Your Daily Phil: Keep calm and carry on? Q&A with former CEO of Britain’s Jewish Leadership Council
Add EJP on GoogleGood Friday morning!
n today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we interview veteran British Jewish communal professional Simon Johnson about how the community is coping with the recent violent antisemitic attacks and mounting structural costs to protect local institutions. We profile Amy Spitalnick, head of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and report on new bipartisan legislation in Congress aiming to protect people from harassment and intimidation at places of worship. We feature an opinion piece by Avrum Lapin highlighting trends in the world of Jewish philanthropy, Russel Neiss responds to Harley Lippman’s recent op-ed urging Jewish investment in guiding the trajectory of AI and Alex Pomson shares early insights from the Jim Joseph Foundation’s Growing Educators and Leaders Study. Also in this issue: Alex Sinclair, Bill Ackman and Matthew Halpern.
Shabbat Shalom!
Today’s Your Daily Phil was curated by eJP Opinion Editor Rachel Kohn and Israel Editor Justin Hayet. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
President Donald Trump announced a three-week extension of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon yesterday — still acknowledging Israel’s right to act in its own defense if attacked — after a White House meeting between the ambassadors from the two countries.
The Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta is hosting Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, who during the Biden administration served as the State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, and Holocaust educator Brendan Murphy, the founder of the Bearing Witness Institute, for a public conversation on “Antisemitism in America Today – Reality, Risk, and Response” on Sunday.
What You Should Know
A series of targeted attacks against Jewish institutions in the U.K. is “chipping away” at the community’s sense of safety, Simon Johnson, former CEO of the Jewish Leadership Council from 2013 to 2020, told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Justin Hayet on Thursday.
In a wide-ranging interview, Johnson, who is currently a trustee of The Bloom Foundation and chair of Camp Simcha U.K. and splits his time between London and Israel since making aliyah last year, discussed the escalating physical and psychological toll of these attacks, the structural costs of protection and the long-term impact on the sustainability of British Jewish life.
Justin Hayet: The recent uptick of attacks in the United Kingdom against Jewish institutions has sent shockwaves through the community. How has the sense of safety changed for British Jews?
Simon Johnson: The veneer of security is being stripped away. For lots of people, even at the height of antisemitic attacks, even in the areas where the Jews live, there was broadly a tense, but steady, stable level of security. People thought, provided they stayed within the community, there would be a relative level of safety and security. It has chipped away a feeling that we will be OK if we stay in our area. That has shocked people. It caused them to question how secure they really are.
JH: In response to recent events, many are calling for increased security at Jewish institutions across the U.K. Is that the right solution, or are we missing a deeper issue?
SJ: The response of the government is always to say that we will increase the police presence, better security and build more walls, and that is probably the correct assessment. But as Lord David Wolfson of Tredegar said in the House of Lords: “But so far as the government’s response is concerned, while we are always grateful for support for the Community Security Trust, the debate about Jewish security needs to move away from being about higher walls around our synagogues and more guards outside our schools and on to the root causes of why we need such security?”
The answer to this problem is not merely more guards, higher fencing, steel-reinforced, or bomb-proof glass. This is addressing the symptoms of the problem. What the Jewish community cannot do alone, and the government has to, is they have to address the causes. To stop enabling visible anti-Jewish racism in the public arena. Stop making it possible.
SPITALNICK SPOTLIGHT
Freed from federation constraints, Spitalnick expands JCPA, aims to align with U.S. Jews’ progressive views
After Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) hosted a livestream about rising antisemitism with Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of Manhattan’s Park Avenue Synagogue called the event “the most refreshing 30 minutes of YouTube I’ve ever experienced.” But two-and-a-half years into Spitalnick’s tenure, while JCPA has reorganized and grown substantially, there has also been some contention, Jay Deitcher reports for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Trusting the community: Some on the left have criticized Spitalnick’s liberal Zionist stances, while critics on the right — including her immediate predecessor, in an interview with eJP — feel that her progressive politics pigeonhole the Jewish community and that her organization is spending resources on cultivating relationships with individuals and groups who are not allies of the Jewish community. “All of the poll data tells us the majority of the Jewish community is holding this complexity, is rejecting the binary approach to fighting antisemitism and protecting democracy that has shaped so much of the public conversation,” Spitalnick said.
