Your Daily Phil: Jewish day school leaders head to Boston
Good Friday morning.
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: Jewish day school alumni far more connected to Jewish identity, Israel than peers in college — study; New program looks to build on successes of Jewish preschools to engage families by boosting parents; and Hostage’s father relearns to talk, after stroke, to advocate for his son’s release. Print the latest edition here.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we speak with Prizmah CEO Paul Bernstein ahead of his organization’s upcoming conference. We interview Zach Bauer, the incoming CEO of Passages, which provides Birthright-style trips to Israel for Christian students, and cover an event focused on educating Israeli high school students about Jewish peoplehood. We feature an opinion piece by Robert Lichtman about gratitude and one by Rabbi Monica Kleinman about forging constructive dialogue in an era of polarization and high anxiety. Also in this newsletter: Mijal Bitton, Nancy Grand and Brandon Korff.
Shabbat shalom!
What We’re Watching
Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools will hold its annual conference in Boston from Sunday to Tuesday. On Sunday evening, the organization will hold a gala honoring board member and philanthropist Paula Gottesman.
The Orthodox Union will host its first-ever attorneys conference to combat antisemitism, beginning on Sunday and ending on Tuesday, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Confirmed speakers include Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY).
Three more Israeli hostages — Keith Siegel, Ofer Calderon and Yarden Bibas — are slated to be released from captivity tomorrow.
What You Should Know
Jewish day school stakeholders from across the country will gather in Boston on Sunday for Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools’ three-day annual conference. The gathering comes as interest in Jewish day schools has been rising — from both parents and funders — particularly after the Oct. 7 terror attacks and ensuing rise in global antisemitism.
Ahead of the conference, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim spoke to Prizmah CEO Paul Bernstein about the gathering, general trends in the Jewish day school world and his organization’s goals for the coming years.
ND: What’s on the radar for this conference and this next year?
PB: Going into the Prizmah conference next week, we really are looking forward to focusing on how to ensure the day school community is growing in its strength. What are the opportunities for enrollment to continue to expand, including attracting families and children that hadn’t may not previously have considered a day school education? What can we do that will enable that to be possible? How do we recruit and train the very best teachers and leaders for our schools? How do we make sure that we are achieving excellence? How do we address affordability concerns?
ND: Touching on what you spoke about at the end there — what has been working and what hasn’t been working?
PB: We’ve seen a growing number of investments — in individual schools and at the community level — in strengthening schools, investing in excellence, and also creating endowments that can provide for the affordability needs of families when they’re coming to our schools, and to enable that growth. Most recently, we saw the incredible announcement of what ultimately we hope will be a $180 million investment in the growth and the success of the schools in Cleveland, which comes on the heels of a number of other initiatives… More than 50% of schools reported seeing continued enrollment growth in the last year. We are seeing new schools emerging in places like South Florida, New York and elsewhere.
I think it’s very important that our schools are supporting families. So many day school alumni are serving and have served in Israel. So at the Prizmah conference, we’re going to be joined by Orna and Ronen Neutra. [Their son] Omer, who was a proud and extraordinary day school alum, of course, was killed and taken hostage on Oct. 7. He’s not alone in the day school world for people who were killed, people who were taken hostage, and people who have been lost in protecting Israel and protecting our community. One of the features of day school now is that we carry that.
ND: In your perspective, what should be the biggest priorities within the field right now?
PB: The priorities that we identified in setting Prizmah’s new strategic plan that we published in the fall, involves three major areas. The first is to increase enrollment in Jewish day schools by 10,000 students in the next five years. The second is really to move the needle on the affordability question, which means new affordability models in schools and communities, and also substantially increasing the endowments that will allow our schools to succeed for the long term. And the third is making sure that we have strong and stable leadership, both heads of school and also supporting more people to be aspiring to school leadership in all its forms and sufficient teachers for our schools. Those are the sort of the three key goals that we have envisioned for the day school field in the next five years.
‘CHRISTIAN BIRTHRIGHT’
New CEO of Passages hopes to reinvigorate support for Israel with young evangelicals

As Zach Bauer steps into his new role as CEO of Passages, it will be his first position with the group that organizes Birthright-style trips to Israel for Christian college students. For years, however, Bauer has thought of himself as a “Passages student before there was a Passages,” he told Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen for eJewishPhilanthropy in his first interview since being tapped as chief executive of the group.
HC: Younger evangelicals are more reserved in their support for Israel than their older counterparts… How concerned are you that Generation Z Christians are not as attached to Israel as their parents and grandparents? Is this happening because they are less religious? Less knowledgeable about history?
