Your Daily Phil: Remembering Wesley LePatner, Jewish lay leader killed in Manhattan shooting
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we examine a new report by the progressive Institute for Policy Studies think tank examining the implementation of the Giving Pledge, which was launched 15 years ago. We report on the death of Blackstone executive and Jewish communal lay leader Wesley LePatner, who was killed in Monday’s shooting at the company’s headquarters, and speak with students at the Israel on Campus Coalition conference about the state of antisemitism at colleges and universities. We feature an opinion piece by Yadin Kaufmann about bringing Tmura’s giving model to Jewish tech entrepreneurs stateside with A Good Option, and one by Yael Rosen about the online mifgash model for Israeli-Diaspora engagement. Also in this issue: Adam Kirsch, Sidney Silver and Todd Patkin.
What We’re Watching
The Harold Grinspoon Foundation’s PJ Library is concluding its multiday conference in Aspen, Colo., today.
The Senate is expected to vote today on two resolutions from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on blocking arms sales to Israel.
What You Should Know
As it marks its 15th anniversary, the Giving Pledge — billionaires’ voluntary agreement to donate the bulk of their fortunes to charity — has not yielded the results that its founders hoped, according to a new study by the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies, a think tank that is generally critical of the government policies that have enabled the existence of the ultra-wealthy, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross.
The report, “The Giving Pledge at 15,” surveys the signatories of the pledge, both the original cohort of 57 individuals, couples and families, and the 199 who have since joined, documenting how many have so far met the requirements of giving away the majority of their wealth. This includes several prominent Jewish figures, including Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Bill Ackman, the late Jim Simons, Henry Samueli, Jeffrey Skoll, David Rubenstein, Mark Pincus, the late Bernie Marcus and Laura and John Arnold, among others.
The authors found that few signers have met the goal, which they credit not to a refusal to donate but to the far more rapid growth of the donors’ fortunes. For instance, the report found that Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, saw their wealth increase by some 4,000% from 2010 to today.
Bella DeVaan, one of the four authors of the report and associate director of the think tank’s Charity Reform Initiative, told eJewishPhilanthropy that IPS decided to examine the Giving Pledge more closely in light of both the 15-year milestone and the recent actions of its co-founder, Bill Gates, who announced in May that he planned to donate 99% of his $200 billion fortune.
“We evaluate the Giving Pledge every couple of years in our biennial Gilded Giving reports, but I think the reason the Giving Pledge this year feels so important is because of what Bill Gates himself has done,” DeVaan said. “We felt that the relationship between philanthropy, inequality and democracy in this country is at a boiling point,” she said. “The Giving Pledge is now old enough for a driver’s permit, we’ve been joking. And we think that means that there’s enough of a body of evidence to really evaluate if it’s working.”
“Unfortunately, what we found is that it’s really hard not to just keep getting wealthier and to have your giving keep pace with the growth of your wealth if you’re an American billionaire and a Giving Pledge signatory,” she said.
The think tank found that only one living signatory — the Arnold couple — has fulfilled the pledge so far. Of the 22 signers who have died since the pledge was launched in 2010, eight have fulfilled the pledge, including Bernie Marcus, who died earlier this year, and one of them, Chuck Feeney, gave away nearly his entire $8 billion fortune before his death in 2023. Marcus was also one of the few signatories who lost their billionaire status because of their philanthropic giving.
“The Giving Pledge is voluntary. We understand why there isn’t a sort of rigorous tracking system, why it’s not an oversight body. But we do think to retain its credibility, the pledgers need to really think about how they’re actually going to be making good on the promise,” DeVaan said. “When only eight of the 22 deceased pledgers actually fulfilled the pledge upon their death, and a lot of those gifts went to foundations that will involve some kind of family control — is that truly fulfilling what we need the Giving Pledge to be?”
BARUCH DAYAN EMET
Jewish philanthropist Wesley LePatner, 43, named as victim in Manhattan shooting
Wesley LePatner, a Blackstone executive with deep ties to Jewish communal organizations in New York City, was killed in the Monday shooting at the firm’s Midtown headquarters, the company confirmed on Tuesday. LePatner, née Mittman, served on the board of trustees at the Abraham Joshua Heschel School, a pluralistic Jewish day school in New York, and she joined the board of trustees at UJA-Federation of New York earlier this month, reports Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch for eJewishPhilanthropy.
