Your Daily Phil: Inside the push to bring Israeli expats home to vote
Add EJP on GoogleGood Friday morning!
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on efforts to mobilize Israelis living abroad to vote in the country’s upcoming election, we spotlight an effort in Seattle to launch a new local Jewish publication, The Jewish Sound, and examine new ventures to publish Jewish and Israeli books. We feature an opinion piece by Rachel Lithgow challenging how we view and support vulnerable Jews like refugees, the elderly and orphans outside the U.S. and Israel, and a piece by Jonah Kaplan seeks to get the conversation about American Jewry’s communal response to antisemitism onto a different track. Also in this issue: Adi Ainbinder, Elijah Cummings and Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi.
Today’s Your Daily Phil was curated by eJP Managing Editor Judah Ari Gross, Opinion Editor Rachel Kohn and Israel Editor Justin Hayet. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
The Rohr Jewish Learning Institute’s annual National Jewish Retreat runs through Sunday in Miami.
What You Should Know
Every election is called the most important in a country’s history, and the one scheduled for Oct. 27 in Israel is no different. With 80 days to go until polls open, tens of thousands of Israeli expatriates are planning to spend thousands of dollars to fly in to vote, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Justin Hayet.
To accommodate these returning expats, a number of initiatives have sprung up — some grassroots, some highly organized. This generally does not include paying for flights, as such payments would likely be challenged in court as illicit vote-buying. The most significant of these is Fly & Vote, an initiative run by the AID Coalition, an Israeli expat movement that grew out of the 2023 anti-judicial overhaul protests.
Jonathan Barsade, the group’s president, told eJP that some 31,000 people have already registered, with hopes to more than double it by election day. “For us, success will be measured in two ways,” Barsade said. “First, achieving a voter turnout in the elections that exceeds 75%. Second, at least 70,000 Israelis who live abroad who traveled to Israel and cast their votes.”
News
EXTRA! EXTRA!
Local Jewish leaders, journalists team up to launch Seattle area’s only Jewish publication
The Puget Sound region of Washington state, the area around and including the booming tech hub of Seattle, has long been home to a sizable, wealthy and active Jewish community. Yet for the past six years, it has had no local Jewish newspaper to inform the region’s estimated 75,000 Jewish residents. A group of philanthropists, local leaders and editors is looking to change that, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher. Early next year, these organizers plan to launch The Jewish Sound, a digital-first publication that will operate as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
No ulterior motives: Organizers are being clear to donors — they are starting a journalistic organization. “We will let our large donors know, and we are going to have this in our transparency statement, that your money does not give you access to the editorial team,” Joel Magalnick, who will serve as the founding executive director, told eJP.
PEOPLE OF THE BOOK
New Jewish ventures aim to publish what mainstream houses won’t — Israeli stories, Jewish names and all
A number of literary professionals have announced in recent weeks the launch of their own Jewish publishing companies, aimed at fulfilling a need for frustrated authors who say they’ve hit the same wall: agents advising them to cut Jewish names and references to Israel, editors going silent on submissions that once would have been fast sales and a mounting sense that the industry’s embrace of the #ownvoices storytelling trend — a hashtag used to amplify the work of diverse and minority voices — has an unspoken exception for Jewish writers, reports Haley Cohen for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
More to do: Jewish literary consultant and advocate Erika Dreifus described the wave of new ventures as “wonderful,” but cautioned against reading it as a comprehensive fix for what ails Jewish authors. “There’s certainly more writers out there who would love to be published than there are going to be slots, even with these new publishing houses. I welcome the developments and I’m eager to see what they’ll all be doing,” she told JI.
Opinion
GLOBAL JEWRY
The geography of Jewish worth
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, author Rachel Lithgow, who spent 25 years in leadership positions at large Jewish historical and cultural institutions and is now the founder and CEO of the Noga Agency, warns against a tendency to look at vulnerable Jewish populations outside the U.S. and Israel and ask: What is the future for Jews living here? Shouldn’t they leave?
“Philanthropists and volunteers routinely ask where money will do the most good, whether a community is sustainable and what obligations follow from need. Those are legitimate questions of strategy. But there is a difference between strategic analysis and asking vulnerable strangers to justify the geography of their existence.”
ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT
Fighting antisemitism takes courage — including the courage to look within
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Jonah Kaplan, an Emmy-winning correspondent and investigative journalist for CBS News, reflects on the Jewish community’s discourse around combatting antisemitism.
“I was on the ground in West Bloomfield, Mich., reporting for CBS News just hours after the attack on Temple Israel, one of the largest synagogues in North America. I witnessed the horror, the fear and the grief; I felt it, too. But you know what else I saw? The more than 640 first responders from more than 40 local and state agencies who immediately responded. They came to save and protect American Jews… Juxtapose that with Kristallnacht in November 1938, when police officers and firefighters stood by or even willfully participated in the firebombing and looting of synagogues and Jewish businesses. … Sharing these perspectives is not an attempt to invalidate or diminish a lost sense of security. On the contrary, perhaps it’s the wake-up call to change our thinking.”
Worthy Reads
The Buzzing of Billions: In the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Robert Foster co-founder and managing director of Courage Housing argues that publicly ranking donor-advised fund sponsors by the share of assets they deploy annually would pressure them to give rather than hoard billions as US DAF assets hit $326 billion in 2024. “Billions in donor-advised funds (DAFs) sit like honey crystallizing in forgotten jars—sweet but inert—while urgent social needs multiply beyond the glass”
When Troy Meets the Talmud: In The Forward, PJ Grisar contends that Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” mirrors the Talmud’s Bar Kamtza tale of the Second Temple’s fall, casting the Trojan horse as a story of hospitality betrayed and civilization undone. “Predicting the fall of the Temple, the Rav asked for the city of Yavneh and its sages. From there our modern history began, literacy thrived and a dark age was subdued. The Temple and Troy have yet to be rebuilt, but their legends live on.”
Julius’s Jackpot: In J. The Jewish News of Northern California, Maya Mirsky traces how a heavily contested 1900 bequest by sea captain Julius Friedman eventually provided $250,000 in 1922 to San Francisco’s Hebrew Home for the Aged, which grew into the city’s Campus for Jewish Living. “The Jewish Home we know today could be said to be the child of this combined set of charitable institutions. It’s still on Silver Street, and the rivalry is surely long forgotten. But let’s not forget the midwifery of Julius Friedman, the millionaire whose money went to support those who still needed, at the end of their lives, a home — and not just a home, a Jewish home.”
Major Gifts
The Mellon Foundation committed $1.2 million over three years to Freedom Quilting Bee Legacy to restore the Alabama home of the 1966 Black women’s quilting cooperative and expand its fundraising capacity…
Transitions
Word on the Street
A government-commissioned survey of roughly 900 Jewish students across Canada found that 96% had experienced or witnessed antisemitism on campus in the past year…
Renewable energy firm Gigawatt Global will provide up to $500 million to finance 90% of the cost of solar plants at Nigerian universities, a plan CEO Yosef Abramowitz unveiled Thursday in Abuja to cut the schools’ heavy reliance on costly diesel generators…
The Forward spotlights Sadieville, Kentucky, where residents have opened an exhibit in a restored one-room schoolhouse for Black students, one of 5,000 across the segregated South funded by Jewish philanthropist Julius Rosenwald…
The Jewish Fertility Foundation opened its 11th chapter in Houston last month, offering treatment grants, education and peer support to individuals and couples navigating infertility
Chabad of Noe Valley (Calif.) bought a century-old Mission District mortuary for $7.5 million and will spend an additional $5 million to $10 million converting the 17,000-square-foot building into an expanded preschool and a new K-5 Jewish day school in what will become San Francisco’s largest Chabad center…
The Elijah Cummings Youth Program in Israel, founded by the late congressman with Baltimore Jewish leaders to bridge the city’s Black and Jewish communities, has paused its Israel trips in favor of Eastern European travel…
Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market will undergo a NIS 54 million ($18 million) overhaul of its aging electricity, water, sewage, flooring and roofing beginning next October, funded by the Ministry of Tourism and the Jerusalem Municipality…
Kansas City’s Fox4 spotlighted the JCC Maccabi Games, marking the event’s first return to Kansas City since 1997…
The University of Minnesota has agreed to pay historian Raz Segal $250,000 to settle his claim over the school’s 2024 decision to rescind its offer for him to lead its Holocaust and genocide studies center…
In a Times of Israel opinion piece, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi highlights JWest, an ambitious redevelopment of Vancouver’s Jewish community campus adding a 200,000-square-foot JCC, an expanded King David High School and hundreds of rental apartments…
The Jewish Federation of Greater Harrisburg has laid off its remaining support staff amid financial constraints as it works to sell the Alexander Grass Campus and offloads its Jewish group home to Keystone Human Services…
In the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, New York filmmaker Rachel Israel discusses her two openly Jewish comedies — “The Floaters” and “Influenced” — which frame Jewishness around community and belonging rather than antisemitism or crisis…
The Education Department announced probes into anti-Israel protests at San Jose State University and San Francisco State University, citing complaints alleging the schools’ administrators failed to adequately address antisemitism on campus…
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz sold his Hawaii estate for $36 million, 11 years after purchasing the property for $25 million…
Pic of the Day
Workers in Erfurt, Germany, uncover a cellar on Wednesday as part of an excavation to learn more about the arrival of a Jewish community in the 14th century.
