Your Daily Phil: Jewish donors, groups supply aid after Hurricane Helene
Good Monday morning.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on Jonah Platt’s new Jewish podcast and pivot to Jewish advocacy. We feature an opinion piece by Rabbi Miriam Wajnberg about concrete steps to boost a sense of belonging among interfaith couples and families at our High Holy Day services; and one by Rabbi Michael Ragozin recounting what unfolded when his congregation enlisted a consultant to create and implement a strategic plan. Also in this newsletter: Dov Ben-Shimon, Bernie and Billi Marcus and Kenneth L. Marcus. We’ll start with how Jewish donors and organizations are responding to Hurricane Helene.
Jewish donors, foundations and organizations are scrambling to provide funds and resources to relief operations following the devastation caused by last week’s Hurricane Helene, which battered large swaths of North and South Carolina, as well as Florida, Georgia and Tennessee, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross.
At least 95 people have been killed by the storm, which dumped unprecedented amounts of rain in certain areas of the Southeast, destroying entire towns and neighborhoods, knocking out bridges, causing sinkholes along major highways and scattering debris — from fallen trees to entire trailers and parts of homes — along roadways. In Asheville, N.C., the flooding — more than 17 inches of rain fell on the Blue Ridge Mountains city — broke a previous record set in 2004, which had broken a record set in 1916. AccuWeather has estimated the total damage and economic loss from the hurricane at roughly $100 billion, which would make it one of the costliest storms in U.S. history.
International, national and local organizations, including the Red Cross, United Way and World Central Kitchen, have been working to rescue those stranded by the flooding, mudslides and fallen trees and to provide drinking water, food and shelter to the untold number of people displaced by the storm, as well as electricity and cell service to millions left without power in the Southeast.
Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper and his wife, Nicole, have made an initial donation of $3 million toward Hurricane Helene relief efforts. In a press release, the Teppers said the funds, which will be provided through their foundation, will go toward food banks, local community foundations and other service agencies.
“This is our home and we are committed to supporting relief efforts throughout the region by providing critical resources and aiding the efforts of our heroic first responders,” the Teppers said. “The impact on our community has been severe, but Carolinians are resilient and courageous, and together, we will rebuild and recover.”
Arthur Blank, the owner of the Atlanta Falcons, has pledged $2 million through his eponymous foundation to World Central Kitchen for the organization’s work in Georgia, “with the potential to serve additional impacted communities” in the future, the foundation said in a statement.
The Glazer Family Foundation, which was established by Malcolm Glazer, the former owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has donated $1 million to “local agencies involved in relief efforts across Tampa Bay, [Fla.],” the NFL team wrote on X.
The Greater Miami Jewish Federation established an emergency relief fund for victims of the storm. The federation has also begun recruiting volunteers to assist in affected areas.
The Chabad of Asheville and Western North Carolina has been providing supplies and shelter to residents of the region, as well as performing welfare checks on those stranded by the storm, which came days before Rosh Hashanah. (Disclosure: Chabad has been coordinating assistance for this reporter’s parents.) The nearby Chabad of Charlotte, N.C., has begun providing water and other supplies to Asheville as well.
The Charlotte affiliate of the Axios news site has identified many of the Western North Carolina organizations performing relief work in and around Asheville, which was one of the hardest-hit areas of the storm.
FAMILY BUSINESS
With deep philanthropic roots, Jonah Platt launches new podcast on ‘Being Jewish’
Over the past year, actor and director Jonah Platt has pivoted his career, focusing less time on his acting and entertainment work and more on advocacy, becoming a sought-out voice in the Jewish world, using his social media to educate followers about Israel. Tomorrow, he will release the first three episodes of a new weekly podcast, “Being Jewish with Jonah Platt,” which will explore what it means to be Jewish, featuring Jewish and non-Jewish guests from the entertainment, journalism, religious, business, food, political and sports worlds, reports Jay Deitcher for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Pols and influencers: Platt said that the podcast is not meant to be an educational program, and while many guests are not outwardly politicians, others are, including Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and the Hernandez siblings from Arizona. Political commentators Meghan McCain and Van Jones are appearing. “I’m utilizing my own network in a way I never have before,” he said. He is also drawing from the celebrity and influencer community, including appearances by Skylar Ashton and Montana Tucker. Many of his guests are involved in Israel advocacy.
