Your Daily Phil: Daniel Elbaum takes helm of American Friends of IDF Widows and Orphans
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we interview Daniel Elbaum, the inaugural executive director of the American Friends of IDF Widows and Orphans. We report on the National Endowment for the Humanities’ $10.4 million grant to Tikvah Fund for a project to combat antisemitism and on the UJA-Federation of New York’s latest grant allocations to Israeli causes. And we examine a new report on antisemitism in the social work field. We feature an opinion piece by Rabba Yaffa Epstein and Guila Benchimol about teaming up to create a learning tool grounding SRE Network’s mission in Jewish texts, and one by Rabbi Steven C. Wernick sharing the strategy behind his Conservative congregation’s growth over the past three years. Also in this issue: Aya Korem, Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove and Israeli Social Equality Minister May Golan.
What We’re Watching
The Israel Defense Forces launched a major ground operation in Gaza City on Tuesday morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the military announced.
ANU Museum of the Jewish People and the Anti-Defamation League are hosting a conference this afternoon in Tel Aviv about the challenges facing Israel and global Jewry in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks. Speakers include ANU Chair Irina Nevzlin, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, Jewish Agency Chair Doron Almog and philanthropist Shira Ruderman.
The Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education is hosting a virtual panel at 12 ET — “Signals of a Surge: What does Jewish engagement look like post-October 7th?” — featuring panelists from Hillel International, Jewish Federations of North America, Union for Reform Judaism, Prizmah and UJA-Federation of New York.
American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) will host its Lamplighter Awards at Washington’s Union Station. This year’s honoree is Palantir CEO Alex Karp, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) will receive a leadership award.
American Friends of Magen David Adom will host its 2025 New York City Gala in Manhattan, where political commentator Meghan McCain will receive its Champion of Israel Award.
What You Should Know
For the bulk of his career, Daniel Elbaum has held positions at legacy Jewish organizations, including the American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League and, most recently, the Jewish Agency for Israel, where he served as head of its North America office and of its international development division. This week, he leaves behind the “100-year-old organizations” and breaks fresh ground as the inaugural executive director of the newly formed American Friends of IDF Widows and Orphans.
IDF Widows and Orphans (IDFWO), the parent organization of the new American “Friends of”, has existed in Israel for 35 years. But until a few years ago, the organization raised money in the U.S. through Friends of the IDF. The decision to split off from FIDF long predates the organization’s recent controversies, as well as the sudden, tragic rise in the number of IDF widows and orphans in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks and resulting nearly two years of war.
In January 2021, as IDFWO’s funding needs increased and the organization sought to diversify its donor base, the partnership with FIDF ended and the group started raising money through third-party platforms, Elbaum said. An American branch of the organization has been working to forge its own path since then, first registering as an independent organization in February 2023, and as a 501(c)(3) in March 2024. Until now, the fledgling organization has been led by David Metzler, IDFWO’s director of international relations.
Last week, Elbaum spoke with eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Daynim about his career transition, his goals for the new American “Friends of” and the need for trauma support in Israel. Since Oct. 7, 2023, there have been 330 new widows and over 780 orphaned children, Elbaum told eJP, contributing to his view that this role is a “calling.”
ND: You’ve held significant roles at several broad, legacy Jewish institutions. You’re now going to be the executive director of the American Friends of the IDF Widows and Orphans, which is a new and far more targeted organization. What led you to pivot?
DE: It starts and ends with the mission of the organization. So it wasn’t like I always thought, “I really always want to work for 100-year-old organizations.” That is what my employment history was, and I found those organizations to be tremendously fulfilling. I admit I didn’t know very much about IDF Widows and Orphans. I was actually in the process of interviewing with a few organizations that have been around for a while, then I learned about this opportunity. I was approached about it. I watched a couple videos, I spoke to one person, and I told my wife, “This is the job I want. This is where I want to be.”…
For me, it feels like everything that I’ve done professionally has brought me to this point where I can work in a targeted way to help those people who have paid the ultimate price for the survival of the Jewish state, and this is with a ton of respect, admiration and reverence for the legacy Jewish organizations where I worked.
HUMANITIES’ ROLE
NEH awards its largest-ever grant, worth $10.4M, to Tikvah Fund for ‘Jewish Civilization Project’ to combat antisemitism
In the single largest grant in the National Endowment for the Humanities’ history, the Tikvah Fund has received a $10.4 million grant to support its “Jewish Civilization Project,” the NEH announced on Monday. According to the National Endowment for the Humanities’ statement, the funding will support a three-year project aimed at combating “the recrudescence and normalization of antisemitism in American society,” reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim.
