Your Daily Phil: IsraAid cuts 20% of HQ staff, 2 global missions amid shortfall
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on the Israeli humanitarian relief group IsraAid cutting some 20% of its headquarters staff due to financial struggles, on the Institute for Jewish Spirituality’s upcoming 25th anniversary, and on a recent meeting between New York City rabbis with Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. We also interview Adam Louis-Klein, who is emerging as a leading voice against anti-Zionism. We feature Hanukkah-themed opinion pieces about braving uncertainty, cultivating hope and understanding the approaches of the Academy of Hillel versus the Academy of Shammai by Sara Fredman Aeder, Addie Goodman and Melissa Chapman, and Rabbi Mattthew J. Rosenberg. Also in this issue: William Deresiewicz, Noam Gilboord and “The Beautiful Six.”
Shabbat shalom and Hanukkah sameach!
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What We’re Watching
The Hudson Institute’s Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East is hosting a daylong seminar today in Washington titled “Antisemitism as a National Security Threat.” Speakers include the White House’s Seb Gorka, former antisemitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt, Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), CNN’s Scott Jennings, Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Russell Mead and former State Department senior advisor Ludovic Hood.
On Saturday night, the Zichron Yaakov chapter of Israel’s English Speaking Residents Association is hosting a panel discussion moderated by eJewishPhilanthropy Managing Editor Judah Ari Gross with former American government officials living in the town, including Efraim Cohen, the former assistant special envoy to combat antisemitism; Enia Krivine, a former congressional staffer now serving as a senior director at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies; and Susan Kling Finston, a former foreign service officer.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog will host a Hanukkah candle lighting on Sunday afternoon with the family of Ran Gvili, the last fallen hostage still being held in Gaza, as well as former hostages, their families and bereaved families.
On Sunday evening, the National Menorah lighting for the first night of Hanukkah, hosted by American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad), will take place on the Ellipse in Washington.
Also on Sunday evening, the Institute for Jewish Spirituality will host its 25th anniversary celebration at B’nai Jeshurun in New York City. More on this below.
What You Should Know
The Israeli humanitarian relief group IsraAid is laying off approximately 20% of employees at its Tel Aviv headquarters and will shutter two of its international missions, in light of financial shortfalls, sources connected to the organization told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross. A spokesperson for IsraAid confirmed the cuts, saying the group “had to take some steps to ensure the stability and sustainability of its operations.”
As an organization primarily backed by Jewish donors, whose priorities have shifted in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks to focus more on Israel and combating antisemitism and less on other issues, IsraAid has struggled to raise funds for its international missions. The spokesperson said that the group has raised nearly $20 million for its domestic Israeli programs and more than $10 million for its Gaza response, but that this has “made it harder than ever to secure the flexible and unrestricted funds that are the lifeblood of any nonprofit.”
As a result of this shortage in unrestricted funds, the spokesperson said IsraAid has been forced to take action: “This entails a painful process of targeted budget reductions, which, sadly, includes a 20% reduction in the size of our headquarters team and will, through the course of 2026, include the gradual phase out and handover of two of our global missions to the local community,” he said. “Like all organizations across the humanitarian sector, we have to prioritize using our funds where they can have the greatest impact. These plans will be communicated first and foremost with IsraAid’s global staff of over 400 people and the communities we serve.”
IsraAid, which launched in 2001, employs nearly 100 people at its Tel Aviv office. The organization would not elaborate on the precise number of people who were being laid off, which specific positions were being cut or on other personnel matters. The spokesperson stressed that the group’s “mission hasn’t changed and isn’t going to change.”
Even as the group began laying off its headquarters staff this month, the organization has continued to dispatch missions to natural disaster sites around the world. The spokesperson noted on Friday that an IsraAid team was currently en route to Sri Lanka, after the island nation was battered by Cyclone Ditwah, and that it still had a mission operating in Jamaica after it was hit by Hurricane Melissa in October. On Friday, the organization also launched a “flash appeal” for winter shelter items for Gazan civilians in light of the winter storm, Byron, which has been drenching the eastern Mediterranean all week. “Everything we do is made possible by the generosity of our supporters,” the spokesperson added, calling for additional support.
