Your Daily Phil: Schumer highlights Foundation to Combat Antisemitism at DNC
Good Thursday morning.
Ed. note: The next edition of Your Daily Phil will arrive in your inbox on Monday, Aug. 26, as eJewishPhilanthropy shifts to a four-day schedule for the month of August. Shabbat shalom!
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on venture capitalist David Magerman’s $1 million donation to Israel’s Bar-Ilan University and on the appearance of Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin at the Democratic National Convention. We feature an opinion piece by Zev Eleff about boosting Jewish higher ed’s appeal to both potential students and potential funders. Also in this issue: Tanya Gold, Craig Newmark and Rabbi Aharon Ariel Lavi. We’ll start with how Sen. Chuck Schumer got the blue square pin that he highlighted in his DNC speech.
When Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) took to the stage Tuesday evening at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago to make the case for Vice President Kamala Harris as the next president, observant viewers quickly noticed the senator donned a blue square pin on his suit. The pin, created by Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism as a symbol of solidarity with the Jewish community and to raise awareness of antisemitism, was given to Schumer directly by Kraft during a recent meeting, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Haley Cohen has learned.
Schumer and Kraft recently met to discuss antisemitism and the New England Patriots owner “personally thanked [Schumer] for the work he was doing,” Angelo Roefaro, Schumer’s press secretary, told JI on Wednesday. According to Roefaro, Schumer has “not taken the pin off” since his DNC speech.
Schumer, who in his DNC address called himself the “highest ranking Jewish elected official in American history,” said that Harris’ opponent, former President Donald Trump, “peddles” antisemitism.
“I want my grandkids — and all grandkids — to never, never face discrimination because of who they are. But Donald Trump — this is a guy who peddles antisemitic stereotypes,” Schumer told the packed crowd at the United Center. He pointed to Trump’s meetings in 2022 with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and rapper Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago.
Schumer’s wearing of the blue square pin comes as he faces mounting pressure from Jewish leaders and Democratic colleagues with the continued delay in moving to advance the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would address the recent increase of antisemitism on college campuses. A series of video ads that began airing last month accused Schumer of obstructing the bill, which passed the House in May but has since been stalled in the upper chamber.
Schumer, who did not mention Israel in his remarks, noted the blue square pin toward the end of his speech, veering from his prepared words: “Tonight, folks, I am wearing this blue square to stand up to antisemitism, to stand up to all hate,” he said.
MAJOR GIFTS
David Magerman awards $1 million to Israel’s Bar-Ilan University to strengthen integration program for English speakers
Data scientist and venture capitalist David Magerman has awarded another $1 million donation to an Israeli institute of higher learning — this time Bar-Ilan University — as the one-time University of Pennsylvania donor now looks to encourage young American Jews to study in Israel, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross.
Integration programs: In June, Magerman donated $1 million to the Jerusalem College of Technology (JCT) to help the school develop a program to integrate English speakers into its Hebrew programs — as opposed to supporting English-language degree programs. The agreement between Magerman and Bar-Ilan University, which will support a similar program, was signed relatively soon after the one with JCT — on June 20 — but it took several weeks to announce it because of “finalizing details and coordinating between multiple organizations, staffing changes and summer vacations,” a spokesperson for Bar-Ilan said.
Bigger and better: “This will help expand some of the majors that these young adults go into [through the integration program] and it will help expand the number of students that we can take.” Jessica Feldan, CEO of the American Friends of Bar-Ilan University, told eJP. “I think David understood that this was a game changer at one of Israel’s top universities and wanted to invest in it,” Feldan said.
On the bandwagon: “He also heard about some transformational gifts — that $260 million that we announced a few months ago — and he actually said to me, ‘People want to be on a winning team,’” Feldan said. “He understands that people are investing in Bar-Ilan because it’s a winning team, as he said.”
CENTER STAGE
Parents of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin give prime-time DNC address
“I will admit it: I loved the movie ‘Independence Day.’ The 1996 blockbuster directed and co-written by Roland Emmerich was the ultimate popcorn movie that summer,” writes Mark Charendoff, president of Maimonides Fund, in the latest installment of eJewishPhilanthropy’s exclusive opinion column “The 501(C) Suite.” When Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin stepped onto the stage Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention, where they planned to speak about their son Hersh, an American-Israeli hostage in Gaza, they were nervous about how the crowd would react. After organizers of the DNC approached them about speaking, the couple were asked to keep the invitation quiet due to security concerns. Their appearance on the schedule was not publicly confirmed until Wednesday afternoon, reports Gabby Deutch for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider from the convention.