Birthdays
Amit Rahav, Israeli actor, he was a drama counselor at Camp Ramah Darom in 2016, turns 31 on Sunday…
Esther Holler, Brooklyn resident
Michael “Mickey” Kantor, former U.S. trade representative and then U.S. secretary of commerce, both positions during the Clinton administration, turns 87
Peter Morton, co-founder of the world-wide chain of Hard Rock Café, turns 79
Dan Halutz, retired lieutenant general in the Israeli Air Force, he also served as chief of staff of the IDF, turns 78
Marty Appel, former PR director for the New York Yankees and author of more than 20 books, turns 78
Greg Rosenbaum, president of private equity firm Palisades Associates, former CEO of Empire Kosher Poultry, turns 74
Jonathan Pollard, former U.S. intelligence analyst, he pled guilty to espionage in 1986 and was released from prison in 2015 and moved to Israel in 2020, turns 72
Rabbi Menachem Greenblatt, spiritual leader of Agudas Israel of St. Louis since 1986
Esther Netter, founder of the Cayton Children’s Museum in Santa Monica
Michael Schussheim, former comptroller of the city of Rockville Centre, N.Y., turns 68
Samuel D. Zien, television cook, YouTuber, restaurateur and cookbook author, known as Sam the Cooking Guy, turns 67
David S. Greenspan, city council president of Westlake, Ohio, turns 61
Liran Carmel, professor of computational biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, turns 55
Havi Arbeter Goldscher, CEO at Capital Camps & Retreat Center after 14 years at AIPAC
Abigail Spanberger, governor of Virginia, turns 47
Sara Aliza Eisen, financial news anchor for CNBC, turns 42
Jonathan V. Swan, Emmy Award-winning political reporter for The New York Times, turns 41
Amelia Schimmel, public address announcer for both MLB’s Athletics and the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda
Ryan Lavarnway, former MLB catcher, he batted .350 with two home runs for Team Israel at the 2020 Olympics, he is now a catching instructor for the Chicago Cubs, turns 39
Anna Harwood-Gross, senior faculty at Ariel University
Estee Goldschmidt, product management director at Signify Health
Zac MacMath, former professional soccer player, he played for the U.S. in the 2009 Maccabiah Games in Israel, turns 35
Samuel Robert Buzby, professional Super Smash Bros. player, known as Dabuz, turns 33
Scott Harrison
Jacob Cramer, founder of Love For Our Elders, a global nonprofit organization in dozens of countries, turns 26
SATURDAY:
Dustin Hoffman, actor and director, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1980 for “Kramer vs. Kramer” and in 1989 for “Rain Man,”, turns 89
Elizabeth Gordon, arlington Heights, Ill., resident
Frans Weisglas, Dutch diplomat and politician, he served as the speaker of the Dutch House of Representatives, turns 80
Greenwood Village, colo., resident, Robert M. Schwartz
Roy D. Pulliam, tampa, Fla., resident
Lloyd James Austin III, retired U.S. Army four-star general, who then served as the secretary of defense during the Biden administration, turns 73
Juliana E. Miles Bagherpour, Vancouver, Wash., resident
David Melech Friedman, U.S. ambassador to Israel throughout the Trump 45 administration, turns 68
Michael Graubart Levin, former CEO of BusinessGhost, a ghostwriting firm that has written and published over 700 books, turns 68
Stuart L. Sternberg, former managing general partner of MLB’s Tampa Bay Rays, turns 67
Leonid Yudasin, chess grandmaster, once ranked 8th in the world, he is the director of the Brooklyn Chess Academy, turns 67
Ron Klain, white House chief of staff for the first two years of the Biden administration, turns 65
Jon Turteltaub, film director whose works include nine Disney films, turns 63