ZEN AND THE ART OF JEWISH MAINTENANCE
Institute of Jewish Spirituality to mark $9M in new donations at 25th anniversary celebration
As mindfulness and meditation grew in popularity during the 1990s, many in the Jewish world feared that Buddhist practices were stealing the youth, assimilating their children into a tribe of so-called JewBus, who would lose their connection to traditional Judaism. From this concern came an idea — first formulated in November 1996 in the offices of the Nathan Cummings Foundation and realized four years later — to combine modern Judaism and these New Age practices: the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. On Sunday, at Manhattan’s B’nai Jeshurun, the Institute will hold its 25th anniversary celebration, where it will announce that it has raised more than $9 million in its “Campaign for the Future.” For the organization, this milestone is emblematic of the shift in perspective in Jewish society where mindfulness and wellness are seen as positive practices, no longer viewed as foreign or hostile to Judaism, Rabbi Josh Feigelson, the group’s president and CEO, told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher.
Growing mindfulness: While much of the organization has changed since it launched its first cohort in 2000, it continues to revolve around its inaugural program — an 18-month Jewish clergy fellowship that teaches leaders mindfulness practices with the belief that it will trickle down to their communities. The fellowship, which consists of four retreats, is mostly silent, “which is kind of amazing, if you can imagine 42 rabbis and cantors meditating and being quiet for five days,” Feigelson quipped. Since he joined in 2020, the organization’s email list has nearly quadrupled, its staff and budget have doubled and the number of donors giving $10,000 or more has tripled. While other wellness organizations surged during the pandemic and watched attendance drop as the world reopened, the IJS continues to grow, including online. “We’re Zoom’s best client,” Feigelson said about the 200 attendees daily in IJS online meditation sessions.
OLIVE BRANCH
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, outspoken backer of Israel, leaves meeting with Mamdani ‘encouraged’
Prominent Reform Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch left a meeting on Thursday afternoon with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and a dozen diverse rabbis and community leaders feeling “encouraged,” saying that there is “reason to be optimistic” that Mamdani will protect the Jewish community, reports Haley Cohen for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider. In addition to Hirsch, other rabbis in attendance included Rabbi Joshua Davidson of Temple Emanu-El, a Reform synagogue; and Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz of the Modern Orthodox Kehilath Jeshurun synagogue.
Meeting minutes: Hirsch, who spoke with JI following the mayor-elect’s private meeting with the New York Board of Rabbis, of which Hirsch is the president, said he was “encouraged by [Mamdani’s] willingness to continue to dialogue, knowing in advance that he’s going into meetings with people who have significant disagreements with him, and that he continues to be open to having these kinds of discussions.” Hirsch declined to share the content of Thursday’s meeting, but called it “productive” and noting that “the mayor-elect stayed a little longer than anticipated so we were pleased with that. He listened attentively. We shared our concerns. We agreed that we’ll set up a mechanism to meet regularly with him and his senior staff so we can keep lines of communication open. We agreed to keep content and details confidential.”
Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
REFRAMING THE NARRATIVE
From the Amazon to anti-Zionism: The scholar seeking to stigmatize anti-Israel hate
Earlier this year, in the heavily saturated world of commentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a new name started to appear everywhere, though it seemed to come out of nowhere: Adam Louis-Klein, an anthropology Ph.D. student at McGill University. Until this past spring, he had hardly said anything about Israel publicly. He was too busy studying a remote Amazonian tribe. But then Louis-Klein, 32, built a platform and started writing. Anywhere he could, Louis-Klein was making the bold claim that American Jews need to stop arguing about when anti-Zionism crosses a line into antisemitism. In fact, he thinks they need to give up on their efforts to convince people that anti-Zionism is an antisemitic movement, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Hate ‘hiding in plain sight’: Louis-Klein’s thesis — the idea he is trying to get out into the world everyday, alternating between attention-catching social media graphics designed to go viral and lengthy posts using the dense academic jargon of anthropology — is that anti-Zionism should be considered a hate movement, something that is worthy of condemnation on its own, regardless of whether it is deemed antisemitic or not. “When someone’s marked as a Zionist, anti-Zionists treat those Zionists differently. They treat them in unequal ways. They advocate for violence, or they advocate for discriminating or boycotting them, or excluding them or purging them. Anti-Zionists stigmatize Zionists. They spread libels about Zionists. They call Zionists slurs,” Louis-Klein told JI in an interview last week. “It’s its own way of discriminating, and it’s hiding in plain sight. It’s there for everyone to see.”
HANUKKAH 5786
Refusing to hide our light
While it is customary to light the Hanukkah candles where they can be seen by passerby in order to participate in pirsumei nisa (publicizing the miracle), “today many Jews find themselves weighing not just religious obligation but personal safety, wondering whether visible Jewish identity invites hostility,” writes Sara Fredman Aeder, vice president of Israel and Jewish affairs for JCRC-NY, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “This hesitation represents the most insidious victory our detractors could hope for: an invisible erosion of Jewish confidence in public space, achieved not through force but through accumulated fear.”
Holiday of defiance: “But the Maccabees understood that the greatest threat to Jewish continuity is not external oppression but internal retreat — the slow, quiet decision to make ourselves smaller. This Hanukkah, as we wrestle with these questions that have troubled us for years but feel more urgent now, let us choose defiance over diminishment. … Let our small flames testify to something the world desperately needs to see: that the Jewish people remain undiminished, that our ancient light still burns and that no amount of hostility will make us disappear from the public square we helped build.”
HOPE STARTS HERE
Grow hope with us this Hanukkah
In 2023, JCC Chicago launched Growing Hope, “a movement focused on positivity, kindness and desire for a better world,” write JCC Chicago’s president and CEO Addie Goodman and chief impact officer Melissa Chapman in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “Growing Hope has since evolved into a statewide platform encompassing education programs, storytelling, exhibits and performances that forge community bonds, offer joy-filled experiences and build bridges.”
We need this, too: “In September, M² shared the findings of its first-ever ‘Hope Study,’ which indicated that only 24% of Jewish communal professionals ‘often’ or ‘very often’ feel hopeful about the future… We live in a world heavily shaped by transactional technology and defined by the trauma of 9/11, mass shootings, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Oct. 7 attacks. Growing Hope aims to shift the focus from the panic and fear of news headlines and social media feeds to positivity, connectivity and an authentic understanding of shared humanity. Instead of amplifying worry and crisis, how can we help hope radiate from our screens? … We are in the business of bringing light to our communities, and as Hanukkah approaches we call on our sister JCCs and the entire Jewish communal landscape to be there with us.”
COUNT UP
Hanukkah and the long-term value of short-term thinking
“Unlike today’s universal custom of adding one light each night of Hanukkah in accordance with the Academy of Hillel, the Academy of Shammai actually held the opposite: start with eight, end with one,” writes Rabbi Matthew J. Rosenberg, executive vice president and senior rabbi at JGO: The Jewish Grad Organization, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
What’s it all about?: “The Talmud (Shabbat 21b) records their disagreement, offering two explanations for the dispute. The first explanation says Beit Shammai counts down the days of the holiday that remain, while Beit Hillel counts up the days as they begin. The second, more abstract explanation connects Beit Shammai’s approach to the descending number of sacrifices on Sukkot, while Beit Hillel follows the principle: ‘Elevate to a higher level in matters of sanctity, and do not downgrade.’ Both explanations, however, merely describe the dispute. Neither fully explains why each side chose its position and not the other. I believe a clue appears elsewhere.”
