Your Daily Phil: OU names new EVP, announces new CEO role
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we cover the announcement of Rabbi Shmuel Silber as the new executive vice president of the Orthodox Union and the creation of a new CEO role at the OU to be held by Rabbi Josh Joseph. We also exclusively report on the hiring of Mijal Bitton as dean of Maimonides Fund’s Maimonides Jewish Leadership Institute. We feature an opinion piece by Jonathan Schulman that warns against letting fringe voices pass unchallenged as the representative voice of American Jewry, and a piece by Rabbi Derek Gormin that emphasizes that building lasting Jewish identity is a cumulative project, not the outcome of a single transformative experience, however powerful. Also in this issue: Michael S. Levinson, Yaron Waksman and Lisa Ansell.
The next edition of Your Daily Phil will arrive Monday, Aug. 31. 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
The Milken Institute Hamptons Dialogues kicks off today and runs through Sunday.
Israeli singer Ishay Ribo and The Israel Philharmonic will perform tonight at Radio City Musical Hall in Manhattan.
CJHive, the Center for Jewish History‘s group for young Jewish adults in New York City, will host artist Steve Marcus this evening, spotlighting his exhibition “Psychedelicatessen,” a mash-up of Jewish history, deli culture and 1960s psychedelia.
What You Should Know
The Orthodox Union has named Rabbi Shmuel Silber as its next executive vice president, completing a leadership transition that began nearly a year ago after the sudden death of Rabbi Moshe Hauer, the OU’s former executive vice president.
Rabbi Josh Joseph, who had served jointly with Hauer as OU’s executive vice president as well as separately as chief operating officer, will assume the newly created role of chief executive officer.
Hauer, who guided the organization through the dramatic period spanning the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, had functioned as both OU’s operational leader and its rabbinic and public voice. The OU’s new leadership structure will have Silber focus on rabbinic and public-advocacy work, while Joseph — who has informally filled much of Hauer’s role since his death — will oversee management strategy and operations across the OU’s programs.
Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here.
News
EXCLUSIVE
Maimonides Fund hires Mijal Bitton as dean of its Jewish leadership institute
Mijal Bitton. co-founder and spiritual leader of Manhattan’s The Downtown Minyan and Maimonides Fund’s inaugural scholar in residence, is coming on board as dean of the Maimonides Jewish Leadership Institute starting Aug. 31, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim reports exclusively.
Putting the Jewish learning in Jewish leadership: Before MJLI’s pilot cohort has even completed its first year, efforts are already underway to scale the nascent fellowship program, Maimonides Fund President Mark Charendoff told eJP. The program grew out of an educational vision developed by Bitton and Rabbi David Wolpe while they served together as the funds’ scholars in residence. “We were so impressed with the original cohort and so impressed with the impact that it was having on them, we didn’t want to lose a year,” Charendoff said.
FOLLOW THE MONEY
Brandeis Center urges DOJ to investigate whether Northwestern is acting as foreign agent for Qatar
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law is urging Attorney General Todd Blanche and the Justice Department’s Foreign Agents Registration Act Unit to investigate whether Northwestern University’s longstanding ties to Qatar violate FARA, Haley Cohen reports for eJewishPhilanthropy‘s sister publication Jewish Insider.
Doha dollars: In a letter sent to Blanche on Wednesday, the Brandeis Center cited $737 million Northwestern has received from the government-run Qatar Foundation in connection with the university’s Doha campus, arguing the relationship extends beyond ordinary academic activity. “Academic freedom and the civil rights of students, faculty members, and their families should never be beholden to the purse strings of a foreign government, especially one that has so openly sought to spread anti-Semitism and embolden extremism in the United States,” Kenneth Marcus, chairman and CEO of the Brandeis Center, told JI.
Opinion
SPEAK UP
The majority of American Jews can no longer afford to be silent
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Jonathan Schulman, founder of The Jewish Majority, argues that Jewish activists presenting “a distorted picture” of American Jewry’s views ultimately provide “political cover for individuals and organizations pursuing objectives that most American Jews reject.”
“Famously, Justice Louis Brandeis argued that the remedy for harmful speech is ‘more speech, not enforced silence.’ He was right, the rest of us must stop allowing these tokenized voices to dominate the conversation. … Write an op-ed for your local newspaper. Submit a letter to the editor. Build relationships with the reporters covering your community. Offer to speak with local television and radio stations. When a small faction claims a Jewish consensus that does not exist, say so clearly and openly.”
FOUNDATIONAL INVESTMENT
Preparing Jewish teens to stand tall
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Rabbi Derek Gormin, managing director of programming and education for NCSY and JSU, writes about the importance of giving teens a variety of opportunities throughout the year to discover and build on what being Jewish means to them.
“What I have seen again and again is that Jewish identity rarely develops through one transformative moment. It grows through relationships and experiences that build on each other. Each experience creates an opportunity for the next, allowing teens to keep asking questions, exploring and deciding what they want Judaism to mean in their own lives. Slowly, Judaism becomes less abstract. It becomes theirs. That matters in every generation. But it matters especially now.”
