Your Daily Phil: Inside Robert Kraft’s big, blue square gala
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we examine the detention of a group of Israeli and Diaspora activists during an olive harvest in the West Bank, and report on Community Security Service’s new partnership with United Hatzalah to train its volunteers in first aid. We cover Robert Kraft’s inaugural BlueSquare gala, which raised $32 million for the group, and report on AIPAC’s decision to end candidate endorsements and direct PAC contributions. We feature an opinion piece by Hadas Minka-Brand about putting Israeli innovation to work on scalable tech solutions to improve societal welfare, and a piece by Or Caduri about not allowing post-Oct. 7 hypervigilance to harden into cynicism. Also in this issue: Josh Kopelman, Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar and Gary and Alya Michelson.
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
Sheba Medical Center’s ARC Innovation Summit concludes today in Tel Aviv.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD FROM eJP’S JUDAH ARI GROSS
It was the detention of Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander by the Israeli military that made international headlines yesterday during an olive harvest in the central West Bank. But within the Jewish world, it was the American rabbis being taken into custody that made waves, drawing joint condemnation from the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements.
There certainly appears to be an element of political theater at play, particularly in the aftermath, which was full of selfies, social media posts and press releases. And yet the fact that those involved did not appear to be intentionally violating any laws — despite Israeli claims to the contrary, which do not hold up under scrutiny — makes it harder to write this off as a mere political stunt, particularly as recent violent attacks by Israeli extremists have demonstrated the need for such assistance.
These kinds of so-called “protective presence” activities were once almost exclusively the domain of die-hard activists well outside the Jewish mainstream. That is no longer the case, and it will make it much more difficult for the Jewish communal world to grapple with such incidents in the future unless realities on the ground change.
Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here.
News
EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS
With United Hatzalah partnership, Community Security Service to train volunteers in first aid
The Community Security Service, which trains Jewish volunteers to protect synagogues, schools and events, is partnering with United Hatzalah of Israel to bring emergency medical first-response training to its volunteers nationwide, the organizations shared exclusively with eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim.
Better together: The partnership also stemmed from existing overlap between the two organizations. CSS had already provided security at United Hatzalah events in the U.S., and Dan Sommer, an education-technology entrepreneur, acts as both vice chair of CSS and treasurer of Friends of United Hatzalah. “Let’s not reinvent the wheel,” Sommer told eJP. “Let’s take the best of what United Hatzalah does in training, the best of what CSS does in standing and training its volunteers, and bring those two concepts together.”
SUPER BALL
Robert Kraft’s Blue Square gala pulls in $32M as NYC’s Waldorf glows blue
Manhattan’s Waldorf Astoria was basking in blue light on Wednesday night as more than 800 guests gathered for the inaugural benefit gala of Robert Kraft’s Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, reports Haley Cohen for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider. The sold-out event raised more than $32 million to combat antisemitism and discrimination, according to the organizers. The haul marks the largest amount the group has raised in a single night.
Blue-chip crowd: With opening remarks by CNN commentator Van Jones, the program honored Bank of America Chair and CEO Brian Moynihan, and featured a video message from former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Household names sat beside prominent figures from New York’s Jewish community. Spotted in the crowd were Jon Bon Jovi; Wolf Blitzer and Bianna Golodryga; NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch; New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin; former CEO of UJA-Federation of New York Eric Goldstein; ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt; Yeshiva University President Ari Berman; Columbia University Hillel Executive Director Brian Cohen and Rabbi Berel Gurevitch, who leads Chabad West Village.
Read the full report and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff.
OUT OF THE GAME
AIPAC to end candidate endorsements, PAC contributions to allies
AIPAC announced on Wednesday that, after three cycles of direct political involvement through its political action committee AIPAC PAC, it will no longer issue endorsements or directly earmark contributions to candidates, but said it will remain involved in political organizing and fundraising in other ways, including with its influential super PAC, reports Marc Rod for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
Lesson learned: The decision is a striking turnabout just five years after the group first launched its PAC and super PAC and began directly endorsing and fundraising for candidates. The United Democracy Project super PAC, which launched alongside AIPAC’s PAC in 2021 and has spent tens of millions across numerous races, will continue its engagement.
