Your Daily Phil: Jewish relief groups examine aid to post-Assad Syria
Good Monday morning.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we look at a new study about Israeli Jews’ connection to their fellow Jews living abroad and report on how Jewish humanitarian aid groups are reacting to the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. We feature an opinion piece by Matt Fieldman and Charmaine Rice about their model for raising Black-Jewish dialogue from rhetoric to real connection. Also in this newsletter: Emma Goldberg, Binny Shalev and William Daroff.
What We’re Watching
JCC Global, the umbrella organization connecting Jewish community centers around the world, is hosting a conference in Budapest, Hungary, this week. Read more about it below from eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judith Sudilovsky, who will be attending the gathering.
The Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly is kicking off its annual convention in Jerusalem today. The gathering, which organizers say has drawn more than 250 Conservative/Masorti rabbis to Israel, is meant to expose the rabbis in attendance to the reality in Israel today, featuring — among other things — meetings with representatives from Gaza-border communities and families of hostages. eJP’s Judah Ari Gross will be there — say hi!
The Jewish Camp Summit in Chicago, which is being jointly hosted by the Harold Grinspoon Foundation’s JCamp 180 and the Foundation for Jewish Camp, continues after kicking off yesterday.
What You Should Know
After providing aid to civilians in southern Syria for years following the outbreak of the country’s brutal civil war, Israeli and Jewish humanitarian aid groups generally halted their operations there in 2018 as Bashar al-Assad’s regime retook the area closest to the border with Israel.
Now, more than six years later, as Syrian rebel forces have ousted the Iran- and Russia-backed dictator, these relief groups are again examining the area and determining if and how they may return to the country, reports eJewishPhilanthropy Managing Editor Judah Ari Gross.
Shachar Zehavi, the CEO of the tech-focused Israeli aid group SmartAid, told eJP that his organization was speaking with partners on the ground in Syria in order to determine how it could best help, particularly with the country’s Kurdish community, which has longstanding ties to Israel and Jews. “SmartAid aims to provide relief support to the affected Kurdish community, demonstrating our commitment to helping innocent civilians in need,” Zehavi said, noting that his organization was also operating in Turkey, Lebanon, Gaza and within Israel.
The Israeli relief nonprofit IsraAid said that it was “closely monitoring the situation” in Syria and did not have any immediate plans to operate in the country.
Israeli and Jewish groups first started providing humanitarian aid to civilians in southern Syria in 2013, with much of it initially going through Jordan. Eventually, the Israeli military signed off on these relief efforts, allowing food, fuel and other essential goods to be sent directly into Syria via the Golan Heights. Israel also began allowing injured civilians into Israeli territory for treatment. Over the years, these grew into a major humanitarian aid effort, dubbed by the Israeli military “Operation Good Neighbor.”
When the operation shut down in late 2018, the Israel Defense Forces said that over the course of its five years, more than 4,900 Syrians were brought into Israeli hospitals for medical treatment, including 1,300 children. Another 7,000 people were treated in a day clinic that was established on the border and staffed by nonprofit workers. Israel also facilitated the entry into Syria of 1,700 tons of food; 1.1 million liters of fuel; 26,000 cases of medical equipment and medication; 20 generators; 40 vehicles; 630 tents; 350 tons of clothing; 8,200 packages of diapers; and 49,000 cases of baby food.
While this operation was underway, the Israeli military officer running it — later identified as Lt. Col. (res.) Eyal Dror — assessed that the program was engendering goodwill among the local Syrian population and expressed hope that this feeling would last. “I don’t think that children who came for a heart operation and we saved their lives or the thousands of people who ate Israeli food, that they would forget Israel so quickly,” he said at the time.
The fall of the Assad regime again presents a potential opportunity for Israeli aid groups to build such positive associations with Israel and Jews in a country that has long seen them as enemies. However, as Israeli and American analysts have been warning in recent days, while Assad’s downfall is a welcome development for the Jewish state, the rebel forces currently taking control of the country, many of which espouse radical Islamist ideologies, are not necessarily a harbinger of peace between the two countries — sometimes the enemy of my enemy is also my enemy — and appropriate caution is necessary.
