Your Daily Phil: Robert Kraft raps Macklemore
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we examine the pressure that led Macklemore to be dropped from Ed Sheeran’s tour after the rapper made anti-Israel remarks during concerts, and report on the sudden resignation of Keren Hayesod world chairman Eli Vered Hazan after sources say he sought to hire an unqualified candidate for a top position. We feature an opinion piece by Emily Kane Miller about the importance of spotlighting the Jews who respond to darkness by building, and one by Jonah Halper that makes the case for keeping the annual dinner alive. Also in this issue: Jon Polin, Marc Benioff and Charlotte Knobloch.
Today’s Your Daily Phil was curated by eJP Managing Editor, Israel Editor Justin Hayet and Opinion Editor Rachel Kohn. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
The three-day Eradicate Hate Global Summit begins today in Pittsburgh. Former National Amusements President Shari Redstone, Holocaust survivor Dr. Alfred Garfinkle, commentator Van Jones and political scientist Robert Pape are slated to speak at the annual conference.
The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York and the Jewish Community Council of Greater Coney Island will host a Rosh Hashanah celebration this morning with community leaders, elected officials and 20 Holocaust survivors.
At noon ET, eJewishPhilanthropy and the academic consortium CASJE will host a panel discussion, “Who Shapes Campus Conversation? What Research Tells Us About Faculty Attitudes Toward Israel and Jews,” which will be moderated by eJP Managing Editor Judah Ari Gross and CASJE’s Sasha Volodarsky, and feature Lisa Armony of Hillel International; Raeefa Shams of the Academic Engagement Network; Leonard Saxe and Graham Wright of Brandeis University; Yuval Avnur of The Curricular Review Council.
Miriam Anzovin, known for her daily reading of Talmud through a secular, feminist and internet-culture lens, will speak at Harvard this afternoon on Jewish imagination and world-building, in a conversation moderated by Harvard Law School’s professor Noah Feldman.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD FROM eJP’S JUDAH ARI GROSS
In response to onstage rants accusing Israel of apartheid and committing genocide, the rapper Macklemore was dropped yesterday as the opening act for Ed Sheeran after venue owners — led by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft — conditioned the British singer-songwriter’s concerts on his removal. More on this below.
To many Jewish groups, particularly those who had been calling for his removal, this constituted a form of justice: A performer making unfounded allegations against the only Jewish state in front of massive audiences was held to account and faced repercussions for his actions. David triumphs over Goliath.
Yet immediately, the headlines and articles about the development indicated that the issue was not Macklemore’s anti-Israel sentiments — and past antisemitic antics — but his support for Palestinians. And thus, the David vs. Goliath dynamic is reversed, and a martyr is born, albeit one whose life is intact and whose fame has only grown as a result of the encounter. (Indeed, a glimpse at Google Search Trends shows that the word “Macklmore” has been searched for more in the United States this month than at any time in a decade.)
The latest kerfuffle highlights the Catch-22 of such incidents. On the one hand, there is an eminent need by Jewish groups and leaders to respond to figures whom they see as threatening or hurting the Jewish community. And yet, exercising that right also feeds into an antisemitic narrative of Jewish control and of persecution for supporting a disadvantaged group. Damned if you do; damned if you don’t.
Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here.
News
INSTITUTIONAL CRISIS
Keren Hayesod chair to step down after claims he tried to hire unqualified ally of Netanyahu’s wife
In a sudden shake-up at the top of Keren Hayesod, Eli Vered Hazan, the fundraising group’s recently elected world chairman, will leave his post at the end of December, just a few months after assuming the role, the organization’s CEO, Edna Weinstock Gabbay, told employees yesterday. The departure comes amid growing scrutiny over Hazan’s efforts at the National Institution to provide jobs and funding to figures close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who nominated Hazan for his position, sources told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Justin Hayet.
Running interference: Last week, the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom reported that the prime minister’s wife, Sara Netanyahu, had pushed Hazan to install her ally, former Likud lawmaker Osnat Mark, as his chief of staff, despite her not having relevant experience. According to both Israel Hayom and a source familiar with the matter, who spoke to eJP on condition of anonymity, the proposal to hire Mark drew fierce resistance from Keren Hayesod’s major donors and board of trustees, who told Hazan it would not stand and pressed him to resign. The Likud party denied the reports, casting the allegations as recycled slander timed to the election cycle.