Worthy Reads
A Sector’s Predicament: In the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Keosha Varela argues that as AI firms offer nonprofits hundreds of millions in free tools, staff and grants, the sector should weigh risks around data, dependency and market influence and push to share in the industry’s upside. “The social sector is getting an incredible offer that almost never happens. But the need for careful assessment is real.”
Faithfully Failing: In The Times of Israel, former Ben-Gurion University of the Negev professor Naomi Graetz draws on Parashat Ki Tavo to argue that even after failure, teshuvah offers the chance to begin again, weaving in her late husband Rabbi Michael Graetz’s optimism through illness and her grandnephew’s bar mitzvah. “That is the lesson I take from the connection between Ki Tavo, Eikhah, and the haftarah: it is not enough to know how we should act. We also need to know how to respond when we fail.” ed a relationship over time told me something I have never forgotten. After discussing our community’s needs and future aspirations, they said, ‘I don’t give because you asked. I give because I trust.’ Those six words crystallized everything I had come to believe about philanthropy.”
Major Gifts
Marketing executive Alison Friedman Brod has pledged $1 million to Tulane University to endow a media and communications wing bearing her name…
An anonymous individual donated $1.47 million to the Portland, Maine-based nonprofit Project Home to double its TRUST program, which provides unrestricted cash to low-income single mothers…
Transitions
Aaron Gaber began a new role as assistant director of programming and advocacy at the American Jewish Committee’s New England regional office…
Johana Wiznitzer joined the American Jewish Committee’s Miami and Broward office as its new assistant director…
The Jewish Community Foundation San Diego named Michael S. Levinson as its board chair and appointed Susan Chortek Weisman, Debby Cushman-Parrish, Karen Foster Silberman and Leo Simpser as directors…
Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership named Chicago entrepreneur Stephen Wolff as its new chairman of its board of trustees…
Word on the Street
Former Israeli hostage Evyatar David told CNN’s Bianna Golodryga in his first international interview about the extreme starvation he endured, being forced to dig his own grave for a Hamas propaganda video and the severe PTSD he now battles…
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned U.K.-based Palestine Action as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, following Britain’s July 2025 ban on the group, which has targeted defense sites including facilities tied to Israel’s Elbit Systems…
In Israel Hayom, the Jewish People Policy Institute‘s Shuki Friedman argues that the unearthed Altalena wreckage should refocus attention onto the state’s exclusive right to wield force, warning that unchecked West Bank militias are eroding Israeli statehood and courting civil war…
Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Congregation leaders unveiled plans for a roughly 26,000-square-foot building and memorial honoring the 11 people killed in the 2018 synagogue shooting, with an opening projected for early 2028…
The State Department directed its diplomatic missions worldwide to press host governments for stronger security around synagogues, and Jewish community events during the upcoming High Holy Days…
TheMarker profiles Yaron Waksman, who built HaGal Shel into what he claims is the world’s largest therapeutic surfing organization, serving over 21,000 Israelis in 13 centers across Israel…
An Israeli traveler is among 468 tourists and travelers that authorities in Nepal say are still missing a day after a deadly flood hit its border region with Tibet and China…
An arson attack destroyed a vacant church that had previously been Cleveland’s Wilson Avenue Temple, the local Jewish community’s oldest surviving synagogue building…
United Airlines will resume its three weekly nonstop San Francisco-Tel Aviv flights in 2027…
Australia’s New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies asked the Ballina Shire Council to remove a Nazi swastika that has been visible at a vacant former hotel site for about three weeks…
Larry Burton Greenberg, an Atlanta auto-parts businessman, Korean War veteran and longtime Shrine Band musician known as “Party Larry,” died on Aug. 23 at 95…
Pic of the Day
Federation of Zionist Youth participants gather in Santi Chai Prakan Park in Bangkok as they wrap up an 11-day “Netina” journey through Thailand with Justifi, an organization blending travel and advocacy for young Jewish adults. The trip centered around education, volunteering and learning about efforts to combat human trafficking.
Birthdays
Daphne Koller, Israeli-born CEO of Insitro, she was a professor at Stanford for 18 years and a 2004 winner of a MacArthur genius fellowship, turns 58
Ruth Ann Hapner, Chatsworth, Calif., resident
Mark Freedman, board chair for North America at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, turns 75
Michael Wolff, author, essayist and journalist, turns 73
Moshe Shlomo “Vladimir” Sloutsker, co-founder of the Israeli Jewish Congress, he is a former senator in the Russian Federation, turns 70
Martha E. Pollack, president of Cornell University until June 2024, turns 68
Kathy Hochul, governor of New York since 2021, turns 68
Anna Azari, Israel’s ambassador to the Czech Republic, turns 67
Gary Cohn, vice chairman at IBM and lead independent director on the board of Apollo Global Management, he was previously the president and COO of Goldman Sachs, turns 66
Nadav Tamir, executive director of J Street Israel, he served as Israel’s consul general to New England from 2006 to 2010
Steve Clemons, editor-at-large at The National Interest and the founding editor of Semafor, he is also chairman and CEO of Widehall, turns 64
Neil A. Wallack, private equity investor and a trustee of the Jewish Federations of North America’s board
Avril Haines, director of National Intelligence throughout the four years of the Biden administration, she was the first woman to ever hold the DNI position, turns 57
