… Former CEO of Ford Motor Company, and now on the boards of Hertz and Qualcomm, Mark Fields (his family’s original name was Finkelman) turns 65… B’nei mitzvah coordinator at Temple Beth Am of Los Angeles, Judith Alban… Former HUD secretary and OMB director, now the president and CEO of Enterprise Community Partners, a housing non-profit, Shaun Donovan turns 60… Co-founder and executive director of Protect Democracy, he served as associate White House counsel in the Obama administration, Ian Bassin turns 50… Journalist and then tax attorney, now chief legal officer at Ripple Fiber, Joshua Runyan… Sporting director for Hapoel Jerusalem of the Israeli Premier League and the FIBA Champions League, Yotam Halperin turns 42… Founder and CEO at TACKMA and a principal at Schottenstein Property Group, Jeffrey Schottenstein… Former regional director of synagogue initiative at AIPAC, Miryam Knafo Schapira… Law Clerk at Fried Frank, Michael Krasna… Musician and former child actor, Jonah Bobo turns 29…
SUNDAY: Senior partner of The Mack Company and a director of Mack-Cali Realty, a real estate investment trust, David S. Mack (family name was Makofsky) turns 84… Editor-in-chief of The National Memo, Joe Conason (family name was Cohen) turns 72… Retired in 2023 as dean of the Jerusalem campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Naamah Kelman-Ezrachi turns 71… Senior vice president and senior portfolio manager in the Los Angeles office of Morgan Stanley, Robert N. Newman… Stage, film and television actress and television director, Dinah Beth Manoff turns 70… Los Angeles resident, Helene S. Ross… Agent at Creative Artists Agency, Michael Glantz… Chief correspondent and executive editor for CBS News “Eye on America” franchise, Jim Axelrod turns 63… Former member of Knesset for Yesh Atid, he also served as minister of education, Shai Moshe Piron turns 61… Founding partner of merchant bank Finback Investment Partners, John Leachman Oliver III… Member of the Canadian Parliament from Montreal since 2015, he won 12 medals in swimming at the 2013 and 2017 Maccabiah Games, Anthony Housefather turns 55… Author of multiple novels, she is a writer-in-residence in Jewish studies at Stanford University, Maya Arad turns 55… Toronto-born movie and television actress, she had a recurring guest role on the Fox TV series “24,” Mia Kirshner turns 51… National political reporter at The Washington Post covering campaigns, Congress and the White House, Michael Scherer… President and CEO of Knollwood Cemetery Corp, David Newman… President of Ukraine since 2019, he is the first Jewish leader of that country, Volodymyr Zelensky turns 48… Member of the U.S House of Representatives (D-FL), Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick turns 47… Benjamin L. Newton… Managing vice president of executive operations for the National Association of Manufacturers, Mark Isaacson… Member of the Arizona House of Representatives until 2023, Daniel Hernández Jr. turns 36… Actress, writer and director, Pauline Hope Chalamet turns 34… Associate director of foreign policy at JINSA, Ari Cicurel…
