Your Daily Phil: Grinspoon throws a $50M lifeline to struggling camps
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we look at the Harold Grinspoon Foundation‘s decision to end its Forward Together camp matching initiative a year early and roll out a $50 million successor, and also report on new data showing the Nonprofit Security Grant Program funded less than a quarter of 2026 applications. We feature an opinion piece by Amal Nafaa about her recent visit to Chicago’s Jewish community with a delegation of other Druze Israeli young adults and an abridged version of Elisha Wiesel’s remarks from an event last night at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on what would have been his father Elie Wiesel’s 98th birthday. Also in this issue: Ilissa Berz, Cyera Yotam Segev and Naama Lazimi, and Yaniv Hayoun.
Today’s Your Daily Phil was curated by eJP Managing Editor Judah Ari Gross, Israel Editor Justin Hayet and Opinion Editor Rachel Kohn. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
The United Arab Emirates has opened an investigation into yesterday’s attack on a FlyDubai flight from the UAE to Israel in which an Indian pilot was stabbed by his co-pilot, prompting the plane to plummet 17,000 feet before Israeli passengers on the flight, assisted by two off-duty pilots, regained control of the aircraft and safely landed it in Saudi Arabia.
What You Should Know
With Jewish camps struggling to break even amid rising costs, even as enrollment surges, The Harold Grinspoon Foundation is doubling down on its support for summer camps, prematurely ending its $25 million grant matching initiative and launching a new $50 million program. The funds are meant to help camps improve aging campgrounds, build endowments and bolster financial aid, the foundation announced this week, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher.
HGF’s previous matching initiative, Forward Together, began in 2023 and was due to run through next year. That initiative was also intended to invest $25 million in more than 100 nonprofit Jewish overnight camps affiliated with JCamp 180. Instead, Forward Together will sunset a year early, with the beefed-up grants offered beginning this January instead.
“In 50 to 100 years. I want to look back on this moment… and say that was a really smart moment,” Sarah Eisinger, director of JCamp 180, told eJP. “In spite of all of these increasing needs, in spite of COVID, in spite of Oct. 7, people had the wherewithal to develop endowments so that we could secure Jewish camp for generations to come.”
News
THE NEXT GENERATION
Laura Lauder launches fellowship to keep young Jewish campus leaders from ‘falling off the map’
To keep young Jewish leaders from falling off what she describes as a “leadership cliff” after college, Laura Lauder, a Bay Area-based philanthropist, is launching the Jewish Leadership Accelerator, a nine-month paid fellowship for young professionals who led Jewish life on campus, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim. The program will launch in January with a pilot cohort of 20 fellows in San Francisco, followed by a second 20-person cohort in the New York area in mid-2027.
Find ‘em young: “I realized that we have a huge generation of leaders who have come up through middle school, high school, college, even early 20s, who, when they’re actually interested and willing to have a seat at the table in the organized Jewish community, and we need their voices, we don’t know who they are, and they don’t know how to reach us,” Lauder told eJP.
SECURITY SHORTFALL
Nonprofit Security Grant Program fulfills less than one-quarter of 2026 applications
In a year when the Jewish community was rocked by a terror attack at a Detroit-area synagogue alongside other antisemitic threats, the Nonprofit Security Grant Program fulfilled less than 23% of applications submitted for funding in 2026, according to new data obtained by Marc Rod for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
Cui bono: The majority of the funding will be provided to houses of worship from various denominations, according to a source familiar with the situation, but other recipients include schools, medical facilities, senior centers, camps, museums, shelters and community centers.
Read the full story and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
Opinion
LEADERSHIP PIPELINE
The family that shaped my future
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Amal Nafaa, an 18-year-old Druze Israeli from the village of Beit Jann, writes about life as a member of an ethno-religious minority community in Israel and what she’s gained as a four-year participant in JUF’s Sanabel Druze Leadership Program, which brought a delegation of 15 young adults to Chicago this summer.
“I have always believed that empowering young people, even those with only a small spark of leadership potential, can create a ripple effect that reaches far beyond the individual. When young people are given the tools, confidence and opportunity to lead, they can help shape their communities and sometimes even their country — especially when they come from a community that deeply cares about its land, its people and its responsibility to serve.”
A LOUD SILENCE
My father’s other child must find its voice
In an abridged version of Elisha Wiesel’s remarks from an event last night at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington celebrating what would have been his father Elie Wiesel’s 98th birthday, shared exclusively with eJewishPhilanthropy, the chair of the Elie Wiesel Foundation calls upon the museum to do more in response to charges of genocide being leveled against Israel.
“The museum’s leaders have spoken as individuals. … The institution itself, however, has not spoken. It made its own findings for Darfur, the Yazidis and the Rohingya. It has the scholars, the credibility and the mandate to do the same here: to explain, with the rigor it brought to [Myanmar], why the genocide label does not fit Gaza, and what the misuse of Holocaust language does to Jews around the world.”
