Your Daily Phil: Israeli reservists’ wives fight for their rights
Add EJP on GoogleGood Friday morning!
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on a new Prizmah study documenting the rise in Jewish day school enrollment over the past five years and interview Miriam Amedi, CEO of the IDF Reservists’ Wives Forum, on efforts to support reservists and their families. We also sit down with former AJC chief David Harris about his new book about antisemitism. We feature opinion pieces by Jonathan Cannon and Rabbi Kenneth Brander drawing timely lessons about communal life and leadership from this week’s Torah and haftarah portions. Also in this issue: Yossi Sheffi, Israel Y. Ganot and Sara Sideman.
Shabbat shalom!
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent eJewishPhilanthropy and Jewish Insider stories, including: After 19 years at AIPAC, Tara Brown is building Momentum for Israel-Diaspora ties; Seeing Stars: Inside the Jusidman Foundation’s big bet on Bedouin leadership in Israel; and Starmer’s resignation puts Burnham’s record on Israel, antisemitism in the spotlight. Print the latest edition here.
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What We’re Watching
At the Aspen Ideas Festival today, Central Synagogue’s Rabbi Angela Buchdahl joins David DeSteno to discuss her recent memoir Heart of a Stranger.
The Jewish Agency for Israel’s Board of Governors will meet Sunday through Thursday at the David InterContinental Hotel in Tel Aviv.
On Sunday, the Edlavitch DCJCC in Washington will host a 36-mile “Ride for the Living” bike ride honoring Holocaust victims and celebrating Jewish life, held in tandem with the annual ride from Auschwitz to the Krakow JCC in Poland.
The Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York is hosting a two-day mah-jongg festival on Sunday and Monday.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD FROM eJP’S NIRA DAYANIM
Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic prompted many Jewish families to pull their children out of public school and into Jewish day schools, enrollment has remained on the rise, particularly in New York and Florida, a new study of the field by Prizmah, the network of Jewish day schools and yeshivas in North America, has found.
“The importance of these sustained trends cannot be overstated. The last Avi Chai census of Jewish day schools published in 2020 documented a decades-long trend of decline in non-Orthodox enrollment,” Prizmah CEO Paul Bernstein told eJewishPhilanthropy. “The trends have shifted, and we could not be more proud of our work, and the work that field leaders, schools and communities have done to make this happen.”
Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ ?
News
Q&A
‘The reservist and his family’: How soldiers’ wives are reshaping how Israel thinks about its army
Miriam Amedi, CEO of the IDF Reservists’ Wives Forum, sat down with eJewishPhilanthropy’s Justin Hayet this week to discuss the cost of war on the families behind the soldiers, the policy victories that followed, what comes next for the Forum, and what comes next for the 100,000 reservists — and their wives — who answer the call to serve.
JH: Have most of your grants from funders been emergency-based, or are funders offering longer-term commitments?
MA: This was a new focus area for many funders. Before Oct. 7, reservist families simply weren’t on the philanthropic map. Most of what we’ve received has been one-year emergency grants. However, the problems we are facing are not problems that can be solved in a few months or a one-year grant cycle. We need to build infrastructure for 100,000 families, families that are carrying the responsibility of protecting this country and will continue to do so.
BOOKSHELF
In new book, former AJC chief David Harris traces antisemitism’s past — and warns about its present
David Harris spent more than two decades leading the American Jewish Committee, where he navigated crises facing the Jewish community and built bipartisan coalitions to advance the group’s mission of supporting Israel and Diaspora Jewry. His book, Antisemitism: What Everyone Needs to Know, published by Oxford University Press last year, Harris said, is his attempt to reach beyond the Jewish community and turn the “silent majority” into the “loud majority.”
Interview with the author: Harris, who quipped that he retired “for about 30 seconds” after serving as AJC’s CEO from 1990–2022, sat down with JI yesterday to discuss the book at a moment in which he said he has “never been more worried” about antisemitism — yet also remains optimistic about the Jewish future.
Opinion
TORAH FOR OUR MOMENT
Past, present and future tents
“This week’s Torah portion, Balak, turns on the strange and charged encounter between the Moabite king Balak, the Midianite prophet Bilaam and the Children of Israel, giving us the famous line (Numbers 24:5): ‘How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel,’” writes Jonathan Cannon, CEO of The Rabbi Sacks Legacy, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
A deeper look: “There are different explanations of what he saw that was so remarkable, but the common themes center on two things: he saw respect for privacy, evidenced by the openings of the tents not facing one another; and he saw community, an encampment in which everyone was part of something larger than themselves. Individuals maintained their own space, and yet they belonged to a whole. I wonder what Abraham would see, and what Bilaam would say, if they were observing our Jewish tents right now.”
