Your Daily Phil: Community O’s big infrastructure build-out for philanthropy in Israel
Add EJP on GoogleGood Friday morning!
IIn today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we spotlight an ongoing discussion on social media about what America’s Orthodox Jews “need” in order to make aliyah. We report on Community O’s efforts to build a shared organizational infrastructure for Israeli social entrepreneurs and a new JINSA report recommending a fundamental shift in the U.S.-Israel relationship. We feature an opinion piece by Mike Leven and Hadara Ishak about leveraging the “great wealth transfer” for Jewish causes, and a piece by Alyza D. Lewin breaks down the significance of a recent federal court ruling for the American Jewish community. Also in this issue: Amy-Jill Levine, Ken Daniels and Lisa Daniels-Goldman, and David Danieli.
Today’s Your Daily Phil was curated by eJP Opinion Editor Rachel Kohn and Israel Editor Justin Hayet. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
Ben Gurion Airport officially became the world’s most disrupted airport today due to ongoing effects of Wednesday’s wildcat strike.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD FROM eJP’S RACHEL KOHN
There is a conversation unfolding this week about aliyah taking place in the digital shmoozing grounds where Modern Orthodox, Haredi and Hasidic figures mix and mingle and address their online constituencies.
On another level, though, it is a conversation that captures different perspectives on what it means, as Jewish individuals and as Jewish communities, to need something — and it offers an opportunity to reflect on how the community prioritizes those needs and who carries the burden of meeting them.
Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here.
News
CLOUD PHILANTHROPY
Community O wants to be AWS for Israeli nonprofits
With more than 150 projects across 30 cities in Israel, when you ask Israeli social entrepreneur Nehoray Erdinast Ofri what Community O is, he skips the nonprofit vocabulary and reaches for the clouds: It’s AWS — Amazon Web Services — for nonprofit organizations in Israel, he told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Justin Hayet. Amazon’s cloud service allowed a generation of startups to launch without buying and running their own servers, and Community O wants to do the same for social ventures, serving as a fiscal sponsor and operational host that hands founders the legal, financial and administrative machinery of a nonprofit so no one has to build it from scratch.
Market fit: “When I look at American Jewish and Israeli philanthropy there is amazing energy that we see in the last few years,” Erdinast Ofri said, crediting Jewish foundations, families and a wave of partnerships and ideas. The roadblock comes later. “We know how to mobilize capital, but there is a bottleneck about how to transfer capital to ideas and create solutions on the ground,” he said. “That’s an infrastructure issue.”
RELATIONSHIP STATUS
JINSA calls for change in U.S.-Israel military alliance
A new report from the Jewish Institute for National Security of America demonstrates how, even among hawkish experts in Washington, the question is increasingly not how to preserve the traditional model of military aid to Israel, but what should replace it, Matthew Shea reports for eJewishPhilanthropy‘s sister publication Jewish Insider.
Allies with benefits: “The question for policymakers is not what America owes Israel. It is what America gains from having Israel as an ally — and how much more both countries can gain by making that alliance stronger,” JINSA said in a statement accompanying the report, titled “Shifting the Center of Gravity: Transforming the U.S.-Israel Security Partnership.”
Opinion
CALL TO ACTION
The ‘great wealth transfer’ has a disconnect, and Jewish philanthropy needs to find it
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Jewish Future Promise’s Mike Leven and Hadara Ishak note that bequest giving jumped almost 20% last year, according to the latest Giving USA report — the third big leap in just four years.
Blueprint for change: “For years, many assumed expanding Jewish day schools required building massive stand-alone campuses costing $35 million or more. That model may work in some communities, but it cannot scale quickly enough or affordably enough to meet the moment we are now facing. But another model is emerging, one rooted in operational efficiency, scalability and smart growth. As someone who spent decades building franchise businesses and hospitality companies, I recognize a scalable model when I see one.”
LEGAL VICTORY
Seeing through the ruse
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Alyza D. Lewin, president of U.S. affairs for the Combat Antisemitism Movement, delves into this week’s ruling in a Washington, D.C., district court that held that Jews are a racial minority and that the Star of David on the Israeli flag is a symbol of Jewish racial heritage.
“One of the defining characteristics of modern antisemitism is the deliberate erasure of Jewish peoplehood and the denial of the Jewish people’s ancestral connection to the Land of Israel. … Harassing, discriminating against or assaulting Jews because they refuse to disavow their people’s history and heritage is not a political debate. It is the unlawful targeting of Jews on the basis of their Jewishness. That distinction has legal significance.”
Worthy Reads
Sounding the Alarm: In The Wall Street Journal, historian Tevi Troy writes that pervasive antisemitism has transformed New York for Jews since his 1970s Queens childhood, pointing to synagogue security committees, a mayor-less Israel Day parade and recent figures showing that the majority of the city’s hate crimes targeted Jews. “In this period before Rosh Hashana, the daily shofar blasts are supposed to get Jews thinking about what they have done wrong in the past year and how they could be better in the next. This year that sound is also having them look to the city that has long been the center of American Jewish life and hoping against hope that it too can be better in the year ahead.”
