Your Daily Phil: Inside the Roadburg Foundation’s $37M donation to Israel’s newest university
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we interview the CEO of the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation about its recent $37 million donation to the nascent Kiryat Shmona University in the Galilee in northern Israel, and spotlight a new initiative creating “Zionist salons” for young Jewish adults to discuss Israel and Zionism. We feature an opinion piece by Rabbi Amitai Fraiman offering insights from his time with the Sydney Jewish community after the Bondi Beach attack, and one by Sam Aboudara about adjusting expectations of consensus within Jewish communal institutions. Also in this issue: Gila Tolub, Guila Franklin Siegel and Beth Swibel.
Correction: Yesterday’s edition of Your Daily Phil incorrectly stated that in his “State of World Jewry” address, Bret Stephens called for the Jewish Federations of North America to be dismantled. JFNA was not specifically mentioned in the speech, and the Jewish federation system spends nearly half of its allocable dollars on formal and informal Jewish education — the cause that Stephens recommended strengthening in his speech. eJewishPhilanthropy regrets the error.
What We’re Watching
The Yael Foundation’s two-day annual conference kicked off this morning in Vienna. If you’re there, say hello to Rachel Gutman, who is reporting from the confab for eJewishPhilanthropy.
The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington is holding its Jewish Advocacy Day today. Gov. Wes Moore, who addressed the group’s legislative breakfast last month, will serve as today’s keynote speaker.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing this morning on the Nazis’ use of Swiss banks during World War II. The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Rabbi Abraham Cooper is among those testifying at the hearing.
Also in Washington, the two-day International Religious Freedom Summit concludes today, bringing together religious leaders from around the world.
The Carlyle Group’s David Rubenstein will be the featured speaker at Gettysburg College’s 24th annual Blavatt Lecture tonight, where he’ll speak about the semiquincentennial anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
What You Should Know
A day after the Israeli government held its weekly meeting in the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona to approve a new NIS 400 million ($130 million) rehabilitation package for the war-battered city, the Vancouver, British Columbia-based Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation announced a nearly CAD 50 million ($37 million) donation to the city’s nascent university. This represents both the four-year-old fund’s largest donation to date and the largest-ever donation to Kiryat Shmona University in the Galilee, formerly known as Tel Hai College.
Shortly after the donation was announced on Monday, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross spoke with Mark Gurvis, the foundation’s CEO, who previously served as CEO of the Vancouver Jewish Federation, about the gift and the foundation’s support for northern Israel.
JAG: Tell me how this gift came about. What is the foundation’s history with Tel Hai College?
MG: So on the one hand, we’re a young foundation, only four years old, but there are people involved on the board and myself, as the CEO, who have a long history of relationship with this region. … We made a pretty early commitment to Tel Hai to help them with a new building on the eastern campus for its computer sciences faculty. That was a CAD 8 million commitment, which we made three years ago — before the war. Over the course of the war, we were involved in emergency efforts, especially in this region. We started focusing on Tal Hai as part of the solution for the period after the war, when people would focus on reconstruction efforts. We knew that Tel Hai was already the major economic and social driver of the region. We focused on positioning Tel Hai — as it was becoming a university — to be able to fulfill that potential.
The announcement today builds on the initial CAD 8 million commitment and expands it to CAD 50 million.
JAG: What are your expectations with this gift? Does the foundation plan to continue supporting the university in the long term, or is this like “seed funding” to help the school get off the ground?
MG: For sure, we will be with them on this path for many years to come. First of all, we’re not in a position to pay out CAD 50 million all in one day — God bless. This was already an expansion of an existing commitment, so it will probably take over 12 years for us to pay the full commitment… We have worked with them to bring flexible funding. Our funding will be used not just for several academic buildings but also for faculty positions and administrative resources and the development of an Institute for Regionality. With that kind of approach, we’re able to help them tackle multiple problems — multiple challenges, I should say.
MAKING SPACE
WZO, WJC launch ‘Zionist Salons’ to engage disillusioned young Jews on Israel and Zionism
Israel and Zionism have long been fraught issues within the Jewish community, particularly among young Jews, evoking deep emotions and sparking fierce debates. Such disputes are often short on understanding and grace and even basic agreed-upon facts — all the more so in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks and the launch of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Aiming to address the disconnect that some young Jews feel toward the Jewish state, last month, the World Zionist Organization in North America partnered with the World Jewish Congress to train young Jewish leaders to initiate dialogue with their peers about Israel and Zionism through “salons,” reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim.