LESSONS IN LEADERSHIP
Haftarat Parshat Balak: ‘I sent Miriam’
“The connections between Parshat Balak and its haftarah, the prophecy of Michah, are layered and striking,” writes Rabbi Kenneth Brander, president and rosh yeshiva of Ohr Torah Stone, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Role call: “Bilam’s oracles, delivered at Balak’s insistence, predict the flourishing and ultimate triumph of the Jewish people. Michah echoes that same vision and reminds us that it is not human power but God who determines Israel’s destiny. For those reading these words in the shadow of the current geopolitical moment, when Israel’s worldly alliances and maneuvering feel increasingly uncertain, this reminder carries particular weight. But an equally resonant message in this haftarah can be gleaned from a single verse in which the prophet speaks in God’s voice directly to the people of Israel: ‘I redeemed you from the house of slavery; I sent Moshe, Aharon and Miriam’ (Michah 6:4).”
Worthy Reads
Silenced Scholarship: In The New York Times, Mark Arsenault interviews Yossi Sheffi, a longtime MIT professor who is self-publishing a book on campus antisemitism after Oct. 7, 2023, which he said he wrote in response to administrators’ decision not to thoroughly investigate and report on antisemitism on the campus and efforts to address it.
Cautious Generosity: In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Maria Di Mento finds that wealthy donors are gradually resuming large-scale giving in 2026, but that political pressures and government funding cuts have forced many to prioritize keeping their favorite nonprofits afloat over funding new initiatives.
The Impossible Raid: In The Times of Israel, Ben Sales and Stav Levaton explore newly released state archives to reveal that Israel’s legendary 1976 Entebbe rescue was a last resort and reached only after diplomatic efforts failed and a workable military plan finally materialized.
Major Gifts
Hedge fund manager Ken Griffin donated $26 million toward completing the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, N.D., with the west wing set to bear his name in recognition of the gift…
Transitions
Israel Y. Ganot has been named chairman of the board of directors of ADL Israel…
The Jewish Federation of Broward County appointed Jodi Berman, Don Ginsburg, Brian Kopelowitz, Catherine Mandell, Bob Schneider and Robert Tache to its board of directors…
Mary Haar was appointed CEO of the Jewish Federation of Howard County…
Sara Sideman was hired by the Katz JCC in Cherry Hill, N.J., as its next executive director…
Michael Starr is leaving his role at The Jerusalem Post as senior Diaspora affairs correspondent…
Word on the Street
The international aid and development umbrella group Olam has put together an updated list of the Jewish and Israeli organizations that have deployed emergency teams to Venezuela following deadly back-to-back earthquakes there: IsraAid, JDC, HIAS, Natan, SmartAid and World Jewish Relief; meanwhile, the Greater Miami Jewish Federation has launched a no-fee fundraising campaign for emergency funds for the country…
Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner condemned the global rise of antisemitism among youth as the gravest moral failure of our era and warned that the Oct. 7 terror attacks sparked hostility toward Jews rather than solidarity, in a speech at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London…
An Israeli woman passed a state rabbinical exam that she took in April, in a historic first after Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled last year that women must be permitted to take the tests as they can be used to earn higher salaries and employment opportunities; the woman’s name has not been released, and the two other women who took the same exam in April did not pass…
Jewish leaders and rabbis argue that Texas’ proposed “Judeo-Christian” public school reading list is overwhelmingly Christian and uses Judaism as a token of inclusivity despite supporters framing it as a reflection of American founding values…
A new Quinnipiac poll found a record 48% of American voters now consider the U.S. too supportive of Israel and 60% view military intervention in Iran as a mistake…
Israel’s Tiroche auction house is preparing to sell rare museum-quality works by Israeli artists Nahum Gutman and Reuven Rubin valued at up to $300,000 each…
A Jerusalem seminary’s scholarship program endowed in memory of terror victim Alisa Flatow is helping Ethiopian-Israeli women earn university degrees in competitive fields and integrate into Israeli society…
Philanthropist and Israel Hayom owner Miriam Adelson marks the 10th anniversary of Elie Wiesel’s death by calling his legacy of moral clarity and truth-telling urgently needed amid rising antisemitism…
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar plans to propose a cabinet resolution formally recognizing the Ottoman-era Armenian Genocide…
Republican Bruce Blakeman, who is mounting a gubernatorial bid in New York challenging Gov. Kathy Hochul, is facing blowback after suggesting that Brad Lander, who won his primary against Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) on Tuesday, “would be a camp guard in the concentration camp if he could.” Lander responded: “Standing up for Palestinian human rights doesn’t make me any less proud to be Jewish, or any less serious about fighting antisemitism”…
Pic of the Day
Investor and philanthropist David Rubenstein (second from right) and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum cut the ribbon yesterday to open the new Lincoln Memorial Museum in Washington. They are joined by Jeff Reinbold (right), president and CEO of the National Parks Foundation; Kevin Griess (left), superintendent of National Mall; and Jessica Bowron, the acting director of the National Park Service.