ZB: It’s a concern, but it helps us realize that our mission is even more relevant and important than ever before. We need to rectify those numbers and do our best to educate and inform the younger generation of Christians who may not fully understand the roots of their faith and the connection to the Jewish faith. That’s part of our mission and goal. These recent surveys bring a greater sense of urgency that we have an important role to play in how this unfolds in the years to come.
HC: How have the numbers of young Christians wanting to go to Israel changed since Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel? Of course, there are logistical difficulties, such as higher flight costs as most U.S. airlines are still not flying to Israel. But are less Christian college students even wanting to go to Israel in the first place right now? If so, do you have fresh ideas to get them engaged?
ZB: [The] Oct. 7 [attacks] changed a lot of things. In terms of trips to Israel, we had to put those on hold. We had a trip that went at the turn of the year and we’re getting back into regular operations planning trips for this summer. Flight costs is one issue we’re dealing with.
Since Oct. 7, Passages refocused a lot of our energy and attention to the advocacy side, since we couldn’t do trips but still wanted to show our solidarity for Israel on campuses. In just 39 weeks, we had over 70 events on college campuses across the country. Over 16,000 individual contacts with students across the country. Even though our trips are starting to return to normalcy, we’re going to continue to evolve and expand our advocacy because we see it as a vital part of our mission going forward.
NO LANGUAGE BARRIER
With ‘hackathon’ for high schoolers, Enter: The Jewish Peoplehood Alliance looks to expand efforts to Spanish-speaking world

From 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza to legendary Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax, 200 Israeli high school students were introduced to the idea of Jewish peoplehood, and were asked to grapple with the concept in a daylong “hackathon” organized by Enter: The Jewish Peoplehood Alliance and held on Wednesday at Anu: Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, focused on creating connections between high school students in Israel and Jewish peers in Spanish-speaking countries, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judith Sudilovsky from the event. Building off an existing Enter program that connects Israeli teenagers with Jewish peers abroad, “Building Bridges” aims to bring Israeli students studying Spanish together with Jewish students from Mexico, Panama and Spain to explore and connect through their shared Jewishness, as well as practice their Spanish.
‘One family, one people’: “What we’re… discussing today is how to bring more Israel-Diaspora relations issues into the Israeli public school system,” Alon Friedman, executive director of Enter, told eJP. “They’re going to be sitting today and through creative ways will be presented with big questions about Israel-Diaspora relations, the importance of mutual responsibility between Jews around the world, Jews as one family, one people.” Some of the students’ ideas presented at the end of the day included launching a joint podcast with a Spanish-speaking Jewish community; creating a “Jewish communities” exhibition area in a popular school location; and holding a Jewish peoplehood day at school with different activities together with a Spanish-speaking Jewish school. Enter and the Israeli Ministry of Education will choose the winning idea by June.
FLIP THE SCRIPT
What philanthropic lions can learn from the Sharks

“Our collective vision would not materialize without the generosity of [our] donors, and so we lionize them. But why do these cascades of gratitude gush in only one direction?” writes Robert Lichtman in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “Observing the grandeur of Niagara Falls, Oscar Wilde famously commented, ‘It would be more impressive if it flowed the other way.’”
A worthwhile model: “Every once in a while, an episode of ‘Shark Tank’ will take us to an event organized by one of the Sharks, who has personally invested millions of dollars in dozens of businesses, where they celebrate how much money they’ve made by working together with contestants. While these businesses owe their fortunes to the Sharks, it’s the Sharks who invite these entrepreneurs to gather for the opportunity to say to them, in essence, ‘I gave you the seed money that you would not have gotten elsewhere, and look at us now! We are in a place I could never have been with just my money alone. We could not have achieved the successes we are celebrating today without your vision, your skills, your passion, and your grit. We are richer together than we ever could have been separately. Thank you!’ Our philanthropic lions can learn something from these Sharks.”
FOR THE SAKE OF HEAVEN
Navigating differences: The role of Jewish tradition in today’s divided world

“In an increasingly polarized world, making space for constructive disagreement is crucial in maintaining community. Unanimity or even consensus is not the goal, but rather preserving — and, if possible, nurturing — relationships,” writes Rabbi Monica Kleinman, assistant director of programs at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Disagree, but constructively: “Since 2009, the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies has examined the world of constructive dialogue through a Jewish lens. With then-faculty member Rabbi Daniel Roth, Pardes students and faculty kicked off a new observance on the 9th of the Hebrew month of Adar in 2013, designating that week a ‘Week of Constructive Disagreement.’ That date marks the day when, around 2,000 years ago, healthy disagreements ‘for the sake of Heaven’ between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai turned destructive, and it serves as a powerful reminder of what can happen when these values and skills are neglected… In 2020, this work expanded with the Mahloket Matters Fellowship.”