Majestic civilization: The grant will also support two fellowships — an expansion of Tikvah’s existing high school fellowship program, as well as a fellowship for early-career journalists focused on antisemitism and Jewish history. “At this weighty moment in the history of the West, we believe that Jewish ideas are essential to strengthening the best of our shared American culture and answering the perverse ideology of antisemitism with the enduring majesty of Jewish civilization,” Tikvah CEO Eric Cohen said in a statement.”
RECONSTRUCTION FUNDS
UJA-Federation of New York issues $7.8M in grants to Israel for recovery projects
The UJA-Federation of New York announced a fresh round of grant allocations to Israeli initiatives on Monday totaling $7.8 million, focusing primarily on recovery projects in the country’s north and the Western Negev, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross.
Allocation breakdown: Roughly half of the funds — $3.7 million — are going to southern Israeli kibbutzim and moshavim that were attacked by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, with grants ranging from $50,000 up to $350,000 for the hardest-hit communities: Kibbutz Nir Oz, Kibbitz Be’eri and Kibbutz Kfar Aza. The rest of the $7.8 million is going to a wide variety of initiatives aimed at strengthening Israel’s north, education programs in the Western Negev and to “special populations,” including families of Oct. 7 victims, female soldiers, reservists, hostages and their families, orphans and others.
FIELD FRACTURES
Jewish social workers warn of rising antisemitism in the field: ‘Counter to everything we learn in social work school’
Like most social workers, Jennifer Kogan went into the field to help people. A therapist who works in Ontario, Canada, and Washington, she markets her private practice as “compassion-focused counseling.” Everyone is welcome here, a banner on her website states. But Kogan’s understanding of her profession has radically shifted in the two years since the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. Despite its focus on compassion, the field of social work has been engulfed by antisemitism, according to a new report authored by Kogan and Andrea Yudell, a licensed clinical social worker in Washington and Maryland, reports Gabby Deutch for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
Called out: “Since Oct. 7, Jewish social workers have experienced unprecedented silencing, gaslighting, exclusion, isolation and public targeting in professional spaces,” states the report, which was published on Monday by the Jewish Social Work Consortium. The report’s authors claim that antisemitic rhetoric — and, in particular, anti-Israel litmus tests foisted on Jewish practitioners — has become endemic in the field. The report describes Jewish social workers being targeted on industry-wide email listservs, doxed and publicly called out during academic courses and lectures.
Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
SOURCE MATERIAL
The Torah of SRE: Modeling our values through Jewish wisdom
“A few months ago, SRE Network’s team realized that something was missing: While our resources and website were clear on the values that drive our work, they lacked the explicit Jewish language and grounding foundation that could deepen and enrich our mission,” write Rabba Yaffa Epstein, senior scholar and educator in residence at The Jewish Education Project, and Guila Benchimol, senior advisor on research and learning at SRE Network, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
A collaborative endeavor: “We knew that safety, respect and equity are fundamentally Jewish values, but somehow the Jewish language used to talk about these values was yet to be named. So we asked ourselves: If we are asking the Jewish community to live by these values, how are we rooting our own work in Jewish values? In this spirit of reflection, SRE’s executive director, Rachel Gildiner, asked us both to partner together in this work. … We began with studying and asking big questions. How can Jewish wisdom make our organizational values and work more resonant? Which texts could be a springboard for justice, kindness, humility and equity in our work? … Two scholars with different expertise shaped something neither could have created alone.”
READER RESPONDS
Here’s what renewal looks like in the Conservative movement
“In recent weeks, eJewishPhilanthropy hosted an urgent conversation about the fate of the Conservative movement and the role of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. … The critique is sobering, and necessary; but it is not the whole story,” writes Rabbi Steven C. Wernick, senior rabbi of Beth Tzedec Congregation in Toronto and a former CEO of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Recipe for success: “There are Conservative congregations not merely surviving but thriving, offering a blueprint for what renewal can look like. Beth Tzedec Congregation in Toronto — the largest Conservative synagogue in the world, with more than 2,500 households — is one such example. Three years ago, Beth Tzedec faced the same headwinds many congregations know well: declining membership, rising costs and organizational inertia. We could have resigned ourselves to decline. Instead, we leaned into strategy, leadership and possibility. … As Beth Tzedec celebrates its 70th anniversary, we do so not in spite of challenge, but because challenge propels us forward.”
