Your Daily Phil: Hard-hit kibbutz comes to U.S. to thank donors, look for further help
Good Monday morning.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on yesterday’s “Stand Together” rally in Washington, D.C., and feature an opinion piece by Rabbi Dave Sorani about the sting of losing a potential donor. Also in this newsletter: Suzanne Nossel, Anthony Pratt andFelice Gaer Baran. We’ll start with a Kibbutz Be’eri fundraising delegation coming to the United States.
When Ido Shwartz, the director of philanthropy for Kibbutz Be’eri, appears at the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly this week in Washington, D.C., his main purpose will be to express gratitude to all the donors who stepped up in a moment of need to support the Western Negev kibbutz, which was one of the hardest hit communities in last year’s Oct. 7 Hamas massacre.
Fundraising for the rehabilitation of the kibbutz will be secondary, he told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judith Sudilovsky.
“Coming to say thank you to the many Jewish federations that financially supported the emergency campaign of Kibbutz Be’eri is the first thing,” Shwartz told eJP. “I think it’s really important to pay them respect, give them tribute, because they gave us money before we knew how to define the needs of the community, before we knew what is the role of the government in the rehabilitation process. People just gave us money with no questions asked.”
One hundred and one members of the kibbutz — about 10% of its population — were killed in the Oct. 7 attack, including Canadian-Israeli peace and women’s rights activist Vivian Silver, along with 31 security personnel. Another 30 members were taken hostage by Hamas, along with two people who had fled to the kibbutz from the massacre at the nearby Nova music festival. Hamas still holds 10 kibbutz members captive in Gaza, and continuing to raise awareness of their plight and call for their release is another major purpose for the delegation visit, Shwartz said.
Though he is not a member of the kibbutz, Shwartz began volunteering with it shortly after the massacre, leaving his job as head of fundraising for the Re’ut Rehabilitation Hospital in Tel Aviv to spearhead Be’eri’s fundraising efforts. He will lead a delegation of three teams to the U.S. on this visit. His three-member team at the General Assembly will also be meeting with U.S. government officials and will then travel to the JNF Global Conference in Dallas, Texas. The other two two-member teams will meet with supporters in synagogues, churches and universities in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Though the community’s needs are dynamic and still not entirely known, their fundraising efforts are currently focused on three pillars, said Shwartz.
The first pillar is maintaining community unity at a time rife with variability and change, with most of the community still living in temporary housing and no clear understanding of who will return.
The second is the economic revitalization of the kibbutz industries with impact investment in the agriculture sector, the carpentry, the cheese and dairy factory, the industrial print shop, the winery, the vet and the bike shop so that once the war is over they can start back up from a position of strength, he said.
And the third most difficult pillar is the capital campaign for rebuilding kibbutz infrastructure, said Shwartz. One hundred and thirty-two structures on the kibbutz — including 121 private homes and 11 community buildings — were burned and destroyed. The governmental Tekuma administration has estimated their rebuilding will cost NIS 470 million ($126 million), the majority of which the government is expected to provide, though the numbers have not been finalized yet.
“But it is more complicated with that because we don’t want to go back to Oct. 7, 2023. We want to build back better,” said Shwartz.
He said he believes that by 2027 his position will become obsolete, with the hope that Be’eri can not only stop being a recipient of philanthropic funds but can again become a donor to charitable causes.
“Kibbutz Be’eri used to give grants to various good causes in the Western Negev area,” he said. “We want Kibbutz Be’eri to regain its position as a philanthropic entity. We are not going to be a charity.”
‘WHERE THE JEWS AT?’
Politicians, celebrities highlight need to combat antisemitism, support Israel to sparse crowd at ‘Stand Together’ in D.C.
Thousands of people stood together in Nationals Park on Sunday for the Jewish Federations of North America and Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations’ unity event, where speakers highlighted the need for the Jewish community and the wider world to combat antisemitism and to work to secure the release of the 101 hostages still being held by Hamas. Yet the turnout for the event was a far cry from the 30,000 people that organizers had hoped would attend — a fact that was made more noticeable by the vast majority of the stadium’s 41,000 seats being left unfilled, report eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim and Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen from the event. Comedian and actress Tiffany Haddish, who emceed the rally, noted the lack of attendance. “Where are all the Jews at?” she joked.
