Your Daily Phil: Jewish values at heart of communal response to L.A. fires
Good Monday morning.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we interview the Jewish Funders Network’s West Coast director about the Jewish communal response to the ongoing fires and the needs and questions the L.A. Jewish community is likely to face in the days and months ahead. We report on the impending retirement of Susan Weiss and closure of the Center for Women’s Justice in Israel, and efforts by universities to settle outstanding lawsuits over accusations of antisemitism before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. We feature opinion pieces by Rabbi Noah Farkas and Steven Windmueller, who share their thoughts about Jewish solidarity, crisis leadership and more. Also in this newsletter: Stewart and Lynda Resnick, Ben Stiller and Hadiya Sittah.
What We’re Watching
The International Lion of Judah Conference kicked off on Sunday and continues through Tuesday in Atlanta. An exclusive gathering for female philanthropists — to be a Lion of Judah, a woman must donate at least $5,000 to her federation’s annual campaign — this year’s conference features expert speakers, skills-building sessions, networking opportunities and a performance by Project Heroes.
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) launched “I Survived Auschwitz: Remember This,” a two-week social media campaign to mark the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. ????Each day a different survivor of the notorious extermination camp will answer the question: What is one specific thing — a person, a moment or an experience — you want people to remember for generations to come?
The Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., is hosting “Combatting Antisemitism as a Global Threat,” an in-person and online discussion featuring a panel of experts from various countries who will share challenges their nations face, lessons they have learned and strategies for addressing antisemitism now and in the future.
What You Should Know
Volunteers are clamoring for opportunities to help in the aftermath of the devastating wildfires in the L.A. area, Tzivia Schwartz Getzug, West Coast director of the Jewish Funders Network, told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim on Sunday. Schwartz Getzug talked about the importance of supporting local organizations, the immediate versus longer-term needs she anticipates the Jewish community will encounter and concerns about the fire’s possible resurgence. (As of Sunday evening, the fires had reportedly killed 24 people, burned 40,000 acres and destroyed 12,000 structures since last week, including synagogues and homes in the Jewish community.) The following has been edited for clarity and length.
Nira Dayanim: What are you seeing in terms of how people are stepping up?
Tzivia Schwartz Getzug: Personally, I don’t know anybody who is not looking for volunteer opportunities, donation opportunities, engagement opportunities. Anecdotally, we’re hearing people are coming together in a way we haven’t seen in a really long time and looking for opportunities to support one another, whether it’s donating to the federation or other kinds of funds that are being developed, or showing up to provide meals to firefighters and first responders, or supporting the folks in the evacuation centers.
This morning I spent a couple of hours at OBK LA, which is Our Big Kitchen Los Angeles, an organization that normally throughout the year provides opportunities for the community to come together to prepare nutritious, hot meals for the food insecure and distribute them both in the Jewish community and the broader community. I was there helping to make over 500 meals for first responders and first responders and evacuees, and the place was packed. I actually had to ask for permission to participate, because there are so many people there looking for ways to volunteer. I spoke with the director of the program, Yossi Segelman, and he showed me his cellphone, which was just exploding with people writing to OBK LA asking for opportunities to engage or to volunteer.
So, we’re just trying to find ways for those folks who are looking for volunteer opportunities to engage, and then also for those who want to donate and be a part of the response that way, to be able to engage that way as well.
TRANSITIONS
‘A bittersweet decision’: Center for Women’s Justice will close when founder retires in coming months
After more than 20 years of operations, the Israeli Center for Women’s Justice — one of the country’s most active legal nonprofits that advocates for greater freedom from state religious authorities — has announced it will shut down in the coming months as its founder and leader, Susan Weiss, retires, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judith Sudilovsky.
Passing the baton: CWJ’s efforts are focused on both secular and religious courts, and the creative legal strategies that Weiss pioneered, initially considered long shots — such as suing recalcitrant husbands for damages in civil court — have since become standard practice by lawyers in Israel and abroad, CWJ spokesperson Rachel Stomel noted. “While no other organization focuses on our unique combination, there are excellent and effective organizations that are doing good work on the various elements of what we did. With funding tight and the High Court [of Justice] facing unprecedented pressure, we felt that the timing was right to pass the baton,” Stomel said via email.