‘Courage and conviction’: “We are devastated by the tragic loss of Wesley LePatner, a beloved member of UJA’s community and a member of our board of directors, who was killed in yesterday’s mass shooting in Midtown,” the federation said in a statement. “In the wake of Oct. 7, Wesley led a solidarity mission with UJA to Israel, demonstrating her enduring commitment in Israel’s moment of heartache. She lived with courage and conviction, instilling in her two children a deep love for Judaism and the Jewish people.”
Mass shooting: On Monday, a gunman armed with a semiautomatic rifle entered the Blackstone building in Manhattan, which is home to the investment house, as well as a number of other businesses, including the Rudin real estate firm and the headquarters of the National Football League. The gunman, Shane Devon Tamura, opened fire in the lobby, killing LePatner and an NYPD officer, Didarul Islam, 36. He then killed a security guard, Aland Etienne, before entering an elevator and apparently getting out on the wrong floor, which housed Rudin. There, he shot and killed an associate, Julie Hyman, before turning his gun on himself. Hyman, 27, who was also Jewish, attended Riverdale Country School in the Bronx and then Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration, from which she graduated in 2020.
More from Blackstone: The company’s president, Jonathan Gray, said that LePatner was well-liked at the firm, where she “just instilled such a sense of confidence in her” and “wanted other people to win,” during a tear-filled tribute to her yesterday.
MORE THAN MONEY
Pro-Israel students: University reforms must go beyond cash payments
When hundreds of pro-Israel college students from around the country gathered in Washington earlier this week for the Israel on Campus Coalition’s three-day annual national leadership summit, the rise of antisemitism on campuses sparked by the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks nearly two years ago was still a topic of conversation throughout panels and hallways. This year, however, some students, in conversations with Haley Cohen for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider at the gathering in Washington, also said that antisemitism is lessening — though they offered mixed views about what is leading to the improved campus climate.
Students’ perspectives: Some attributed it to the Trump administration’s ongoing pressure campaign on universities to crack down on antisemitic behavior, which has included federal funding cuts from dozens of schools. Others said their campuses started to take a serious approach to antisemitism, before President Donald Trump was reelected, in the fall semester following the wave of anti-Israel encampments from the previous spring. But many student leaders from universities that have been targeted by the Trump administration — facing billions of dollars in slashed funds — said that if their school enters into negotiations to restore the money, they would like a deal to include structural reforms, unlike the one made last week between the federal government and Columbia University.
Read the full story here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
A DIFFERENT WAY TO GIVE
Engaging Jewish startup entrepreneurs in philanthropy: The story behind A Good Option
When Israeli-American venture capitalist and social entrepreneur Yadin Kaufmann decided in 2001 that he wanted to build a bridge to connect Israel’s tech sector with nonprofits in need, “I decided to import a model that had been launched in Silicon Valley just a short while before,” he writes in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “That was the genesis of Tmura – The Israeli Public Service Venture Fund, which I established in early 2002. Participating Israeli startups donate a small fraction — typically, less than 1% — of their equity to Tmura, and when some of those donor companies succeed and the options can be converted to cash, the proceeds are donated to youth and education nonprofits.”Building a giving community: “Until now, U.S.-based Jewish organizations haven’t connected effectively with young Jews in the tech sector for a number of reasons, including but not limited to the fact that philanthropy has always focused primarily on cash donations. Some of these tech entrepreneurs have the potential to become very significant donors in the future, but in the present moment don’t have the resources to donate big. In 2024, I launched a nonprofit entity in the U.S. called A Good Option to help support Jewish and Israeli nonprofits using the Tmura model… We’re also providing Jews in tech with the ‘community’ many of them have been seeking post-Oct. 7 through events that provide a forum for Jewish and Israeli entrepreneurs and investors to connect around supporting Israel and Jewish nonprofits.”
READER RESPONDS
A bridge over troubled water: Why online encounters are an inseparable part of Jewish education
“In Rabbi Leor Sinai’s recent piece in eJewishPhilanthropy about mifgashim (encounters) for teens across Israel and in Jewish communities throughout America, he advocates for more symmetric preparation for these youth encounters (“Approaching encounters with curiosity and not with judgement,” July 9),” writes Yael Rosen, associate director of content and impact at Enter: The Jewish Peoplehood Alliance, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “The success of teen encounters is indeed critical for the future of the Jewish people. The interpersonal experience of getting to know their peers, even without any preparation and particularly for those less likely to pursue an immersive Jewish education program, can be the ultimate path to Jewish engagement and therefore an inseparable part of Jewish education.”