Worthy Reads
Beyond Our Walls: In his column for the Israel Policy Forum, Michael Koplow advises American Jews to take a pause from their infighting to note how the rest of the country is interpreting U.S. Jewry’s relationship to Israel and Zionism. “[W]e cannot possibly expect those outside of our community to be less confused about Israel’s role in Jewish identity than we are. This is not just an academic question; it is almost de rigueur on the far left to treat Zionism as a dirty word, while on the MAGA right anti-Israel views are quickly becoming a litmus test as the most popular right-wing podcasters and influencers inveigh against alleged Israeli capture of U.S. policy. … Americans increasingly are determining that anti-Israel views are fine and also divorced from how they feel about Jews. If Israel is critical to our Jewish identity, as it is for so many of us, we have to do more than make claims about anti-Zionism being antisemitism or complain about double standards. We have to do a better job of explaining why Israel matters to us, and not just take it as a matter of faith that it should be obvious.” [IsraelPolicyForum]
They Took Charge: In Persuasion, William Deresiewicz shares his impressions from a recent month-long visit to Israel. “This was a citizenry, I grasped, that had been abandoned by its government. Before October 7, when the latter had failed to prevent the attacks. On October 7, when it had failed to mount an effective response. After October 7, when it had failed to provide the victims, including hundreds of thousands displaced from the vicinity of Gaza and the northern border, with anything like adequate support. … And yet, into that void, had stepped the citizenry itself. … The country may be traumatized, in other words, but it is not demoralized. Instead, it has responded to the crisis with the sense of solidarity, the talent for organization, and the ethos of mutual aid that lie deep in Jewish culture, the products of millennia of life in the Diaspora, when Jews had no one to rely on but themselves, and that have characterized the country since the earliest days of the Zionist return. The one thing that Israelis understand, at least when circumstances force them to, is that they are all in it together. That they share a fate.” [Persuasion]
Where the Heart Is: In The Wall Street Journal, Mark Oppenheimer reflects on the value of spending Jewish holidays at home. “Being at home is a ritual, as religious, in its way, as remembering the Maccabees’ inextinguishable lamp or the exodus from Egypt. Being in my house, the only one our family has ever lived in, eating, laughing, arguing — it’s how I want to celebrate my good fortune, when the seasons call me to. … The stories of the Hebrew Bible frequently relate to central questions of family life: where to settle, whom to marry, when to have children. There are no desert hermits in our tradition, only moms and dads tending home fires. Judaism isn’t a celestial religion, lifting us into the clouds. Nor is there any commandment to spread the religion over the face of the earth. We have no obligation to travel far and wide, to make religious pilgrimages. Rather, we are directed to make Jewish families, and then to make their homes centers of Jewish life.” [WSJ]
Word on the Street
Time magazine named “The Architects of AI” as its 2025 Person of the Year, specifically Sam Altman of OpenAI, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Elon Musk of xAI, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Lisa Su of Advanced Micro Devices, Demis Hassabis of DeepMind Technologies, Dario Amodei of Anthropic and Fei-Fei Li of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute…
Yesterday, Huang met with Avinatan Or, an Nvidia engineer who was taken captive by terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, and freed two months ago, and Or’s partner, Noa Argamani, at the chip company’s U.S. headquarters in the Bay Area…
Renaissance Technologies is mulling a change to its trading models after two of its funds experienced their worst-ever months in October, followed by surges the following month…
The Times of Israel examines the history and persisting consequences of the 1975 “Zionism is racism” vote at the United Nations…
Menahem Kahana, an esteemed professor of emeritus of Talmud at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and winner of the Foundation for the Advancement of Science, Art and Culture in Israel’s EMET Prize, died on Wednesday at 79…
Transitions
Noam Gilboord, the COO and interim CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, announced that he is leaving the organization at the end of this month, after 15 years in the field of Jewish communal relations…
Pic of the Day
Hostage Ori Danino is seen lighting a makeshift hanukkiah in an underground tunnel in Gaza on the first night of Hanukkah, Dec. 8, 2023, as fellow captives Eden Yerushalmi (left), Almog Sarusi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin and Carmel Gat watch. Alex Lobanov, who was also kept with the group — known collectively as the Beautiful Six — is just out of frame, next to Yerushalmi.