Braving the rain: Delegations from 220 federations and partner organizations nationwide braved the chilly, drizzling day to participate in “Stand Together: Unity, Strength, and Resilience” — displaying signs and wearing t-shirts that bore statements of their respective cities’ support for Israel. The rally was held as hundreds of delegations flew into Washington for JFNA’s annual three-day General Assembly, which commenced Sunday evening following the rally.
Shifting tide?: Last week’s election was a prominent theme of many speeches, including from politicians and hostage families. “We stand with the people of Israel. We share their pain. We are committed to their safety,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said to thunderous applause, particularly from Michigan’s federation delegations, even as she has come under scrutiny from local Jewish leaders in recent months for a muted reaction to the spate of antisemitic incidents in her state. Orna Neutra, the mother of Israeli-American hostage Omer, said that the presidential election provides “a window of opportunity for the outgoing and incoming administrations to work together.”
KEEP CALM, CARRY ON
Are you the one who got away?
“A few weeks ago I got on an elevator and standing right there was an old flame. No, it wasn’t an erstwhile love interest, but someone whom I once thought was the potential donor of our organization’s dreams – the one who got away,” writes Rabbi Dave Sorani, the CEO of the Jewish Graduate Organization, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Mr. Wrong: “We met in 2011. I was a 29-year-old kid with a dream of building an organization for Jewish graduate students around North America. We set up a nonprofit but we didn’t have any donors. I needed to raise an initial budget of $150,000 for it to take off. I had a few leads but nothing substantial. Then someone introduced me to ‘Mr. Right’… I looked him in the eye and said, ‘I have little to no support, and I need someone to believe in me. Could you believe in me?’ He thought for a moment, then flatly said, ‘No.’”
Who needs him? (We do): “Standing in that elevator with him 13 years later, my head was flooded with thoughts: Does he realize how far we’ve come? Does he know that we’re servicing 155 graduate campuses and 10,000 students who rely on us for Jewish community? That we’re financially healthy and transparent, raising a $2.7 million budget?… Before I had a chance to tell him any of this, he turned to me and said, ‘You know, I’ve been following your emails for years. It seems like this has turned into something special. I have to be honest, I didn’t think you could do it. Keep me in mind during your next campaign.’”
Worthy Reads
A House Divided?: In The Times of Israel, Ted Sasson considers the split between the majority of American Jews who voted for Vice President Kamala Harris and the majority of Israeli Jews who supported President-elect Donald Trump and what it means for the Israel-Diaspora relationship. “The political divide between Israeli Jews and American Jews has become huge, but what does it mean? Have Israeli Jews become immune to the threats to democracy that alarm many American Jews? Have American Jews become indifferent to the security needs of Israel? Before recriminations, it’s important to understand what the election meant for each side of the Jewish divide… The two largest Jewish communities in the world have different political cultures. Israeli Jews are on the whole more conservative and religious… American Jews, in contrast, tend to be more liberal and secular, and prioritize a wide variety of issues alongside support for Israel… These differences make the Israel-Diaspora relationship especially challenging. The polling, however, can distort and exaggerate the differences. The view of the two communities turning away from one another can be misleading. In some respects the opposite is true. Israelis increasingly view the US-Israel alliance as indispensable. American Jews feel more connected to Israel than in decades, according to survey data… Israeli and American Jews live in vastly different contexts and political cultures. Understanding what the election meant for each can go a long way in reducing feelings of alienation.” [TOI]
Around the Web
Police in Washington, D.C., are investigating the weekend vandalization of Char Bar; two of the kosher eatery’s windows were broken in an incident that coincided with the anniversary of Kristallnacht…
Jewish students blocked Austria’s newly elected far-right parliamentary president Walter Rosenkranz from the Freedom Party, who has a record of praising Nazis, from visiting a memorial to Holocaust victims on the anniversary of “Kristallnacht”…
The Forward spotlights the Holocaust Reunion Project, which issupplying free DNA kits to aging Holocaust children survivors to help them find lost branches of Jewish family trees and uncover family histories hidden in the Holocaust…