SACRED SPACES
Tom Suozzi introduces federal buffer zone bill protecting houses of worship
Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) and Max Miller (R-OH) introduced the SACRED Act, a bipartisan bill establishing a 100-foot buffer zone around religious institutions to protect attendees from harassment and intimidation. Modeled after the FACE Act, the legislation criminalizes the obstruction of access and targeted threats while maintaining protections for peaceful, non-disruptive picketing, Marc Rod reports for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
Drawing the line: The bill, which applies within 100 feet of a religious institution, would create criminal and civil penalties for individuals who attempt to intimidate or obstruct someone in a manner that causes reasonable fear for physical safety to prevent them from entering or exiting a place of worship. It also applies — within that 100-foot zone — to individuals who intentionally approach within eight feet of a person seeking to exercise their freedom to worship, for the purpose of intimidating or harassing them.
Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
PHILANTHROPY TRENDS
The more things change…
“We hear so often that giving is undergoing profound transformation, shaped by economic pressures, generational shifts, technological innovation and evolving donor expectations,” writes Avrum Lapin, president of fundraising and management consulting firm The Lapin Group, LLC, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “A knowledge of emerging trends along with proven ‘best practices’ is essential for nonprofit leaders seeking to advance growth-oriented, high-impact fundraising programs going forward.”
For example: “One of the defining trends in major gift philanthropy is the continued environmental shift toward ‘fewer donors, more dollars.’ Overall, giving remains resilient, but growth is increasingly driven by larger gifts rather than broad-based participation. … This concentration of giving means that to grow, nonprofits must invest more heavily in identifying, cultivating and stewarding high-capacity donors. It widens the gap between large, well-resourced institutions and smaller organizations struggling to access major donors. As I have noted and stressed over the past decade, both in previous op-eds in eJewishPhilanthropy and with our clients, future success will increasingly depend on intentional major gift strategies, robust prospect research and use of data, integrated into long-term relationship building.”
READER RESPONDS
This isn’t a revolution. It’s a rerun.
“I read Harley Lippman’s ‘Jewish philanthropy can’t miss the AI revolution’ (April 20) with a sense of déjà vu born of more than a dozen years of writing the same piece every time the Jewish world meets a new shiny thing,” writes Jewish educator and technologist Russel Neiss in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “If we rush into AI as if it were a magic wand, we will repeat the same mistakes of pouring money into platforms while starving the people who actually sustain Jewish life.”
Misplaced focus: “Lippman suggests that this time might be different if our response involves funding chairs in AI ethics, convening technologists and rabbis, and bringing Jewish voices to emerging policy debates. These are serious proposals, but they are also familiar ones. They prioritize visibility, prestige, and influence at the highest levels while remaining largely disconnected from the institutions where Jewish life is actually taught, practiced, and sustained. Without a far deeper investment in those institutions and the people who lead them, such efforts risk becoming another layer of well-intentioned infrastructure with little capacity to translate into lived experience.”
THE HINGE
Supervision and the sustainability of Jewish educators: Early signals from a longitudinal study
“Concern about the sustainability of the Jewish educator workforce is both widespread and well-founded… But much of what we know comes from snapshots: exit interviews, climate surveys or moments of acute stress such as in the wake of Oct. 7, 2023. What’s been missing is a longitudinal lens: not just how educators feel at a moment in time, but what actually changes in their professional lives from one year to the next — and what does not,” writes Alex Pomson, principal and managing director at Rosov Consulting, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “The Growing Educators and Leaders Study (GELS), launched by the Jim Joseph Foundation in 2023, is designed to provide that lens.”