Fuel to the fire: Platt began pivoting more towards advocacy during the spring of 2021, when violence erupted between Hamas and Israel in Gaza. “I sort of saw a space for myself to come in and help make sense of things for people,” he said. The possibility that advocacy will negatively impact your career surges when it’s connected to Israel, according to Wheeler, yet Platt said that his outspokenness hasn’t affected him negatively. Over the years, he progressively increased his advocacy, though it was never his main focus. Oct. 7 “poured gasoline on the fire of my Jewish advocacy,” he said.
‘COMPONENTS OF BELONGING’
The High Holy Days: A challenging point of entry for interfaith couples
“As Dan Smokler and Rabbi Shuli Passow wrote last month in eJewishPhilanthropy [“Be ready to greet ‘The Surge’,” Aug. 15], we know that the High Holy Days often serve as an entry point into Jewish community for many young people. And yet, this time of year can be a tricky time to navigate Jewish community, especially for an interfaith couple,” writes Rabbi Miriam Wajnberg, director of professional development for 18Doors,in an opinion piece for eJP.
Consider this: “What if your very first experience with Christianity was when you attended church with a loved one on Easter? You might hear a theology very different from your own and find it hard to connect with the service and the rituals. Now imagine that the service was in Latin! What might you think? Would you feel like you belonged there?”
A need and an opportunity: “We know that 72% of non-Orthodox Jewish adults married between 2010-2020 are in interfaith marriages, and that only 27% of people in interfaith marriages feel a sense of belonging in the Jewish community. That leaves two-thirds of this demographic who might be seeking belonging at this moment in our people’s history.”
Critical components: “In a 2021 article in the Australian Journal of Psychology, a team of researchers led by Kelly-Ann Allen define belonging as ‘a subjective feeling that one is an integral part of their surrounding systems, including family, friends, school, work environments, communities, cultural groups and physical places.’ Allen et. al.’s research offers four components of belonging that can guide Jewish communities in increasing inclusion among interfaith couples and families at the coming High Holy Days.”
BEST PRACTICES
How strategic planning saved my rabbinate
“I had just begun my term as rabbi of Congregation Shirat Hayam in Swampscott, Mass. On my third day on the job, I visited a macher of the congregation — a successful businessman and a professor at Harvard Business School… Even before the macher and I greeted one another, he asked, ‘What’s your vision?’” writes Rabbi Michael Ragozin, an alum of the Clergy Leadership Incubator (CLI), in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
A listening campaign: “[O]ver the next six months I held numerous house meetings, connecting with 199 congregants. I listened to and recorded their hopes and dreams for Shirat Hayam. Combining their comments with my passions and insights, I presented a vision for the congregation at a town meeting. The congregation’s response: Great! Go for it.”
Time to ask for help: “What I quickly came to realize was that given how our synagogue was staffed and managed, any new initiative that I might propose would fall entirely on my shoulders. I didn’t have a budget or the time to support the implementation of these new projects. At the beginning of my third year, at a board member’s insistence, the congregation engaged a consultant to create and implement a strategic plan.”
A new state of alignment: “Prior to the plan (and without an executive director on our staff), professionals worked in their silos. Because of the horizontal leadership structure, no one was authorized to hold others — professional staff or lay leaders — accountable. Individuals did what they wanted to do. The lay leadership, professional team and I became energized not only by the accountability structures the plan put into place, but also by the sense that the team was taking our congregation to the next level of effectiveness and impact.”
