Your Daily Phil: Conservative movement apologizes to interfaith couples
Add EJP on GoogleGood Friday morning and Hanukkah sameach!
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on the Conservative movement’s latest report on embracing interfaith families, and interview freed Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov ahead of his speech today at Turning Point USA’s annual conference. We feature an opinion piece by Rabbi Ariana Capptauber about spreading the light and joy of Judaism, and another by Rabbi Simcha Scholar highlighting the need to both combat antisemitism and prepare mental health systems for when tragedy nevertheless strikes. Also in this issue: Liz Hirsh Naftali, H. Glenn Rosenkrantz and Aviva Jacobs.
Shabbat shalom!
What We’re Watching
Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest continues today in Phoenix, Ariz. Former Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov will take the main stage. More on this below.
The World Zionist Organization will hold a Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony at its Jerusalem headquarters on Sunday morning with the Sydney, Australia, Jewish community via live video broadcast. In attendance: Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Australian Ambassador to Israel Ralph King, representatives of bereaved families and Chabad, and 10th-grade students from a Sydney Jewish day school who are visiting Israel.
Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies, in collaboration with the Ruderman Family Foundation, is hosting a conference on Monday examining the Israel-U.S. relationship, including the connection between Israel and American Jewry.
What You Should Know
Last February, the Conservative movement asked members to share their thoughts on the movement’s approach to intermarrying couples. Over 1,200 responses flooded in, including hundreds from respondents who were once deeply involved in the Conservative movement, yet felt rejected the moment they fell in love with someone non-Jewish.
“That was incredibly painful to hear about,” Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal, the CEO of USCJ and the Rabbinical Assembly, told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher yesterday. “We felt that it was important to acknowledge that pain and hurt and to offer an apology for the policies and attitudes that led to their experience.”
On Thursday, the USCJ, Rabbinical Assembly and Cantors Assembly, the three arms of the movement, released their Joint Intermarriage Working Group Report, with an apology for the hurt the movement caused due to its previous view that interfaith marriage was a threat to Jewish survival. The report includes a list of recommendations for ways the movement can better serve interfaith families, including creating curricula based on welcoming interfaith families and conversion. It also recommends considering what role clergy can play in interfaith weddings, yet interfaith activists told eJP that they were disappointed that the report is mostly rhetorical and does not entail concrete changes in the movement’s policies. They added that they appreciated that the movement recognized that its actions so far have been ineffectual and pushed people away.
“People will continue to intermarry with or without Jewish clergy involvement,” Keren McGinity, who served as the movement’s first director of intermarriage engagement and inclusion from 2020 to July 2025, when her contract was not renewed, told eJP. “Interfaith couples and families need and want support and guidance around creating a home and a life together.”
The issue of interfaith marriages and weddings has emerged as a central division within the movement. Some are pushing for greater acceptance of so-called “mixed marriages,” which have grown increasingly common in the United States and within Conservative congregations. While there is general support for embracing existing interfaith families, to others within the movement, permitting Conservative clergy to perform interfaith weddings condones a practice that they see as inherently odds with halacha, to which the movement is bound.
The question of changing the role clergy can serve in an interfaith ceremony is still being discussed within the movement — including whether rabbis can perform a ritual, prayer or song at the ceremony — but must be brought before the movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, which is made up of representatives from the RA, CA and USCJ. “The current standard of rabbinic practice [that clergy do not officiate at a wedding ceremony where one person is not Jewish] is still in place,” Blumenthal said. “First of all, that only marks one particular moment within this range of times where we would want to engage couples in Jewish life, and, second, we are looking to clarify how that standard is put into practice by our clergy.”
CENTER STAGE
Freed Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov to address Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest
Turning Point USA’s annual AmericaFest kicked off on Thursday with prominent names on its four-day agenda, including Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). Some speakers, such as Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, have spread anti-Israel and even antisemitic messages through their platforms, while others, including Ben Shapiro and Glenn Beck, have been strong advocates for Israel. Joining them on the program on Friday is Omer Shem Tov, who was held hostage by Hamas in Gaza for 505 days, reports Lahav Harkov for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
Courting the crowd: Shem Tov plans to tell the audience at AmericaFest the story of his captivity, in addition to paying tribute to Kirk and discussing the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship. Shem Tov told JI that he’s speaking to TPUSA because “we can see on social media that something is changing on the American right. You can see more and more people coming out with all kinds of antisemitic statements and anti-Israel statements,” adding, “It’s very concerning, because these are people who vote for Trump, people who are supposed to be good for us.”
Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
SEASON TO SHINE
Placing the light in the window
“Like film directors, the rabbis of the Talmud are very intentional about how they tell the story of this holiday. They have placed God and the miracle of light in the center of the frame, and the historical conflict in the margin,” writes Rabbi Ariana Capptauber of Beth El Temple in Harrisburg, Pa., in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “At this time of year in particular, we should take their cue. We should spend our outward-facing moments focusing on the light and joy that Judaism brings to the world, and take a break from recounting the awful wars and oppression we have had to endure.”
A personal shift: “I used to think differently. My own grandmother and great-grandmother were Holocaust survivors whose entire extended family perished in Poland. When I transferred to a public high school, I was shocked to find that there was no Holocaust Memorial Day program, so I made flyers and booked a classroom and shlepped my grandmother to my school to tell her story. … Twenty years later I am a rabbi, still teaching about Judaism to Jews and non-Jews alike. And yet, my philosophy about what to teach has changed. Today, there are all too many stories in the news proving that this Jewish experience of persecution is ongoing. It’s clear what Jews are battling against these days. What is not as apparent, however, is what Jews are fighting for. What is it that has kept us alive over thousands of years, even as we are marginalized and hated by one society after another?”
TRAUMA RESPONSE
After the gunshots fade, hate keeps taking its toll
“In the hours after the Bondi Beach attack, our crisis professionals responded to hundreds of calls from witnesses, terrified parents, educators and families worldwide,” writes Rabbi Simcha Scholar, CEO of Chai Lifeline, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “While most callers had not been physically harmed, they were in acute distress. They described panic, confusion and the inability to calm their children or themselves. Some had been present at the scene. Others were parents thousands of miles away watching the news unfold in real time, struggling to explain to their children why a Jewish celebration had become a target.”
Can’t be ignored: “Communities need immediate access to crisis intervention, counseling and trauma-informed care that respects cultural and religious context. Delayed or inadequate support allows fear to harden into long-term trauma, affecting academic performance, family stability and communal life. Mental health response should not be viewed as optional or secondary to security measures. It is a core component of resilience. When communities invest in early intervention, they reduce long-term harm and help individuals regain a sense of control and stability. Ignoring this need risks allowing acts of hate to achieve their intended goal, which is not only to harm bodies but to fracture spirits and silence public Jewish life.”
Worthy Reads
Publicize the Miracle: In a Times of Israel opinion piece, Mijal Bitton recalls the history of public Hanukkah candle-lighting events, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s insistence that they take place, despite the concerns of other Jewish groups. “Over the past days, one thought has returned to me again and again: the Rebbe won. Thank God the Rebbe won. Today, public menorah lightings feel almost ordinary. This year alone, more than 15,000 were scheduled worldwide, Bondi Beach among the first. But this visibility was once bitterly contested. … The Rebbe rejected a posture many Jews had internalized: that Judaism belongs in private spaces but not public ones. Pirsumei nisa — publicizing the miracle — was never a ritual technicality. It was a philosophy of Jewish dignity. ‘Jews,’ he wrote, ‘either individually or communally should not create the impression that they are ashamed to show their Jewishness, or that they wish to gain their neighbors’ respect by covering up their Jewishness.’ The Rebbe was right. The candles worked. They still do.” [TOI]
Survivor’s Story: In The Wall Street Journal, Arsen Ostrovsky, the head of the Sydney office of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, reflects on the terror attack earlier this week in Sydney, Australia, in which he was injured. “I’ve spent years telling stories of terror and resilience as a lawyer. I have advocated for victims, documented atrocities and fought for survivors. I never imagined I would become one. Doctors later told me it was millimeters between life and death, ‘a miracle’ I survived. Trolls, spreading AI-generated images, said I was faking it, something I first learned about as I was about to be wheeled into the operating room. God willing, I will make a full recovery. What I saw on Bondi was pure evil. The terror, screams and lifeless bodies. It felt like the Nova Music Festival all over again, except this time it was on the beach I’d grown up on — an Australian sanctuary. I’d moved my family here to escape war and was taking up a new job to help combat antisemitism.” [WSJ]
