Your Daily Phil: Diaspora Jews can’t vote in Israel, but they sure are taking sides
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on a new Jewish People Policy Institute poll about American Jewry’s preferences in the upcoming Israeli election. We speak with Israeli businessman Gilad Ramot about his new initiative Belong, which seeks to bring classically liberal American Jews to Israel. We also report on the gift Rahm Emanuel and his brothers, Ezekiel and Ari, made to support training Palestinian doctors in an Israeli hospital. We feature an opinion piece by Daphna Raskas that focuses on the challenge of ensuring that foundations and funds abide by their donors’ wishes, and a piece by Daniella Seltzer that offers insights into the world of food aid in Israel from her experiences with Jerusalem Food Rescuers. Also in this issue: Rabbi Joshua Rabin, Julie Menin and Eli Sharabi.
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
The Republican Jewish Coalition’s leadership summit continues in Las Vegas through Tuesday with speakers slated to include CNN’s Scott Jennings; Leo Terrell, the chair of the Justice Department’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism; Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA); acting Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling; Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter; as well as former Israeli Ambassadors Ron Dermer and Gilad Erdan.
Adamah’s Jewish Green Business Network will host a fireside conversation with GreenBiz founder Joel Makower, a pioneer of the sustainable business movement, this evening in San Francisco.
The Israeli school year kicks off tomorrow morning (save for Haredi boys, who began school earlier this month, at the start of the Hebrew month of Elul).
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD FROM eJP’S JUDAH ARI GROSS
As the Israeli election draws near, a new study finds that American Jews who are actively engaged with the Jewish community strongly prefer Israel’s opposition parties over its current government, by nearly 4-to-1, as a sizable minority abstains from voicing an opinion.
While Diaspora Jews cannot vote in Israeli elections (nor can Israeli citizens living abroad unless they fly back on Election Day, Oct. 27), the past three years have demonstrated how much the results affect them, with the rise in global antisemitism closely connected to events in Israel.
The new poll, conducted by Jerusalem’s Jewish People Policy Institute, found that a large majority, 78%, of so-called “connected” American Jews — defined as those having “relatively strong ties to the Jewish community, Israel, and/or Jewish identity” — say that they are very or somewhat closely monitoring the election campaigns. This holds true across political affiliations, with negligible differences between liberals, centrists and conservatives. Those who have spent more time in Israel reported monitoring the election more closely.
Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’?
News
Q&A
The businessman urging U.S. Jews to make ‘aliyah,’ hoping it will set Israel on a better path
For Israeli businessman and former IDF Brig. Gen. Gilad Ramot, what he sees as Israel’s drift toward illiberalism is tied to its demographics, with conservative and reactionary communities growing far more quickly than the classically liberal ones that he supports. To counter this trajectory, Ramot wants more Liberal American Jews — Ramot insists on a capital-L to signify liberal in the classical sense, not as a catchall for left-wing — to immigrate to Israel. To bring that about, he founded Belong, a Tel Aviv-based for-profit company that helps people make aliyah, catering specifically to the classically liberal population he wants to import, he told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Justin Hayet in a recent interview.
JH: Why should major American funders care about this initiative and your warnings?
GR: Israel belongs to all the Jews in the world, not only those living here now. If you care about keeping Israel a democratic country, this is one of the things you can do.
MAJOR GIFTS
Emanuel brothers donate $550,000 to program training Palestinian doctors at Israeli hospital
Presumed 2028 Democratic presidential candidate Rahm Emanuel and his brothers, Ezekiel and Ari, are donating $550,000 to fund the training of pediatric doctors and nurses from An-Najah University Hospital in the West Bank city of Nablus at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center through the medical nonprofit Rozana, the organization announced on Monday, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross.
A good fit: Rahm Emanuel visited Rozana’s training program for An-Najah hospital professionals at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center during a visit to Israel last month, calling it “one of the most inspiring examples of coexistence I saw in Israel.” Kenneth Bob, chair of Rozana USA’s board of directors, told eJP that the donation was made as a result of that visit. “He was so impressed by what he saw,” Bob said on Monday. “It fit into his worldview, and he saw an opportunity to honor his parents.”