Elissa F. Cadish, former chief justice of the Nevada Supreme Court, she continues to serve as a justice, turns 62
Jonah Seiger, digital strategist, he is the founding partner of Fuse, a consultancy
Rabbi Gil Ofer Student, former book editor of the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Action magazine, turns 54
Benjamin A. Weinman, lead guitarist of the mathcore band the Dillinger Escape Plan, also playing rhythm guitar with the crossover thrash band Suicidal Tendencies, turns 51
Lindsay Sloane, film and television actor, turns 49
Craig Breslow, MLB pitcher for 12 seasons and now chief baseball officer of the Boston Red Sox, turns 46
Sophie Flack, author, freelance writer and editor, she is a former dancer with the New York City Ballet, turns 43
Bara Lane, managing principal at Rocktower Capital
Jacob Benjamin “Jake” Goldsbie, Canadian film, television and stage actor, turns 38
Sarah Garfinkel, digital director at the Jewish Democratic Council of America
Addie Lerner Katz, founder and managing partner at Avid Ventures
Zachary Pellish, director of marketing and communications at Alpha Epsilon Pi
Morgan Furlong, creative producer for Airbnb
Jennifer Leigh “Jen” Selter, internet celebrity and fitness model, turns 33
Jack Baum
Rob Schwartz…
SUNDAY:
Rabbi Moshe Maya, prominent Sephardic rabbi in Tel Aviv, he was a member of the Knesset for the Shas party, turns 88
Donald M. “Don” Spero, Ph.D., physicist and venture capitalist, co-founder and senior advisor at New Markets Venture Partners, turns 87
David Steinberg, comedian, actor, writer, director and author, son of a rabbi, he appeared 140 times on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show,”, turns 84
Barbara Delinsky, romance novelist with 25 books on the NYT bestseller lists, turns 81
Seymour Rossel, author of more than 33 Jewish-themed books, he is an ordained rabbi as are two of his daughters, turns 81
Mark Shapiro, telecommunications consultant based in Chattanooga, Tenn., turns 80
Jonathan Kellerman, psychologist and bestselling suspense novelist, turns 77
Faith Schames, southern California resident
Amir Abraham Haskel, brigadier general (res.) in the Israeli Air Force and Israeli protest leader, turns 73
Tova Dorfman, executive director of the Steinhardt Family Foundation in Israel and executive director of the Henry S. and Mala Dorfman Family Foundation
Ronald Steven “Ron” Latz, member of the Minnesota state Senate since 2007, turns 63
Maurice Samuels, professor of French at Yale University, he is the inaugural director of the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism, turns 58
Amy Beth Rutkin, chief of staff for Representative Jerrold Nadler for 25 years, she started a consulting practice in 2024
Leonard M. Tannenbaum, founder of Tannenbaum Capital Group, turns 55
Hila Plitmann, two-time Grammy Award-winning operatic soprano, songwriter and actor, turns 53
Kirill Reznik, assistant secretary for inter-departmental data integration for the Maryland Department of Human Services, turns 52
Kenneth P. Vogel, reporter in the Washington bureau of The New York Times, he covers the confluence of money, politics and influence, turns 51
Rebecca Kirszner Katz, Democratic political strategist
Jules Friedman, chair of JEWELS (Jewish Education Where Every Level Succeeds), turns 51
Meytal Cohen, drummer, popular on YouTube with over 300 million views, turns 43
Jacob Baime, CEO of the Israel on Campus Coalition since 2013
Amanda Isaacson, real estate investor based in Cleveland, Ohio
Isaac Lederman, associate at K&L Gates LLP
Fred Brown, SVP at Dezenhall Resources, he was previously communications director for the Republican Jewish Coalition and an RNC alum
Elise Aronson
Dan Zimerman