Love Means Accountability: On Medium, Liz Hirsch Naftali, who advocated for the release of her great-niece Abigail Mor Edan, who was taken captive on Oct. 7, 2023, after her parents were killed, demands a serious inquiry into the failures that preceded the Hamas attacks. “Last week, my great-niece Abigail turned six — her second birthday since being released from Hamas after fifty-one days in captivity. We celebrated her big day, of course. But the gift she truly needs — the one none of us can wrap — is the truth about how Israel failed to protect her, her siblings, and her parents on October 7, and why, nearly two years later, there has still been no independent investigation. … There are questions I will never stop asking. How was no one there to protect my niece and nephew — or the more than 1,200 children, women, men, and grandparents murdered that morning? How was my niece Smadar, one of 48 Americans killed that day, left defenseless in her home? How was three-year-old Abigail — one of 35 kids under age 18, and one of 250 hostages — allowed to be stolen into Gaza by the very terrorists who killed her parents? And how could Israeli leaders vote against deals that might have brought Abigail and other children home sooner? I ask these questions not out of anger, but out of responsibility. Because silence, when it comes to truth, is not loyalty — it is complicity.” [Medium]
Word on the Street
The Senate voted to confirm Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun as the Trump administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism on Thursday, as part of a package of nearly 100 nominees for various federal posts; the package was passed along party lines. The confirmation was quickly hailed by Jewish groups, including the World Jewish Congress and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations…
The Times of Israel spotlights the Russian-speaking Jews who make up a significant percentage of Sydney, Australia’s Bondi Beach community, in the wake of Sunday’s deadly terror attack…
Israel’s National Road Safety Authority reported yesterday that 443 people were killed in vehicular crashes this year, making 2025 the deadliest year on Israeli roads in two decades…
The Jewish Education Project (TJEP) announced the inaugural cohort for its Shamash Fellowship for veteran Jewish educators working in part-time Jewish education settings, such as synagogue Hebrew schools…
TJEP also announced the 18 recipients of its 2025 Shine A Light on Antisemitism Civic Courage Award, including students, educators, university administrators and online influencers…
The Orthodox Union and Agudath Israel of America are denouncing New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s announced plan to sign the Medical Aid in Dying Act, which would legalize physician-assisted suicide in the state…
Nvidia announced plans to build a 160,000-square-meter tech campus in the northern Israeli town of Kiryah Tivon, with construction expected to begin in 2027 and continue through 2031…
The New York Times examines efforts to rein in the growth of billionaires’ sprawling compounds in Palo Alto, Calif., following recent controversies connected to Mark Zuckerberg, who was found to be operating an illegal private school on his property…
After pressure from Capitol Hill — including a blockade by Democratic senators of the confirmation of the Coast Guard commandant — the Coast Guard struck from its disciplinary policies language describing swastikas and nooses as “potentially divisive,” rather than as explicitly banned hate symbols, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani‘s newly tapped director of appointments, Catherine Almonte Da Costa, resigned on Thursday afternoon after her history of antisemitic online posts — including complaining about “money hungry Jews” — was exposed, reports Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen…
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency looks at how a request from Harlem, New York’s Jewish community to have a hanukkiah included in a neighborhood holiday display turned into an interfaith communal celebration…
H. Glenn Rosenkrantz, a former journalist who became one of the American Jewish community’s top communiciations professionals, died this week at 64. Want to share a remembrance? Email us at jay@ejewishphilanthropy.com…
Major Gifts
U.S. collector and philanthropist Martin Z. Margulies donated a sculpture by German artist Anselm Kiefer, titled “Die Erdzeitalter” (Ages of the World), to the Israel Museum…
Transitions
Aviva Jacobs, the director for U.S. Jewish grantmaking at Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, will join Leading Edge next month to serve as its next chief impact officer…
American Jewish University has hired Amy Latzer as its next chief operating officer…
Amy Schlussel, who worked as director of advancement at Hillel Day School outside Detroit, is moving to the Jewish Funders Network to serve as the program manager of its Day School Affinity Group…
Chuck Green, the director of community security at the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City, announced that he is retiring after nearly nine years in the role…
Pic of the Day
Former hostage Bar Kuperstein (right) is inducted last night into United Hatzalah as an EMT by the organization’s founder and president, Eli Beer, during the group’s Miami gala. The event raised some $120,000 to help Kuperstein and his family with their medical and living expenses.
