Your Daily Phil: Jewish, Israeli groups ready to dispatch aid to quake-rocked Venezuela
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on the Jewish and Israeli groups preparing to send aid to Venezuela following back-to-back earthquakes in the country, and on UJA-Federation of New York’s recent farewell celebration for outgoing CEO Eric Goldstein. We feature an opinion piece by Andrés Spokoiny about the significance of American Jewish “journals of ideas,” and Rachel Gildiner shares her message to the 2026 SRE Network Convening held last week in New York City. Also in this issue: Dany Bahar, Harriet Evenson and Nancy and James Grosfeld.
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
We are monitoring the situation in Venezuela after twin earthquakes caused massive damage in the country’s north. More on this below.
The annual Aspen Ideas Festival, which brings together leading figures from politics, business, media and academia, kicks off today in Colorado with an opening session featuring Aspen Institute leaders and journalists Fareed Zakaria and David Brooks.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH eJP’S JUDAH ARI GROSS
Jewish and Israeli aid and rescue organizations are scrambling to send teams to Venezuela after the poverty-stricken South American country was hit by massive back-to-back earthquakes on Wednesday night, representatives of the groups told eJewishPhilanthropy. At least 164 people have been pronounced dead so far and hundreds more injured, though the numbers are expected to rise considerably as search efforts get underway, with some projections anticipating a death toll into the tens of thousands.
There were no immediate reports of casualties among Venezuela’s small Jewish population, which numbers 3,000-6,000, and the local Jewish community center, Hebraica, established a command center to coordinate relief efforts. Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund said that some 500 Jewish families had been displaced by the earthquakes, and it was putting together an aid package “worth hundreds of thousands of shekels” to support the community.
Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ ?
News
FOND FAREWELL
At Manhattan Dinner, UJA-Federation of New York celebrates outgoing CEO Eric Goldstein
When nearly 600 people gathered at Cipriani in Manhattan last week to celebrate outgoing UJA-Federation of New York CEO Eric Goldstein, the program opened with board members taking turns speaking in front of a projected timeline, each marking a tectonic shift that took place in the Jewish world during his tenure.
Calm in the storm: “It was a gigantic, bittersweet moment,” Amy Bressman, a former UJA board president, told eJewishPhilanthropy. “He will be really remembered for navigating unforeseen circumstances that you couldn’t plan for, you couldn’t even imagine, you couldn’t in any way expect. And he just led in the same consistent heart-mind combination. I think that a lesser leader might have been unbelievably thrown by crisis after crisis after crisis, and he just wasn’t. He just had the resources to handle circumstances that no one could have foreseen.”
Opinion
MORE THAN A MILESTONE
Why Sapir’s success is great news
“The journal Sapir is celebrating its fifth anniversary. … I only rarely comment on specific philanthropic initiatives, but I think this case warrants celebration because what we are seeing is not just the achievement of a particular publication, but something much deeper,” writes Andrés Spokoiny in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Choosing to build and think: “America does a lot of thinking, but has narrowed the scope of what it thinks about. We remain proficient at solving problems, measuring outcomes and improving processes, yet seem less willing to ask larger questions of purpose, meaning and direction. … My hope is that our community doesn’t feel the need to choose between ideas and practice, pragmatism and bold vision, breadth and depth.”
ICYMI
The work of noticing
“[G]ender equity is not a standalone issue. It shapes who contributes. Who is heard. Who leads. Who is protected. Who stays — and who leaves,” writes Rachel Gildiner, executive director of SRE Network, in an abridged version of her opening remarks at the 2026 SRE Network Convening last week in New York City shared exclusively with eJewishPhilanthropy. “Those realities affect the strength of every organization in our sector.”
Honing in: “After years of listening, learning, convening and investing in the field, SRE has sharpened its understanding of where change is most needed and can have the greatest impact. We are focusing our efforts on four interconnected areas.”
Worthy Reads
Hocus Focus: In The Chronicle of Higher Education, English professor Tyler Jagt laments his students’ diminishing ability to concentrate on longer texts. “Six weeks into the term, I assigned my rhetoric and writing students a 20-page article. It was the same length I had assigned for five years and the same length I had read without complaint as an undergraduate a decade ago. Not one student finished it. … The students who cannot read a 20-page article today are the voters who will not be able to read a bill, or the jurors who cannot follow a closing argument, tomorrow.” [ChronicleofHigherEducation]
Major Gifts
The Milk of Human Kindness: In the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Charles Munitz examines a new book about how Macy’s magnate Nathan Straus used his fortune to fund milk pasteurization programs in New York and public health initiatives in pre-state Palestine, drawing on a newly published biography.
Rights Violation: In Canadian Jewish News, Ellin Bessner details how the sole Jewish trustee of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights resigned days before the opening of a “Nakba” exhibit, alleging the board was never shown its contents and that the museum harbors an institutional anti-Zionist bias.