“The reason this is important is because [Abraham] Lincoln was our greatest president. Lincoln kept the country together against great odds. There were many people who didn’t want to keep the country together. He fought to do it. He freed the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation, and he supported the 13th Amendment. And without that, this country wouldn’t be what it is today,” said Rubenstein, who donated $18.5 million in 2016 to renovate the Lincoln Memorial, at the dedication ceremony.
Birthdays
Rabbi Sally Jane Priesand, first-ever woman ordained as a rabbi by HUC-JIR, turns 80 tomorrow…
Friday
Toby Ann Stavisky, member of the New York State Senate from Queens since 1999, she chairs the committee on higher education, turns 87
Irving H. Picard, partner in the law firm BakerHostetler known for his recovery of $14.5 billion from the Madoff investment scandal, turns 85
Robert Siegel, retired co-host for more than 30 years of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” turns 79
Rabbi Stephanie Aaron, rabbi of Congregation Chaverim in Tucson, Ariz., for more than 35 years
Alan Solow, chair of the Nexus Project and retired lawyer, who was previously chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, turns 72
Robert E. Levin, CEO of Emerging Star Capital and the author of a biography of President Bill Clinton
Samuel J. Dubbin, attorney and Holocaust survivors’ rights advocate, turns 71
Strauss Zelnick, CEO of ZMC, who was previously chairman of CBS and president of 20th Century Fox, turns 69
Amy Ruth Wolfson, professor of psychology at Loyola University Maryland, is known for her work on sleep patterns and behavioral well-being
Anat Waxman, Israeli actor and comedian, turns 65
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once the wealthiest of all Russian businessmen, then a prisoner in Russia and now living in London, turns 63
Karin Prien, first Jewish federal cabinet member to serve in post-WWII Germany, is minister for education, family, seniors, women and youth, turns 61
Jeffrey Jacob “J.J.” Abrams, creator of multiple TV series including “Felicity,” “Alias,” “Lost” and “Fringe,” and director and producer of many films, turns 60
Lev Grossman and Austin Grossman, novelist and journalist, most notable as the author of the Magicians trilogy, was the book critic and lead technology writer at Time magazine, both turn 57
Noam T. Wasserman, head of school at Ramaz since 2025, turns 57
Gidi Grinstein, president and founder of Reut Group, a Tel Aviv-based nonpartisan and nonprofit policy think tank, turns 56
Dave Rubin, political commentator, YouTube personality, comedian and talk show host, turns 50
Ross Feinstein, head of external communications at Geico
Michael “Mickey” Leibner, partner in Mayer Brown’s D.C. office
Sara Fredman Aeder, executive vice president of programming at the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York
David Bocarsly, CEO at Jewish California (formerly JPAC), turns 36
Asher J. Mayerson, principal at Boston Consulting Group
Elizabeth Pipko, author, model, media personality and political operative, she was the national spokesperson for the Republican Party, turns 31
Saturday
Charles Bronfman, One of the heirs to the Bronfman family fortune, a co-founder of Taglit Birthright, the first chairman of the United Jewish Communities and former owner of MLB’s Montreal Expos, turns 95
Richard Allen Shapiro, One-half of the husband-wife screenwriting and television production team, turns 92
Abraham Karem, Technion graduate, he is regarded as the founding father of unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) technology, turns 89
Meyer Roth, Brooklyn resident
Constance Hess “Connie” Williams, Former member of both houses of the Pennsylvania Legislature, turns 82
Amihai “Ami” Ayalon, Former commander of the Israeli Navy, head of the Shin Bet and member of Knesset, turns 81
Sally Jane Priesand, First-ever woman ordained as a rabbi by HUC-JIR, turns 80
Anita Diamant, Author of fiction and nonfiction books, she is the founding president of the Mayyim Hayyim mikveh in Newton, Mass., turns 75