Read the full report and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff.
Opinion
LIFE SUPPORT
Beyond recovery: How technology can help Israel build a stronger society
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, organizational psychologist Hadas Minka-Brand, executive director of JDC Israel, calls for using this moment not only to aid Israeli society’s recovery but to “build stronger, smarter and more accessible social systems for the future.”
“The technology we need is not technology that replaces human connections. It is technology that enables human connection to reach farther. It can help identify deterioration before it becomes a crisis, enable earlier intervention, connect people to information and professionals and help individuals recognize not only their difficulties but also their strengths. It can also make social systems more scalable and more personal.”
SUSPICIOUS MINDS
Keep the armor, but facing outward
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, educational strategist and consultant Or Caduri reflects on his post-Oct. 7 experience as a Jewish professional on an Ivy League campus and warns against writing off institutions, initiatives and potential partners prematurely.
“It is not that exercising caution with new initiatives and intentions is wrong. We are professionals and standards matter; due diligence is a necessary part of our work, especially at a time that requires internal resolve in the face of adverse ideological pressure. The danger is when that caution hardens into preemptive judgment — dismissing potential partners before ever picking up the phone to learn what they are actually doing.”
Worthy Reads
Perpetual Motion: Writing in the latest issue of Prizmah’s Kaleidoscope, which is focused on changes, advancements and big questions around Jewish day school affordability, Traci Reisberg points to endowments as the lasting funding that lets schools pair tuition aid with investment in teachers and programs, citing a Prizmah training program whose first cohort of schools aims to raise $55 million. “A one-time gift can widen the door for a year. An endowment is what keeps the whole cycle turning long after that gift is spent.”
Plot Holes: In The Jewish Chronicle, OpenDor Media executive vice president Noam Weissman writes that Jews’ greatest vulnerability is how little they know of their own story, as part of the launch of a new partnership with the British newspaper. “We cannot control how others feel about us. We can control whether our children know who they are. Scott Galloway is right that the arc of evolution bends toward good storytellers. The Jewish story is extraordinary. The audience, I believe, is hungrier than we sometimes dare to hope.”
Bubble Trouble: On the podcast “Invested,” Michael Eisenberg speaks with First Round Capital founding partner Josh Kopelman about the AI valuation boom, why he called out Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave after the Oct. 7 terror attacks and his contribution to Jewish text study. “I found this encyclopedia. It was the first Jewish encyclopedia ever created… why don’t I make that searchable? And so we put that online. Now we ended up giving it to Sefaria.”
Landsman! Landsman!: In Religion News Service, Michele Chabin spotlights the curious relationship between Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar, an Orthodox Israeli woman, and the Amish community in Pennsylvania. “Cumulatively, she has spent ‘many months’ with Amish families, including three weeks living on Anna’s farm. Anna’s family has since become her ‘home base’ in the U.S., Neriya-Ben Shahar said. ‘They keep boxes containing my kosher dishes and clothes in their attic,’ she said. ‘On the plastic bags they have written, “Rebecca from the Holy Land, don’t touch.”’”se I trust.’ Those six words crystallized everything I had come to believe about philanthropy.”
