Your Daily Phil: JFNA’s got talent: Mandel Foundation is nurturing it
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on the Mandel Supporting Foundation doubling down on its support for JFNA’s talent development programs with a $11.5 million donation, and on the discontinuation of the beloved synagogue kosher candy staple, Sunkist Fruit Gems. We also speak with a group of survivors of antisemitic attacks who visited Capitol Hill yesterday to lobby for federal security funding. We feature an opinion piece by Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman that highlights the role of Jewish literacy in Jewish advocacy and one by Avital Blonder that calls for funding levers of change rather than throwing money after the symptoms of systemic problems. Also in this issue: Ashley Smith, JackandBethanie Gorny and Rabbi Elliot Mathias.
Today’s Your Daily Phil was curated by eJP Managing Editor Judah Ari Gross, Israel Editor Justin Hayet and Opinion Editor Rachel Kohn. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to address the U.N. General Assembly around 2 p.m. ET today during his brief visit to the United States. Security is expected to be tight ahead of planned protests around U.N. headquarters in Manhattan.
Just ahead of Netanyahu’s arrival, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter rushed back to Jerusalem to be at the bedside of his son Neria, a reservist who was critically injured in a car-ramming attack at a West Bank checkpoint yesterday, nearly three years after Leiter lost another son during the fighting in Gaza.
What You Should Know
The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Supporting Foundation is doubling down on its support for Jewish Federations of North America’s talent pipeline, providing an $11.5 million grant — its second such donation — to continue and expand its career development programs, the groups exclusively shared with eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim on Thursday.
The three-year grant will help grow programs that were launched with the foundation’s initial $9.5 million grant, including the Executive Accelerator, management and supervision training, the Jewish Federations Fundraising Institute, executive search and efforts to build leadership pipelines.
The investment in JFNA’s talent pipeline has been particularly timely, Liz Fisher, chief talent officer of the Mandel Center for Leadership Excellence at JFNA, told eJP, because “in the same way that we’ve had kind of an engagement surge post-Oct. 7, we’ve also had a professional surge across the Jewish community.”
News
END OF AN ERA
Sunkist Fruit Gems, a colorful kosher staple of synagogue celebrations, discontinued
After more than a half-century of sweetening Jewish events, the kosher staple Sunkist Fruit Gems has been discontinued as of May, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher reports. The neon-colored candy is ubiquitous with Jewish celebrations; nearly every bar and bat mitzvah and aufruf in America features the celebrants getting showered in the candy.
Time to stock up: “They’ve gone from being a classic candy to being a collectible,” Jon Prince, the owner of CandyFavorites.com and McKeesport Candy Co., a candy wholesaler established in 1927, told eJP. The discontinuation is part of a trend in the candy world, he said, where private-equity firms acquire classic brands and market them for the masses — in the process often rendering them non-kosher.
SECURITY ADVOCACY
‘Life and death’: Survivors of antisemitic attacks lobby Congress for security aid
A group of survivors of antisemitic attacks across the nation is visiting Capitol Hill on Wednesday to lobby in favor of legislation aimed at protecting Jewish community institutions from future attacks, reports Marc Rod for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
Living proof: “I want to use my story and my voice and show firsthand how federal funding that we did receive through grants actually made the difference between life and death,” Cassi Cohen, the director of strategic development at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich., told JI ahead of the meetings. “I’m living proof of that right now, because of the security measures we were able to put in place. I want every member of Congress to hear that loud and clear, and hopefully use that as a platform to create change and safer environments for our Jewish institutions.”
Read the full report and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
Opinion
THE MORE YOU KNOW
Why today’s global advocacy demands investment in Torah learning
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman, the American Jewish Committee’s U.S. director of Jewish communal engagement and partnerships, explains why the AJC is inviting the wider community to join it in embarking on a year of Jewish learning.
“This is not about prescribing religious observance, and we are not making a pivot from a global Jewish advocacy organization to a beit midrash. Rather, we are embracing a fundamental truth: Jewish advocacy is stronger when rooted in Jewish knowledge, and you cannot fully understand Jewish faith, history and identity without engaging with the texts that have carried us for 5787 years.”
READER RESPONDS
A sukkah is not a home
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Avital Blonder, CEO of Manof, a social urban renewal organization in Israel, responds to a recent interview with Latet founder Gilles Darmon (“After 30 years, Latet’s founder warns persistent poverty is an ‘existential threat’ for Israel,” Sept. 2).
“Jewish philanthropy has spent decades getting better at identifying needs, funding organizations and measuring outputs. But we have been much less creative about the capital itself and about systemic change.”
Worthy Reads
Army of Love: Writing on Facebook, Ashley Smith, the wife of wounded Belleville, Canada, police officer Jeff Smith, who was seriously injured in a shooting attack on a synagogue, thanks the medical teams for saving her husband and the wider community, particularly the Jewish community for its ongoing support. “So I am asking for one thing. Keep it coming. Prayer. Hope. Faith. Love. Whatever you have to give, please keep giving it. We will take every bit of it we can get. Jeff has a very long, difficult road ahead. But he is not walking it alone. He has an army of love behind him.”