The key to the Bielefeld, Germany synagogue, which waskept by Holocaust survivor Marianne Bern for 86 years, has been returned to the Jewish community by her daughter Jennifer Bern-Vogel…
Veteran social justice Jewish organization Bend the Arc established a lobbying arm and political action committee…
HIAS, the Jewish immigration aid and advocacy group, prepares to once again confront another four years under a Trump administration that is opposed to its mission…
Suzanne Nossel has been appointed president and CEO of Freedom House;she most recently served as the CEO of PEN America, which advocates for freedom of expression…
The Wall Street Journal reports on an effort by Jane Lauder to oust Estée Lauder executive chairman William Lauder, who is her cousin, prior to the company’s C-suite shakeup last month that saw Stéphane de La Faveri selected to be the company’s new CEO…
Anthony Pratt, Jewish Australian businessman and philanthropist, will move to the United States, having secured a Green Card last month…
After spending a year in a hotel near the Dead Sea, Kibbutz Holit’s residents have relocated to a new village in Kibbutz Revivim…
Billionaire investor and philanthropist Dr. Herbert A. Wertheim has bought a waterfront house in Palm Beach for $38 million…
Felice Gaer Baran,thelongtime director of the American Jewish Committee’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights and an internationally renowned human rights expert, died Nov. 9 at 78…
Illustrator Bruce Degen, who did the art and drawings for The Magic School Bus children’s book series, died on Thursday at 79…
Yiannis Boutaris, the former mayor of Thessaloniki who in 2017 helped create the city’s Holocaust Memorial Museum which is still under construction, has died at 82…
Kenneth Bronstein, who was born into a Jewish family and revived the NYC Atheists movement advocating for complete separation of church and state, died on Oct. 18 at 85…
Pic of the Day
Jewish Agency emissary to Eastern Europe Eran Berkovich speaks today at the first aliyah fair held in Kyiv, Ukraine, since the Russian invasion in 2022.
At the event, Berkovich discussed different immigration possibilities and educational programs, with the aim of deepening the connection between the city’s Jewish community and the State of Israel, the Jewish Agency said. The fair was organized by the Jewish Agency, in cooperation with the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Ofek Israeli and the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago.
Birthdays
Russian-Israeli researcher, she has been held hostage by an Iran-backed Iraqi militia since March 2023, Elizabeth Tsurkov…
Professor emeritus at Princeton University, a scholar of nineteenth and twentieth century literature, Victor Henri Brombert… Retired psychiatric nurse now living in Surprise, Arizona, Shula Kantor… Retired television and radio sports broadcaster, Warner Wolf… Founder of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, Ken Grossman… Former Democratic U.S. Senator from California for 24 years, Barbara Levy Boxer… Author, best known for her 1993 autobiographical memoir “Girl, Interrupted,” Susanna Kaysen… Television personality (former host of Double Dare), known professionally as Marc Summers, Marc Berkowitz… Attorney in Miami-Dade County, Fla., Louis Huss … Founder and president of DC-based Plurus Strategies, David Leiter… President at American Built-in Closets in South Florida, Perry Birman… Aish HaTorah teacher in Los Angeles and co-founder of a gourmet kosher cooking website, Emuna Braverman… Talk show host and president and founder of Talkline Communications, Zev Brenner… Founder of New York City-based alternative investment firm Portage Partners, Michael Leffell… Professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Steven M. Nadler… Former U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Ambassador Norman Eisen… Venture capitalist and physicist, Yuri Milner… Founder and executive director of Los Angeles-based IKAR, Melissa Balaban… Israel’s Commissioner of Police until about four months ago, Kobi Shabtai… Emmy Award and People’s Choice Award winning television producer, Jason Nidorf “Max” Mutchnick… Former member of the Knesset for the Likud party, she was previously a model and a television anchor, Orly Levy-Abekasis… Tel Aviv-born actor and screenwriter, he is best known for his roles in The Young and the Restless and NCIS, Eyal Podell… Defender for the Houston Dynamo in Major League Soccer, Daniel Steres… Finance director at the campaign for U.S. Representative Matt Cartwright (D-PA), Shelly Tsirulik… Survivor of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, he has become an advocate against gun violence, Cameron Kasky…