COMMUNITY BUILDING
For first time in 5 years, JCC Global holds in-person conference, focusing on boosting Ukrainian centers
Amid ongoing wars in both Ukraine and Israel, as well as rising antisemitism around the world, directors and leaders from 31 Jewish community centers from eight countries are coming together in Budapest, Hungary, today for a four-day JCC Global conference to launch JCC Global’s flagship cooperative program — “From Good to Great” — that is designed to enhance the capacity and sustainability of JCCs in Ukraine, which have been both harmed and made more necessary by three years of war with Russia, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judith Sudilovsky reports from the conference. This is the first such in-person gathering for JCC Global since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ukraine support: JCC Global has focused much of its work assisting the JCCs in Ukraine since the outbreak of the war there, JCC Global Executive Director Smadar Bar-Akiva told eJP. The “From Good to Great” program is a part of that focus and will establish three-year partnerships matching JCCs in Ukraine with peer JCCs in Israel, North America, Latin America and Europe providing mentorship on resource development, capacity building and facilitating people-to-people joint programing. The partnerships will also provide an opportunity for partner JCCs to learn about resilience strategies during periods of war and confrontations from JCCs in Ukraine.
SURVEY SAYS
Israeli Jews’ connection to Diaspora Jewry grows post-Oct. 7 — poll
The majority of Israeli Jews report feeling more connected to their coreligionists abroad after the Oct. 7 terror attacks than before, according to a new survey by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics that was released yesterday, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross. The study, which was conducted over the course of 2023, found that 69% of those surveyed in the first three-quarters of the year, before the Oct. 7 attacks, reported feeling a connection to Diaspora Jews, compared to 73% of the respondents in the final quarter of the year, after the Hamas attacks. As the study was conducted before many of the more prominent cases of antisemitism abroad, it is possible that numbers today are even higher, according to Shlomo Fischer, an Israeli sociologist and senior staff member of the Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem.
What does connection mean?: Overall, 70% of the respondents reported a connection to Jews abroad: 44% said they felt one to a great degree and 26% to some degree, compared to 12% who said they didn’t feel much of a connection and 12% who felt no connection (6% weren’t sure). Fischer told eJP that he was surprised by the number, expecting it to be lower. “Israelis don’t think about [Diaspora Jews] much, so I think that’s a good number,” Fischer said. In general, he said, Israelis thoughts about Diaspora Jews are split between personal connections that many have and the belief that Israel is responsible for protecting them in times of crisis. “[The respondents] are saying what they are taught in schools, which is that if these communities [abroad] are in trouble, we send sayeret matkal and bring them over — that’s the Israeli mentality,” he said, referring to the Israeli military’s elite commando unit.
COMMUNITY RELATIONS
What we’ve learned about Black-Jewish dialogue since Oct. 7
“We started Rekindle in 2021 with a small group of Black and Jewish friends having meaningful discussions at a Cleveland restaurant. Along the way, we decided we should not only revitalize Black-Jewish dialogue locally, but build a model that can scale nationally,” write co-founders Matt Fieldman and Charmaine Rice in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Beyond words: “The horrors of Oct. 7, the coordinated terror attacks against Israel, sent shockwaves across communities worldwide. In its aftermath, Black and Jewish communities in America have found themselves grappling with how to process, respond and support each other… Talking is essential, but it’s not enough. Rekindle’s focus on collaboration and partnership has shown how we can intentionally transform dialogue into solidarity.”
