Your Daily Phil: IAC summit will be an emotional balancing act
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on a delegation of Jewish medical professionals raising awareness of antisemitism in their field on Capitol Hill and on the challenges facing the federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program. We feature an opinion piece by Yehuda Kurtzer about an alternative model for rabbinic training that can help address North America’s rabbi shortage. Also in this newsletter: P.J. Pearlstone, Ellie Zeiler and Molly Hess. We’ll start with an interview with Israeli American Council CEO Elan Carr about balancing grief and empowerment at the organization’s annual summit, which kicks off today.
The ninth annual Israeli American Council (IAC) National Summit, a three-day gathering opening today in Washington, D.C., and expected to draw 3,000 people, will be an “important show of influence for the Jewish community” as the presidential election nears, Elan Carr, the group’s CEO, told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Haley Cohen in advance of the event.
The summit’s timing just weeks ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks will also allow for a “deeply moving show of commemoration of the tragedy and suffering we have all felt for the last year,” he said.
One of the largest Jewish gatherings of the year, the opening plenary on Thursday evening will focus on commemorating Oct. 7 and feature a keynote address from GOP presidential nominee former President Donald Trump.
Carr noted that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, were also invited to speak but declined due to scheduling conflicts. Carr expressed hope that Biden and Harris will send video remarks, but he had not received confirmation as of Wednesday.
“We’re not concerned” about appearing to be a partisan organization when Trump speaks “because we made it very clear that we invited the president, vice president and the former president, [and] we have [Biden] administration officials coming,” Carr told eJP.
Friday’s plenary will focus on the fight against antisemitism, with panels such as “Philanthropists on the front lines: How donors can make a difference for the Jewish people” and “Taking antisemitism to court: A legal solution to antisemitic harassment.” Friday’s speakers will include British conservative political commentator Douglas Murray; Noa Tishby, former Israeli special envoy for combating antisemitism; Eylon Levy, former Israeli government spokesperson; Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; and Andrey Kozlov, who was held in Hamas captivity for eight months.
The third plenary, on Saturday, is “all about the future,” Carr said. “About our kids, our grandkids. It’s about unity and the Abraham Accords, all of the things that we can look forward to in a world where the Jewish people are united and Israeli innovation is celebrated.” Speakers scheduled for Saturday include Ofir Akunis, the Israeli consul general in New York, and Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the U.S.
“The stakes are so high today for the Jewish people because of what’s happening in the Middle East and the threats Israel faces,” Carr said. “What’s happening globally with rising antisemitism — there could not possibly be a more important time for IAC to bring our powerful, strong community together and to unite Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans into one community focused on our collective Jewish future. That’s what this conference is about.”
ON THE HILL
Medical professionals meet with congressional offices to discuss antisemitism in their field
A group of 40 medical professionals and other Jewish leaders from across the country, organized by the Jewish Federations of North America, came to Capitol Hill on Wednesday and met with 25 congressional offices in a bid to bring awareness to increasing antisemitism in the medical field and ask lawmakers to take action, reports Marc Rod for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
Targets of invective: Michelle Stravitz, CEO of the American Jewish Medical Association — a group formed after the Oct. 7 attacks out of a WhatsApp group of physicians discussing the explosion of antisemitism in the field — said the issues Jewish professionals face are multifaceted: medical professionals, institutions and associations directing hatred toward Jewish physicians; physicians publicly expressing antisemitic views; medical students marginalizing their Jewish peers; and medical school faculty mistreating Jewish students; and providers expressing threatening views about Jewish patients.
Patients impacted, too: Danielle Gross, a therapist from Phoenix, said that she’s heard from two people in the Jewish community in Phoenix that they were dropped by their therapists when they wanted to talk about their feelings about the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, part of a broader pattern of issues that has emerged in the counseling field since the attacks. Gross said she came to the Hill to communicate to lawmakers “how prevalent antisemitism is and that it is occurring in the health-care field, and really just to bring light so there can be some sort of action and boundary that this is not acceptable.” She said lawmakers and staff were “very receptive” but also “really shocked” about the issues, given that attention has centered on issues on campuses.
Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
COMMUNITY CONCERNS
‘We still have a lot more to do’ to ensure sufficient security grant funding, Schumer says
While touting successes in increasing funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program in the national security supplemental bill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Wednesday that “we still have a lot more to do” to ensure that all synagogues and institutions in need of protection can receive help, reports Marc Rod for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
Not meeting the need: Despite the additional injection of funding from the supplemental bill, a significant increase in application volume meant the NSGP funded fewer than half of all requests in the 2024 grant cycle. “The number of applicants for funding has always been high. It’s increased dramatically, of course, after Oct. 7,” Schumer said during a briefing on NSGP and Jewish community security organized by Jewish groups on Capitol Hill. “I’ll continue to work with law enforcement and groups like [those] that are exemplified in this room … to fight back against the forces of antisemitism.”
Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
JEWISH LEADERSHIP PIPELINE
We need more great rabbis
“When I started working at the Shalom Hartman Institute nearly 15 years ago, I found myself regularly addressed, and often introduced, as ‘Rabbi Kurtzer,’” writes Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
What’s in a name?: “I suppose it is a reasonable assumption that an educator of rabbis running an institute that loves rabbis would himself be a rabbi… Over the years, I’ve come to believe that there is a deeper reason why Jews want their teachers and leaders to be rabbis, even if they do so unwittingly, and that is because we, the Jews, need rabbis. The rabbi is the oldest, most venerable and perhaps the most important model of a Jewish professional leader. For nearly two millennia, our rabbis have been carriers of Jewish tradition through scholarship and teaching; interpreters of the world in ways that ensure our continuity; gatekeepers of our communities; pastors in our times of need; representatives of our community to governments and the public; and the exemplars of what it means to be Jewish. When we use the term rabbi, even when it does not quite fit, we are saying something about the creativity, compassion and excellence that we hope and look for in our leaders.”
A new pathway: “There are many reasons why the [rabbinic] field has shrunk, why there has been a decline in enrollment in liberal rabbinical seminaries and why many jobs continue to go unfilled… but I believe our need for more outstanding rabbinic leaders for the North American Jewish community requires some radical experimentation, beginning with new approaches to rabbinic training. Earlier this year, we at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, in partnership with the Jim Joseph Foundation, quietly launched one such radical experiment, which we are calling Rabbanut North America: The Hartman Beit Midrash for New North American Rabbis.”
Worthy Reads
And Then What?: In an opinion piece for Ynet, Ariela Ringel-Hoffman reacts to footage released by the IDF of the tunnel in which Israeli hostages Karmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Almog Sarusi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin and Alex Lobanov were held before being executed by Hamas. “You can’t help but think about the immense human suffering in this dark, suffocating place, where someone brushed their hair for days and months trying to preserve some semblance of humanity. ‘We distributed it in English,’ [IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel] Hagari said, ‘so that the world will see, know and remember the evil of Hamas.’ I thought about what my mother, who survived the Holocaust, would have said about expecting the world to not only know, but to remember. To know and remember how Eden Yerushalmi, a 24-year-old woman, with the weight of a child, just 36 kilograms (79 lbs.), not much more than my mother weighed when she came out of the Nazi death camp. It is not just the failure of Israel to tell its story. It is that world that for the most part has turned its back on us soon after the terrible massacre on Oct. 7, and all the victims who were murdered, raped, burned and tortured… [T]his tunnel, which is no more than shoulders wide, stained with blood and where bodies were found, tells a story that sends us back 85 years to the same voices and the same silence from the world. So, what if the world sees, knows and remembers, as Hagari had hoped? If it sees, will it know? And if it knows, will it remember? And if it remembers? Then what?” [Ynet]
Giving Through Leading: In the Baltimore Jewish Times, Jillian Diamond profiles P.J. Pearlstone, who hails from a family line of local Jewish philanthropists. “His great-grandfather, Joseph Meyerhoff, was well-known for his involvement with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, with the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall being named in his honor. The Pearlstone Retreat Center was originally founded in memory of his grandfather, who had purchased the former Camp Milldale land, as the Jack Pearlstone Institute for Living Judaism. And his father, Richard Pearlstone, was the national chairman of the United Jewish Appeal — now part of the Jewish Federations of North America. This would be a tough act to follow for anyone, but Pearlstone has built upon this legacy of giving in his own way, as part of The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore.” [JT]