Worthy Reads
Trauma Response: In the Jewish Journal, Monica Osborne delves into For Such a Time as This: On Being Jewish Today, a new book by Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of New York City’s Park Avenue Synagogue. “In every era of Jewish persecution, Jewish responses have varied… Historically, we have always been forced to choose between empathy and vigilance — two threads that explain ‘both our origins and our present day’… We remember our victimhood, while also remaining hypervigilant, and these two aspects are ‘codified’ not just into our yearly calendar but also into ‘the soul of the Jewish people.’ … For decades scholars have pointed out the way in which collective and inherited trauma is a crucial component of American Jewish identity. But as ‘is the case with diaspora Jewry, the tensions within Israel are also situated on questions of the response to trauma.’ Questions about issues such as settlements and judicial reform are also about ‘deeper questions in Israel’s substratum of how Israelis respond to the pain of the wars it has fought, and continues to fight.’ An important question, however, persists: ‘Shall the hand it reaches out be open and extended or closed into a fist?’ And will American Jews ‘define themselves with an inclusive and universal empathy or guard against another spasm of antisemitic hatred dating back to Pharoah?’ Vigilance or empathy: We are forever caught between the two responses.” [JewishJournal]
The Power of Power-Sharing: In the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Jennifer Loving and Ben Spero write about a public-private partnership focused on addressing homelessness in Silicon Valley as a model for systems change. “Forming a solid, sustained collective-impact model is extremely hard work, and it doesn’t happen overnight. Here in Silicon Valley, our coalition came together over more than a decade. A number of elements were critical to our success, especially our style of partnership and commitment to power sharing. Sustained partnership requires working to build common ground among diverse stakeholders, creating shared goals, as well as collective systems and infrastructure. Take, for example, our work building more permanent supportive and extremely low-income (ELI) housing. Even after the adoption of the $950 million Measure A housing bond in 2016, we needed the help of many other partners to get projects built. We started by launching a concerted strategy to engage more than a dozen jurisdictions in Santa Clara County. Through countless conversations over many years, we were able to secure buy-in from several cities that agreed to provide local funding and/or land to support new developments.” [SSIR]
Treating symptoms, not causes: In The Wall Street Journal, Dara Horn reflects on her time on Harvard University’s antisemitism advisory group. “No one in the advisory group argued against free speech. Students can chant ‘globalize the intifada’ all they want. As the screaming students point out, ‘intifada’ simply means ‘uprising.’ True. Also, ‘Sieg Heil’ simply means ‘Hail victory,’ and Confederate flags are simply regional symbols. Students can scream whatever racist things they like. But this evades the question: Why is Harvard full of screaming racists? Our recommendations sought to address this question, but Harvard’s only major reforms since have been rules around protests—suggesting that Harvard believes it plays no role in shaping its students’ ideas. The school completely ignored our most important recommendation, which suggested that if students raised concerns about antisemitic content in courses or lectures, Harvard should review those academic events—not for the opinions expressed, but for academic rigor.” [WSJ]
Around the Web
Dov Ben-Shimon, who has served as the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest, N.J., for the past decade, ends his tenure in the role today; Ben-Shimon told eJewishPhilanthropy that he will begin another position in the Jewish world later in the year…
Forbes hosted its annual Forbes 400 Summit on Philanthropy last Thursday, featuring a number of high-profile donors and foundation leaders, including John Arnold, Emma Bloomberg, Leon Cooperman and Michael Milken; Bernie and Billi Marcus received the lifetime achievement award for collectively giving more than $2 billion to charity…
American Jewish leaders met briefly on Friday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who quickly returned to Israel in light of the IDF’s airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah…
Yesterday marked the 83rd anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre…
The National Library of Israel has added 169 books and publications to its collections about the Oct. 7 terror attacks and their aftermath: 42 studies and reports by research institutes in Israel and abroad; 29 books of testimonies and stories of heroism; 30 works of nonfiction; 18 books of Jewish thought, faith, and new prayers; 14 books of poetry; nine books of prose; 11 art books: photographs, paintings, illustrations and cartoons; three childrens books; and 13 miscellaneous works…
