Your Daily Phil: How Israeli NGOs can prepare for times of crisis
Good Monday morning.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on the new, continuing and expanding programs to benefit from the latest grant awards from SRE Network. We feature an opinion piece by Philip Bendheim with crisis-preparedness tactics useful for organizations in Israel and beyond. Also in this newsletter: Melinda French Gates, Mark Wilf and Donald Sussman. We’ll start with a visit to last weekend’s Borscht Belt Festival.
The borscht lemonade was flowing, Jackie Mason was kvetching his way through a routine and Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey were still dirty dancing over the weekend at the second annual Borscht Belt Festival in the Catskills town of Ellenville, N.Y., reports Jay Deitcher for eJewishPhilanthropy from the event.
The Borscht Belt — the stretch of Catskills summer resorts frequented mostly by Jews in the mid-20th century, where many stand-up comedians got their start — is considered by many to be the mecca of comedy, but it is so much more, Peter Chester, the treasurer for the Borscht Belt Museum, told eJP. Romances sparked on the dance floor and lifelong friendships flourished over games of mahjong. Eddie Fisher and the Four Tops performed there, and Muhammad Ali trained at the famous Kutsher’s Hotel and Country Club, where basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain once served as a bellhop.
“This is an essential slice of Americana,” said Chester, whose organization planned the festival. “It was the template for Las Vegas. It was the template for every cruise ship that set sail on the ocean. It was that critically important. It’s essential that the memory of it lives on, and that the lessons that people like myself learned by living it are shared with others.”
Named after the popular beet soup and with a reign lasting from the 1920s to 1970s, the Borscht Belt was home to over 500 all-inclusive hotels and bungalow colonies with names like Grossinger’s, The Concord and The Pines. In the early 20th century, many popular vacation hotspots weren’t friendly to Jews, so “they had to create their own vacation world,” Andrew Jacobs, president of the board of directors of the Borscht Belt Museum, told eJP. The Catskills, once known as the “Jewish Alps,” became the favorite escape for city-dwelling Jews seeking refuge from the summer heat.
At the street festival, Panama hat-wearing attendees got a sample of the experience this weekend as vendors served old-school Ashkenazi foods including pickles, perogies and pastrami. People took shelter from the sun under tents while sipping cups of borscht lemonade as a band of teens whose age belied their vocal range channeled soul and pop crooners, belting songs about summer loving “that happened so fast.”
Sponsored by the Forward, Tablet and many local businesses, the festival opened Friday with an open-mic comedy kick-off giving attendees the chance to say that they too performed in the Borscht Belt, where comedy legends such as Joan Rivers, Mel Brooks, and Lenny Bruce once performed. A sold-out “Dine like it’s 1968” dinner prepared by Michelin-trained chef Josh Cohen allowed guests to “run the menu,” Borscht Belt-speak for going all-in on the all-inclusive dining.
Not billed as a Jewish event, Borscht Belt Fest welcomed everyone to share in Jewish culture and feel the Jewish joy. “It feels like a reunion,” Jacobs said. “There’s a lot of younger people that never experienced the Borscht Belt, but they feed off of that spirit and the positivity and the warmth. It just has that indescribable mishpucha kind of feeling.”
The festival is the main fundraiser for the Borscht Belt Museum, which opened in 2023 and is located in the former Home National Bank, one of the only banks in the area that would extend credit to Jewish hotel and bungalow owners to improve their properties during the early 20th century. Open Thursday through Sunday, the museum closes for the winter because they don’t have heat.
Following a trend throughout the philanthropic world, donations to the museum sputtered out after Oct. 7, as many donors focused their attention and funds on fighting antisemitism and supporting Israel. The museum hopes to be able to afford a heating system soon, so they can open year-round.
“This is such an important part of Jewish culture in America,” Jacobs said. “And helping combat some of the hate.”
Interest in the Borscht Belt has skyrocketed thanks to the Amazon Prime show “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” which featured episodes taking place at a Catskills resort. “Everyone likes that show,” Jacobs said. “Now you don’t have to explain too much about what we are. We just say, ‘Oh, you saw Marvelous Ms. Maisel,’ and they say, ‘Yes,’ and then they get it. So that helps younger people.”
SEEKING RIPPLE EFFECTS
SRE Network announces recipients of $575K in grants
Twelve Jewish nonprofits have been awarded a total of $575,000 in “field building grants” from SRE Network, Rachel Kohn reports for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Ripples of change: Connecting over 175 Jewish organizations, SRE Network promotes creating and maintaining safe, respectful and equitable Jewish workplaces and communal spaces through network building, resource sharing and community investments. The organization envisions its one-year and two-year field building grants as investments in programs and initiatives with the potential to generate positive ripple effects in the Jewish communal ecosystem. Recipients are either engaged in gender-focused efforts to address harassment and inequity, with women as primary beneficiaries, or broader safety, respect and equity culture-change efforts that either operate across multiple identities or focus on specific populations other than women (addressing racism, for example, or disability access).