Opinion
TRANSMISSION FAILURE
Philanthropy’s $328 billion blind spot
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Treasured Letters founder Daphna Raskas observes that “longevity of structure does not guarantee durability of purpose,” zeroing in on one of the challenges that face a giving vehicle designed to outlast its founder, and how to address it.
“A fund can keep granting for years after the founder is gone, functioning exactly as intended but having lost any real connection to the convictions that led to its creation. How this gap shows up depends on where you sit.”
READER RESPONDS
Israel doesn’t just need more food aid. It needs food aid infrastructure.
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Daniella Seltzer, co-founder and co-CEO of Jerusalem Food Rescuers, responds to eJP’s recent coverage of a landmark study on food aid in Israel (“New paper mapping Israel’s food-aid network finds glaring waste, inefficiency,” Aug. 14), delving into what it would take for all of the actors involved in food aid in Israel to work effectively as a network.
“[I]f we fund the food and not the infrastructure around it, we should not be surprised when several organizations arrive in one neighborhood while another community is missed, or when perfectly good food ends up being thrown away. We need to fund the boring parts, too: shared data, mapping, logistics, refrigeration, transportation, coordination staff, referral systems and emergency protocols. And we should stop expecting every organization to build all of those things for itself.”
Worthy Reads
Uneasy Allies: In USA Today, Astoria Center of Israel’s Rabbi Joshua Rabin argues that his working relationships with DSA-endorsed elected officials — who helped secure police protection for his synagogue after March’s attack on a Michigan temple — show that fighting antisemitism effectively depends on building ties across political divides rather than severing them. “At our synagogue, we live this tension every day. But shutting down communication with everyone who disagrees with us about Israel is neither practical nor productive, neither within our congregation nor with our elected officials.”
Wealth on the Job: In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, senior editor Rasheeda Childress examines a United Way of Greater Newark pilot program that gave 100 nonprofit workers $1,500 each for investing, with plans to expand to 6,000 participants this fall, as a way to supplement nonprofit salaries. “‘It’s time to start having those courageous conversations with funders,’ Wilson says. ‘There are a lot of national funders that want to build economic opportunity and see economic mobility in communities across the country.’” ture 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
The Las Vegas Raiders owners Mark Davis, Egon Durban and Michael Meldman pledged $25 million to Intermountain Health toward construction of Nevada’s first free-standing children’s hospital…
Olivia Rodrigo‘s inaugural Daisy Chain Fields festival, an all-women music event in Irvine, Calif., raised $10 million for women’s charities, which Melinda French Gates matched…
The Jewish Federation of Cleveland raised $1.8 million from 1,298 donors yesterday during its six-hour Super Sunday event…
Transitions
The Maimonides Fund named Chanan Weissman, currently the director of the fund’s Sapir Institute, as its new director of emerging technologies and also named Yael Warach to a new position: assistant director of leadership and gatherings. The organization also hired Rabbi Jonathan Hack as its new program officer for its newly established policy initiatives department and Alina Bitel as its new program officer focusing on Jewish life and learning…
Eyal David began his new role as Israel’s deputy consul general in New York…
Philissa Cramer and Grace Gilson have left the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and are joining Haaretz as its new senior Jewish life correspondent and its young generation correspondent, respectively, as part of an American expansion by the Israeli newspaper…
TribeTalk, the Boston nonprofit that helps Jewish individuals and allies counter antisemitism, named Zoe Calahorra-Wood as its director of development and Abby Kaufman as program and development officer.