Worthy Reads
Funders Falling Short: In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, senior writer Stephanie Beasley reports that a new Center for Effective Philanthropy survey found just 12% of foundation leaders consider their response to Trump administration funding cuts effective, even though 93% made at least one strategic change. “The study also found that there were real gaps between what grant makers are doing and what nonprofits need. For example, nearly half of nonprofits reported wanting help with AI and digital tools, but only 13 percent of foundations said they provided it.”
Major Gifts
The Shapiro Family Foundation awarded more than $85,000 to New Orleans-area nonprofits this week whose focus is on hunger relief, education and community services…
Transitions
Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis hired Ilissa Berz as its chief development officer…
Noeleen Cohen has been appointed as the incoming chair of the U.K.’s Movement for Progressive Judaism…
The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation’s Rachel Monroe joined the Maryland State Library Board…
Brian Greene began his role as president of Jewish Community Federation of Richmond (Va.)…
Word on the Street
Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz was named co-CEO of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, serving alongside CEO David Ellison, after a judge on Wednesday issued an order allowing Paramount’s acquisition of WBD to proceed…
A Haaretz investigation found the U.S.-based Tikvah Fund gave $5 million in 2024 to the right-wing Israeli policy group Kohelet Policy Forum, whose Churchill Program trains right-wing security leaders, including Shin Bet chief David Zini…
Founder of the Israeli startup Cyera Yotam Segev and Labor Party Knesset Member Naama Lazimi were named to Time magazine’s Time100 Next List…
The Israel Defense Forces issued a rebuttal to the documentary “NAZA,” calling it “distorted, misleading and disingenuous” and disputing specific claims, while accusing the filmmakers of never submitting allegations for IDF response before release…
The St. Louis Jewish Light spotlights philanthropist Michael Staenberg‘s funding of a restoration at the city’s century-old Beth Hamedrosh Hagodol Cemetery…
Benny Caldera Jr., 40, was arrested on suspicion of plotting to attack the Texas Capitol today, with an arrest affidavit quoting a friend who said Caldera was angry at AIPAC and said “these people have to be exterminated”…
Following philanthropist Natie Kirsh‘s $29 billion sale of Jetro Restaurant Depot to Sysco, the Kirsh family is building one of the largest new family offices in recent years, with daughter Linda Mirels — immediate past president of UJA-Federation of New York — involved in the buildout…
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the Republican nominee for governor, joined Orthodox Jewish leaders opposing Gov. Kathy Hochul’s $2.2 billion plan to fold Brooklyn’s Maimonides Medical Center into NYC’s public hospital system, pledging to block the deal if elected in November…
Esther Rantzen, the British Jewish broadcaster who founded Childline and later became a leading voice for legalizing assisted suicide in the U.K., died at 86…punched a Jewish man in Surfside, Fla., cursed the victim and his wife and threatened to kill them…
Pic of the Day
Yaniv Hayoun (center), one of the passengers who helped incapacitate the attacker on the FlyDubai aircraft bound for Israel from the United Arab Emirates, was welcomed after arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport last night, still wearing the blood-stained shirt from the attack.
Earlier today, Israeli President Isaac Herzog announced that he would present the Presidential Award for Civilian Heroism to Hayoun and the other four Israelis who played active roles in the thwarted attack: Asaf Rajuan, Dr. Shota Musayev and Tali and Zvika Manes.
Birthdays
Lynn Ahrens, Tony Award-winning writer and lyricist for the musical theater, television and film, turns 78
Lynn Steven Adelman, U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, turns 87
Rod Carew, former MLB second baseman and Hall of Famer who appeared in 18 straight All-Star Games, he is immortalized as Jewish in Adam Sandler’s “Chanukah Song,” turns 81
Andrew David Hurwitz, senior judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, turns 79
Aaron Ciechanover, professor at the Technion, he won the 2004 Nobel Prize in chemistry, turns 79
Bruce Levenson, former co-owner of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks and founding board member of the publicly traded TechTarget, turns 77
Israel Jacob Yuval, professor emeritus of Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, turns 77
Andrew Goodwin, copy editor at Politico since 2009
Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, a native of Scranton, Pa., turns 67
Steven C. González, the first-ever Jewish chief justice of the Washington State Supreme Court, now serving as an associate justice, turns 63
Cynthia Dawn “Cindy” Margolis, reality television personality, model and actor, turns 61
Adam Bennett Frisch, member of the Aspen City Council from 2011 to 2019, turns 59
Robert A. Rosen, founder of Peak Impact Advisors after 17 years at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Stacie Passon, film director, screenwriter and producer, turns 57
Rob Seidman, partner at FGS Global, specializing in telecommunications, technology, consumer protection and privacy for companies in regulated industries
Michael J. Koplow, chief policy officer at Israel Policy Forum
Rebecca L. Taibleson, former law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia, now a judge on the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, turns 43
Samantha J. Weinberg, director of investor relations and strategic engagement at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Yossi Raskas, account manager at Fiserv
Scott Rosenthal
