Your Daily Phil: Old guard passing torch to new generation of Jewish leaders
Add EJP on GoogleGood Friday morning!
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on the Met Council’s funding for a new Brooklyn warehouse and its record-setting High Holy Day food distribution efforts. We spotlight Rabbi Zohar Atkins’ new initiative, Yochai, which offers learners an AI-powered Torah study partner, and speak with DeborahLipstadt about the launch of the Emory Policy Institute on Countering Antisemitism. We feature an opinion piece by Betsy Berns Korn and William C. Daroff about embracing the next generation of leaders; a piece by Shira Hutt and Mimi Kravetz in response to Steven Windmueller’s recent op-ed about updating the federation system in North America; and one by Eli Gottlieb that offers advice for nonprofit executives on engaging their boards. Also in this issue: Rabbi Binyamin Krauss, Jenna Leventhal and Dina Leader.
Ed. note: In observance of Yom Kippur, the next edition of Your Daily Phil will arrive on Wednesday, Sept. 23.
Shabbat shalom and gmar hatima tova!
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
Students from The Ramaz School and SAR High School in Riverdale, N.Y., will hold a prayer vigil today outside New York’s Gracie Mansion, the official mayoral residence. More on this below.
Former Hamas hostage Eliya Cohen and his wife, Nova festival survivor Ziv Abud, will take the stage Tuesday evening at Tel Aviv’s ZOA House to discuss their joint memoir.
What You Should Know
Two million pounds of kosher food and $2 million for a new warehouse. Met Council, the poverty-fighting nonprofit in New York City, paired both milestones this week, as New York Gov. Kathy Hochul joined the organization at its Brooklyn Hub to help distribute kosher staples amid the High Holy Day season, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim.
New York state Sen. Sam Sutton, who represents the heavily Jewish Brooklyn neighborhoods of Borough Park, Flatbush and Midwood, provided a $1 million matching grant for a new facility in Canarsie, Brooklyn, Met Council CEO David Greenfield told eJewishPhilanthropy. The grant, issued as “community funding” through his state Senate office, closed out a $25 million fundraising campaign that the organization launched for the “AI-backed” 22,000-square-foot warehouse, which is expected to open in the coming weeks. The $1 million in state funding was matched by donors and members of the Met Council’s board.
This year, the Met Council has fielded an 18% increase in food requests compared to last year, Greenfield told eJP. He attributed the increased scale of food distribution in part to the rising need due to increasing food costs. “Food prices have gone up something like 40% in the last five years,” said Greenfield, “and certainly for most working-class New Yorkers, their salaries have not gone up by 40%.”
News
ANCIENT INTELLIGENCE
With new venture Yochai, Rabbi Zohar Atkins hopes AI can make studying Torah ‘delightful’
Artificial intelligence, Rabbi Zohar Atkins is betting, won’t take human interaction out of Torah study. Instead, it can be a doorway in. In June, he launched Yochai, an AI chavruta, study partner, that provides users with everything from Torah-based life advice to support writing a d’var Torah. The program serves as “the beginning of study, not the end,” he said, allowing users to “have deeper, more interesting… Torah insights,” he told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher.
Text and Torah: Yochai received grant funding from Maimonides Fund and seed funding from Infinity Constellation, which supports AI-native companies. “The Jewish community needs to figure out how to use AI — not just to be more efficient, but to more effectively engage our people in Jewish life and Jewish learning,” Mark Charendoff, president of Maimonides Fund, told eJP. “Project Yochai is taking a bold step to try to deepen Jewish engagement with text and Torah. It’s a part of a growing AI portfolio that we are excited about expanding.”
POLICY PIPELINE
Lipstadt launches Emory institute to train next generation of policymakers fighting antisemitism
Deborah Lipstadt, a longtime Emory University historian, announced last week the launch of the Emory Policy Institute on Countering Antisemitism, reports Haley Cohen for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider. The institute will pair undergraduate fellowships with summer internships in Washington; offer seminars for diplomats, journalists and policymakers; and track how governments are implementing the Global Guidelines for Countering Antisemitism that Lipstadt helped develop while serving as special envoy under President Joe Biden.
No longer just Shabbos talk: “When I was finishing up in January 2025, a number of people — some academics, some government officials — said to me that I had a very unique perspective on things,” Lipstadt told Jewish Insider. “They said now that I’m out of Washington, it can’t just be interesting stories I’m telling at dinner parties or the Shabbos table.”
Read the full report and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
Opinion
NOT NEXT BUT NOW
The next generation is already leading. Let’s make room.