PERFORMANCE ANXIETY
Macklemore dropped from Ed Sheeran tour as venues balk at anti-Israel activism
Macklemore has been dropped from the remainder of singer Ed Sheeran’s U.S. tour after several venues objected to hosting the rapper, according to the tour’s promoter, following the rapper’s chants of “Free Palestine” and comments and imagery on Gaza during two recent opening sets for Sheeran, reports Haley Cohen for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
Crossing the line: Among the eight remaining shows on Sheeran’s tour, Macklemore was set to open for the singer at the Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., which is owned by New England Patriots owner and Jewish philanthropist Robert Kraft, who confirmed that he had refused to allow the rapper to perform at his venue. “Gillette Stadium has a longstanding commitment to… ensuring that events held at our venue do not provide a platform for hate speech,” Kraft told JI in a statement. “Based on Macklemore’s recent actions… and a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery… we determined that his participation in the September 25th and 26th concerts at Gillette Stadium would cross that line.”
Opinion
LIGHTS IN THE DARK
In 5787, we celebrate Jewish excellence
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Emily Kane Miller, co-executive director of The Charles Bronfman Prize and the founder and CEO of Ethos Giving, encourages the Jewish community to do more to highlight its builders and believers.
“By shining a light on people doing the hard work of improving the world, we remind ourselves, and everyone else, what Jewish values look like in action. Not as a response to hostility, and not as proof of our worth to skeptics, but because this is who we are — this is what we have always done.”
CONSIDER THIS
Don’t cancel the ritual: The case for annual galas
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Altruicity founder Jonah Halper offers a perspective on the debate over the wisdom of organizations producing annual dinners when those dollars could be spent elsewhere.
“[E]specially since the COVID-19 pandemic, when so many organizations discovered they could raise real money through online campaigns without ever filling a ballroom, the temptation to cut the dinner altogether has only grown. On a spreadsheet, that decision often looks smart. … But that’s the wrong way to measure what an annual dinner is actually worth.”
Worthy Reads
Test of Leadership: In Sapir, Jon Polin, father of slain hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, draws on Moses, Jeremiah and Esther to argue that empathy, urgent action and unity are the leadership virtues too many world leaders lacked during the 330-day fight to free his son. “The test of leadership is not how badly one wants power but whether, once given power, one can still see the suffering of the people, hold them together, and act with necessary urgency on their behalf. The test of society is to identify and cultivate the leaders who exemplify these qualities.”
A Rooted Rosh Hashanah: In The Forward, Benyamin Cohen reports on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich., returning to its sanctuary for Rosh Hashanah six months after a gunman attacked the building — carrying its Torah scrolls home under heightened security and reading from prayer books donated by synagogues nationwide. “Near the end of their remarks, the co-presidents described teshuvah, the season’s work of return, as something that allowed room for everything the congregation had endured. ‘We return changed,’ [Temple Israel Co-President Jodi] Neff said, ‘but still rooted.’”
Funding Belonging: In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, U.S. Chamber of Connection’s Aaron Hurst argues that philanthropy should build social connection into a defined funding field — as it once did for causes like the environment — to counter a loneliness crisis that leaves more than half of U.S. adults at risk of disconnection. “Now philanthropy must decide whether it will take the lead in addressing the problem — and rebuilding the opportunities for connection on which a healthy, functioning democracy depends.”