Worthy Reads
Privileged Position: In a thread of posts on X, Israeli singer Aya Korem responds to American Jewish actor Hannah Einbinder’s denunciation of Israel at the Emmys. “Jews who stayed in Eastern Europe, like my family, faced brutal pogroms, harsher and harsher laws, and ultimately the horrors of the Holocaust. Many who couldn’t leave early never got a second chance. … While your grandparents escaped in time and settled in the U.S., enjoying a liberal ‘paradise,’ Holocaust survivors who arrived in Israel — what you call the ethnostate — were weak and traumatized, yet had to take up arms to defend the only place willing to take them in 1948. … Your ‘ethnostate’ (other ethnostates: Greece, Ireland, every Arab country) is the only reason I’m alive. So go ahead, wear your little badges and deliver your tiny speeches, enjoy feeling superior and moral. We, the only living Jews in the Eastern Hemisphere, will continue to bleed for the right to live with dignity.” [X]
Noah’s Arc: In The Forward, Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove considers the legacy of Ararat, a short-lived self-governing Jewish colony in upstate New York, which marked its 200th anniversary yesterday. “Yet the dream collapsed almost as quickly as it was proclaimed. … Its only enduring remnant is a marble cornerstone, still on display at the Buffalo History Museum. Carved into it are, in Hebrew, the words of the Shema… Today, we ought to remember Ararat as a bold attempt to wrestle with the central dilemma of Jewish modernity: how to live fully in the world without losing oneself to the world. The marble cornerstone in Buffalo proclaims Shema Yisrael — the most ancient declaration of Jewish faith. It remains a reminder that freedom is a gift, and that Jewish life cannot be sustained on inherited identity alone, nor can it survive in splendid isolation.” [Forward]
Time to Double Down: In The Times of Israel, American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch shares his reflections on the fifth anniversary of the Abraham Accords yesterday. “The best response to the horrific Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, is not to abandon the vision of a more integrated, peaceful, and prosperous Middle East; it’s the exact opposite: more diplomacy, more partnerships, more normalization. It’s to choose prosperity over strife, to choose the architecture of peace over the blueprint for more hatred and division. It is to recognize that the Jewish and democratic state of Israel is not only here to stay; it is central to the success of the entire region.” [TOI]
We’re Judged Because We Matter: In the Substack “Orthodox Conundrum Commentary,” Rabbi Scott Kahn offers insights from Talmudic sages to modern scholars on “The 13 Attributes of Mercy,” a passage from the Torah incorporated into the Selichot prayers recited before and during the High Holy Days. “When God recited the thirteen attributes of mercy, He was declaring to Moses His unending ability to forgive. But forgiveness is predicated upon the recognition that an individual did something unacceptable — which, ironically, indicates that the individual who transgressed matters to God. If a person were irrelevant to the Divine scheme — if human beings are too insignificant for God’s concern — then God would not care whether that individual listened to His word or not. The fact that God does care, and is willing to judge and forgive man, is evidence of man’s intrinsic worth.” [OrthodoxConundrumCommentary]
Word on the Street
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu predicted yesterday that Israel will have to become “a Super Sparta” and increasingly self-reliant economically as countries call for embargoes and sanctions against the Jewish state. And indeed, as the Israeli military launched a new ground offensive in Gaza City this moring, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange’s benchmark index dropped nearly 2%…
The Israel Police raided the offices of Israeli Social Equality Minister May Golan of the Likud party and summoned her for questioning as part of an investigation against her for allegedly fraudulently employing people and misappropriating public funds for private use through the nonprofit that she founded before entering politics, Hebrew City…
Sotheby’s will launch its new Manhattan headquarters this fall with auctions for the art collections of Leonard Lauder (worth an estimated $400 million) and Jay and Marian “Cindy” Pritzker (worth an estimated $80 million)…
The Monuments Men and Women Foundation halted the sale of two oil paintings of flowers believed to be by Ambrosius Bosschaert, after determining that they may have belonged to Adolphe Schloss, a German Jew living in France whose art collection was looted by the Nazis…
The Fallen Servicemembers Religious Heritage Restoration Act, which aims to ensure that Jewish World War I and II veterans receive the proper grave markers reflecting their religion, passed the House yesterday…
The New York Jewish Week spotlights a new curriculum, “Hidden Voices: Jewish Americans in United States History, Volume 1,” which will be taught this year in New York public schools…
Chabad Southwest Las Vegas broke ground on a new center in the city that will house a synagogue, mikveh, library, kosher kitchen, classrooms and a playground…
The Katz JCC in Cherry Hill, N.J., raised more than $190,000 for its Open Hearts/Open Doors Special Needs Inclusion Program through its annual golf tournament last week…