Early observations: “Educators who reported improvements in supervision were significantly more likely to report increased career satisfaction and a stronger sense of professional contribution. Conversely, where supervisory relationships deteriorated, satisfaction often declined — even while commitment to Jewish educational work itself remained intact. Interviews help explain why this pattern is so pronounced. Educators do not describe supervision as a narrow managerial function limited to evaluation or oversight. They experience it as a structural and relational condition that shapes nearly every aspect of their work: clarity of expectations, alignment of priorities, workload, opportunities for growth and whether their contributions are recognized.”
Worthy Reads
Good for Business: In Globes, Dean Shmuel Elmas reports on a study that found the IDF’s elite Talpiot Program produces “unicorn” founders at five times the rate of Stanford University’s MBA program, with 3% of its graduates launching companies valued at over $1 billion. “The Israel Defense Forces Talpiot Program has for decades been seen as ‘the jewel in the crown’ of the Israel Defense Forces. It was established under the Ministry of Defense Directorate of Defense R&D [MAFAT in Hebrew], with the aim of identifying outstanding young people and training them as a technological-operational reserve. It turns out that this military training translates into business success on an exceptional scale.” [Globes]
‘Influence the Influencers’: In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Eden Stiffman spotlights Bridge Entertainment Labs, a nonprofit that advises writers, producers and executives in the entertainment industry on integrating themes of pluralism and shared humanity into their work. “Nonprofits have long tried with mixed results to influence culture with awareness campaigns on everything from breast cancer and bicycle lanes to climate change and marriage equality. They have spent funds on advertising, worked with celebrity spokespeople, and tried to push narratives through media of all kinds. Bridge’s approach is more indirect: working upstream, with storytellers who shape what audiences see, rather than trying to reach those audiences directly.” [ChronicleofPhilanthropy]
Word on the Street
Missouri adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism for use in state schools and colleges…
Following the temporary closure of Congregation Beth Israel and the Shlenker School in Houston due to “unspecified threats,” law enforcement announced the arrest of 18-year-old Angelina Han Hicks in North Carolina and a 16-year-old in Texas for alleged conspiracy to commit mass murder by driving a vehicle into the congregation…
Nassau County Police arrested a 15-year-old Syosset High School student and his father after a police investigation into antisemitic graffiti at the school led to the discovery and controlled detonation of homemade explosives, including nitroglycerin, at their Long Island home…
New York City Councilmember Simcha Felder reportedly stormed out of a task force meeting after the administration refused to codify a formal definition of antisemitism…
A Stanford student reportedly took a sign from a joint tabling effort on campus by advocacy groups CAMERA on Campus and ISRAEL-is yesterday. The incident escalated when a former IDF soldier and ISRAEL-is staff member allegedly tackled the student. ISRAEL-is told eJewishPhilanthropy it is reviewing the incident and has suspended the employee involved until further notice…
The Treasury Department announced a new transparency initiative to revise Form 990, aiming to expose hidden funding and strengthen oversight of 501(c)(3) organizations regarding government grants, contracts and fiscal sponsorships…
Israeli airline Israir is launching daily flights between Ben Gurion Airport and JFK airport starting in late July…
Police in the central Israeli city of Modi’in detained Alex Sinclair, a Hebrew University and Jewish Theological Seminary lecturer, after a cafe patron claimed his crochet kippah featuring both Israeli and Palestinian flags constituted “incitement.” The officer also cut out the Palestinian flag from the yarmulke before returning it to Sinclair…
Following life-saving surgeries for severe multi-system trauma and liver damage sustained during the March 21 Iranian missile strike on Arad, a 7-year-old girl has been discharged from Schneider Children’s Medical Center to continue her recovery at home…
The Wall Street Journal reports that Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Inc. is launching an IPO to sell up to 33.12 million shares at $50 each…
Israa Jaabis, a Palestinian woman convicted of a 2015 attempted car bombing, addressed UC Berkeley students on campus via video call this week…
World ORT has launched the Mikhail Libkin Memorial Award in honor of the late director of ORT Russia, who died suddenly last month…
Michael Tilson Thomas, a conductor and composer known for drawing inspiration from his family’s history in Yiddish theater, died at 81…
Transitions
Maryland Hillel announced leadership changes in advance of the opening of its new Rosenbloom Hillel Center, with Rabbi Ari Israel taking over as CEO, Marty Rochlin as executive director and Rachel Gordon as assistant director of student life…
Pic of the Day
Some 100 Jewish day school educators from across North America attend the inaugural “Together We Thrive” conference on Monday, which was held at The Shefa School in Manhattan, focused on including students with learning difficulties in Jewish day schools.
