Your Daily Phil: New Israeli academic institute looks to give hope a chance
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on Time magazine’s new list of the top 100 philanthropic figures, on the launch of a new academic institute focused on hope and on the expansion of For the Sake of Argument in the U.S. and Israel. We feature an opinion piece by Rabbi Noam E. Marans following his audience with the new pope, and one by Yulia Bezrukova about a mental health and wellness program held online for young Jewish leaders and community members in Ukraine. Also in this issue: Sam Altman, Eric B. Stillman and Shira and Jay Ruderman.
What We’re Watching
The Combat Antisemitism Movement and the Jewish Federations of North America will host the Annual Jewish American Heritage Month Congressional Breakfast on Capitol Hill today, with a keynote address from Bruce Pearl, head coach of the Auburn University men’s basketball team.
As part of Jewish American Heritage Month, the Library of Congress will host tonight “An Evening of Sephardic Music with the Susana Behar Ensemble,” in collaboration with the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH EJP’S JUDAH ARI GROSS
After topping this year’s Chronicle of Philanthropy’s list of top donors, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appears in the No. 2 spot in Time magazine’s inaugural list of the 100 “Most Influential People in Philanthropy.” Soccer star and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador David Beckham took the top spot, appearing on the cover.
Bloomberg, who was 2024’s largest donor, having given some $3.7 billion to charitable causes last year, appears along with at least nine other Jewish philanthropists. Unlike the Chronicle’s annual ranking, the Time list is not only based on levels of charitable giving but also includes those who make contributions in otherwise significant ways.
So alongside top donors in dollar terms, such as Michael and Susan Dell or Steven and Connie Ballmer — who are dubbed “titans” on the list — there are also “leaders” making a major impact in specific fields. This list includes Alex Soros in progressive movements or Josh and Majorie Harris through sports. The magazine also spotlights Canadian Israeli philanthropist Sylvan Adams for his donations in Israel, including his $100 million contribution to the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks. Read eJP’s recent interview with Adams here.
The list also includes several “innovators,” including Jennifer Pritzker, a member of the Jewish philanthropic Pritzker family and the world’s richest transgender woman; investor Robert Rosenkranz, who is behind the Open to Debate initiative that staged a debate about the Israel-Hamas war between former Israeli spokesman Eylon Levy and journalist Mehdi Hasan; Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz, some of the most vocal proponents of “effective altruism”; and philosopher Peter Singer.
KEEP HOPE ALIVE
Israel launches first-of-its-kind Institute for the Study of Hope at Hebrew University
Throughout the 331 days of Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s captivity until he was murdered by Hamas along with five other hostages last August, Israel and the rest of the world witnessed the constant vigil of hopefulness kept by his parents, Jon and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, as they campaigned relentlessly for the release of their son and the other captives and continue to do so even after his death. Staying on the side of hopefulness before and after his murder was and is the only way of not “falling into the abyss of despair,” Rachel Goldberg-Polin told an intimate gathering at the Israeli President’s Residence in Jerusalem on Monday evening, marking the establishment of Israel’s first-of-its-kind Institute for the Study of Hope, Dignity and Wellbeing, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judith Sudilovsky.
What can I do?: Operating under the auspices of the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine and Life’s Door, a nonprofit based in the U.S. and Israel that promotes “hope-based care models,” the new institute will be run and chaired by oncologist and Hebrew University medical school professor Dr. Benjamin Corn. The new academic institute is intended to serve as a hub for interdisciplinary research into the biology, psychology and sociology of hope across diverse fields such as medicine, nursing and social work. “Hope is one of the most fundamental virtues of humanity,” Corn told eJewishPhilanthropy, differentiating hope from optimism, which is a passive feeling. “Hope is the ability to look at a situation and to say, ‘What can I do to make this situation better, and how can I get there?’ It is actually such a distinct difference. You can be a pessimist and still be hopeful.”
MOOT POINT
With fresh funding, For the Sake of Argument pivots from pilot to permanent
Even as debates rage on social media, with each side slinging invective at the other, in-person conversations about political issues are growing increasingly rare. A recent survey of American workplaces found that people are nearly twice as likely to deliberately avoid discussing controversial topics than they are to engage in civil discourse about them. With more than $900,000 in new funding to support its activities for the next two years, the nonprofit For the Sake of Argument (FSA) hopes to change that, training Jewish educators and leaders how to conduct civil, productive arguments about controversial topics, primarily those related to Israel and Zionism, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross.