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Betsy Berns Korn and William Daroff, chair and CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, call for the American Jewish establishment to recognize that the next generation of leaders is already here, and for those young leaders to rise to the challenge.
“If we believe these young men and women belong in Jewish leadership now, our community has to find more ways to trust them with real responsibility. … But responsibility runs in both directions. Those stepping into leadership also face a challenge that is easy to underestimate: Leadership is not measured by the moment you win. It is measured by what you build, whom you bring with you and what remains after you leave.”
READERS RESPOND
The federation model isn’t static — and it never has been
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Shira Hutt and Mimi Kravetz — executive vice president and chief impact and growth officer of Jewish Federations of North America — respond to Steven Windmueller’s vision of an updated distribution of roles, responsibilities and resources for Jewish federations (“The remake: Bringing the federation model into the 21st century,” Sept. 2).
“The Jewish community does not need federations to be everything to everyone. It needs federations to do what few other institutions can do: to see the whole community, bring its disparate parts together, understand where the greatest opportunities and needs lie, and help translate collective priorities into collective action. … This is what federations do today — and it is precisely why federations are so well positioned to help build the Jewish communities of tomorrow.”
BEST PRACTICES
How to get the best out of your board
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, cultural psychologist and executive coach Eli Gottlieb observes that while tensions are common between even outstanding nonprofit leaders and highly committed boards, “fantasizing about life without a board isn’t the answer.”
“You can’t do it all alone, even if you sometimes wish you could. Years of heading institutions, developing leaders and advising boards have taught me that successful leaders know when to lead and when to follow.”
Worthy Reads
Behind the Bima: J. The Jewish News of Northern California profiles seven non-Jewish professionals — a preschool director, a sound engineer, a security chief, two synagogue and JCC executive directors, a funeral director and a preschool teacher — who keep Bay Area Jewish institutions running. “In the Catholic church, Judaism is like the older brother… It’s like we are coming from the same family.”
Art of Giving: In Inside Philanthropy, Wendy Paris draws on interviews with Jewish funding leaders to challenge three myths about next-generation Jewish donors — arguing most have not turned anti-Israel, have not abandoned Jewish causes, and are increasingly funding a long-neglected sector, Jewish arts and culture. “Whether or not funders had arts and culture as a focal point, they realize there is a sector here they had neglected,’ said Massachusetts-based Jewish philanthropy professional Lou Cove. ‘Culture is where identity and values get formed, and as a community, we make a big mistake if we don’t invest in it.’”
Davening at Gracie: In The Times of Israel, SAR Academy Principal Rabbi Binyamin Krauss explains why students from his school, Ramaz and others will pray outside Gracie Mansion on Friday, two days before Yom Kippur — a vigil he casts as both prayer and a statement that Jewish children feel unsafe in New York and won’t leave. “There are moments when we feel forced to take some of what we, as a community, typically hold quietly and privately and bring it into the public square. This feels like one of those moments. And as we approach Yom Kippur, it feels like the right time to do that.”
Major Gifts
The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation is backing the March of Dimes Innovation Fund with an undisclosed commitment to advance early-stage companies working on maternal and infant mental health…
The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust has awarded Nuru, a locally led development network operating across Africa, an $8.5 million, three-year grant to expand regenerative agriculture and strengthen rural livelihoods across Ethiopia…
Transitions
The USC Shoah Foundation promoted Jenna Leventhal to the role of chief operating officer…
Erika Vogel joined Spertus as its new managing director of Israel initiatives and conflict education…
Eric Maurer is leaving his role as CEO of Jewish Peninsula, the local Jewish federation in Newport News (Va.)…
Leading Edge hired Limor Schwartz as its new vice president of programs…
Phil Klay, an award-winning author who has criticized Israel’s conduct in Gaza while opposing cultural boycotts of Israeli writers, was appointed president of PEN America…
Word on the Street
Reps. Joe Neguse (D-CO) and Don Bacon (R-NE) introduced the Safe Spaces for All Act, letting synagogues use federal security grants for full-time and off-duty guards, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…