The image of the candle-lighting, along with several other pieces of footage of the group, was released last night to the investigative news show “Uvda” by the families of the hostages, who were executed by Hamas terrorists in August 2024 shortly before Israeli soldiers reached them. The videos were recovered by the Israel Defense Forces.
In a video of the candle-lighting, the group is heard reciting the “Shehecheyanu” prayer, thanking God that he “granted us life, sustained us and enabled us to reach this occasion” and then singing the traditional song “Maoz Tzur,” which recounts the Jewish People’s deliverance from its many enemies.
Birthdays
Chairman and CEO of Fontainebleau Development, Jeffrey M. Soffer turns 58 on Saturday…
FRIDAY: Attorney, political operative, lobbyist, author and television commentator, Lanny Davis turns 80… Chairman of Full Stop Management which represents recording artists, Irving Azoff turns 78… Two-term congressman starting in 2007 (D-WI), he is a physician who founded four allergy clinics, Steven Leslie Kagen, M.D. turns 76… 2007 Nobel Prize laureate in economics, he is a professor at Harvard University, Eric Stark Maskin turns 75… Provost and vice president for academic affairs at Yeshiva University since 2014, Selma Botman turns 75… Former member of the rock band Grand Funk Railroad, Bruce Kulick turns 72… Professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Richard J. Davidson turns 64… Associated Press science writer and adjunct professor at NYU’s academic center in Washington, Seth Borenstein… Partner in Linear City Development, Yuval Bar-Zemer turns 63… CEO at Chicago-based Next Realty, Andrew S. Hochberg… Afternoon anchor on the Fox Business Network, Elizabeth Kate “Liz” Claman turns 62… Rabbi of the Bet Israel community in Zagreb, Croatia, Kotel Dadon turns 58… Israeli scientist and entrepreneur, he is the founder and chief technology officer at Vaxa Impact Nutrition, Isaac Berzin turns 58… Minnesota secretary of state, he was first elected in 2014 and then reelected in 2018 and 2022, Steve Simon turns 56… Israeli celebrity chef, Moshe Aharon “Moshik” Roth turns 54… Chair of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland and a member of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Jeffrey J. Wild turns 53… Actress, game show host and neuroscientist, she played the role of neuroscientist Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler on CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory,” Mayim Chaya Bialik turns 50… MSW candidate at the University of Denver and freelance PR consultant, Sarah R. Horowitz… Freelance field producer for ABC News, Rebecca “Becky” Perlow… One-half of the duo known for their YouTube channel h3h3Productions with 1.3 billion views, Hila Hakmon Klein turns 38… Israeli Olympic long-distance runner, she ran the marathon for Israel at the Paris Olympics last year, Lonah Chemtai Salpeter turns 37… Managing director at Narrative Strategies DC, David Pasch… Brazilian mixed martial artist, Neiman Gracie Stambowsky turns 37… Vice president for asset management at Fidelity Investments, Jeffrey S. Goldstein… Co-founder of The Next 50, now managing director of advocacy and strategy at Galaxy Gives, Zak Malamed turns 32… Film and television actor, Lucas Jade Zumann turns 25…
SATURDAY: Former New York state senator for 28 years, Suzanne “Suzi” Oppenheimer turns 91… California-based real estate developer active in the revitalization of downtown San Jose, he is a former co-owner of the Oakland Athletics, Lewis Wolff turns 90… Real estate developer and a minority-owner of the Minnesota Vikings, David Mandelbaum turns 90… Past president at UCLA Faculty Women’s Club, Bette Billet… Senior rabbi emeritus of Temple Israel of Hollywood, John Rosove turns 76… Executive chairwoman and chief media officer of Eko, Nancy Tellem turns 73… Chair of the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Poverty and Social Exclusion at the University of Haifa, Roni Strier turns 