Binational expansion: Launched in 2022 as a pilot program with funding from the Jim Joseph Foundation, FSA is now expanding its efforts both in the United States, where it has operated until now, and in Israel, where the organization’s co-founders — Abi Dauber Sterne and Robbie Gringras — live. “We live here, we breathe here, we feel here, we see what’s going on in the education system. And we’re incredibly concerned that we have something to offer and we don’t want to ignore where things seem to be going in this country,” Dauber Sterne said.
WAITING FOR OMRI
An Israeli mom’s NYC mission to free husband from Hamas captivity
Every morning, Lishay Lavi Miran’s toddler daughters ask her the same two questions: Why is daddy still in Gaza and when is daddy coming home? In a desperate attempt to provide answers, Miran spent the past week in New York City — her first time in the U.S. — advocating for the release of her husband, Omri Miran, who was kidnapped from their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz during the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks and has remained in Hamas captivity for nearly 600 days. In an interview with Haley Cohen from eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider during her visit to the states, which concluded on Tuesday, Miran said that her message to the American Jewish community is that its advocacy efforts have provided a “warming sense of hope.”
Now and then: The family received the first sign of life from Omri in April when Hamas terrorists published a video in which he is seen walking through a tunnel in Gaza. The video was released right around his 48th birthday. “It was difficult to see him in those conditions,” Miran told JI during her visit to the states, which concluded on Tuesday. The “exhausted” man in the video was a contrast to the guy known for having “the biggest smile in the world and spark in his eyes,” as Miran describes her husband.
Read the full interview here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
PAPAL IMPRESSIONS
I met Pope Leo XIV. What comes next?
“It would be unfathomable for my grandparents, born in Jerusalem and Bialystok, to imagine that their grandson — or any Jew, for that matter — would be invited as a representative of the Jewish people to Pope Leo XIV’s Inaugural Mass,” writes Rabbi Noam E. Marans, director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “This came a week after Pope Leo sent a remarkable letter to me and several other Jewish leaders on his first day as pontiff. He wrote: ‘Trusting in the assistance of the Almighty, I pledge to continue and strengthen the Church’s dialogue and cooperation with the Jewish people in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council’s declaration Nostra Aetate.’”
Let’s get to work: “An historic Catholic-Jewish relations papal letter is a great beginning, though it is not an end unto itself. Pope Leo’s ‘spirit of Nostra Aetate’ cannot survive without our joint efforts to assure its future. When an increasing percentage of Catholics and their religious leaders come from places like Africa, Asia and Latin America, where possibilities for Jewish relationships are harder to establish, we need a better strategy for demystifying Jews and Judaism and preventing a reversion to Catholic anti-Judaism. When newer priests and seminarians in formation are trending more conservative and suspicious of interreligious relations, we need a serious look at how that might affect Christian-Jewish relations. We need to reflect on ourselves as well: When Jewish extremists demonize the other and desecrate the Divine in their fellow human beings, all equally created in the image of God, we must speak up and say that they do not represent the Jewish people and its values. The Jewish community should not take Christian-Jewish relations for granted, but rather invest in this essential element of assuring the Jewish future with new, dedicated and thoughtful resources — human, programmatic and financial.”
BEYOND THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS
Mem Global finds these gestures from afar can support leaders under fire
“Being a Jewish community leader in 2025 is no easy task, but that is especially true in countries in the grip of war. Mem Global community builders in Ukraine — young Jewish leaders in the cities of Kyiv, Odessa, Dnipro and Chernivtsi — continue to be our role models, sources of pride and inspiration and true examples of resilience and strength,” writes Yulia Bezrukova, a Global RSJ educator for Mem Global, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Combining resources and respite: “To be a young leader in such a community is a major responsibility, and these leaders need support from their organization. To help meet this need, we decided to hold an online event for our Ukrainian leaders and members of their communities, organized by a global team from Toronto, Haifa, Israel, Washington. and Kyiv. We called the event ‘Hurtom Lehshe’ (Ukrainian for ‘Together is Easier’) and invited everyone for a three-hour Sunday event on Zoom focused on wellness, mental health and resilience grounded in Jewish wisdom and rituals… A few elements made this experience both special and effective, which we gladly share here in hopes of inspiring others to support the Ukrainian Jewish community or other communities in need.”