CAMPUS BEAT
Universities work to settle discrimination cases before Trump takes over
Several universities are scrambling to settle antisemitism complaints in anticipation of a tougher legal environment when President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House next week, reports Haley Cohen for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
No coincidence: Trump ran on a promise that, if re-elected, U.S. universities would lose accreditation and federal support if they fail to stop the rising level of antisemitism that has roiled campuses nationwide since the Oct. 7 terror attacks in Israel. While the federal government does not directly accredit universities, it plays a significant role in overseeing the organizations that give colleges accreditation. Kenneth Marcus, founder and chairman of the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and former U.S. assistant secretary of education in the Bush and Trump administrations, told JI that it’s not a coincidence that the Brandeis Center — which represents Jewish students in their lawsuits against universities — is “hearing from a lot of colleges and universities that are much more motivated to discuss settlement than they had been before the election.”
Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
‘YOU ARE NOT ALONE’
Jewish values will guide us through this crisis, as they always have
“Less than a week ago, I was looking out of a 12th-story window of a hotel near Los Angeles International Airport, watching with horror as flames and smoke began to consume the hillsides of the Pacific Palisades,” writes Rabbi Noah Farkas, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation Los Angeles, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “While it will be months before the true damage is understood, the devastation caused by the multiple simultaneous wildfires is utterly catastrophic and unprecedented.”
Showing up for each other: “The wave of destruction we continue to witness is being met with an equal wave of chesed, or loving-kindness. I received a phone call two nights ago from the former president of Congregation Beth Israel of Gulfport, Miss. In 2005, I had the honor to serve as their rabbi in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. For two years, he and I worked closely together to rebuild the community. During that time, Jews around the world donated funds and came to Gulfport to volunteer and rebuild. In our conversation, he told me that he had felt so supported by Jews he never met, he wanted to return the favor. In a similar conversation, Doron Almog, chairman of the executive of The Jewish Agency for Israel, said that his agency and its resources are standing by to assist us in our time of need just as we have helped them since Oct. 7. ‘You are not alone,’ Almog said.”
BE STRONG AND BE STRENGTHENED
In the wake of L.A. fires, it is our responsibility to rebuild and sustain
“The core imperative of every community professional is to ensure the security and well-being of their community. Our tradition speaks to this sacred principle,” writes Steven Windmueller, professor emeritus of Jewish communal studies at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Jewish storyline unfolding: “Beyond the broader implications of this moment, which will involve one of the largest relief efforts in the history of the United States, a distinctive and challenging Jewish storyline is unfolding. At least 25% of the Jewish population of Greater Los Angeles live within the contours of these fires. We must take note not only of the losses of homes and businesses but also of the destruction of synagogues and other major institutions… For our Jewish communal leaders, both our lay leaders and our professionals, this moment will represent their single greatest challenge and responsibility as we collectively seek to rebuild lives and recreate community. They must see themselves equipped and committed to the tasks at hand. Their dedication to the ideals of growing and strengthening Jewish life are at play in this moment. Lives are dependent upon them.”
Worthy Reads
A Voice Amid the Flames: In the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Rabbi Paul Kipnes of Congregation Or Ami in Calabasas, Calif., shares the questions he struggled with before Shabbat as wildfires burned just five miles away. “What wisdom could I offer the couple who lost their new home and everything in it? As I sat with them, I questioned whether anything I could say would matter. So instead of filling the space with words, I listened. I gave them permission to mourn — mourning the zecher (remembrances) of their lives: the mementos that reflected their love, the memories of raising their three remarkable children, the sense of safety that was taken so abruptly. I reminded them that their choice to protect life — l’chaim! — was an act of profound Jewish faith… What could I say during Shabbat services to comfort the weary without offering empty reassurances? I turned to lessons learned from the 2018 Woolsey Fire, when our community faced similar devastation. I thought of the line in the Tanakh: ‘… but God was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still small voice’ (1 Kings 19:12). I shared this passage with the congregation, reminding them that even when we are overwhelmed, exhausted and grieving, we can find that still small voice in the love and presence of others. In the quiet strength of our community, we hear the divine echo that reminds us we are not alone.” [JTA]