The Kuperstein family has deep ties to United Hatzalah and to Beer specifically: Kuperstein’ father, Tal, was a United Hatzalah volunteer and was injured while responding to a medical emergency involving a child. Beer was among the United Hatzalah volunteers who took shifts at the family’s falafel shop to help keep the Kupersteins afloat. Bar trained with United Hatzalah at 17 and served as an unofficial volunteer, before serving as a medic in the IDF; he recounted using those medical skills to save lives when Hamas terrorists attacked the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, where he was working as a security guard, before he was kidnapped and taken to Gaza.
Beer surprised Kuperstein with a personalized medic vest with his name; it also features Kuperstein’s father’s call code, 5055, “so he can continue his family’s legacy of saving lives,” said Beer. “We are incredibly proud to officially welcome Bar Kuperstein to United Hatzalah, turning unimaginable trauma into an uplifting commitment to help save [the] lives of all people in Israel.”
Birthdays
President of the University of Miami from 2015 until 2024, now chancellor of UCLA, Julio Frenk turns 72 on Saturday…
FRIDAY: Chair emeritus of the Democratic Majority for Israel, Ann Frank Lewis turns 88… Journalist and playwright, he worked as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times based in Saigon, London, Nairobi and New Delhi, Bernard Weinraub turns 88… NYC-based real estate investor, Douglas Durst turns 81… Ardsley, N.Y. resident, Ruth Wolff… Israeli computer scientist and high-tech entrepreneur, she is a director of technology at Google Cloud, Orna Berry turns 76… Town justice in Ulster, N.Y. and a past president of Congregation Ahavath Israel, Marsha Solomon Weiss… Host of RealTalk MS Podcast, he was previously the publisher of Long Beach (California) Jewish Life, Jon Strum… SVP at the Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life, Eli Schaap… CFO at wine importer and distributor, New York Wine Warehouse, Jane Hausman-Troy… British cellist, distinguished for his diverse repertoire and distinctive sound, Steven Isserlis turns 67… Author of 25 best-selling thriller and espionage novels, Daniel Silva turns 65… Member of the Knesset for the Meretz party until 2022, Moshe “Mossi” Raz turns 60… Israeli high-tech entrepreneur, he is the founder and CEO of MyHeritage, Gilad Japhet turns 56… President and chief creative officer of Rachel G Events, Rachel L. Glazer… Executive vice president of global government affairs at American Express, Amy Best Weiss… Film and television actress, Marla Sokoloff turns 45… Acclaimed actor, Jake Gyllenhaal turns 45… Deputy Washington bureau chief for The Boston Globe, Tal Kopan turns 39… Head of premium content and community strategy at LinkedIn, Callie Schweitzer… Co-founder and CIO of Aption, Aaron Rosenson… Actress, known for her role in Amazon Prime’s “Sneaky Pete,” Libe Alexandra Barer turns 34… Member of the Minnesota Senate, Julia Coleman turns 34… Consultant at Boston Consulting Group, Haim Engelman… Reporter for The New York Times, focused on billionaires, Theodore Schleifer…
SATURDAY: Founder of an online children’s bookstore, Yona Eckstein… Former chair of the executive committee of the Jewish Federations of North America, Michael Gelman turns 81… Illusionist, magician, television personality and self-proclaimed psychic, Uri Geller turns 79… Television producer, he is the creator of the “Law & Order,” Chicago and FBI franchises, Richard Anthony “Dick” Wolf turns 79… Southern California resident, Carol Gene Berk… Owner of the Beverly Hilton Hotel and the Waldorf Astoria in Beverly Hills, Binyamin “Beny” Alagem turns 73… Flushing, N.Y. resident, Bob Lindenbaum… Educational advocate and strategist at the Melmed Center in Scottsdale, Ariz., until 2024, Ricki