Philanthropy Roundtable interviewed Kenneth L. Marcus, founder of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, about antisemitism on college campuses…
Gratz College is selling its stake in the Mandell Education Campus in Melrose Park, Pa., to the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia; the Jewish college will move to a new, larger campus in nearby Bala Cynwyd…
An investigation by the Rabbinical Assembly’s Va’ad HaKavod (Honorable Council) largely cleared the administrators of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles of wrongdoing after former students accused them of sexism, homophobia and creating a “toxic” environment; the Conservative body’s findings come after a separate probe by the law firm Cozen O’Connor, which found that students did experience discrimination but that it was not a systemic issue…
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law three of the state’s Jewish Public Affairs Committee’s “top priority bills”: AB 2925, which will effectively require California’s college campuses to do antisemitism prevention training; SB 1287, which requires campuses to update and enforce their student codes to prevent intimidation, harassment and violence; and SB 1277, which makes the California Teachers Collaborative on Holocaust and Genocide Education an official state program…
Shara Nadler was hired as chief executive officer of Bergen Volunteers, which operates in Ridgewood, N.J., and neighboring communities; Nadler previously ran the volunteer center at the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey…
Aileen Lampel Novick, the former national executive director of Hadassah, died last Wednesday at 94…
Pic of the Day
Workers complete construction on a new 120-house neighborhood in Kibbutz Ruhama in southern Israel, which will serve as a new home for residents of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, one of the hardest hit communities in the Oct. 7 attacks, as part of an effort led by Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund. “The Ruhama neighborhood, initially planned to take 10 months to build, was completed in just four months at a cost of NIS 55 million ($14.8 million),” KKL-JNF said, noting that the keys will be handed over to the residents in the coming days. Five of the 120 homes have been set aside for hostages held in Gaza.
“This is a deeply emotional moment for us. Finally, we can stop being displaced and move into homes of our own, where we can begin the long process of healing and recovery,” Jon Sosna, a resident of Kfar Aza, said in a statement. “Of course, we still hold hope that we will return to Kfar Aza with our kidnapped family members.”
In total, KKL-JNF has pledged NIS 300 million ($80.9 million) to fund a number of reconstruction projects in southern Israel to rehabilitate the area after the Oct. 7 terror attacks and resulting war.
Birthdays
Founder and president of the Menomadin Group and president of the Menomadin Foundation, Haim Taib…
Former prime minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert… IT developer and business analyst, Sanford Kadish… Chairman and CEO of AMC Entertainment, he is a co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers, Adam Maximilian Aron… Actress and activist, now in her second term as president of the SAG-AFTRA trade union, Fran Drescher… Professor of mathematical logic at Oxford, Ehud Hrushovski… Journalist for Haaretz, Allison Kaplan Sommer… Professor of healthcare economics at MIT and an architect of Romneycare and Obamacare, Jonathan Gruber… Leora Lily Ihilevich Usman… Lisa K. Robbins… Israel’s U.N. ambassador until seven weeks ago, now global president of Magen David Adom, Gilad Erdan… Consultant to nonprofits, Anastasia Goodstein… Russia and Eastern Europe editor for the Washington Post, now a journalism fellow at Harvard University, David Herszenhorn… CEO of Via Trading Corporation, Jacques Stambouli… President and CEO of Hadar Institute in Manhattan, Rabbi Eliezer “Elie” Kaunfer… Founder and partner at Artemis Strategies, Hildy Kuryk… Host of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Ari Michael Shapiro… Member of the Kentucky House of Representatives, Daniel Grossberg… Screenwriter, director, producer and actor, Jonathan Peter Kasdan… Founder of the Jerusalem-based Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development, Yonatan Neril… Co-founder and president of Palantir Technologies, Stephen Cohen… Head of breaking news at The Wall Street Journal, Steven Russolillo… Mixed martial artist who competes in the lightweight division in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Natan Levy … Past president of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, she is on the board of The Tikvah Fund, Shelly Kassen…