Don’t Assume: Just because a project was intended to be socially responsible or gives the impression that it is environmentally friendly does not mean that it is the case, warn Lauren Kaufmann and Helet Botha in The Chronicle of Philanthropy. “Investors can aim not only to make money but to benefit society while doing so. But few of those impact investors follow up on whether their strategy is having a positive impact, we found in a study published in the Journal of Business Ethics. Impact investing aims to generate financial returns while also creating positive social or environmental outcomes. But having the intention of doing good by selecting the right assets doesn’t guarantee that you will. We call this uncertainty ‘impact risk.’ After conducting 124 interviews with impact investors and an experiment with 435 participants, we found that, rather than evaluate impact risk directly, many impact investors presume that they will succeed at having a positive effect on the world when they assess their investment options.” [ChronicleofPhilanthropy]
Word on the Street
Inside Philanthropy spotlights regional foundations, celebrities and other donors committing to support relief and recovery from the wildfires plaguing Los Angeles…
Fortune reports on antisemitic conspiracy theories targeting billionaire couple Stewart and Lynda Resnick, owners of California’s largest agriculture businesses, accusing them of hoarding water and exacerbating the wildfires…
NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff covered his own synagogue’s survival of the Palisades Fire ??in a news segment aired on Friday. “Seeing the Kehillat Israel synagogue standing amid so much devastation is staggering,” he said…
The Forward spotlights the story of the Nehdar Torah, a historic Torah scroll rescued from Iran and then saved from the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center during the deadly fires in Los Angeles…
SmartAid is on the ground in L.A. working with Israeli and local American groups to address needs such as access to clean water, electricity and Wi-Fi…
Two synagogues in Sydney, Australia, were defaced with swastikas and antisemitic language over the weekend…
Protestors in Bologna, Italy, targeted a synagogue with Molotov cocktails and fireworks, scrawling “Justice for Gaza” on nearby wall, during protests in response to a November police chase in the city ending in the death of an Egyptian-Italian man…
The Shine A Light on Antisemitism initiative announced the 19 winners of its 2024 Civic Courage Award…
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul tweeted on Friday that universal school breakfast and lunch — including for non-public school children — is on her 2025 State Agenda…
A New York Times profile of Ben Stiller focuses on his latest big project as well as his thoughts on his Jewish identity…
A group of American college students participated in a 10-day trip to Israel and the United Arab Emirates over their winter break, sponsored by the Israel on Campus Coalition’s Geller International Fellowship, to learn about the implementation of the 2020 Abraham Accords…
Hadiya Sittah, one of the last remaining members of the ancient Jewish community in Damascus, Syria, died at 92…
Artist Raquel Rabinovich, whose work is held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others, died at 95…
Pic of the Day
A line forms behind the Ve’ahavta Mobile Jewish Response to Homelessness (MJRH) outreach van in Alexandria Park in Toronto on Friday. Every night, two vans visit several locations in downtown Toronto and Scarborough, and outreach workers and volunteers deliver meals, clothing, sleeping bags, hygiene kits, harm reduction kits, hot coffee and other goods to people in need.
Birthdays
Israeli singer and rapper, known by his stage name Nechi Nech, Ravid Plotnik…
Argentine writer, he has authored 14 novels, 17 essay collections, four short story collections and two biographies, Marcos Aguinis… Marriage and family therapist in Bakersfield, Calif., Kathleen Arnold-Chambers… Las Vegas resident, Cathy Nierenberg… Retired teacher, Lucia Meyerson… NYC pediatrician at Carnegie Hill Pediatrics, Barry B. Stein, MD… President of the Pritzker Traubert Foundation, she was the director of the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships during the Obama administration, Cindy S. Moelis… Actress and producer, winner of 11 Emmy Awards, she is best known for “Saturday Night Live,” “Seinfeld” and “Veep,” Julia Louis-Dreyfus… Kaileh Lynn Pistol… Founder of the Freelancers Union, she was a MacArthur genius fellow in 1999, Sara Horowitz… Retired member of the Senate of Canada for 12 years, she is a past chair of the UJA of Greater Toronto, Linda Frum… Partner in King & Spalding, he served as deputy attorney general of the U.S. following 12 years as U.S. attorney for Maryland, Rod J. Rosenstein… Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel from 2013 until last July, Rabbi David Baruch Lau… Lifelong resident of Greenwich Village, a two-time Emmy Award winner as a television producer, Susanna Beth Aaron… Executive assistant to the president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits after 15 years at the Jewish Federations of North America, Bruce Maclver… Senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he works on Middle Eastern political-military affairs, Kenneth M. Pollack… President and CEO of Amazon, Andrew R. Jassy… Social media professional and long-time activist for Israel, Heidi Krizer Daroff… French screenwriter and director, Alice Winocour… Statistician and writer who analyzes sports and elections, Nate Silver… Marriage and family therapist, Shira Berenson Feinstein… Communications consultant based in Denver, Carly Freedman Schlafer… Rebecca Seider… Sandra Shapiro…