Built to End: In her Substack, philanthropic strategist Yael Simon urges organization leaders to plan for continuity — so the work survives without them. “Someone leaves a role and within a quarter the thing they ran has slowed, or drifted, or stopped. The usual explanation is that the successor was weaker. Occasionally that is true. More often the thing was never built to survive a handover, because nobody designed for one.”
The Void Playbook: In The Associated Press, journalist Glenn Gamboa covers former President Bill Clinton’s opening address at this week’s Clinton Global Initiative, in which he called on philanthropy to step in to offset shrinking government aid. “‘We know that we can’t completely fill the hole that retreating governments are leaving behind,’ said Clinton, adding that philanthropy and other sectors will have to find new ideas and resources to protect progress on issues already made.”
Major Gifts
The Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation donated $750,000 to Resilient Retreat, a Sarasota, Fla., nonprofit offering free trauma recovery programs…
A $100,000 donation from Jack and Bethanie Gorny will fund a new antisemitism lecture series at Stockton University, run through its Holocaust Resource Center beginning in the 2026-27 year…
Transitions
Kesher Yehudi, an Israeli nonprofit that matches Haredi and secular Israelis for one-on-one Torah learning, has appointed Rabbi Elliot Mathias as its first CEO; Rebbetzin Tzili Schneider, who created the organization, will stay on with the title of “founder”…
American Friends of the Hebrew University promoted Matt Cohen to national director of institutional giving…ish president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America…
Word on the Street
Families of the 46 Americans killed in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks will gather in Washington on Sept. 30 for a State Department ceremony organized with the American Jewish Committee, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…
The Chicago Rabbinical Council launched a divorce program that uses both mediation and binding beit din arbitration, a structure it says lets couples finalize a get before fighting over money and custody…
European sales of Israel Bonds have stalled with no EU regulator willing to approve the prospectuses, effectively creating a roughly €2.2 billion ($2.5 billion) a year boycott…
The J7, which represents Jewish communities in seven countries, urged United Nations member states in an open letter to choose a successor to Secretary-General António Guterres who will confront antisemitism…
Israeli films and filmmakers make up about half the 31-film lineup at the 35th Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival next month — an emphasis director Tzvia Shelef ties to Israeli cinema’s lost exposure since the Oct. 7 terror attacks…
The Atlanta Jewish Times spotlights a three-day summit in Atlanta where some 100 rabbis, Black pastors and Black Jewish leaders signed a covenant pledging joint action against antisemitism and anti-Black racism…
The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that the Gates Foundation shuttered its roughly $500 million U.S. anti-poverty program in favor of AI tools that help people claim benefits, a pivot critics say oversimplifies poverty…
Longtime Manchester United star Wayne Rooney, who played for D.C. United after leaving ManU in 2017, revealed that his Polish-born maternal great-grandmother was Jewish in a new docuseries, which includes a trip with his wife and sons to Auschwitz…
A Philadelphia educator and anti-Israel activist who claimed to be Black and Palestinian publicly acknowledged that she was Jewish, with family living in the West Bank, prompting local activist groups with which she was affiliated to distance themselves from her…
Varda Rabin, a Tel Aviv-born philanthropist who held leadership posts at the Jewish Federation Bay Area and the Oshman Family JCC and later co-founded an Israeli community-building institute, died at 81…
Pic of the Day
Hundreds of people attend a rally last night near United Nations headquarters calling on world leaders to combat rising antisemitism. The demonstration was organized by UJA-Federation of New York in partnership with a host of local and national Jewish organizations.
Birthdays
Noreena Hertz, economist and best-selling author, turns 59 (seen with her husband, Danny Cohen)
Joanne Greenberg, author of 26 books, best known for the semi-autobiographical novel I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, turns 94
Judith Margolis, artist working visually in paintings, drawings, artist’s books and multimedia collages, turns 82
Rafael Eldad, retired Israeli diplomat who served as Israel’s ambassador to Peru, Argentina, Brazil and Chile, turns 77
David Pecker, former CEO of American Media, publisher of celebrity and health and fitness magazines, turns 75
Franz Lidz, feature writer for Sports Illustrated for 27 years, he is a 2015 inductee into the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, turns 75
Michael Weiss, attorney and former judge advocate
Jeffrey Hecktman, founder, executive chairman and CEO of Hilco Global, turns 73
William Gross, lead public safety success manager at FirstNet by AT&T
Christopher L. Eisgruber, president of Princeton University since 2013, in his mid-40s he discovered that his mother was Jewish, turns 65
Alan Popovsky, co-founder and principal at DC-based PRG Hospitality
Chanina Sperlin, EVP of governmental affairs at the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council
Marc Guggenheim, screenwriter, television producer, comic book writer and novelist, turns 56
Yael Goldman-Pfeffer, Israeli television host, actor and model, turns 48
Jessica Schumer, Yale Law graduate and head of New York policy and community engagement at Amazon
Alexandra Jaffe, former White House reporter at the Associated Press, now editorial manager at Elastic
Ben Platt, actor, singer and songwriter, turns 33
Benjamin David Goldberg, rap musician, known professionally as Token, turns 28