Worthy Reads
Bring It Home: In her Substack newsletter “Committed,” Mjial Bitton posits that Jewish identity development, education and practice have been overly outsourced to experts and institutions, much to our individual and collective detriment. “How many see Judaism as something episodic, something to participate in rather than own? Something that depends on rabbis and Jewish leaders rather than them? Something that happens in a synagogue or JCC rather than in the home? Outsourcing Judaism to elites and institutions is a sure way to guarantee its decline. Our parasha, Bo, points the way to what American Judaism needs to thrive: Judaism doesn’t start with institutions. It doesn’t hinge on leaders. It begins at home — with individuals and families.” [Committed]
Growing Together: In the SAIS Review of International Affairs, Yossef Ben-Meir spotlights the impact of a Muslim-Jewish agricultural collaboration in Morocco. “Small landholders often cannot commit the necessary land resources over the two years required for fruit tree seeds to mature, as they must harvest every season from all available land to maintain their livelihoods… The mausoleum near Amsouzerte is a sacred tomb of a Hebrew saint (tzaddik, or ‘righteous one’) named David-Ou-Moshe, one of over 600 tzaddikim (Muslim, Jewish, and Christian) buried throughout Morocco. The land immediately around these burials had potential for future tree nurseries that could generate tens of millions of saplings annually. On behalf of the farming families, [the High Atlas Foundation, of which Ben-Meir is co-founder and president] approached the Moroccan Jewish community to request land leases for building tree nurseries on this land… Community nurseries jumpstart a new development path toward economic and environmental sustainability. The Akrich tree nursery, for example, led to empowerment workshops and the establishment of the nearby Achbarou women’s carpet-making cooperative, the construction of a paved road between the nursery/cemetery and the cooperative that allows visitors to easily visit both sites, and a clean drinking water system in Achbarou village… In Morocco, interfaith connections are convivial when they occur but demand total energy and commitment to organize. This Moroccan approach to success across religious differences could inspire other nations of Africa, the Islamic World, and the Middle East to follow the same path.” [SAISReview]
Shock to the System: In the wake of the Trump administration’s halt of most U.S. foreign aid, Susan Appe shares her insights in The Conversation about what happens to U.S. partner organizations on the ground when the flow of funding is interrupted. “Of the $35 billion to $40 billion in aid that USAID distributes annually, $22 billion is delivered through grants and contracts with international organizations to implement programs. These can be further subcontracted to local partners in recipient countries. When this aid is frozen, scaled back or cut off altogether, these local partners scramble to fill in the gaps… Networks such as Worldwide Initiatives for Grantmaker Support and Global Fund for Community Foundations have emerged to promote local philanthropy around the world. They press governments to adopt policies that encourage local philanthropy. This kind of giving has become easier to do thanks to the emergence of crowdfunding platforms. Still, complex tax systems and the lack of incentives for giving in many countries that receive foreign aid are persistent challenges.” [TheConversation]
Word on the Street
The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is selling its Greenwich Village building to New York University — for a reported $75.5 million — as it finalizes the purchase of a new building…
Jewish Insider dives deep into a fight over antisemitism at the Chautauqua Institution, an exclusive cultural community located in upstate New York…
Israeli mixed martial artist Natan Levy offered to take fellow fighter Bryce Mitchell to a Holocaust museum or to Israel after Mitchell praised Adolf Hitler on a podcast; Levy also said he was willing to fight Mitchell, writing on X, “I’m all for fighting with sportsmanship but willing to do it against haters too”…
President and founder of United Hatzalah Eli Beer sent a letter to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres asking him to allow the emergency medical service to use UNRWA’s Jerusalem campus, which was evacuated after Israel outlawed the organization earlier this month…
Insider Philanthropy interviews Hillel International President and CEO Adam Lehman about the organization’s fundraising efforts — it raised more than $200 million last year — and how it is responding to rising antisemitism on college campuses…
Nancy Grand donated $2.5 million toward the renovation and expansion of the San Francisco Hillel, putting the campaign $2.9 million away from its $8.2 million goal…
Jason Harris, executive director of the Israel21c website, has been hired as the next executive director at Hillel of Broward and Palm Beach (Fla.)…
Jewish Journal spotlights donations allowing the Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara (Calif.) to provide free meals to victims of the Los Angeles-area wildfires…
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency examines the trend of “Braids for Agam,” Jewish women braiding their hair and challah in honor of recently released hostage Agam Berger, who braided the hair of her fellow captives while in Gaza…
Brandon Korff, the son of Shari Redstone, was spotted yesterday handing out NIS 500 ($140) gift cards to every soldier passing through Tel Aviv’s Savidor Mercaz Train Station…
Redstone’s Paramount is in talks with President Donald Trump to settle the lawsuit he filed against CBS days before the election over a “60 Minutes” segment with former Vice President Kamala Harris…
Haaretz profiles a new siddur created by the San Francisco congregation The Kitchen, which its creators say is the first egalitarian prayer book in the United States that blends Ashkenazi and Sephardi liturgical traditions…
Former State Department official and foreign policy commentator Joel Rubin is joining the Jewish Electorate Institute as executive director…
The Chronicle of Philanthropy spotlights the Emergency Assistance Foundation, which has allowed donors to rapidly distribute grants directly to people affected by the Los Angeles wildfires and other disasters…
Robbi Force, the mother of Taylor Force, the American whose murder in a 2016 terror attack in Israel prompted passage of the Taylor Force Act, died on Jan. 27 at 70…
Pic of the Day

Barak Hermann, the incoming JCC Association of North America’s president and CEO, speaks on Monday at the organization’s annual Mifgash: Executive Leadership Forum conference.