Partnership Paradigm: In The Jerusalem Post, Editor-in-Chief Zvika Klein argues that Israel’s leaders treat Diaspora Jews as students, immigrants and audiences rather than true partners. “Chikli sees ignorance and prescribes education. Smotrich sees exposure and prescribes evacuation. Lapid sees hurt feelings and prescribes respect. Those are sovereign instruments, and sovereign instruments produce students, immigrants, and audiences. They cannot produce partners, because a partner is someone whose judgment you have conceded in advance.”
The Long Game: In a LinkedIn post, Seth Katzen, the president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Delaware, reflects on 23 years in federation leadership, arguing that relationships, trust and collaboration form the true foundation of successful philanthropy, above dollars, metrics or efficiency. “Several years ago, a donor with whom I had developed a relationship over time told me something I have never forgotten. After discussing our community’s needs and future aspirations, they said, ‘I don’t give because you asked. I give because I trust.’ Those six words crystallized everything I had come to believe about philanthropy.”
Major Gifts
Marketing executive Alison Friedman Brod has pledged $1 million to Tulane University to endow a media and communications wing bearing her name…
An anonymous individual donated $1.47 million to the Portland, Maine-based nonprofit Project Home to double its TRUST program, which provides unrestricted cash to low-income single mothers…
Transitions
Elizabeth Krantz is leaving AIPAC to join the Israel on Campus Coalition as its new director of national coalitions…
David Levinson was appointed chair of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation’s board of directors…
Dorit Jaffe is leaving her role as CEO of Hadassah Australia and Nicole Brooks was named the new CEO…
Melissa Engelberg is joining the Anti-Defamation League as its new individual gift officer…
Scholar Amy-Jill Levine was elected as the first-ever Jewish president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America…
Word on the Street
EHillel International is opening its first stand-alone undergraduate office at Clemson University, where Jewish enrollment has quintupled in recent years…
The Detroit Jewish News spotlights the Jamie Daniels Foundation, launched in 2018 by Ken Daniels and Lisa Daniels-Goldman after their 23-year-old son’s fatal overdose; the foundation funds prevention, recovery and stigma-reduction programs for young people across Michigan…
The U.K.’s Board of Deputies is recruiting Jewish children ages 7 to 13 for short films on Jewish life that will anchor a free, immersive website letting primary school pupils virtually tour a Jewish neighborhood…
The Dallas Morning News highlights how the Better Together Fund is reviving its nine-year push to sell nonprofit mergers as growth, having backed 85-plus partnerships and $7.1 million in grants since 2017…
A 35-year-old man faces battery and religious-intimidation charges after police said he punched a Jewish man in Surfside, Fla., cursed the victim and his wife and threatened to kill them…
Pic of the Day
Israeli President Isaac Herzog meets with David Danieli at the President’s Residence in Jersualem on Tuesday nearly 80 years after Herzog’s grandfather, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Isaac Halevi Herzog, helped rescue Danieli and hundreds of other orphaned Jewish children from postwar Poland.
Birthdays
Ron Blomberg, former MLB player, he was the first designated hitter in MLB history and was the manager of the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox in the Israel Baseball League, turns 78 on Sunday
FRIDAY
Irwin Wecker, retired owner of Effective Strategy Consultants, South Florida resident
Ilana Rovner, senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, turns 88
L. Rafael Reif, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology until the end of 2022, turns 76
Eric S. Brown, former chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, he was the first Jewish chief justice in Ohio history, turns 73
Yossi Dina, Israeli-born pawnbroker and star of the reality television series “Beverly Hills Pawn,” turns 72
Sabina Berman Goldberg, Mexican writer, playwright and journalist, turns 71
Mitchell Rales, businessman and collector of modern and contemporary art, he is the leading limited of the NFL’s Washington Commanders, turns 70
Jon Tester, former U.S. senator (D-MT), turns 70
Yehiel Lasri, Israeli physician who was a member of the Knesset, he now serves as mayor of Ashdod, turns 69
Jerry Avenaim, photographer best known for his fashion and celebrity images, turns 65
Ido Aharoni, Israeli career diplomat who served for six years as consul general in New York, turns 64
Scott Bessent, secretary of the U.S. Treasury, turns 64
Mark Stuart Charendoff, president at Maimonides Fund
Jack Weiss, co-founder of BlueLine Grid, he was previously an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles and a member of the Los Angeles City Council, turns 62
Chavie Kahn, member of the philanthropic leadership group for the UJA-Federation of New York
Ken Mehlman, global head of public affairs at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts-KKR, turns 60
Rachel Hirschberg Light, president of Berger Hirschberg Strategies
Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, both Bloomberg and Forbes rank him as one of the ten wealthiest people globally, turns 53
Jason Marquis, former MLB pitcher for nine teams, he was the starting pitcher in three of Team Israel’s first four games in the 2017 World Baseball Classic, turns 48
Chesa Boudin, former district attorney of San Francisco, turns 46
Adam Fisher, head coach of the Temple University Owls men’s basketball team, turns 42
Adam Rosenblatt, founding partner of Bold Decision, turns 41
Erica Miller, missions manager for domestic and overseas travel at the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia
David Abadian Heifetz, communications director at Breakthrough Energy
Madeline Fuhrman, pop singer and songwriter, turns 33
Tzippy Baitch, associate editor at Simon & Schuster
Noa Rakel Perugia, an Argov fellow at the World Jewish Congress
Lynn Sharon
James Barton
SATURDAY
Morton Dean, Emmy Award-winning television news journalist, formerly the weekend anchor of “CBS Evening News,” turns 91
Margie Berkowitz, former director of Prozdor, the high school program of the Hebrew College in Newton, Mass.