“Learners in our schools have more needs than ever,” Rebecca Ritter, head of teaching and learning at The Shefa School, said in a statement. “This is a moment for us as a community to rise to the occasion and begin to build a ‘field’ for special education in mainstream day schools. Establishing a passionate community of practitioners, researchers and organizations will enable us to build this field together by developing a common language, shared assumptions, recognized expertise, standards for practice, a pipeline and leadership. This will impact the lives of tens of thousands of Jewish students.”
Birthdays
London-based founder and chair of Mitzvah Day International, Laura Marks CBE turns 66 on Sunday…
FRIDAY: Rabbi emeritus at Washington’s Adas Israel Congregation, he is a former president of the Rabbinic Assembly, Rabbi Jeffrey A. Wohlberg turns 85… Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony and Peabody Award-winning singer and actress, Barbra Streisand turns 84… Delray Beach, Fla., resident, Phyllis Dupret… Distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, College Park, Jeffrey C. Herf turns 79… Former president and publisher of USA Today, then chairman of theStreet, Lawrence S. Kramer turns 76… Israeli designer, architect and artist, Ron Arad turns 75… Chairman and CEO of Cincinnati-based Standard Textile, Gary Heiman… Former president of basketball operations for the Washington Wizards of the NBA for 16 seasons, himself an NBA player for 9 seasons, Ernest “Ernie” Grunfeld turns 71… Israeli singer descended from the Jewish diaspora in Kurdistan, Ilana Eliya turns 71… Columnist for Foreign Policy, Michael Hirsh turns 69… Author of books for children and teens, Deborah Heiligman turns 68… Founding partner and CEO of KSX Communications, Andrew Kirtzman turns 65… CEO and President of Wells Fargo since 2019, he was previously the CEO of Visa, Charles Scharf turns 61… Chief executive director of the Jewish Caring Network, Rabbi Carl S. “Chaim” Schwartz turns 56… Deputy chief of staff for Councilmember Sidney Katz, Montgomery County Council in Maryland, Laurie Mintzer Edberg… Emmy Award-winning television writer, producer and film screenwriter, known as the co-creator and showrunner of the television series “Lost,” Damon Lindelof turns 53… EVP of political operations at AIPAC, Mark H. Waldman… Israeli model, actress, entrepreneur, lecturer and activist, Maayan Keret turns 50… Film and television actor, Eric Salter Balfour turns 49… Brandon Hersh… Partner at Apollo Global Management, Reed Rayman… Special assistant to POTUS and senior speechwriter in the Biden administration, Aviva Feuerstein turns 39… Tech and innovation reporter at Automotive News, Molly Boigon…
SATURDAY: Retired attorney, he is a brother-in-law of Barney Frank, Myron “Mike” Sponder… Social worker and former health spokesman of the Green Party of the U.K., he is the older brother of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Larry Sanders turns 91… Co-founder of Lender Bagels Bakery, he was the national chair of UJA, Marvin K. Lender turns 85… Hedge fund manager and founder of Omega Advisors, Leon G. “Lee” Cooperman turns 83… Former CEO of baker supply manufacturing companies, Joseph “Joe” Weber turns 81… Hedge fund manager and founder of CAM Capital, Bruce Stanley Kovner turns 80… Rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University since 1973, rabbi of the Young Israel of Riverdale Synagogue since 1974, Rabbi Mordechai Willig turns 79… Former French finance minister and later managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn turns 77… David Handleman… Long-time chairman and CEO of Village Roadshow Pictures, now president of Through The Lens Entertainment, Bruce Berman turns 74… Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations from 2018 to 2021, he was previously president of Bed, Bath and Beyond, Arthur Stark turns 71… Administrative law judge at the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, Beth A. Fox… Commissioner of the National Basketball Association since 2014, Adam Silver turns 64… Senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, focused