Worthy Reads
A Reservist’s Prayer: In The Times of Israel, Haviva Ner-David relates her encounter with an IDF reservist seeking to use the mikvah at Kibbutz Hannaton on his way home from his fourth tour of duty in Gaza. “He decided to mark this transition, and hopefully a transition into a long stretch of civilian life, by stopping at the mikveh on his way home from his reserve duty — going into the mikveh building in his army uniform, immersing, and coming out in his civilian clothing. … When I came the next morning to officiate a conversion, I saw he had left… his handwritten kavanah, his sacred intention for his immersion… ‘Master of the Universe, God of War and Peace, I stand here before you as a soldier of the IDF in order to release myself physically and mentally from the burden that fell upon me, and to return to the bosom of my family, as a partner and father, with a pure heart and a clear head. Please God, let these waters that surround me purify my heart and cleanse my thoughts from background noise, and plant in my soul peace, calm, and quiet of soul. I thank You for the strength to stand here and immerse in these living waters, and for the courage to deal with the challenges ahead. May the One who makes peace in the heavens make peace for us and all of Israel and all of the world. And let us say, Amen.’” [TOI]
Left Holding the Bag: In the Stanford Social Innovation Review, a group of 23 nonprofit founders, CEOs, directors and researchers contrast the philanthropic sector’s response to the challenges of the pandemic versus the recent U.S. federal budget cuts to foreign aid. “During COVID, philanthropy showed what it could be at its best: nimble, coordinated, unusually brave. … Today, nearly four months into the USAID shutdown, no rapid mobilization effort — from the Foreign Aid Bridge Fund to the Rapid Response Fund — has reported raising more than $3 million… We understand from allies in philanthropy that funders, for their part, don’t see themselves as retreating. You feel besieged — by political uncertainty, legal threats, a potentially long-term shift in the aid funding landscape, and the long shadow of financial risk. You speak with us in the language of fiduciary duty and sustainability, fearing boldness today might jeopardize giving tomorrow. … You are understandably careful, not because you want to hoard capital, but because you want to keep it flowing. Yet for civil society, this restraint feels indistinguishable from abandonment. Because it leaves those working closest to the challenge bearing most of the risk.” [SSIR]
Barrier to Entry: In The New York Times, LinkedIn executive Aneesh Raman warns about the social implications of disappearing entry level jobs. “[G]etting a late start can slow down workers’ careers for decades. The Center for American Progress found that young adults who experience six months of unemployment at age 22 can expect to earn approximately $22,000 less over the next decade… If entry-level roles evaporate, those lacking elite networks or privileged backgrounds will face even steeper barriers to finding their footing in the workplace. Plus, the fallout from large-scale economic shifts ripples through entire communities. When manufacturing jobs vanished across America’s heartland, the result wasn’t just lost income but also social and political upheaval. To fix entry-level work, we’ll have to reimagine it entirely… For generations, entry-level positions have served as professional steppingstones where new graduates could safely learn under the watchful eye of seasoned managers. Now that the model is unraveling, we must push to rebuild it to reflect the world of work we live in and redesign first jobs with growth in mind — roles that teach adaptability, not repetition, and serve as springboards, not stalls.” [NYTimes]
Word on the Street
The State of California will not appeal a court ruling requiring it to allow children with learning disabilities to attend private schools at state expense, even if those schools are religious (in the past, only secular schools were permitted); this ends a legal battle brought by several Jewish parents through the Orthodox Union’s Teach Coalition…
Orthodox groups are cheering a proposed federal tax credit that would provide scholarships of up to $5,000 per child who attends a private school…
The Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education, better known by its acronym CASJE, released the inaugural issue of its revived Research Digest, featuring two studies examining how Jewish children’s relationships with Israel. Read more about the relaunch of the digest here…
The New Yorker reviews two new books about Sam Altman and the future of artificial intelligence, examining the OpenAI founder’s Midwestern Jewish roots…
Northwestern University received an anonymous donation — for an undisclosed amount — to boost its Jewish studies and Jewish student life, as the school faces a federal investigation into its handling of antisemitism on campus…
New York Times reporter Joseph Bernstein chronicled the life of his father, a “Nazi hunter” with the U.S. Department of Justice in the ‘80s, who was killed in the Pan Am 103 bombing in 1988, and his struggle to find meaning in the resulting decades-long investigation that ultimately led to the currently delayed trial of a Libyan man accused of planting the bomb on behalf of dictator Muammar Gaddafi…