Ethan Kernkraut is leaving his role at OneTable…
Judah Rosenbaum is leaving his role at Torah Academy of Bergen County (N.J.) to begin his new role as chief financial and operating officer at Hillel Yeshiva in Asbury Park, N.J.…
Word on the Street
Franklin Graham‘s evangelical Christian aid group Samaritan’s Purse is turning down $300 million in State Department funding, saying it relies on faith, not governmental support…
Vogue announced this morning that the Metropolitan Museum of Art and John Galliano have canceled a planned Spring 2027 Costume Institute exhibition honoring the designer’s work, with Galliano recognizing the pain his past antisemitic and anti-Asian remarks caused; the move follows mounting criticism of the museum’s decision to honor him…
Friends of Irgun Nechei Zahal, the Israel Defense Forces disabled veterans organization, is rebranding as Warriors of Israel…
Some 120 Israeli expats, represented by attorney Gilead Sher, are challenging their removal from Israel’s voter registry and are pursuing legal action to restore their eligibility ahead of the Oct. 27 election…
Former hostage Eli Sharabi was selected to co-host Israel’s unofficial Oct. 7 memorial ceremony at Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park, alongside actress and comedian Shani Cohen…
The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that a year after the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative stopped funding social advocacy, its former grantees are still trying to recover from layoffs, program cuts and a scramble for new donors…
President Donald Trump signaled support for a proposal —pushed by the National Association of Christian Lawmakers — to create an expedited legal pathway for Jewish Canadians to relocate to the U.S. amid what the group calls a disproportionate surge in antisemitism…
The U.K.’s Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council warned that the British government’s anticipated ban on trade with West Bank settlements could strain U.K.-Israel relations and carry harmful consequences for British Jews…
Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed sought forgiveness from members of the Michigan Jewish Democratic Caucus for his hedging reaction to the March synagogue attack in West Bloomfield, though attendees remained torn over whether his contrition was genuine, Matthew Kassel reports in eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider…hed a Jewish man in Surfside, Fla., cursed the victim and his wife and threatened to kill them…
Pic of the Day
Israeli protesters outside the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem hold large photographs today of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alexander Lobanov and Almog Sarusi, the so-called “beautiful six” — the six Israeli hostages who were killed in Hamas captivity on this date two years ago — and a banner reading, “We won’t forget. They could have returned alive.” Participants demanded a state commission of inquiry into the Oct. 7 terror attacks.
Birthdays
Yossef “Joseph” Cedar, Israeli American film director and screenwriter, turns 58
Itzhak Perlman, world-renowned violinist and conductor, turns 81
Joseph Rafalowicz, attorney and a member of the boards of UJA-Federation of New York and JCRC-NY
Lowell Ganz, screenwriter for theater, television and film, turns 78
Steve Soboroff, former Los Angeles police commissioner, turns 78
David Blumenthal, healthcare policy expert, his brother is Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), turns 78
Hugh Politzer, 2004 Nobel laureate in physics and professor at the California Institute of Technology, turns 77
Iris Krasnow, professor emerita of journalism and women’s studies at American University and author of seven books on marriage and relationships, turns 72
Rabbi Jonathan I. Rosenblatt, former rabbi of the Riverdale Jewish Center in New York, turns 70
Ahmed Zayat (a/k/a Ephraim David Zayat), owner of thoroughbred racehorses including the 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, turns 64
Mark L. Walberg, television host of “Antiques Roadshow” and “Temptation Island,” turns 64
Shaney Fink, gold medalist in volleyball at the Maccabiah Games in 1997, she is currently the VP for athletics at Seattle University, turns 54
Lyudmila Milman, physician assistant now serving as a senior clinical director at NYC’s Mount Sinai Medical Center
Sam Little, English golfer, he won five tournaments on the PGA European Challenge Tour, turns 51
Sivan Beskin, Israeli poet, translator and literary editor, turns 50
Jessica Raimundo, communications director at the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union
Nick Horowitz, group director at Real Chemistry
Bennett E. Resnik, SVP for critical infrastructure at Venn Strategies
Thomas Kaplan, standards editor at The New York Times
Asaf Zamir, deputy mayor of Tel Aviv, turns 46
Deryn Sousa, AIPAC’s national spokesperson
Laura Adkins, director of content and editorial strategy at the Anti-Defamation League
Josh Feigenbaum, head of marketing at Zipher
Yael Shelbia Cohen, Israeli fashion model, she was the 2020 winner of TC Candler’s Most Beautiful Face of the Year, turns 25