And the winners are…: The grantees are, in alphabetical order: Eshel, Footsteps, the JCC Association of North America, the Jewish Women’s Archive, Jewish Women International, Keshet, Moving Traditions, Shalom Bayit, Shalom Task Force, Ta’amod, Women’s Rabbinic Network and Yeshivat Maharat. The grants will go toward sustaining, expanding and/or launching programs and initiatives.
‘TARGETED PREPAREDNESS’
How Israeli organizations can rise to the challenge of turbulent times
“With nonprofits playing such a large role in Israeli society, especially when it comes to social and medical services, it is all the more critical that they keep operating during crises, filling in the gaps and meeting the needs they were founded to fulfill — and many organizations are dealing with increased demand for new or existing services during these difficult times,” writes Philip Benheim, director of the International Board of Overseers at Yad Sarah, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Have a readiness mindset: “To serve as many as possible in this crisis environment, nonprofits across the country need to consider the specific, foreseeable scenarios they are uniquely positioned to address should the crisis in [northern Israel] intensify and spread. Targeted preparedness can significantly enhance response capabilities when the time comes… By preparing for specific scenarios that align with an organization’s mission and resources, NGOs can mitigate the impact of emergencies and ensure uninterrupted services as well as provide additional complementary services within their wheelhouse.”
Utilize networks: “Forming a robust support network is another important step for organizations to take during times of crisis. With strategic partnerships, organizations can pool resources, share knowledge and coordinate efforts to address complex challenges more effectively.”
Engage the press: “Proactive strategies and engaging stories about ongoing efforts should also be shared with donors, board members and other key stakeholders. This can be done through newsletters, social media and email updates, but it is often more powerful when donors see the organizations they support in mainstream news outlets or featured in a relevant trade publication… Strong media relationships are critical for maintaining continuous coverage that can pique donor interest and encourage sustained funding and resources.”
Worthy Reads
Let’s Duet: In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, musician and activist Adam Met — one of three Jewish brothers who make up the band AJR — proposes that performers and funders should work together to mobilize fans on the important issues of our times. “Taylor Swift broke voter registration records last fall with a simple social-media post: ‘I’ve heard you raise your voices, and I know how powerful they are,’ she wrote. ‘Make sure you’re ready to use them in our elections this year!’ But how much do we really understand about the potential of Swift’s fan base — not just during elections but all year round? What if Swift’s example could be replicated? What if all those excited fans attending concerts this summer raised their voices to take on the issue that affects every young person on the planet: climate change? As a musician and climate advocate, I’ve been testing this theory during the national tour this summer of my indie pop band, AJR. We’re asking tens of thousands of fans every night — from the Forum in Los Angeles to Madison Square Garden in New York — to get active in the fight against climate change. Not surprisingly, our approach is working and offers important lessons for philanthropy in the creative strategies needed to address climate change.” [ChronicleofPhilanthropy]
Open the Gates: In The New York Times, Lulu Garcia-Navarro interviews Melinda French Gates about her philanthropy and launching her own foundation. “There is this debate in philanthropy right now about how money should be disbursed. The Gates Foundation is known for one way of doing it, which is data-driven. It’s known as strategic philanthropy. I’m wondering about the second model. That’s called trust-based philanthropy, and basically you give money to organizations closest to the issues that you care about, no strings attached. Are you moving in that direction? I’m probably somewhere a little bit more in the middle of that, still leaning toward data-driven but certainly a little bit more in trust-based model, because I don’t intend to build up a large organization and I do believe that there are many, many partners on the ground who do incredible work but often don’t get funded. And I feel like this work when done closer to the ground, sometimes can have an even larger lasting impact… Do you think women give differently? I think we haven’t run the experiment fully yet. What do you mean? It’s only been in the last decade that you’re seeing women really come into their own in philanthropy. I mean, we have a hundred years of history in philanthropy before that, but it was really the men who controlled the resources. And I even see it still with couples who are married, quite honestly. Some of the women talk about, they still have to go to their husband to get permission to do certain things they want to do in philanthropy. So give us another 25 years, and then ask me the question again.” [NYTimes]
