Your Daily Phil: Jewish groups ‘horrified’ by Calif. mosque attack, urge greater security funding
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we examine Jewish communal reactions to yesterday’s deadly shooting at a California mosque, which organizations said highlighted the need for greater security grants. We also report on the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington’s efforts to set up the infrastructure to allow local Jewish day schools to access a new federal tax credit. We feature an opinion piece by Randy Spiegel about not letting politics preclude giving to Israeli universities, and a piece by Jay Strear about why nonprofits focus on symptom management versus treating what ails them. Also in this issue: Nuseir Yassin, Mel Brooks and Carrie Darsky.
Today’s Your Daily Phil was curated by eJP Managing Editor Judah Ari Gross, Opinion Editor Rachel Kohn and Israel Editor Justin Hayet. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
The Jewish Federations of North America is bringing hundreds of Jewish community leaders to Capitol Hill today to push Congress to increase funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program; a press conference will be held this afternoon.
The Washington Nationals will host Jewish Community Day as the baseball team takes on the New York Mets at Nationals Park.
In New York, the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue is holding its spring benefit, where the congregation will honor Proskauer Rose’s Ira Bogner and former State Department antisemitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD FROM EJP’S JUDAH ARI GROSS
Jewish groups and leaders expressed horror and solidarity with the American Muslim community following a deadly shooting at a mosque in San Diego, which they said demonstrated the need to combat extremism and protect all houses of worship.
Jewish California, the umbrella political advocacy group representing Jewish communities throughout the state, said it was “horrified and heartbroken” by the deadly attack, in which three people were killed at the Islamic Center of San Diego, which also contains a school. The identities of the victims have not yet been released, though one was said to have been a security guard at the mosque, whom police called “heroic” and credited with preventing an even worse tragedy.
The names of the suspected gunmen were not immediately released, but local law enforcement said that they were 17 and 18 years old, and that while the precise motive was not yet known, “hate rhetoric was involved,” apparently referring to a note left by the younger suspect that was found by his mother, who contacted police. The two suspects were found dead of self-inflicted gunshot wounds near the scene.
The deadly mosque attack comes amid rising polarization and follows a spate of politically motivated violence, including last year’s shooting outside an American Jewish Committee event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, in which two Israeli Embassy staffers were killed, whose first anniversary will be marked on Thursday; the deadly firebombing of a march in support of Israeli hostages last June; a thwarted terror attack on Temple Israel outside Detroit earlier this year; and a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last month.
The Jewish Federations of North America noted that the attack came shortly before hundreds of Jewish leaders headed to Capitol Hill to lobby Congress to increase the federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program to $1 billion (from its current $300 million), which can be used to better protect houses of worship.
“Today’s attack is yet another painful reminder that the threat facing religious communities in America is real, urgent and growing,” JFNA said.
TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WELL
D.C. Jewish federation rallies local day schools to tap into federal tax-break program
The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington has rallied local Jewish day schools to organize quickly to take advantage of a new $1,700 federal tax break for those who donate to so-called Scholarship Granting Organizations — an initiative that is poised to make private schools more affordable, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher.
Community service: To attain the benefits of the credit, day schools need to prepare well ahead of time, Joel Frankel, senior director of community capacity at the Washington federation, told eJP, especially since donations cannot be made directly to schools. Instead, the new law requires communities to launch new nonprofits dedicated to offering scholarships, which are then provided to students. Deborah Skolnick-Einhorn, head of school at Washington’s Milton Gottesman Jewish Day School, told eJP that schools would struggle to do this on their own as the process is “a legal and financial behemoth in terms of the bureaucracy.”