Major Gifts
Philanthropists Gary and Alya Michelson committed $120 million to the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, a Los Angeles research center that Gary Michelson co-founded…
Yale Law professor Bruce Ackerman is giving the entire $1.25 million of his Tang Prize in Rule of Law to CARE to fund its relief work in Gaza…
The Home Depot Foundation pledged to donate $1 billion over the next six years to veterans who are homeless or close to it, on top of the $650 million-plus it has put toward veteran causes since 2011…e mothers…
Transitions
Israel-is’s chief operating officer Ben Engel-Kacen is leaving the organization…
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum hired Ilana Fisch as its major gifts officer for the southeast region…
Word on the Street
Oklahoma’s Statewide Charter School Board will meet on Friday to again vote on an application by the Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School, after the online school fell one vote short of approval last week; if approved, Ben Gamla would be the first state-funded religious charter school in the country…
A new Tel Aviv University study found Israeli emigration more than doubled to 69,000 in 2025, up from roughly 32,000 a year in the decade before 2020, with young families and professionals such as doctors and engineers leaving the fastest…
Anthropic and OpenAI are drafting plans to spread AI profits broadly ahead of expected blockbuster IPOs, though philanthropy experts say governance and beneficiary details remain murky…
A new documentary revisits how Philadelphia Flyers chairman Ed Snider turned his team’s 1976 matchup with the Red Army team into a stage for the Soviet Jewry movement, a cause his family still champions to this day…
Actor Sacha Baron Cohen speaks with The Hollywood Reporter about the online campaign to boycott his new film, which he sees as part of a broader pattern of efforts to silence prominent Jews…
Israel’s Kan broadcaster reports Shin Bet chief David Zini secretly traveled to Paris for counterterrorism talks with France’s two top intelligence agencies amid riots there and despite mounting diplomatic friction, including French sanctions on Israel…
J. The Jewish News of Northern California goes inside what is believed to be the first group b’nai mitzvah at San Quentin, the California state prison north of San Francisco, where nine incarcerated men, none born Jewish, marked the milestone after a year of study…
The Oshman Family JCC’s preschool in Palo Alto, Calif., will stop calling itself Reggio Emilia-inspired after a trip by American Jewish educators to that Italian city fell apart over demands they disavow Israel’s actions in Gaza…
The Canadian Jewish News examines how Vancouver’s Jewish community is preparing after the city’s voters ousted Mayor Ken Sim, a communal ally, and elected a council largely aligned with an anti-Israel platform…
Pic of the Day
Kaelen Sherman and Alex Krawczyk unveil a sign yesterday that renames the campus of Toronto’s Jewish high school, TanenbaumCHAT, in honor of their late parents, Honey and Barry Sherman, following Sherman’s donation of CAD 25 million ($17.6 million) to the school for tuition assistance.
Speaking to eJewishPhilanthropy earlier this year, Kaelen Sherman said that she was driven to support the school because her parents believed that “no kid should be turned away from an education that they should have a right to because they can’t afford it.”
Birthdays
Jeff Goldblum, actor who starred in many high-grossing films such as “Jurassic Park,” “Independence Day” and sequels of both of those, turns 74
Frank Lowy, Australian real estate investor and long-time chairman of Westfield Corporation, owner of shopping malls across the globe, which he sold in 2018, turns 96
Alan Patricof, pioneer of the venture capital and private equity industries, he is chairperson and co-founder of Primetime Partners, turns 92
Allen Fagin, retired EVP of the Orthodox Union, he was previously chairman of NYC-based law firm Proskauer Rose
Ron Wolfson, professor of education at American Jewish University
David Hochberg, agent for artists, sculptors and photographers, he is a son of Lillian Vernon
Hilary Rosen, retired vice-chair of SKDK, she was the long-time CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, turns 68
Marc Shaiman, composer and lyricist, he has won two Grammys, two Emmys and a Tony, and been nominated for seven Oscars, turns 67
Susan Jane Gilman, author of several books
Edward Alexander Mermelstein, former NYC commissioner for international affairs, he is also an attorney, investment advisor, media pundit and real estate developer, turns 59
Eric Fingerhut, Bethesda, Md., resident (not the president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America)
Javier Milei, president of Argentina since December 2023, turns 56
Michelle Gordon, EVP and chief development officer of The Associated Jewish Federation of Baltimore
Albert Stankowski, former director of the Warsaw Ghetto Museum and current acting deputy director of the Treblinka Museum, turns 55
Eric Guggenheim, screenwriter, turns 53
Samantha Kupferman, director of external relations at CoAction Global
Michael Fishman, actor best known for playing D.J. Conner on the long-running series “Roseanne” and its spinoff show, “The Conners,” turns 45
Danny Parkins, sports radio talk show host and podcaster, turns 40
Maayan Tregerman, psychotherapist with a private practice in White Plains, N.Y.
Ross Barkan, journalist and author, turns 37
Jonathan Lipnicki, actor and producer, best known for his roles as a child actor starting at 6 years old, turns 36
Omer Adam, one of Israel’s most popular singers, turns 33
Ryan Torok, director of public relations at American Jewish University