Safe spaces: The inaugural “Zionist Salons Training initiative” brought select participants from the WJC’s NextGen leadership program to Denver from communities across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Michal Slawny Cababia, the North American representative of the WZO, told eJP that the aim of the program is to train participants to create spaces among their peers where young adults can openly discuss their thoughts — and gripes — about Israel without fearing judgement. “This came about from the need to build a program to deal with the challenge of young American Jews who are distancing themselves from Israel post-Oct. 7 and feel like they don’t have a safe space to talk about Israel,” Slawny Cababia said.
FROM THE LAND DOWN UNDER
What the Australian response to Bondi reveals about Jewish institutional readiness
“In the days immediately following the antisemitic attack at Bondi Beach, I flew to Sydney with Rabbi Avi Weiss to show up for the Jewish community in its aftermath,” writes Rabbi Amitai Fraiman, founding director of the Z3 Project, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “We were not there representing an institution or advancing a policy agenda. We went to attend funerals, sit with mourners, visit the wounded and stand alongside a community navigating grief, fear and anger all at once.”
A strong impression: “What stood out to me most was how public Jewish grief unfolded. At vigils and gatherings, grief was expressed in Jewish language and ritual, without much effort to translate or universalize it first. The events were not framed primarily for outsiders; and yet, people from outside the Jewish community still came. Political leaders entered Jewish spaces. This was clarifying, not because Australia offered a model to import, but because the moment revealed something about structure and expectation.”
POSITIONS VS. PURPOSE
After the unity moment, we started treating Jewish institutions like people
“Over the past few years, I’ve felt something subtle shifting in Jewish communal life,” writes Sam Aboudara, interim CEO of NJY Camps, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “We look to camps, synagogues, schools and federations to speak the way a trusted individual might. To reassure us. To take a position. To tell us where they stand. And when they don’t, we react as if they’ve let us down personally.”
Times have changed: “Right now, many Jewish institutions are being judged by how clearly they perform unity, even though unity no longer exists in the same way. The real work happening behind the scenes is quieter and trickier: supporting staff who are navigating their own emotions, translating between communities that don’t speak the same language anymore and making decisions that will inevitably disappoint someone. … If we want Jewish institutions that last, we may need to adjust what we’re asking of them: less expectation that they sound like a single person with a perfect answer, and more trust that they can be steady places for real people living through complicated times.”
Worthy Reads
Sounding the Alarm: In The Times of Israel, Gila Tolub spotlights sobering statistics on suicidality among Israeli teens. “Between 2023 and 2025, emergency room visits by children and adolescents due to suicidality increased by roughly 60%. In 2023, 580 children and teens arrived at Schneider for psychiatric evaluation. In 2024, that number rose to 752. According to data released by the hospital last month, in 2025 it reached 930. These are not marginal changes. They reflect a steep and sustained rise over a very short period of time. … Clinicians describe cases that are more complex than in the past, with deeper distress and higher levels of concern. This is not a statistical anomaly. It is a wake-up call.” [TOI]
We Can Be Heroes: In The New York Times, German Lopez makes the case for live kidney donation, an act of charity he undertook in 2018 and calls “the most fulfilling experience of my life.” “Nearly 50,000 people in the United States die each year because there are not enough kidneys for transplant, which adds up to more than double the number of annual murder victims. Hundreds of thousands more are on dialysis, a lifesaving but time-sucking and physically draining treatment. … If you’re sick of reading the news and feeling like nothing you do matters, charity can be an antidote. It was for me. When I was younger, I felt pessimistic about an individual’s ability to change the world. But I now know that I can have a huge effect on other people’s lives.” [NYTimes]
Word on the Street
In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Sherrie Mazur from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation describes the steps that the organization took to increase the level of charitable giving from Blank’s businesses, from 1% of workers participating in a matching program to 50%…
Deborah Lipstadt, the former State Department special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, was named the recipient of this year’s Jonathan Sacks Institute Prize for Outstanding Achievement as a Public Intellectual at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, named for the late U.K. chief rabbi and leading Jewish thinker…