Speaking at a congressional hearing of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission on Tuesday, American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch urged the U.S. to remain engaged in international bodies including the U.N., UNESCO and OSCE and called for Congress to confirm Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun to the role of special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism and provide $3 million in funding for the office…
The Associated Press interviews José Andrés, the chef and founder of the World Central Kitchen, about his organization’s work in the wake of the Trump administration’s USAID cuts…
The Houston Jewish Herald-Voice spotlights the community’s J-Teen Philanthropy Initiative, which recently allocated $16,000 in grants to five Texas-based organizations…
Elon Musk told attendees at the Qatar Economic Forum that he doesn’t plan to spend money on elections in the future. “I think I’ve done enough,” he said…
Ron Dermer, Israel’s strategic affairs minister, eulogized his mother, Yaffa Dermer, who died last Sunday at 89. Dermer said, “We don’t choose our parents. They are chosen for us. So I thank Hashem for blessing me to have been raised by such an extraordinary mother and teacher. … Over the years, I have had the privilege to serve in prominent positions and hold prestigious titles. But the greatest honor of my life has been to be Yaffa’s son.”…
Major Gifts
Eric B. Stillman was hired to serve as the next president and CEO of the Florida Holocaust Museum, which will reopen on Sept. 9 following an extensive renovation; Stillman succeeds Mike Igel, who has led the organization as its interim CEO for the past year…
Adam Katz was named the next president of the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism; he succeeds Tara Levine, who will stay on as the group’s chief partnership officer…
Eva Wyner, previously deputy director of Jewish affairs for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, is now serving as the governor’s director of Jewish affairs…
Rabbi Elchonon Feldman was elected the next chair of the U.K.’s Rabbinic Council of the United Synagogue; he succeeds Rabbi Pinchas Hackenbroch, who has served in the role for the past four years…
Steven Schauder was named the next executive director of Philadelphia’s Jewish Relief Agency…
Arthur Maserjian, previously chief of staff at the Combat Antisemitism Movement, is now the senior director of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies’ Center for Combating Antisemitism…
Pic of the Day
Jay and Shira Ruderman, the president and executive director, respectively, of the Ruderman Family Foundation, visit the Wandikweza Health Center in Nkhafi Village, Malawi, earlier this month.
While visiting the East African nation, the Rudermans and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee signed a memorandum of understanding with Malawi Health Minister Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda bringing their ImpactWell last-mile health program to the country.
“We’re incredibly proud of the expansion of ImpactWell to Malawi — a profound step in our ongoing efforts to ensure that first-class healthcare is a right enjoyed by all who need it,” Jay Ruderman said in a statement. “By deploying the latest in Israeli medical technology and training, we are fashioning sustainable health systems for the future and hope this model can serve others dedicated to providing life-saving medical care in places where it is nearly impossible to access. This partnership showcases how Jewish values, Israeli innovation, and a shared commitment to saving lives can create meaningful change in the world.”
Birthdays
President and CEO of the Michigan-based William Davidson Foundation, Darin McKeever…
Former U.S. senator from Minnesota, he was previously a comedian, actor and writer, Al Franken… Vice president of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities, Ralph Lewin… Guitarist and composer, Marc Ribot… Executive vice president of American Friends of Bar-Ilan University, Ron Solomon… Chief rabbi of Mitzpe Jericho and dean of Hara’ayon Hayehudi yeshiva in Jerusalem, Rabbi Yehuda Kroizer… CEO of the Boston-based hedge fund Baupost Group, Seth Klarman… Northern California-based comedian, he celebrated his bar mitzvah at 52 years old in Israel, Josh Kornbluth… Legal analyst at CNN, Jeffrey Toobin… Founder and former co-owner of City & State NY, Thomas Allon… Director of antisemitism education and associate director of the Israel Action Program, both at Hillel International, Tina Malka… Actress, artist and playwright, Lisa Edelstein turns 59… Former head of Dewey Square’s sports business practice, now a freelance writer, Frederic J. Frommer… Author and journalist, she was a reporter with The New York Times for eight years, Amy Waldman… U.S. cyclist at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, she is now the executive director of the New England Mountain Bike Association, Nicole Freedman… University chaplain for NYU, Rabbi Yehuda Sarna turns 47… Founder of Agora Global Advisory, Brandon Pollak… Executive vice president and chief legal officer at Sinclair Broadcast Group, David Gibber… Professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, Scott Joel Aaronson… President of Mo Digital, Mosheh Oinounou… International fashion model for Versace, Sharon Ganish… Deputy director at the Yael Foundation, Naomi Kovitz… Partner at CreoStrat, Steve Miller… Windsurfer who represented Israel in the Olympics (Beijing 2008 and Rio 2016), she is now a SW delivery lead at SolarEdge, Maayan Davidovich… Player on the USC team that won the 2016 NCAA National Soccer Championship, she is now an associate in the LA office of Foley & Lardner, Savannah Levin… Comedian, actress and writer, known for starring in the HBO Max series “Hacks,” Hannah Marie Einbinder…