The New York Police Department is bracing for daily protests around next week’s United Nations General Assembly, where President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian are expected to speak though officials cited no credible threats, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports…
The daughters of Dina Gottliebova Babbitt, a survivor of Auschwitz concentration camp, are suing the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in California federal court to recover seven watercolors the museum won’t surrender, calling them irreplaceable evidence of Nazi crimes…
Foundation for Jewish Camp opened a third round of Gottesman Capital Expansion Grants, making roughly $6 million available for construction and renovation projects at North American Jewish day and overnight camps. Read eJP’s coverage about the Gottesman grants here…
Inside Philanthropy reports that the hundreds of millions Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos gave individuals like José Andrés, Dolly Parton and Eva Longoria to redistribute through their Courage and Civility Award have proved hard to trace, since recipients face no disclosure requirement…
A World Jewish Congress delegation met Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša earlier this week, marking the first major Jewish group to visit the country since Israel opened its embassy in Ljubljana…
Baltimore Conservative synagogues Beth Israel and Chizuk Amuno have opened merger discussions with a member vote set for December…
The Israel Antiquities Authority announced a 25-ton, 2,000-year-old mikveh was found intact in Kiryat Gat this summer providing evidence of a previously unknown Jewish settlement…
The University of Maryland Hillel opened its nearly $27 million Rosenbloom Center, returning to the plot it first purchased in 1948 after decades housed elsewhere on campus…
Michael Sweetney, the former New York Knicks forward who found a second act coaching at Yeshiva University and the Ramaz School, died Wednesday at 43…
Rabbi Leigh Lerner, who led Montreal’s Reform Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom for 23 years and championed LGBTQ+ inclusion, interfaith dialogue and Soviet Jewry advocacy, died Sept. 5 at 81…
Peter Max, who fled Nazi Berlin as a child and spent his teens in Haifa before his Day-Glo posters made him a staple of 1960s counterculture, died at 88…
Pic of the Day
Philanthropist Dina Leader dances with family members of those who perished in the Sept. 11 terror attacks at a dinner held last weekend on Rosh Hashanah at Villa Amalfi, in Cliffside Park, N.J., to mark the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
For 25 years, Leader has helped provide support primarily to Russian-speaking Jewish families who lost loved ones or were otherwise affected by the attacks, beginning in the days after the attack, when she set up a hotline and worked out of a booth at Pier 94 on the Hudson River to connect grieving families with the resources they needed. Some 120 people attended this year’s Rosh Hashanah event, which featured traditional holiday celebrations, as well as a magician and music.
According to Leader, the community resulted from a simple scheduling choice: she deliberately double-booked her appointments with families so that as they waited together, they began talking. “They became each other’s backbone,” Leader told eJewishPhilanthropy this week. “They cried together. They talked together. They had dinners together. They felt that the world didn’t understand them. They understood each other.”
Birthdays
Henry Samueli, co-founder of Broadcom and owner of the NHL’s Anaheim Ducks, turns 72 on Sunday
FRIDAY
Kathy Levinson Wolf, Marina Del Rey, Calif., resident
Léo Apotheker, business executive who served as co-CEO of SAP and CEO of Hewlett-Packard, turns 73
Steven Pinker, Harvard professor of psychology, specializing in visual cognition and psycholinguistics, turns 72
Howard Tevlowitz, former CEO of the Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee (Fla.)
Brian Greene, former executive director of the Los Angeles Westside Jewish Community Center, now The J Los Angeles
Gali Baharav-Miara, attorney general of Israel, turns 67
Mark Lee Romanek, winner of three Grammy Awards for music videos, he is also a filmmaker and photographer, turns 67
Joshua Angrist, professor of economics at MIT and a 2021 Nobel Prize laureate in economics, turns 66
Yanki Margalit, one of the earliest Israeli tech entrepreneurs, he is best known for starting Aladdin Knowledge Systems in 1985, turns 64
Ezra Uzi Yemin, founder of Delek US, turns 58
Simone Dinnerstein, classical pianist, turns 54
Karen Paikin Barall, chief policy officer at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law
Tali Farhadian Weinstein, NBC legal analyst, she was a 2021 candidate for Manhattan district attorney, turns 51
Justin Ishbia, founding partner of Shore Capital Partners, he is a part-owner of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury along with his brother Mat Ishbia, turns 49
Billy Eichner, comedian, actor, producer and screenwriter, turns 48
Jason Horowitz, Madrid bureau chief of The New York Times
Robin Anderson, director of operations at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin
Lisa Abramowicz, co-host of “Bloomberg Surveillance” on Bloomberg Television, turns 47
Bakari Sellers, author, CNN analyst and an ardent supporter of Israel within the Black community, he was a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, turns 42
Avi Mayer, founder of the “Jerusalem Journal” Substack following a stint as editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post
Nick Schulman, professional poker player whose total career live tournament winnings exceed $24.5 million, turns 42
Dan Kolko, baseball broadcaster for the Washington Nationals
Shoshana Bush, television and film actor, turns 38
Zak Sawyer, senior director at TLG Communications
Rabbi Joshua B. Cohen, West Coast regional director at Leket Israel
SATURDAY
Rabbi Haym Soloveitchik, professor of Jewish history and literature at Yeshiva University, he is the only son of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, turns 89
Jeffrey Salloway, member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives until 2022, he has served as synagogue president, turns 85
Barry Scheck, professor at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law and co-founder of the Innocence Project, turns 77
Harold Rhode, distinguished senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute, after a 28-year Pentagon career as a Middle East expert, turns 77
Bruce Alpert, freelance reporter, he was a writing instructor at Montana State University Billings
Jodi Magness, archaeologist and professor of early Judaism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, turns 70
Ronald Kass, Stockton, Calif.-based physician at the Pacific Sleep Disorders Center
David Elliot Hoberman, producer of over 40 films in his career and executive producer of the television series “Monk,” turns 74
Rabbi David J. Wolpe, rabbi emeritus of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, he is the inaugural rabbinic fellow for the ADL, turns 68
John Nathan “Janno” Lieber, chairman and CEO of NYC’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, turns 65
Ken Rosenthal, bow tie-clad field reporter for Fox Major League Baseball since 2005, he is also a senior baseball writer for The Athletic, turns 64
Michael Evan Horowitz, inspector general of the Federal Reserve Board and the CFPB, turns 64
Tim Scott, U.S. senator (R-SC), he chairs the Senate Banking Committee, turns 61
Ronald Halber, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington
Mike Michalowicz, author of nine popular business books, former small business columnist for The Wall Street Journal
John Harthorne, founder and managing director at Two Lanterns Venture Capital, he is also the founder of MassChallenge (a startup accelerator)
Jillian Schwartz, pole vaulter, she competed for the U.S. in the 2004 Olympics and for Israel in the 2012 Olympics, now an associate brand manager at Kraft Heinz, turns 47
Neal Urwitz, CEO of Enduring Cause Strategies
Danny Valencia, former MLB player for nine seasons, he was on Team Israel for the 2020 Summer Olympics and the 2023 World Baseball Classic, turns 42
Joseph Kristol, senior public affairs director at Elliott Investment Management
Charlie Burg, singer-songwriter and producer, he frequently wears a Magen David pendant when performing, turns 30
Sam Sloman, former NFL placekicker, his college teammates nicknamed him the “Kosher Cannon,” turns 29
SUNDAY
Candy Spelling, author, theater producer, television personality and philanthropist, turns 81
Curt Randy Grossman, wealth management advisor, he won four Super Bowls with the Steelers during his 8-year career as a tight end, turns 74
Rav Ahron Lopiansky, rosh yeshiva of the Yeshiva of Greater Washington, turns 73
Lloyd Blankfein, senior chairman of Goldman Sachs since 2019, prior to which he served as CEO there for 13 years, turns 72
Yosef Elron, former justice of the Supreme Court of Israel since 2017, turns 71
Lawrence Schreier, insurance agent in Tulsa, Okla.
Marc Roberts, real estate developer, sports agent and boxing promoter, turns 67
Rabbi Tovia Singer, former rabbi of Congregation Beit Torat Chaim of Jakarta, Indonesia, turns 66
Randolph Lipscher, emergency medicine physician in Austin, he was the goalkeeper for the U.S. field hockey team at the 1984 Summer Olympics, turns 66
Lisa Bloom, civil rights attorney, author and legal analyst, turns 65
Deborah Gavin Shemony, chief marketing and brand officer at BBYO
Keren Barak, former member of the Knesset for the Likud party, turns 54
Melissa Kronfeld, founder of PFAP (Passion for a Purpose) Consulting and COO of PizzaIDF
James Mazol, deputy under secretary of defense for research and engineering
Drew Singer, deputy news team lead at Bloomberg Law
Emily Grunewald, principal at Blue Laurel Advisors
Carter Lavin, climate activist in Oakland, Calif.
Alison Bogdonoff, senior director of strategic initiatives at Sony Music Entertainment
Zoe Plotsky, director of integrated marketing at Rent the Runway
Isabel Tsesarsky, Manhattan resident
Gabriel LaBelle, actor, best known for his leading role as young aspiring filmmaker Sammy Fabelman in Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical film “The Fabelmans,” turns 24
Jason Ian Drucker, theatre, film and television actor, turns 21