Officials in France issued warrants for two dual French-Israeli citizens who participated in efforts to block trucks carrying humanitarian aid from reaching the Gaza Strip…
Following a New York Times report on Monday that the Trump administration had dropped its demand for Harvard to agree to a $200 million settlement, President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social site that he is seeking “One Billion Dollars in damages, and want nothing further to do, into the future, with Harvard University”…
Axios examines how Black philanthropists and nonprofits are stepping in with funds to preserve historical sites associated with the Civil Rights Movement in the wake of federal funding cuts…
The MetroWest Jewish Day School outside of Boston is closing at the end of this year after its board and faculty determined that its “model of highly individualized Jewish day school education is no longer sustainable”…
Moment magazine interviews Guila Franklin Siegel, COO of the JCRC of Greater Washington, about the advocacy group’s efforts to combat antisemitism in K-12 schools in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks…
Jack F. Adler Jr., a Philadelphia-area Jewish nonprofit leader, died last month at 86…
Sidney Eskenazi, an Indianapolis-based philanthropist, died on Saturday at 95, less than a month after the death of his wife, Lois…
Transitions
Boaz Meir has been named the next chief development officer of the Israeli wounded veterans nonprofit Brothers for Life – Achim La’Chaim…
Givver hired Beth Swibel as its managing director of institutional advancement…
The St. Louis Jewish Federation appointed four new members to its board of directors: Tom Eidelman, Caroline Goldenberg, Ryan Holtzman and John Kalishman…
Pic of the Day
A group attends a “watch party” for the Jewish Grandparents Network Learning Fest last week at Temple Emanue-El in Honolulu.
Some 540 people across the United States took part in the virtual event for Jewish grandparents, which featured sessions on storytelling, Israel, managing relationships with distant family and navigating interfaith families.
“Grandparents hold a unique place in many families — they are the keeper of stories and a bridge between the past and future,” Debra “Debs” Weinberg, executive director of the Jewish Grandparents Network, said in a statement. “At the same time, many families have complicated dynamics, and the world today is also complicated. Learning Fest 2026 gave grandparents tools to navigate these challenges, connect with each other for support and feel valued. We’re excited to build strong Jewish families and a brighter Jewish future.”
Birthdays
Chairman and president of the Export-Import Bank of the U.S. for almost the full eight years of the Obama administration, formerly president of the Lillian Vernon Corporation and an LGBTQ activist, Fred Hochberg turns 74…
Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1993-2001, Arthur Levitt Jr. turns 95… President and CEO of clothing manufacturer Warnaco Group from 1986 to 2001, at one time she was the only woman CEO of a Fortune 500 industrial company, Linda J. Wachner turns 80… Partner at Shipman & Goodwin, following 18 years as a justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court, Joette Katz turns 73… Singer-songwriter, best known for composing “From a Distance,” a big hit for Bette Midler and winner of the Grammy for Song of the Year in 1991, Julie Gold turns 70… Retired member of both houses of the Utah Legislature, she was a co-president of the National Association of Jewish Legislators, Patrice M. Arent turns 70… Former head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Biden administration, now a professor at MIT and Harvard, Eric Steven Lander turns 69… Former CEO of the Chicago Sun-Times, prior to which he was an alderman of the 43rd Ward of Chicago, Edwin Eisendrath turns 68… Steven F. Schlafer… Member of the Knesset for the National Unity party, Michael Biton turns 56… General counsel of the Girl Scouts of the USA, Diana Hartstein Beinart… French actor with more than 50 film credits and a number of television shows, Vincent Elbaz turns 55… Australian actress and author, Isla Fisher turns 50… Record producer and music critic, known by her nickname Ultragrrrl, Sarah Lewitinn turns 46… Journalist and television host, best known for her 13-year tenure at CBS News Los Angeles, Brittney Hopper turns 44… Senior director at the GeoEconomics Center of the Atlantic Council, Josh Lipsky… Professional poker player, he won $12.1 million in the World Series of Poker Main Event in 2023, Daniel Weinman turns 38… Senior associate program director at CSS/Community Security Service, Joshua Keyak… One of Israel’s most popular singers, his religiously themed music has become popular in Israeli secular culture, Ishay Ribo turns 37… Director at strategic counsel and communications firm Joele Frank, Noam Safier… Director for J Street U at J Street, Erin Beiner… Forward for Ironi Ness Ziona of the Israeli Basketball Premier League, during the 2021-22 season while at Yeshiva University he was the top scorer in all divisions of college basketball, Ryan Turell turns 27… Vice president for advocacy and innovation at the American Jewish Committee and regional director of AJC Atlanta, Dov Wilker…