This year, 133 JCC executives from 93 JCCs participated in the event, which was hosted at Hermann’s own JCC of Greater Baltimore at the Gordon Center for Performing Arts in Owings Mills, Md.
Birthdays

Retired Israeli educator, who has been displaced from her home in Kibbutz Manara on Israel’s border with Lebanon since October 2023, she is the only sibling of Yitzhak Rabin, Rachel Rabin, celebrates her 100th birthday tomorrow…
FRIDAY: Israeli nuclear physicist and professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Igal Talmi… Scion of a leading rabbinic family in pre-WWII Poland, former assistant U.S. solicitor general, now a private attorney with an active Supreme Court practice focused on religious liberty issues, Nathan Lewin… Classical music composer as well as acclaimed movie score composer, Philip Glass… Associate professor emeritus of Talmud and rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Mayer Elya Rabinowitz… Chairperson emeritus of global management consultancy Bain & Company, Orit Gadiesh… Chief rabbi of Norway while also serving as a member of Knesset from 1999 to 2009, Michael Melchior… Founder and CEO of MikeWorldWide PR firm, Michael W. Kempner… Former member of the Tennessee House of Representatives for 20 years, Matt Kisber… Founder and CEO of Oneg, an e-commerce brand focused on Shabbat, Jeanie Milbauer… CEO at Gracie Capital, Daniel L. Nir… Dermatologist who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Iceland from 2019 to 2021, he was a candidate for U.S. Senate from Nevada in the 2024 election, Jeffrey Ross Gunter… Co-founder and senior chairman of Meridian Capital Group, Ralph Herzka… Organization of American States commissioner to monitor and combat antisemitism, Fernando Lottenberg… Neurosurgeon and chairman of the Rockland County (NY) Board of Health, Jeffrey Sable Oppenheim… Fourth-generation real estate developer and founding partner of Redbrick LMD, Louis Myerberg Dubin… Classical cellist, her debut in Carnegie Hall was at 17-years-old, Ofra Harnoy… Host of NPR’s news quiz “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!,” his older brother is a rabbi, Peter Sagal… Canadian-born businessman, best known for founding American Apparel, Dov Charney… CEO of Tel Aviv’s Anu-Museum of the Jewish People and former mayor of the Efrat settlement, Oded Revivi… CEO of City Cast, he was previously CEO of Atlas Obscura and Slate, David Plotz… Actress best known for her role in the Showcase series “Lost Girl,” Anna Silk… CEO at Affiliated Monitoring, he is a graduate of Columbia Law School and was an M&A associate at Skadden, Daniel J. Oppenheim… President of Orchestra, the parent agency to BerlinRosen, he lives in Barcelona, Michael Rabinowitz-Gold… Senior vice president of insights and measurement at NBC Universal Media, Matthew Gottlieb… Film producer and founder of Annapurna Pictures, four of her movies have been nominated for Academy Awards as Best Picture, Megan Ellison… Singer, who won Israel’s Kokhav Nolad (A Star is Born) song contest in 2008, Israel Bar-On… Managing director at 25madison, Grant Silow… Israeli singer, songwriter and television actor, Eliad Nachum… Director of programs and strategy at the Kraft Group and affiliates, Clara Scheinmann… Associate at Covington & Burling, Eli Nachmany…
SATURDAY: Executive vice chairman emeritus of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Malcolm I. Hoenlein… Mediator and arbitrator, he is a past president of the Beverly Hills Bar Association, Howard S. Fredman… Academy Award-winning producer and motion picture executive, Zvi Howard Rosenman… Midtown Manhattan physician, affiliated with Lenox Hill Hospital, specializing in nephrology and internal medicine, Mark H. Gardenswartz, MD… Laureate conductor of Orchestra 914 from 2002 until 2018, Michael Jeffrey Shapiro… Far Rockaway, N.Y., resident, Maurice Lazar… President and part-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, he was previously president of the Atlanta Braves and then the Washington Nationals, Stan Kasten… Publisher of