Good Thursday morning!

A bipartisan group of nearly 40 members of Congress sent a letter to the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) urging it to place more focus on combating campus antisemitism. The letter, dated Feb. 4, asks the OCR to “re-prioritize the rulemaking process for Title VI,” and comes just days after an eJewishPhilanthropy report that the process — which aims to codify civil rights protections for Jewish students — has been pushed back more than two years.

The letter was led by Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), and the lead Republican signatory was Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska. In addition to highlighting the delay in regulations, the letter asks the OCR to provide assistance to combat campus antisemitism, and to address what it called “significant delays” in investigating Title VI complaints of antisemitism, some of which have been pending since 2018. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in federally funded institutions, including public universities.

“Jewish students need assistance and protection from the growing threat of antisemitism on American campuses,” read the letter, which was addressed to Education Department Assistant Secretary Catherine Lhamon, who heads the OCR. “These delays in processing Title VI complaints are delaying justice and potentially allowing discrimination to persist on campuses throughout the country.”

An Education Department spokesperson acknowledged receipt of the letter and told eJP it would respond directly to the members of Congress. Last week, OCR opened a Title VI investigation into allegations of antisemitism at a Brooklyn College graduate program — its first since the beginning of the Biden administration.

“As a co-chair of the Bipartisan Antisemitism Task Force in Congress, I wanted to ensure that the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education is doing all they can to protect our students and our campuses from instances of discrimination and antisemitism,” Lieu told eJP. “I simply do not believe that we have time to waste on this issue.”

Organizations that have filed Title VI antisemitism complaints praised the letter. “At a time when anti-Semitism is spiking across the country and particularly on college campuses, now is not the time to hit pause on much-needed federal guidance,” said Kenneth Marcus, Lhamon’s predecessor as assistant secretary, and the director of the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which filed the Brooklyn College complaint.

The pro-Israel group StandWithUs, which also has two such complaints pending, likewise praised the letter. And William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told eJP that “the rise in campus antisemitism requires immediate action from the Department of Education.”

STARTUP TZEDAKAH

Israeli tech execs organize to donate money and expertise

Getty Images

For decades, Israel’s tech sector has gotten praise for its economic profits and innovative spirit. Now, a group of Israeli tech entrepreneurs wants to mobilize that spirit and those profits to give back to Israeli society, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Esther Kustanowitz.

Grassroots approach: The 1point8 charity initiative — an effort from a group of executives at several Israeli tech companies that launched last week — asks tech employees to become investors in local charitable organizations by setting aside 1.8% of their shares or options. Yaniv Rivlin, a co-founder of the initiative and CEO at the Israeli division of Bird, the electric scooter company, told eJP that the program is a “bottom-up, grassroots approach, from us and for us.”

Low levels of giving: According to a 2019 report from the Taub Center for Social Policy in Israel, the country’s largest donors come from the tech, manufacturing, banking and finance industries. But the report found that only a small percentage of employees in the tech sector donates. One reason for that, the report suggested, may be that the industry is too young to have firmly established philanthropic norms. 

Demo days: The 1point8 initiative will be organized around quarterly “Demo Days,” where investors who have taken the pledge will have a chance to hear from a range of nonprofits that address fields like poverty, education or the environment. Rivlin hopes that the charities will also benefit from tapping into founding partners’ tech expertise, which they will offer pro bono. 

A first step: “The goal is to get people who have never thought about giving connected in a meaningful way and take the first step,” Rivlin said. “Get people engaged and the number will grow. 1.8 is a significant amount but it isn’t about the money. It’s about an entire segment of society taking responsibility and giving back in a meaningful way.” 

Read the full story here.

FINDING SATISFACTION

The value of Jewish service and shifting culture in the workplace

Repair the World

“My response to Doron Kenter’s piece, “Making Room for Time Elsewhere: Inviting Discussion,” began with soundbites relating to Repair the World’s efforts in this area and how we can help ensure that service experiences are meaningful, grounded in community needs and imbued with Jewish learning,” writes Rabbi Jessy Dressin, senior director of Jewish education at Repair the World, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.

There’s Torah for that: “Kenter talks about a path that veers away from burnout and leads to deeper personal and professional satisfaction; by doing something different or considering communal needs from a new vantage point, our perspective widens. There’s surely Torah for that, especially in the month of Adar when tradition celebrates how much we can learn when we experience something from a new perspective. What would a person learn about how they spend program dollars after the opportunity to help another organization in raising resources for its cause?”

Repair’s policy: “Repair offers six PTO days specifically for the purpose of service, matches the used service days to increase employees’ overall PTO, and has designated service days for all staff; this is in addition to PTO for vacation, personal and sick time. Paid time off for service is a category of its own. Six working days is purposefully more than a week to allow staff to choose from a variety of options, including immersive service, and to ensure that our staff members have annual time to make meaningful service a personal and professional practice.”

Read the full piece here.

Worthy Reads

“My response to Doron Kenter’s piece, “Making Room for Time Elsewhere: Inviting Discussion,” began with soundbites relating to Repair the World’s efforts in this area and how we can help ensure that service experiences are meaningful, grounded in community needs and imbued with Jewish learning,” writes Rabbi Jessy Dressin, senior director of Jewish education at Repair the World, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.

There’s Torah for that: “Kenter talks about a path that veers away from burnout and leads to deeper personal and professional satisfaction; by doing something different or considering communal needs from a new vantage point, our perspective widens. There’s surely Torah for that, especially in the month of Adar when tradition celebrates how much we can learn when we experience something from a new perspective. What would a person learn about how they spend program dollars after the opportunity to help another organization in raising resources for its cause?”

Repair’s policy: “Repair offers six PTO days specifically for the purpose of service, matches the used service days to increase employees’ overall PTO, and has designated service days for all staff; this is in addition to PTO for vacation, personal and sick time. Paid time off for service is a category of its own. Six working days is purposefully more than a week to allow staff to choose from a variety of options, including immersive service, and to ensure that our staff members have annual time to make meaningful service a personal and professional practice.”

Read the full piece here.

Pic of the Day

Courtesy

Shelby Elias from JCC Rainbow Day Camp (at the Samson Family JCC Milwaukee) received the Jack Weiner Young Leadership Award and Aaron Greenberg, founder of the Jewish Day Camp Network, received the ACA Special Recognition Award at the American Camp Association’s national conference yesterday in Portland, Ore.