Time For a Change: Jackie Hajdenberg reports for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Ellie Zeiler’s evolution from a typical influencer focused on fashion and travel to taking her 20 million followers along as she begins her studies at Orthodox seminary program in Jerusalem. “‘You guys have seen me grow up and go through a lot of eras on the internet,’ she said [in a video posted last week]. ‘But post-Oct. 7, a lot in my life felt meaningless. As you know, I posted a lot about my pride for being Jewish and my support for Israel. And as I continued to post, my beliefs grew stronger and stronger. I started keeping Shabbat, and now I can never see my life living without it, as well as keeping kosher, and now I grasp at any piece of knowledge that I get to learn about connection and religion.’ Zeiler’s change of pace is an influencer case study in the shift that some Jews have experienced since Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked Israel and sparked a global reckoning about Jewish identity… But while several influencers have made Israel and their Jewish identity a more central component of their content in the last year, Zeiler is the first major influencer to relocate fully to Israel and to devote her time to Jewish learning.” [JTA]
Around the Web
A New York Times report casts light on the operation behind the coordinated explosions of Hezbollah operatives’ pagers, walkie-talkies and other tech this week…
Makom (formerly the Jewish Foundation for Group Homes) is moving into the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington’s headquarters in North Bethesda, Md. The two organizations will now jointly own the building as part of an expanded partnership…
The Dovid Oved Retreat Center, a Jewish camp located in Running Springs, Calif., hosted a thank-you barbecue for over 110 firefighters who have been working to protect the camp and surrounding communities from recent wildfires…
The Baltimore Jewish Times spotlights the Baltimore Environmental Sustainability Network, launched in March by The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore…
Molly Hess was named the new director of Jewish Experiences, a collaboration of the Jewish Federation of Kansas City and The J…
A bipartisan group of 23 lawmakers wrote to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on Tuesday urging it to investigate the rise of antisemitism on college campuses and provide recommendations to Congress and the administration to address the issue…
Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY) accused Harvard University of “willfully obstructing” local prosecutors investigating a physical assault on a Jewish student on campus, for which two attackers have been charged…
The Jerusalem Post reports on an Israeli-American power struggle over German rabbinical schools…
Millions of U.S. households have dropped out of the ranks of charitable donors and volunteers even as the dollar value of donations has risen, according to a report from the Generosity Commission, a project of The Giving Institute and Giving USA Foundation…
Pic of the Day
New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, inaugural editor-in-chief of the journal Sapir, delivers the keynote address on Wednesday evening at ANU-Museum of the Jewish People’s gala at the Mandarin Oriental in Manhattan.
“It’s not Israel that I’m worried about,” Stephens told attendees. “It’s American Jews that I’m worried about,” he said, referring t0 the surge of antisemitism in America.
Birthdays
NASA astronaut, on her 2019 trip to the International Space Station she took socks with Stars of David and menorahs, Jessica Meir…
Applied mathematician, statistician and physicist, professor emeritus at Harvard, Herman Chernoff… Former U.S. assistant secretary of education, Diane Silvers Ravitch… Nobel laureate in economics for 1997 and co-creator of the Black-Scholes model for valuing options and other derivatives, Myron Scholes… Noted British art dealer and founder of an eponymous London art gallery, Victoria Marion Miro… Television, film and theater actor, including early career roles in Yiddish theater, Michael Burstein… Born in a DP Camp to her Holocaust survivor parents, she was the first Jewish woman to serve on the Canadian Supreme Court, Rosalie Silberman Abella… Former U.S. ambassador to Israel and assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, now at the Council on Foreign Relations, Martin Indyk… Partner in the Century City-based law firm of Greenberg Glusker, Douglas E. Mirell… Hall of Fame player and coach in the Women’s National Basketball Association and now an NBA broadcaster, Nancy Lieberman… Attorney and longtime Democratic activist in Pittsburgh, he ran for Congress in 2022, Steven Irwin… Contributing editor at The Forward and CEO of the A-Mark Foundation, Rob Eshman… President emeritus of the Orthodox Union and a retired partner at Ropes & Gray, Mark (Moishe) Bane… Under secretary of state for political affairs until this past March, Victoria Jane Nuland (family name was Nudelman)… Journalist, filmmaker and educator, Shraga Simmons… Professor of Jewish thought at Hebrew University, Benjamin Brown… Member of the Virginia House of Delegates since 2014, Marcus Bertram Simon… Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA)… Screenwriter, producer and film director, Marc Silverstein… Los Angeles resident, Adam B. Siegel… Co-founder of Edgeline Films, Elyse Steinberg… Hasidic musician mixing elements of dancehall, reggae, hip-hop and R&B, known by his stage name DeScribe, Shneur Hasofer…