Kids find their way: “Over the last five years, the One2One initiative at ENTER: The Jewish Peoplehood Alliance has organized approximately 30,000 one-on-one meetings between teens in Israel and their peers across the Jewish world… When it comes to one-on-one interactions, the mifgash provides a comfortable environment for youth to naturally navigate differences themselves… Beyond the factor of size, the one-on-one model has an educational advantage in fostering student autonomy. The adaptability and curiosity of youth, in a monitored and secure online space, enables learning about one another in ways that a guided, prepackaged — and possibly stereotype-based — training might stifle.”
Worthy Reads
Witnessing History: In the Jewish Review of Books, Adam Kirsch reviews Melting Point, a family history — presented in an unconventional format — by British Jew Rachel Cockerell. “When she began the book, Cockerell says in the introduction, she intended to simply write about her grandmother; she had never even heard of most of the people and events that ended up filling it. ‘Above all,’ she writes, ‘this book is an attempt to transport myself back in time, to see things as they really were.’ The unusual construction of her book reinforces this sense of witnessing. Not a word of it was written by the author; rather, she curates hundreds of quotations from newspapers, memoirs, letters, and interviews, ranging in length from a sentence to several pages. Each source is identified in the margin, giving the book the appearance of an oral history or a textual commentary. This is not quite the unfiltered voice of the past: Cockerell skillfully shapes the material into a coherent narrative, complete with artfully chosen character descriptions and scene setting. But the result is something more like time travel, or at least a documentary film, than a standard work of history.” [JewishReviewofBooks]
If You Deduct It, Will They Come?: In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Ben Gose interviews experts about the potential impacts of the new tax deduction for charitable giving worth up to $1,000 for singles and $2,000 for couples. “‘It’s no silver bullet, but it’s one piece of the shift toward democratizing giving,’ says Shannon McCracken, president of the Nonprofit Alliance, an advocacy group. ‘Finally, our government is saying that all giving levels are valuable — not just those gifts coming from higher-income people.’ Fewer than half of Americans give to organized charities, down from nearly two-thirds as recently as 2008. The decline worsened after the sharp increase in the standard deduction in 2017. That change led to a drop in the number of people who itemize, now under 10% — meaning that most people receive no tax benefit from their giving. A study by three academic researchers found that the loss of giving incentives accounted for a $20 billion drop in giving in 2018, the first year the change was in effect.” [ChronicleofPhilanthropy]
No Place Like Home: In The Atlantic, Jessica Slice spotlights the issue of limited housing options with full accessibility for disabled people. “I’ve been disabled for 14 years, and in that time, I have resided in both the United States and Canada but have never lived somewhere safe where I can use all (or even most) of the rooms — an experience familiar to many disabled people who must find homes in a housing system that was not designed for them. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 6% of U.S. households include someone who has difficulty using their own home because of accessibility problems. I know people who cannot do things as basic as enter their own bathroom… But imagine what would happen if, rather than cementing society’s fear of disability, buildings were to make more room for frailty. Could it be that aging would become a bit less terrifying? At the least, accessible homes would let disabled people, the elderly, and the injured fully take part in their household’s daily routine. Their lives, and those of their family members, would be all the richer for it.” [TheAtlantic]
Word on the Street
A new poll from Gallup found record-low U.S. support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza since it first polled on the issue in November 2023; 60% of Americans surveyed earlier this month disapprove of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, up from 45% in November 2023…
The New York Times published an editor’s note regarding a story about malnutrition in Gaza that failed to note that one of the children featured in the article — whose pictures went viral — suffered from pre-existing health conditions affecting his brain and his muscle development …
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that London plans to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state ahead of the U.N. General Assembly in September if a ceasefire is not reached and if Israel fails to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza…
The Board of Deputies of British Jews umbrella group held a special session yesterday on the humanitarian situation in Gaza and Starmer’s threat of recognition. Afterward, the organization issued a statement calling for “clarification that the UK Government will not recognise a Palestinian State while Hamas fails to meet UK demands, including accepting a ceasefire and releasing the hostages” and supporting the Israeli government’s “long overdue” measures to increase humanitarian aid to the beleaguered Strip…