Kenneth R. Blankfein, New Jersey resident
Lori Berman, Minority leader of the Florida State Senate, turns 68
Louis Boorstin, Managing director at Osprey Foundation and Robert O. Boorstin, turns 67
Simon Sebag Montefiore, British historian and award-winning author, he is a great-great-great-nephew of Sir Moses Montefiore, turns 61
Susan M. Feldman, Southern California-based accountant
Marc N. Blattner, President and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland (Ore.) since 2010, turns 57
Gordon M. Gerstein, South Florida resident
Lisa Friedman, Reporter for The New York Times on the climate desk
Yoel Yaakov Tessler, Member of Knesset for United Torah Judaism, turns 53
Ilya Shapiro, Senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute
Ehud Vaks, Israeli judoka, best known for his default victory at the 2004 Summer Olympics when his Iranian opponent refused to fight him, turns 47
Caroline Elisabeth Adler Morales, Director of stakeholder advocacy at Ford Motor
Evan David Taubenfeld, Singer and musician, best known for being Avril Lavigne’s lead guitarist, turns 43
Holly Rose Faith, Executive talent partner at Greylock Partners
Charles Dunst, National security advisor to Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO)
Sunday
Saretta Platt Berlin, Laguna Woods, Calif., resident, she is a retired hospital administrator
Moses M. Marx, Owner of NYC’s United Equities Companies and honorary chairman of Berkshire Bank, turns 91
Jane Harman, Former member of Congress for 16 years and now a distinguished fellow and president emerita of the Wilson Center, turns 81
Robert Creamer, Political consultant, community organizer and author, he is married to Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), turns 79
Mark Helprin, Novelist, journalist, conservative commentator and senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, turns 79
Peter Abrahams, Author of crime fiction for both adults and children, turns 79
James Ruxin, Documentary producer and adjunct associate professor at USC, turns 78
Kenneth Alan Ribet, Professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, turns 78
Nathaniel L. Doliner, Shareholder in the Tampa law office of Carlton Fields, turns 77
David G. Dalin, Rabbi and historian, he is the author of a 2017 book Jewish Justices of the Supreme Court: From Brandeis to Kagan, turns 77
Martin Jeffrey “Marty” Block, Former member of the California State Senate following two terms in the State Assembly, turns 76
Mark Zivin, Retired partner at Chicago-based accounting firm of Morrison & Morrison, he has been involved with the leadership of J Street since its inception
Jed Margolis, Volunteer president of the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, he served for 17 years as executive director of Maccabi USA, turns 75
Marc Kasowitz, Founding partner of NYC law firm Kasowitz LLP, turns 74
Amira Hass, Israeli journalist for Haaretz, she lives in Ramallah, turns 70
Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Comcast Corporation, a Fortune 50 company that includes NBC Universal, turns 67
Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, Rabbi of the Har Bracha community and rosh yeshiva of the yeshiva there, turns 65
Ellen J. Germain, U.S. special envoy for Holocaust issues at the State Department, turns 64
Marc Spilker, Founding member of GPS Investment Partners, turns 62
Jessica Hecht, Actor and singer, turns 61
Laura Rozen, Former diplomatic correspondent for Al-Monitor, now reporting on Substack
Aimee Bender, Novelist and short story writer, turns 57
Ayelet Zurer, Israeli actor residing in Los Angeles, turns 57
Elon Musk, Trillionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, owner of X formerly known as Twitter, turns 55
Michal Biran, Former member of Knesset as a member of the Labor Party / Zionist Union, turns 48
Toltzy Kornbluh and Chany Stark
Naum Koen, UAE-based businessman and philanthropist who is the founder and CEO of NY Koen Group, turns 45
Molly Rosen, Associate at Latham & Watkins, she was previously the social secretary to the ambassador of Israel in Washington
Mark Winkler