Compulsive Obsession Disorder: In a Forward opinion piece, Dany Bahar, an associate professor of international and public affairs at Brown University, argues that the current fixation on AIPAC has no connection to the group’s actual influence, which he finds is less significant than other lobbying groups.
Major Gifts
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro received a $14 million bequest from 1953 alumna Harriet Evenson, which will fund scholarships, Jewish studies and an AI in Education professorship…
The Jewish Family Service of Atlantic & Cape May Counties (N.J.) and Pickled Pink Breast Health Initiative raised $75,000 earlier this month at their annual “Styled for a Cause” event…
Transitions
Word on the Street
In a letter to Bruce Leboff, chair of Keren Hayesod’s world board of trustees, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Eli Vered Hazan, Israel’s ambassador to Singapore, as his candidate for chair of the international fundraising for the organization, sidelining Ofir Akunis, who had previously been reported as Netanyahu’s preferred choice for the role…
JLens, a Jewish values-based investment advisor, surpassed $250 million in assets for its TOV ETF in its first year and expanded its investor network to 40 institutions that collectively manage $15 billion in communal assets…
Kosher grocery chain Bingo Wholesale’s holding company acquired three industrial properties in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood for $50 million…
San Diego Union-Tribune follows how the Conrad Prebys Foundation’s $3 million grant is replacing lost federal funding to keep San Diego small farms afloat by purchasing local produce for food-insecure communities…
The Massachusetts Nonprofit Collaboration Fund has expanded to 20 funders — with the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Manton Foundation and Trefler Foundation joining — and issued its first grants supporting mergers and partnerships among organizations including the Jewish Community Center of Boston and Boston Jewish Film…
The Asheville (N.C.) Watchdog examines how the influx of donations that went to local nonprofits in the wake of the devastating 2024 Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina have been spent nearly two years later…
Israeli citizen Oren David Shachar, who owns four Los Angeles hospices, was arrested and charged with defrauding Medicare of nearly $27 million…
Morris Dancyger, a child survivor of Auschwitz who built a successful pharmacy and real estate career and co-founded Calgary’s first modern art gallery, died at 86…
Pic of the Day
Nancy and James Grosfeld, joined by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, cut the ribbon on Sunday to open the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s newly renovated Nancy and James Grosfeld Campus in Jerusalem. They were joined onstage by JDC President Annie Sandler (left) and CEO Ariel Zwang (right), as well as First Lady Michal Herzog.
“This beautiful building is far more than just glass, steel, and stone. It is the very heart of the organization and a reflection of our shared values and collective responsibility,” Nancy Grosfeld said at the event. “It is a place where people come together to solve problems, respond to crises and help Jewish communities flourish. It is where partnerships are forged, programs are developed, and lives are changed.”
Birthdays
Rabbi Chaim Navon, Israeli philosopher, writer and publicist, he teaches at Yeshivat Har Etzion and Midreshet Lindenbaum, turns 53
Howard Bloom, music publicist in the 1970s and 1980s for Prince, Billy Joel and Styx, later an author on human behavior, turns 83
Sheldon J. Sandler, founder and CEO of Bel Air Partners, a financial advisory firm for automotive retailers, turns 82
Ian Bruce Eichner, real estate developer in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Las Vegas and Miami and founder of The Continuum Company, turns 81
Joseph C. Goldberg, Florida resident
Gary Brennglass, Southern California-based mentor, coach and consultant for business executives through Vistage International
Sonia Sotomayor, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice, turns 72
Michal Rozin, former member of the Knesset for the Meretz party, turns 57
Mauricio Umansky, founder and CEO of The Agency, a high-end real estate brokerage, turns 56
Mora Segal, managing director of A-Street, an investment fund focused on seeding and scaling innovative K-12 student learning
Helen Chernikoff, senior media and PR specialist at Hadassah and former news editor of eJewishPhilanthropy
Rabbi Natan Slifkin, founder and director of The Biblical Museum of Natural History in Beit Shemesh, popularly known as the “Zoo rabbi,” turns 51
Michele Merkin, former fashion model and television presenter, turns 51
Zachary Silberman, deputy director of government relations at Bread for the World
Zev Eleff, president of Gratz College in Melrose Park, Pa., turns 41
Ethan Edward Klein, one-half of the husband-and-wife duo known for their YouTube channel h3h3Productions with more than 1.3 billion views, turns 41
Isaac Snyder, organizational change management specialist at CACI International
Daniel “Dani” Charles, vice president of strategy at Saint Paul Commodities and co-founder of Veriflux, turns 39
Avital Mintz-Morgenthau, Family Medicine Residency Faculty at Jefferson Einstein Hospital in Philadelphia, Pa.
Betsy Klein, senior reporter and writer covering the White House for CNN
Hunter David Bishop, free agent center fielder, formerly in the San Francisco Giants organization, he was the 10th overall pick in the 2019 MLB draft, turns 28