Jewish leaders at the University of Edinburgh are urging the school against dropping its support for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, following a report that the school is reconsidering its prior adoption of the definition…
A new poll on the New York City mayoral election conducted by Zenith Research and Public Progress Solutions found clear divides among Jewish voters over Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani, with younger and less observant Jews mostly backing the progressive lawmaker while older and more observant Jews do not…
Palo Alto Networks, a California-based company, says it will acquire the Israeli cybersecurity firm CyberArk for roughly $25 billion, which will make it the second-largest acquisition of an Israeli company, after Google’s $32 billion purchase of Wiz earlier this year…
The Wall Street Journal looks at Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker’s push to bring quantum computing technology to Chicago…
Sidney Silver, a prominent Washington-based attorney who helped raise millions to create the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, died on July 9 at 91…
Major Gifts
Massachusetts-based philanthropist Todd Patkin has announced a $5 million donation to the World Zionist Village, a planned 16-acre campus for Zionist education south of Beersheva, Israel; the village’s entryway will be named in Patkin’s honor…
Transitions
Ariel Halpern, the former chief of staff at the Jewish Theological Seminary, was named director of the 14th Street Y’s substance abuse recovery program, 14Y Selah…
Matthew Levin has been named as the next CEO of the South Florida-based child welfare nonprofit JAFCO…
Arthur Pinchev has rejoined American Jewish University as senior advisor to the president focused on experiential programs, including Camp Alonim and the Ziering Brandeis Camp Institute…
Pic of the Day
Druze residents of Mas’ade in the Israeli Golan Heights donate blood yesterday for the Druze community in Sweida, Syria, which was attacked by regime-aligned forces earlier this month.
Birthdays
Emmy Award-winning actress, comedian and producer, Lisa Kudrow…
Commissioner emeritus of Major League Baseball, his 2019 memoir is For the Good of the Game, Allan Huber “Bud” Selig … Retired attorney from the firm of Hatton, Petrie & Stackler in Aliso Viejo, Calif., Ronald E. Stackler… Longtime owner and editor-in-chief of The New Republic, he was chairman of the Jerusalem Foundation for 12 years, Martin H. “Marty” Peretz… The first woman justice on the Nebraska Supreme Court, as a teen she won two gold medals and a silver medal as a swimmer at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, Justice Lindsey Miller-Lerman… Actor, director and producer, Ken Olin… Philanthropist and investor, of Uzbek Bukhari background, known as the “King of Diamonds,” Lev Leviev… Former mayor of Arad, Israel, and then a member of the Knesset for the Kulanu and Likud parties, Tali Ploskov… President of C&M Transcontinental, he served as COO for the first two Trump campaigns, Michael S. Glassner… Head coach of men’s tennis and director of tennis operations at Columbia University, Howard Endelman… Best-selling nonfiction author, contributing editor at Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone magazines, he is a co-creator of the HBO series “Vinyl,” Rich Cohen… District director for Rep. Jerrold L. Nadler (D-NY), Robert M. Gottheim… Assistant attorney general for antitrust at the Department of Justice during most of the Biden administration, Jonathan Seth Kanter… Motivational speaker, author and entrepreneur, he served as a law clerk in 2008 for Justices O’Connor and Ginsburg, the first blind person to clerk for the U.S. Supreme Court, Isaac Lidsky… President of MSNBC since February, Rebecca M. Kutler… Member of the Knesset for the Otzma Yehudit party, Limor Son Har-Melech… Senior producer at Vox and host and producer of the podcast of the Association for Jewish Studies, Avishay Artsy… President and founder in 2014 of Dallas-based ECA Strategies, Eric Chaim Axel… Team supervisor at Pittsburgh Mercy Health System, Lewis Sohinki… Author of Jerusalem Drawn and Quartered: One Woman’s Year in the Heart of the Christian, Muslim, Armenian and Jewish Quarters of Old Jerusalem, Sarah Tuttle-Singer… Former director of policy and public affairs for the Jewish Community of Denmark, now in the renewable energy and offshore wind industry, Jonas Herzberg Karpantschof… Attorney and member of the Los Angeles County GOP Central Committee for Assembly District 42, which includes Pacific Palisades, Elizabeth Barcohana… Head of digital operations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel until this past April, Tamar Schwarzbard… Managing principal of West Egg Development, Samuel Ezra Eshaghoff… Director of business development at Israel’s economic mission to the South and Midwest U.S., Joshua Weintraub… Winner of the Miss Israel pageant in 2014, now a businesswoman, Mor Maman… Actress, as a 10-year-old she starred as Ramona Quimby in the comedy film “Ramona and Beezus,” Joey Lynn King…