Paul Singer, founder, president, co-CEO and co-chief investment officer of Elliott Management Corporation, turns 82
Joyce Fox, dermatologist in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Eli Capilouto, president of the University of Kentucky since 2011, he traces his heritage to a small Sephardic community on the Island of Rhodes, turns 77
Steven Brill, founder of the magazine American Lawyer and the cable channel Court TV (now TruTV), he also co-founded NewsGuard, turns 76
I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former chief of staff to VPOTUS Dick Cheney, turns 76
Yitzhak Aharonovich, chairman of Mekorot (Israel’s water company), he was a member of the Knesset for the Yisrael Beiteinu party, turns 76
Mark Gilbert, former MLB outfielder, then investment banker, he was the U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and has served as president of B’nai Torah Congregation in Boca Raton, Fla., turns 70
Adlai W. Wertman, former investment banker who left his job to run a Los Angeles-based homeless service provider, he was also a professor at USC, turns 67
Ofra Strauss, chairwoman of Israel’s Strauss Group, conducting business in 20 countries, turns 66
Jesse Itzler, co-founder of Marquis Jet and part owner of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks, turns 58
Ed Miller, SVP of political campaigns and strategy at AIPAC, turns 55
Deborah Hochberg, director of strategic partnerships at the Paul E. Singer Foundation
Michael Fragin, senior advisor to the county executive in Nassau County, N.Y.
Craig Greenberg, mayor of Louisville, Ky., since the start of 2023, turns 53
Rachel Saifer Goldman, director of operations at the University of Pennsylvania Hillel
Stuart A. Graiwer, partner in the Century City office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
Shari Dollinger Magnus, co-executive director of Christians United for Israel
Shana Knizhnik, attorney and author, best known for her New York Times bestselling book, Notorious R.B.G.: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, turns 38
Claire Stein-Ross, chief of staff and development director at Protect Borrowers
Ari Stidham, actor known for his role as statistical genius Sylvester Dodd in the television series “Scorpion,” Ari Stidham, turns 34
Braden Adam Bishop, professional baseball player for nine years, he is now a player agent and also manages a foundation for families affected by Alzheimer’s, turns 33
SUNDAY
Norman Braman, owner of many car dealerships, art collector and former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, turns 94
Reuven Amitai-Preiss, director of the Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of the Jewish Communities of the East, turns 71
David Alexander Wolf, astronaut, medical doctor and electrical engineer, he brought a dreidel, a yad and a small menorah into space, turns 70
Richard Zeskind, retired senior vice president and general counsel of Eastern Savings Bank in Hunt Valley, Md.
Eitan Cabel, former member of Knesset for 23 years representing the Labor party and Zionist Union party, turns 67
Bracha Radin, owner of A&A Wholesale
Anna Kaplan, first Iranian-American member of the New York State Senate, her term ended in 2022, turns 61
Marc Swatez, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis
Elise Rosenstock, jewelry designer
Kimberly Merle Schrier, member of the House of Representatives since 2019 (D-WA), she served as a physician prior to entering politics, turns 58
Errol Damelin, founder and CEO of Wonga, a British financial technology company (one of the first fintechs in the world), turns 57
Jeremy Schaap, ESPN host and one of the network’s longest-tenured personalities, he has won 11 Emmy Awards, turns 57
Rabbi Josh Kohl, teacher at Politz Hebrew Academy in Philadelphia, known by his students as “Rabbi Science”
Lawrence Frank, former NBA head coach (Pistons and Nets), now president of basketball operations for the LA Clippers, turns 56
Craig Silverman, national reporter for ProPublica, turns 49
Mor Katzir, Israeli model, born in Haifa, turns 46
Avigail Goldgraber, managing director in the hospital and healthcare practice of Accenture
Isabella Tobias, retired ice dancer who competed for Georgia, Lithuania, and Israel, turns 35
Stephen Joffe, actor best known for his role as Alex in the television series “Timeblazers,” Stephen Joffe, turns 35