DOWNSTREAM VIEW
What a ‘paused gift’ actually pauses
“Recently, I reached out to a philanthropic advisor who counsels high-net-worth individuals. My appeal was straightforward: among a diverse client base, surely there are those interested in high-impact investments in education and research,” writes Randy E. Spiegel, CEO of Canadian Friends of Bar-Ilan University, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
What’s at stake: “She explained that many of her clients are not aligned with Israel’s current foreign policy, particularly regarding Gaza, and that this misalignment affects their willingness to support Israeli institutions. She added that even among her Jewish and Israeli contacts, there is disagreement with current leadership, and suggested that a shift in policy — or leadership — would likely lead to greater philanthropic support for the university. I appreciated and respected her honesty. … Their discomfort is real, and it deserves to be taken seriously rather than argued away. But it also deserves to be examined.”
ORGANIZATIONAL HEALTH
The symptom trap
“I spent the last year sitting across from nonprofit leaders, most of them in Jewish communal life, and asking them to be honest about what is not working and why. This wasn’t for a board report or a grant application; it was for a structured diagnostic study built on deep, confidential interviews,” writes leadership consultant Jay Strear, founder of The Strear Group, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “The structural deficiencies documented in this study are not mysteries, and they are not inevitable. They are, in significant part, produced by us.”
Big example: “Of the three structural domains I assessed, the one leaders were least prepared to name — and the one that does the most persistent damage — is the organizational learning gap. It’s not the inability to work hard, and it’s certainly not the absence of good intentions. Rather, the organizational learning gap is the inability to look at a recurring problem and ask: What in the design of our organizations is producing this?”
Worthy Reads
Wealth Without Architecture: In the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Sarah Cone argues for tech billionaires to build new robust philanthropic institutions, as their Gilded Age counterparts did. “We are living on the institutional inheritance of the Gilded Age. We are spending it down, and we are not replenishing it. The libraries are still open, the universities still teach, the museums still hang their paintings — but these are the creations of the dead, maintained by the living, and supplemented by almost nothing new. … And when the scaffolding finally fails, as all structures eventually do, we will discover that the richest generation in human history has bequeathed to its descendants only the memory of how much money it once had, and how little of that went toward building anything that lasts.” [SSIR]
A Call to Veto: In The Washington Post, SAR’s Binyamin Krauss called on the New York City Council to override Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s veto of a buffer zone bill aimed at protecting schools by restricting demonstrations directly outside them. “I was astonished last month when New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani used his first veto since taking office to strike down a bill that would have required law enforcement to consider, on a case-by-case basis, establishing buffer zones around schools and educational facilities to protect students, staff and faculty from potentially violent protests… The mayor vetoed a bill that simply seeks to ensure New York children can attend school without fear of being harassed or attacked. The City Council still has time to do what the mayor won’t.” [WashingtonPost]
Word on the Street
Nuseir Yassin — also known as Nas Daily — has partnered with the David Merage Foundation to launch a content creation fellowship for 50 Jewish and Muslim creators, honoring the legacy of his late friend Zaki Djemal; read eJP’s obituary of Djemal here…
The UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council-New York refused to attend Mayor Zohran Mamdani‘s Shavuot reception yesterday, accusing the mayor of inflaming local tensions and rejecting Israel’s legitimacy as a core pillar of Jewish heritage, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports…
Bloomberg spotlights the Jewish Federations of North America’s lobbying effort, which begins today, to press Congress for $1 billion in federal security grants to help protect religious institutions from attacks…
London’s Metropolitan Police is investigating a hate crime after a 22-year-old Israeli man was chased and severely beaten by a group of men shouting in Arabic after he was overheard speaking Hebrew on a street in Golders Green…