Major Gifts
Salesforce will give $27 million in new education grants this year — $18 million to San Francisco and Oakland schools — bringing the company’s 14-year total for Bay Area public schools to $156 million, a sum CEO Marc Benioff says exceeds any company’s in history…
Hackensack Meridian Health, New Jersey’s largest health network, has received a $125 million anonymous gift — the biggest in its history and the largest of its kind in the state’s healthcare sector…
The Gates Foundation has pledged at least $1 billion over two years to expand equitable access to artificial intelligence in health, education and agriculture…
Transitions
Gina Schmueling joined the Jewish Book Council as its director of development…
Word on the Street
A new Jewish People Policy Institute poll found that one-third of Israelis labeled the masked Jewish assailants in the attack on the West Bank village of Qusra as “Israeli terrorists” — the single most common description — but the split was sharply ideological: 63% of left-leaning respondents used the term, compared with 3% of those on the right…
Luxury publisher Assouline has released “Tel Aviv Spirit,” a $105 coffee-table photo book of more than 200 images that marks the first Israeli city in its Classics Collection, which has previously featured Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Beirut, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports…
The European Union failed to renew a sanctions program freezing the assets of some 3,000 Russians and companies after Slovakia and France pushed to delist tycoons Alisher Usmanov and former Genesis Prize and Genesis Philanthropy Group founder Mikhail Fridman, forcing ambassadors to extend the expiring deadline by a week to Sept. 22…
“Fauda” has topped Netflix‘s chart in Lebanon and climbed the rankings in Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia with its fifth season, which takes place around the Oct. 7 attacks and its aftermath…
Vilchovitz Hall in Monsey, N.Y., will be renamed Werdiger Hall and renovated in memory of Rabbi Nechemia Werdiger, father of Agudas Yisroel chairman and philanthropist Rabbi Shlomo Werdiger, who is sponsoring the dedication…
OpenAI acquired Israeli startup Glass Imaging,which uses AI to sharpen images from compact cameras in a deal valuing the company at more than $300 million…
Fair Lane, the restored Dearborn, Mich., home of Henry and Clara Ford, will teach visitors about the automaker’s antisemitism — including the conspiracy theories he spread through his Dearborn Independent newspaper — when it reopens in June 2027…
Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader Mahmoud Khalil and several of his fellow activists filed a federal lawsuit against the school, arguing that administrators failed to protect them against harassment they allege that they faced on campus due to their activism…tened to kill them…
Pic of the Day
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul meets with Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, earlier today for a discussion outside the Jewish Center in Munich.
Wadephul met with Knobloch, a 93-year-old Holocaust survivor and longtime Munich Jewish community leader, after graffiti was discovered that made death threats against her. German police have launched an investigation into the matter, which has been widely condemned by local and international Jewish groups.
Birthdays
Kira Soltanovich, comedian, writer and actor, turns 53
Jac Holzman, founder and former CEO of Elektra Records, he is a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, turns 95
Emanuel Tov, professor emeritus at the Hebrew University and a leading scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls, turns 85
Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman, chief rabbi of Migdal HaEmek, in northern Israel, known as the “Disco Rabbi,” turns 80
Diane Levin, professor emerita of counseling psychology at Boston University’s Wheelock College, turns 79
Ned Rothenberg, composer and multi-instrument musician, turns 70
Michael L. Reiss, television comedy writer, he served as a showrunner, writer and producer for “The Simpsons” and co-created the animated series “The Critic,” turns 67
Aron Uri Raskas, shareholder of law firm Gunster, turns 64
Nina Jacobson, film executive, she produced “The Hunger Games” film series, turns 61
David Magerman, managing partner and chief technology officer at Differential Ventures in Philadelphia, he is also the founder of a series of kosher restaurants, turns 58
David Folkenflik, NPR’s media correspondent, turns 57
Josh Charles, actor, best known for his roles on “Sports Night” and “The Good Wife,” turns 55
Deborah Leipzig, former VP of leadership at the Anti-Defamation League
Shayla Rosen, customer success manager at Screencastify, event organizer and fundraiser
Anya Kamenetz, author and longtime education correspondent at NPR, turns 46
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, data scientist, economist and author of the 2017 New York Times bestseller Everybody Lies, turns 44
Evan D. Goldberg, screenwriter, film producer and director, often in collaboration with his childhood friend Seth Rogen, turns 44
Yael Markovich, model and Israeli beauty pageant winner, turns 42
Jonah Raskas, CEO of Harmon Face Values
Josh Gruenbaum, senior advisor to the Board of Peace, he was the commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, turns 41
Amanda Bresler, chief strategy officer at PW Communications
Eliza Shapiro, reporter at The New York Times covering NYC affordability issues
Roni Dalumi, singer and actor, she was the 2009 winner of the Israeli version of “A Star is Born,” turns 35
Shani Hazan, beauty pageant titleholder, she was crowned Miss Israel 2012, turns 34
Jeff Lewis, Arizona philanthropist and founder of the Froth and Bubble Foundation