Baltimore Jewish Life, Jeff Cohn… Recently retired after 18 years as the CEO of the Charleston (S.C.) Jewish Federation, Judi Corsaro… Artist Israel Tsvaygenbaum… Director for policy and government affairs at AIPAC, David Gillette… 25-year veteran of the Israeli foreign service including a three-year stint as DCOM at the Embassy of Israel in Washington, now a scholar-in-residence at American University in Washington, Dan Arbell… Executive vice president and chief program officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Becky Sobelman-Stern… One of Israel’s top soccer players of all time, successful on both Israeli and European teams, Eli Ohana… Co-founder of Brilliant Detroit, Carolyn Bellinson… Actor, comedian, director, writer and producer, Pauly Shore… Voting rights and election law attorney, Marc E. Elias… Mid-Atlantic regional director for AIPAC, Tara Brown… Managing director of Pickwick Capital Partners, Ari Raskas… Canadian actress, her stepfather is a rabbi, Rachelle Lefevre… New York City Police Commissioner since November, Jessica S. Tisch… Experimental jazz guitarist, bassist, oud player and composer, Yoshie Fruchter… Venezuelan journalist, writer and TV and radio presenter, Shirley Varnagy Bronfenmajer… Libertarian political activist, radio host and author, Adam Charles Kokesh… Comedian, writer, actress and illustrator, best known for co-creating and co-starring in the Comedy Central series “Broad City,” Abbi Jacobson… Account executive at Google, Andrew Friedman… Sportscaster and sports reporter who covers the New York Mets for SNY, Steven N. Gelbs… Vice president of government and industry relations at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, Stephanie Beth Cohen… Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-CA-51) since 2021, Sara Josephine Jacobs… Ob-Gyn physician in Atlanta, she is married to U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Alisha Sara Kramer… Israel-based director of growth marketing at SchoolStatus, David Aryeh Leshaw… Actress and model, Julia Garner…
SUNDAY: Member of the North Carolina Senate for 32 years, Marshall Rauch… Chairman of IAC/InterActiveCorp and Expedia, Barry Diller… Mayor of Irvine, Calif., Larry Agran… Host of the Food Network program “Barefoot Contessa,” and former OMB staffer for Presidents Ford and Carter, Ina Rosenberg Garten… Actor, comedian and singer, he is best known for his portrayal of the android, Lieutenant Commander Data, in the “Star Trek” television series and four subsequent films, Brent Spiner… Journalist, novelist and author, Michael Zelig Castleman… U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas)… Washington Secrets columnist at the Washington Examiner, Paul Bedard… Science fiction publisher and author, Selina A. Rosen… Rabbi at the Pacific Jewish Center (the Shul On The Beach) in Venice, California, he is also a practicing attorney, Shalom Rubanowitz… Sportscaster who currently does play-by-play for all four major professional sports leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL), Kenny Albert… Movie and theatre actress and screenwriter, known for the 2001 film “Kissing Jessica Stein,” Jennifer Westfeldt… Tony Award-winning actress, a semifinalist on Season 6 of “Dancing With the Stars,” Marissa Jaret Winokur… Basketball coach for many Israeli teams over more than 20 years, Dan Shamir… Actress and comedian, Lori Beth Denberg… Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose stage name is Mayer Hawthorne, Andrew Mayer Cohen… Assistant professor at Clemson University, Rebecca Shimoni Stoil, Ph.D.… Senior staff writer at GovCIO Media and Research, Ross Gianfortune… U.S. senator (R-Alabama) since 2023, Katie Boyd Britt… Television and radio host, David Pakman… Deputy special envoy to combat and monitor antisemitism during the last three years of the Biden administration, Aaron Keyak… Actress and musician, Zosia Russell Mamet… Former Team Israel baseball catcher, he is now director of business development at a hospital in Las Vegas, Nicholas Jay “Nick” Rickles… Avi Katz…