Worthy Reads
Measuring the Immeasurable: In The New York Times, Emma Goldberg considers the value and limitations of effective altruism. “What is the right way to give away money, anyway? The debate has been fomented partly by a group of billionaires — most prominently the Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife, Cari Tuna — whose approach to charity argues, essentially, that you do not get to feel good for having done anything at all. People should give wherever their money is most needed and most likely to yield the biggest effects… For billionaires who made their money by crunching numbers, effective altruism extends that into the way they give away their money, too… ‘Effective altruists reduce value to anything that can be quantified, but you very often cannot quantify the things we value the most,’ said Amy Schiller, the author of The Price of Humanity: How Philanthropy Went Wrong — and How to Fix It. She rattled off some examples of things whose value was hard to price: museums, libraries, parks… There’s nothing wrong with the desire to measure the value of our giving. But there’s also nothing wrong with thinking expansively about that value, or the tools for measuring it. Maybe a neighbor giving to another neighbor is what one fractured street needs. Maybe making someone else’s life magnificent is hard to price.” [NYTimes]
Around the Web
Birthright Israel announced today that it will expand the age limit for its post-Oct. 7 volunteer program to 50, beginning in January…
Binny Shalev, the director of the Russell Berrie Foundation’s Israel office, is retiring at the end of the month…
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul hosted the inaugural Anti-Hate in Education Center Convening on Antisemitism on Thursday at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan, in which she announced that the state would provide $350,000 to help New York students access the center’s Anne Frank House exhibit…
The Times of Israel spotlights the Montreal Jewish community’s growing concerns about antisemitism…
Jewish groups in Ohio are pushing state lawmakers to vote in favor of a bill that would adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism…
In the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, reflects on his recent visit to Auschwitz…
The William and Mildred Levine Foundation issued a $1 million grant to Temple B’rith Kodesh in Rochester, N.Y., to support Jewish education at the synagogue…
Billboard profiles the Grateful Dead’s long history of philanthropy as MusiCares, the charitable organization founded by the Recording Academy, names the band its 2025 MusiCares Persons of the Year…
Eyal Shani opened a new branch of his Malka restaurant in West Palm Beach, Fla….
Axios interviewed GoFundMe CEO Tim Cadogan about changes in fundraising and philanthropy at an event sponsored by Bank of America…
In a New York Times opinion piece, Arnab Datta looks at how environmental groups will have to change their tactics for a Trump White House…
Barton Lowell Kaufman, a businessman, philanthropist and baseball player, died last Tuesday at 83…
Rabbi Meir Fendel, the founder of the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County, N.Y., died over the weekend…
Pic of the Day
Members of the Melbourne, Australia, Jewish community walk past flowers today that were left by supporters at the Adass Israel Synagogue, which was torched in what Australian authorities have deemed a terrorist act. Australian police said today that they are still looking for three suspects in connection with the arson attack.
Birthdays
Los Angeles investor and entrepreneur, she is the founder of CaregiversDirect and Beverly Hills Egg Donation, and a past president of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, Lisa Greer…
Retired diplomat who served as Israel’s ambassador to Russia, China and the U.K., Zvi Heifetz… Former senior White House aide and deputy secretary of the U.S. Treasury in the Clinton and Obama administrations, now vice-chair of the Brunswick Group, Neal S. Wolin… CEO at Alta Vista Partners and former COO of the New York Mets, Jeffrey Scott Wilpon… General counsel to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Daniel “Dan” Greenberg… Foreign minister of Israel, Gideon Sa’ar … Singer-songwriter, music producer and founder of StaeFit workout apparel, Stacey Liane Levy Jackson… President of the National Democratic Institute and former State Department official, Tamara Cofman Wittes… Singer-songwriter and son of Bob Dylan, he rose to fame as the lead singer and primary songwriter for the rock band the Wallflowers, Jakob Dylan… Senior rabbi of the Boca Raton Synagogue, Rabbi Efrem Goldberg… Managing director at Finsbury/FGS Global, Eric Wachter… Award-winning screenwriter, film director and producer, Eliza Hittman… Actor, comedian and musician, best known for his role as Howard Wolowitz in the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory,” Simon Helberg… Staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society, Daniella Rohr Adelsberg… Singer, songwriter and entertainer in the Orthodox pop music industry, Mordechai Shapiro… Digital director and policy fellow for the R Street Institute, Shoshana Weissmann… Film and television actor, Jaren Miles Lewison… Israeli fashion model, Dorit Revelis…