on security issues in the Middle East, Michael Scott Doran turns 64… Partner at Quinn Emanuel, he served as U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic in the Obama administration, Andrew H. Schapiro turns 63… Emmy Award-winning actor, voice actor, comedian and producer, he is descended from a Sephardic family rooted in Thessaloniki, Hank Azaria turns 62… Infomercial pitchman, better known as Vince Offer, Vince Shlomi or “The ShamWow Guy,” Offer Shlomi turns 62… Deputy director general at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Benjamin Krasna turns 61… CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ, Meredith Dragon… New York Times-bestselling author and adjunct professor of neuroscience at Stanford University, David Eagleman turns 55… Deputy director of community health at the Utah Department of Human Services, David E. Litvack turns 54… Former professional baseball outfielder, Micah Franklin turns 54… Democratic party strategist, she is a co-founder of Lift Our Voices, Julie Roginsky turns 53… President of the Alliance for Downtown New York, the nation’s largest business improvement district, Jessica S. Lappin turns 51… Opinion editor at the California Post, previously senior-editor-at-large for Breitbart News, Joel Barry Pollak turns 49… Attorney turned grocer and now professor, Danielle Brody Rosengarten Vogel… Executive director at Yaffed, Adina Mermelstein Konikoff… Managing director, head of social, content and influencer at Deloitte Digital, Kenneth R. Gold… Director of public affairs at FEMA during the Biden administration, now SVP at Avoq, Jaclyn Rothenberg… Film and television actress, model and singer, Sara Paxton turns 38… Staff writer at Daily Kos, Emily Cahn Singer… Former NHL ice hockey defenseman, now a color analyst for Westwood One and ESPN, Colby Shane Cohen turns 37… TikTok star, he runs the culinary website CookWithChefEitan, Eitan Bernath turns 24…
SUNDAY: Owner of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers for 33 years until its forced sale in 2014, Donald Sterling (born Donald Tokowitz) turns 92… Retired Federation executive in Los Angeles, Oakland and Sacramento, Loren Basch… Professor of computer science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Hal Abelson turns 79… Immediate past chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, now board member at Democratic Majority for Israel, Harriet P. Schleifer turns 73… President of Brandeis University from 2016-2024, Ronald D. Liebowitz turns 69… Moscow-born, conservative journalist and political activist in Israel, Avigdor Eskin turns 66… Senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and contributing writer at The Atlantic, Jonathan Rauch turns 66… Journalist, biographer and the author of six books, Jonathan Eig turns 62… Former member of the Maryland House of Delegates and state Senate, Roger Manno turns 60… Former member of the California state Assembly, where he served as chairman of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, Marc Levine turns 52… Member of the NYC Council for six years and now a recently elected member of the NY State Assembly, Kalman Yeger turns 52… General partner of Coatue Management, Benjamin Schwerin… Senior global news editor at The New York Times, Russell Goldman turns 46… Senior director of federal government affairs at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Karas Pattison Gross… Media relations manager at NPR, Benjamin Fishel… London-based reporter for The Wall Street Journal covering finance, he is the co-author of a book on WeWork, Eliot Brown… Male fashion model and actor, Brett Novek turns 42… Head coach of the UC Irvine Anteaters baseball program, he played for Team Israel in the 2012 World Baseball Classic, Ben Orloff turns 39… Communications director at the University of Florida College of Health and Human Performance, Alisha Katz… AI product manager at Apple, Kenneth Zauderer… Washington correspondent for The Epoch Times, Jackson C. Richman… Board liaison at American Jewish World Service, he is also a part-time matchmaker at Tribe 12, Ross Beroff… Ahron Singer…