73… Former chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014, he won the 2022 Nobel Prize in economics, Ben Shalom Bernanke turns 72… Hedge fund manager, investor, writer and former adjunct professor at Columbia University, Joel Greenblatt turns 68… Former assistant secretary for management at the U.S. Department of the Treasury during the first Trump administration, David F. Eisner turns 68… Member of the U.S. House of Representatives since 2017 (D-MD), Jamin Ben “Jamie” Raskin turns 63… President of the American Academy in Rome, Peter N. Miller turns 61… Member of the Illinois Senate since 2019, she is running in 2026 to succeed retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Laura Fine turns 59… Co-founder and principal of The Lead PR, Jeffrey W. Schneider… Mayor of New Rochelle, N.Y. from 2006 until 2023, Noam Bramson turns 56… Comedian and actor, known by his stage name and alter ego, Wheeler Walker, Jr., Benjamin Isaac Hoffman turns 51… Chair of the Florida Democratic Party since 2023, Nicole “Nikki” Heather Fried turns 48… Head of global civics partnerships at YouTube, Riva Litman Sciuto… American-Israeli basketball player who played for three NCAA collegiate programs, then on the rosters of four Israeli teams, Eli Abaev turns 27…
SUNDAY: President emeritus of George Washington University, Stephen Joel Trachtenberg turns 88… Co-founder and chairman of Creative Artists Agency until 1995, then president of the Walt Disney Company for 18 months, Michael S. Ovitz turns 79… Retired New York State Assistant Housing Commissioner, he also served as a military chaplain for 38 years, Jacob Goldstein… President of Bard College since 1975, he is also music director of the American Symphony Orchestra and conductor laureate of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Leon Botstein turns 79… Retired senior vice president at Warner Brothers, key advocate for Israel on the Platform Committee of the Democratic party on the national and state levels, Howard Steven Welinsky… Retired U.S. Air Force general who served as the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, he is currently the president and CEO of the Institute for Defense Analyses, Norton Allan Schwartz turns 74… Director of government affairs at the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, Robin Schatz… Member of Knesset for the Likud party, now serving as the Minister of Agriculture, Avi Dichter turns 73… Co-founder of several companies, including Beanstalk, Sixpoint Partners and Vringo, author of NYTimes bestseller “Let There Be Water,” Seth (Yossi) Siegel turns 72… Hedge fund manager, John Paulson turns 70… Owner of Bundles of Boston, Sheree Boloker… Retired CEO of San Francisco-based Jewish LearningWorks, David Jonathan Waksberg turns 69… Nurse and mental health counsellor, Martina Yisraela Rieffer… Ukrainian businessman and founder of EastOne Group LLC, Victor Pinchuk turns 65… Founder of the Center for Class Action Fairness established to combat abusive class-action settlements, now a division of the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, Ted Frank turns 57… Partner and COO of Chicago-based Resolute Consulting, David Smolensky… British chef, restaurateur and food writer, Yotam Assaf Ottolenghi turns 57… Co-founder of the Manhattan Jewish Experience, Jill Wildes… Senior rabbi of the Beth Jacob Congregation of Beverly Hills, California, Kalman Topp turns 53… Policy counsel in the criminal defense practice at The Bronx Defenders, Eli Clemans Northrup turns 41… Co-CEO of Health Consulting Services, Matt Kosman… Former NFL player, he was on the Patriots when they won three Super Bowls, Nathan “Nate” Ebner turns 37… Speech-language pathologist, Leora Neuberger… Former offensive lineman for the New York Giants, now a medical sales representative at Stryker, Adam Bisnowaty turns 32… Co-director of Chabad of Macalester-Groveland in the Minneapolis area, Tzemach Feller… Television, teen theater and voice actress, Mia Sinclair Jenness turns 20…