HBO Max acquired the rights to a new series, “One Day in October,” the first scripted portrayal of the Oct. 7 attacks, filmed on location in Israel and based on real accounts. The show will premiere Oct. 7, 2025, the two-year anniversary of the attacks…
The Chronicle of Philanthropy explores how fundraisers are broaching the uncomfortable topic of bequests by using “legacy challenges”…
Tzachi Braverman, Netanyahu’s chief of staff and close confidant, was approved to serve as Israel’s ambassador to the U.K., replacing Tzipi Hotovely at the end of her five-year term, though he likely won’t be posted to London for several months…
Lynn Forester de Rothschild is exploring a sale of a minority stake in the parent company of The Economist magazine, according to Bloomberg, which would mark the publication’s first ownership shake-up in over a decade…
Working with Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist and Orthodox organizations, A More Perfect Union developed a new “clergy guidance” about nonpartisanship ahead of the High Holy days in light of the IRS’ recent ruling permitting political endorsements from the pulpit…
Three synagogues in Halifax, Canada, were vandalized with antisemitic graffiti over the weekend…
Ervin Vidor, a Holocaust survivor who moved to Australia and became a real estate developer and philanthropist, died last Thursday at 92…
Transitions
Hope Levin was hired as the Birthright Israel Foundation’s next regional director of Greater Palm Beach (Fla.)…
Pic of the Day
Israel Elwyn, the country’s largest service provider for people with disabilities, opened a new adult day center in the Israeli coastal city of Herzliya last week (seen above). The facility, which will be named in honor of disability activist and former Knesset Member Ilan Gilon, cost more than $7 million to construct, with funding provided by the Israel Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs, the National Insurance Institute and the Shalem Fund. It was unveiled at a ceremony last week attended by representatives of the Herzliya municipality, service recipients and their families and leaders from Israel Elwyn, which will operate the center. It is specifically designed for people 21 and up.
“This is a very emotional time for us as parents, and especially for our children, many of whom can’t speak and we are used to being their voice,” Ben Shani, whose son, Ori, will receive services from the facility, said at the ceremony. “Born and raised in this city, our children have had to travel every day to other cities to receive relevant services. Today, as young adults and adults with special needs, they are finally receiving the services they deserve, here, close to home. Herzliya can take pride in the fact that alongside its cultural, educational and recreational institutions, the city now adds an important and groundbreaking service of care and support for adults with special needs, one that will serve as an example and model for other cities as well.”
Birthdays
President and rabbinic head of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School in Riverdale, N.Y., Rabbi Dov Linzer turns 59…
Argentinian physician, author of books on gender relations, Esther Katzen Vilar turns 90… Democratic member of the Florida House of Representatives for multiple terms, in 2015 she became the president of Plaza Health Network, Elaine Bloom turns 88… New York City-based real estate investor and the founder of Cammeby’s International Group, Rubin “Rubie” Schron turns 87… Defense policy advisor to Presidents Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 and member of a number of Washington-based think tanks, Richard Perle turns 84… Montebello, Calif., resident, Jon Olesen… Pompano Beach, Fla., resident, Shari Goldberg… Israeli playwright and screenwriter, Motti Lerner turns 76… Sheriff of Nantucket County, Mass., James A. Perelman turns 75… Founder and CEO of OurCrowd, Jonathan Medved turns 70… Media sales consultant, Fern Wallach… Award-winning illusionist, who has sold tens of millions of tickets to his shows worldwide, known professionally as David Copperfield, David Seth Kotkin turns 69…Anthropology professor at Cornell, his work centers on Jewish communities and culture, Jonathan Boyarin turns 69… Director of stakeholder engagement at the National Council of Jewish Women, he is a nephew of former U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, Dan Kohl turns 60… Writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine, Jason Zengerle… Israeli windsurfer, he won bronze in Atlanta 1996 and gold in Athens 2004, Israel’s first Olympic gold medalist, Gal Fridman turns 50… Mayor of Kiryat Motzkin, a city in the Haifa suburbs, Tzvi (Tziki) Avisar turns 47… Vice president of public affairs and corporate marketing at Meta / Facebook, Josh Ginsberg… President of basketball operations for the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, Koby Altman turns 43… National field director at the Israel on Campus Coalition, Lauren Morgan Suriel… Vice president of customer success at SimpliFed, Suzy Goldenkranz… Actor, best known for starring in “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” Daren Maxwell Kagasoff turns 38… New York City-based economics and wealth reporter at The Wall Street Journal, Rachel Louise Ensign… Israeli actress who played the lead role in Apple TV’s spy thriller “Tehran,” Niv Sultan turns 33… Winner of an Olympic bronze medal for Israel in Taekwondo at the 2020 Games in Paris, Avishag Semberg turns 24… North American chair of the Ethiopian National Project, Caryn Rosen Adelman…