Interactions as Learning Experiences: In the Harvard Business Review, Megan Reitz and Amy C. Edmondson share research findings about how a leader’s response to an employee’s underwhelming attempt to speak up can contribute to an organizational culture of clamming up. “Corporate initiatives to encourage speaking up and to build psychological safety are a good first step, but we’ve noticed many contain problematic assumptions that when employees do finally speak up, they’ll do so skillfully from the start, and that the person speaking up is predominantly responsible for the success of the interaction, rather than the listener. As a result, there is little in these programs that covers how both speaker and listener respond to a failed interaction and learn from it… [Failed attempts to speak up] can have lasting effects because they lead people to silence themselves and others, which means teams gradually lose the habits of feedback and risk-taking. For us as researchers and champions of speaking up, listening, and learning in organizations, it is one of the most frustrating things to observe, as a teams’ potential slowly erodes, or new members are unable to make the difference they were recruited for. Our research and experience have shown us that the antidote starts with all team members, including the leader, explicitly framing interactions … as experiments from which everyone expects to learn — especially when they don’t go well.” [HarvardBusinessReview]
Around the Web
Twelve children — ranging in age from 10 to 16 — were killed in a Hezbollah rocket strike that hit a soccer field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams on the Golan Heights on Saturday, raising the prospect of a full-scale war between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese terror group…
The World Jewish Restitution Organization announced the distribution of more than $10 million in aid last week to nearly 4,100 Holocaust survivors of Romanian origin living in countries around the world. The funds come from the Caritatea Foundation, a partnership between WJRO and the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania, and are administered by the Claims Conference…
U.K. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis requested a meeting with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the government’s recent shift in its Israel policy. In The Sunday Times, Phil Rosenberg, the new president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, cautions Starmer against taking the country’s Jewish community for granted after it again supported the Labour party, following its efforts to address antisemitism in its ranks…
Hillel International welcomed 200 new team members at the Hillel International New Professionals Institute in St. Louis…
Inside Philanthropy interviews Donald Sussman, founder and chief investment officer of the Paloma Funds…
A new episode of the popular Jewish podcast “Meaningful People” spotlights Colel Chabad, the oldest continuously operating charity in Israel…
The Jewish Standard shares the impressions of Mark Wilf, chair of the board of governors of the Jewish Agency for Israel, and Danyelle Neuman, the organization’s head of global fundraising strategy, from a recent visit to three communities in northern Israel…
Nina Rosenzwog and Dara Schnee were appointed to the Maryland/Israel Development Center’s board of directors…
The Chronicle of Philanthropy shares advice from three fundraising experts about how to craft a strong year-end giving campaign…
Arnold Ventures hired Raymond Guthrie to lead a new team that will focus on impact investing for housing affordability…
StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice filed a lawsuit — the second such case so far — against the organizers of a protest outside a Los Angeles synagogue last month that turned violent…
French authorities are looking into death threats made against three Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Paris…
The heirs of a Jewish couple who fled Nazi Europe and later purchased an Egon Schiele drawing that had unknowingly been looted gave the work to the descendents of the drawing’s previous owner, a Jewish art collector killed by the Nazis…
Pic of the Day
At a funeral procession Sunday through Majdal Shams, Israel, mourners carry the coffins and the photos of several of the victims of a Hezbollah rocket strike that hit a soccer field in the Druze town, killing 12 children.
Birthdays
Director of the Straus Center at Yeshiva University, he is also the rabbi of NYC’s Congregation Shearith Israel (The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue), Rabbi Meir Soloveichik…
Chairman of BOK Financial Corporation in Tulsa, Okla., George Bruce Kaiser… Shoe designer, entrepreneur and founder of an eponymous shoe company, Stuart A. Weitzman… Denver-based trial lawyer (formerly a prosecutor, now a criminal defense attorney), film producer and author of both fiction and nonfiction, Kenneth Eichner… Israeli electrical engineer and inventor, he is best known as the inventor of the USB memory stick, Dov Moran… Former deputy health and science editor at the Washington Post, Carol Eisenberg… European economic correspondent for The New York Times, Peter S. Goodman… Actor and comedian, Richard Steven Horvitz… Twin brothers, Los Angeles-based philanthropists and businessmen, Shlomo Yehuda Rechnitz and Yisroel Zev Rechnitz… Actor, filmmaker and musician, he is best known for his role in the CBS sitcom “How I Met Your Mother,” Joshua Radnor… Senior vice president of philanthropic engagement at BBYO, Jayme David… Data scientist and journalist focused on elections for the Associated Press, Aaron Kessler… Former member of the Canadian Parliament, David de Burgh Graham… Iraq war veteran, political and communications strategist, now serving as an adjunct professor at Duke University, Allison Jaslow… Rabbi, writer, educator and physician assistant, Rabbi Levi Welton… White House deputy communications director, Herbie Ziskend… Senior vice president in the Los Angeles office of Edelman, Jason Levin… Danny Vinik… Tony Award-winning actor, Ari’el Stachel… Uriel Wassner… Broadcaster and media relations manager for the Chicago Dogs, Sam Brief… Quarterback for Wake Forest for five seasons, he then played one season with Notre Dame in 2023, now an undrafted free agent for the Washington Commanders, Sam Hartman…