Light… Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Yale since 2014, she is a professor of both philosophy and psychology, Tamar Szabó Gendler turns 60… Author of the 2019 book Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, she writes the “Dear Therapist” column for The Atlantic, Lori Gottlieb turns 59… Retired IDF general and commander of the Israeli Air Force until 2022, Amikam Norkin turns 59… CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, Jeremy Burton… Swiss-born British philosopher and author, Alain de Botton turns 56… Former tight end for the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints, now a senior sales rep for Medtronic, Scott Lawrence Slutzker turns 53… Israeli-American television and film writer and producer, Ron Leshem turns 49… Actor, producer, screenwriter and comedian, known by his first and middle names, Jonah Hill Feldstein turns 42… Director of development for Hadassah Metro (N.Y., N.J., CT), Adam Wolfthal… Program and special initiatives director at Kirsh Philanthropies, Megan Nathan… Humor and fashion writer best known as “Man Repeller,” Leandra Medine Cohen turns 37… Israeli singer who performs Hebrew, English, Arabic and Spanish songs and covers, Ofir Ben Shitrit turns 30… Pitcher in the Houston Astros organization, he pitched for Team Israel in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Colton Gordon turns 27…
SUNDAY: Former chair of the N.Y. Fed and a partner at Goldman Sachs, Stephen Friedman turns 88… Philanthropist, she has held many leadership roles at the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven, Helaine Lender… Producer of over 90 plays on and off Broadway for which she has won seven Pulitzer Prizes and ten Tony Awards, Daryl Roth turns 81… Born in Auschwitz five weeks before liberation, she is one of only two babies born there known to have survived, Angela Orosz-Richt turns 81… Artistic director laureate of the New World Symphony, conductor, pianist and composer, Michael Tilson Thomas (family name was Thomashefsky) turns 81… Member of Knesset since 1999 for the Likud party, now serving as minister of tourism, Haim Katz turns 78… Director of the LA Initiative at the UCLA School of Public Affairs, he was a member of the LA County Board of Supervisors for 20 years following 20 years on the LA City Council, Zev Yaroslavsky turns 77… Film, television and voice actor, he served as president of the Screen Actors Guild for seven years, Barry Gordon turns 77… Managing partnerof WndrCo, he is the former CEO of DreamWorks Animation and chairman of Walt Disney Studios, Jeffrey Katzenberg turns 75… Former member of the Legislative Assembly of Victoria, where she became the first female Jewish minister in Australia, Marsha Rose Thomson turns 70… Atlanta-based criminal defense attorney, he is a behind-the-scenes fixture in the world of rap musicians, Drew O. Findling… Retired four-star general who served as chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, David L. Goldfein turns 66… Former U.S. secretary of the Treasury in the Trump 45 administration, Steven Mnuchin turns 63… Senior NFL insider for ESPN, Adam Schefter turns 59… Owner of Liberty Consultants, Cherie Velez… Former member of the Knesset for the Kulanu party, Rachel Azaria turns 48… President of France since 2017, Emmanuel Macron turns 48… Principal of Kona Media and Message, he is also the founder of Scriber, Brian Goldsmith… State scheduler for Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), Laura Benbow turns 40… Israeli actor and fashion model, he has appeared in the Israeli versions of “Dancing with the Stars” and “Survivor,” Michael Mario Lewis turns 38… Chief creative officer of Five Seasons Media, Josh Scheinblum… Executive vice president in the financial services practice at Weber Shandwick, Julia Bloch Mellon… Assistant metro editor for The Boston Globe, Joshua Miller…