The Jewish Federation of St. Louis has renamed its annual professional achievement honor the Barry Rosenberg Professional Leadership Award to honor its longtime former president and CEO…
In The Hollywood Reporter, Oscar-winner László Nemes condemns the Western “orgy of antisemitism” and Hollywood’s moralizing elites, stating that political friction over Gaza has severely hindered the distribution of his Jewish-themed films…
Israel’s Ministry of Transportation has proposed allowing the Dubai-based Emirates airline to operate direct routes from Tel Aviv to New York and Bangkok — without requiring a stopover in the UAE — in an effort to address the severe shortage of transatlantic flights and soaring ticket prices, Jewish Insider’s Tamara Zieve and Haley Cohen report…
Kehillat Israel Synagogue in Pacific Palisades, Calif., has reopened for services 16 months after devastating Los Angeles wildfires destroyed the building, along with the homes of its clergy and hundreds of congregants…
Ofer Bronchtein, a French-Israeli peace activist and co-founder of the International Peace Forum, who served as a senior advisor to French President Emmanuel Macron on Israeli-Palestinian issues, died yesterday at 69…
Major Gifts
Mel Brooks has gifted his expansive career archive of more than 150,000 documents and 5,000 photographs to the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, N.Y., where the collection will sit alongside the papers of his longtime collaborator and friend, Carl Reiner…
Transitions
NJY Camps has hired Carrie Darsky as its next CEO, effective June 1; Darsky succeeds Michael Schlank, who stepped down from the role last year…
Dror Bin announced he is stepping down from his role as CEO of the Israel Innovation Authority in the coming months…
Israel’s Channel 13 appointed Idan Elrom as acting CEO, following the departure of Emiliano Calemzuk…
The Forward has named Stacey Bosworth as its next vice president of development
Yael Shamouilian is joining the Anti-Defamation League as director of media relations…
Pic of the Day
Participants in the joint Repair the World-Yahel Jewish Service Alliance Israel Service Seminar visit the Tamar Center in Idan HaNegev, in southern Israel, last week, as part of the inaugural weeklong program. Read eJP’s coverage about the Repair the World-Yahel partnership here.
In addition to the Tamar Center, which assists local Bedouin high school students, the trip showcased a number of volunteer initiatives in Israel, including a therapeutic farm, a support center for people with visual impairments, a community woodshop that makes furniture for “lone soldiers” and more. Participants came from Repair the World, Yahel Israel, Boston’s Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Hillel International, the JCC Association, Jewish Federations of North America and the Bender JCC of Greater Washington.
Birthdays
Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi, born in Milan, now chief rabbi of Russia, Rabbi Berel Lazar turns 62…
Retired senior counsel in the D.C. office of Blank Rome, Harvey Sherzer turns 82… Retired chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, now of counsel in the NYC office of Latham & Watkins, Jonathan Lippman turns 81… Clinical psychologist, author, teacher, public speaker and ordained rabbi, Dennis G. Shulman turns 76… Former member of the California state Senate, she was also a member of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, Hannah-Beth Jackson turns 76… Israeli novelist and former journalist, Edna Shemesh turns 73… Nurse and former member of the Wisconsin State Assembly (2009-2015), Sandra “Sandy” Pasch turns 72… Retired chief of the general staff of the IDF, now leader of the Yashar party, Gadi Eizenkot turns 66… Journalist, teacher and playwright, now editor-in-chief of Streetsblog NYC, Gersh Kuntzman turns 61… Born in Moscow, he is a professor of mathematics at the University of Chicago, Alex Eskin turns 61… Author of 28 novels, four of which have been adapted into Lifetime Original Movies, Jodi Picoult turns 60… Business manager and spokesperson for NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan, Estee Portnoy turns 59… Former CEO of Bend the Arc, a Jewish partnership for justice, Stosh Cotler turns 58… Israeli-born chef, owner of multiple New York City restaurants, she is a cookbook author and comedian, Einat Admony turns 55… Israeli actor and fashion designer, Dorit Bar Or turns 51… Canadian food writer and cookbook author, she is a judge on Bravo’s “Top Chef,” Gail Simmons turns 50… Member of the Knesset for the Likud party since 2019, Ofir Katz turns 46… Nonprofit manager and consultant, Alex Shapero… Pitcher for Team Israel at the 2017 World Baseball Classic and is now pitching coach for the UC Davis Aggies, Zachary “Zack” James Thornton turns 38… Activist, advocacy educator, engagement strategist and TED speaker, Natalie Warne… Ice hockey free agent, Brendan Leipsic turns 32…