Not afraid: Before walking out, Rachel took a moment to breathe. “First, I kept saying, for a minute or so, ‘I love you, stay strong and survive. I love you, stay strong and survive,’ to Hersh,” said Rachel, who was wearing a piece of tape that said “320,” marking the number of days since 23-year-old Hersh was wounded and kidnapped at the Nova music festival in southern Israel. “Then I started to just say, Adoshem li v’lo ira” — God is with me and I am not afraid.”
Being recognized: Jon and Rachel were aware that in the large and diverse crowd, many people may not be familiar with Hersh’s story or the story of the hostages in Gaza. “Just as we’re walking through the hallways,” Rachel said, “people are grabbing us and hugging us, people who don’t look like us, who are saying, ‘We didn’t know. We’re praying for him,’ and that’s a big deal,” said Rachel.
Above politics: They acknowledged that the convention allowed them a chance to go home, to the city where both of them grew up, and where they used to bring Hersh in the summers when he was young. But their work is bipartisan, not focused only on Democrats. “This is a political convention, but needing our only son and all of the cherished hostages home is not a political issue,” said Jon. “It is a humanitarian issue.”
Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
JEWISH LEADERSHIP PIPELINE
What Jewish higher ed needs to learn about professional development
“In July 2021, the Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education (CASJE) released a report on the Jewish educator pipeline. CASJE found that about a third of Jewish teachers possess a graduate degree and 1% hold doctorates — in contrast with the past generation of Jewish teachers, almost half of whom had master’s degrees and 10% of whom completed doctoral training,” writes Zev Eleff, president of Gratz College, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Rise of the in-service program: “Does this mean Jewish professionals are ill-equipped or undertrained? Not necessarily. CASJE and other researchers have pointed to the rise of in-service professional development programs. These ‘smaller-dosage’ fellowship programs — meeting intermittently, or for a weeklong retreat — are more cost-effective than bulkier degree programs with significant tuition fees. They also aim to support mid-career professionals, who are less likely to drop from the pipeline… The fact that they receive paid time off to participate (and are unlikely to receive a salary raise after participating in either a fellowship or a degree program) renders this shorter time commitment more appealing.”
Funder response: “A decade ago, major foundations invested in Jewish colleges, as well as larger universities such as NYU, to support graduate programs in Jewish professional studies. The goal was to leverage high-level research, increase the capacities of Jewish professionals and lower the barriers of entry by reducing tuition costs. The results were mixed, as were the graduation rates. Today, Jewish philanthropy is placing its biggest bets on nimble organizations outside of the higher education orbit. These professional development agencies promise to reach broad cross sections of the Jewish nonprofit workforce, even if their interaction with professionals is limited to short, intensive convenings. Some of these agencies, observing downward enrollment trends at non-Orthodox rabbinical seminaries, are piloting rabbinical programs for mid-career professionals that utilize the rhythm of their fellowship-style programs.”
How to get competitive: “What of the Jewish colleges and degree programs that were the erstwhile training grounds for future Jewish educators and professionals? They must prove to the marketplace that high-density, research-rich master’s and doctoral-level programs are worth those once-coveted credentials. To make these offerings affordable, we’ll surely need to persuade Jewish philanthropists that graduate-level professional development is a substantive and compelling solution to rebuild the Jewish nonprofit pipeline. To do this, Jewish higher ed must learn from the nimbleness of their competition, the in-service fellowship programs.”
Worthy Reads
Small Acts Matter: In The Times of Israel, Yehuda Lapian reflects on his experiences as a soldier in Gaza and his recent visit to the Syrian Jewish community in Deal, N.J., with a group of IDF veterans to discuss their military service as part of Metiv – Israel Psychotrauma Center’s Peace of Mind program. “In the midst of war, when fear and uncertainty threatened to overwhelm, it wasn’t the grand strategies or powerful weapons that carried me through the darkest moments on the Gaza border. Instead, it was the small, seemingly insignificant acts of kindness and bravery from the ordinary soldiers beside me that provided the strength to keep moving forward… What I witnessed in Deal was precisely that. The warm embraces, shared meals, and moments of prayer transformed this gathering into something sacred. These simple acts of love and connection pushed back the darkness, combating the isolation and pain these soldiers have known. This experience powerfully reaffirms that Jews in America and Israel are part of one large, interconnected family.” [TOI]
A Lucky Jew: In Harper’s magazine, Tanya Gold’s account of her recent visit to Poland produces surreal snapshots of Jews — their history, their culture, even their presence — being treated by residents and tourists alike as cultural artifacts, occasionally in physical and antisemitic forms. “Kazimierz is the Jewish quarter of Kraków, in southern Poland. You might know it from ‘Schindler’s List,’ which was filmed here and has given the district a nickname: Jewrassic Park… I stand outside the Ariel restaurant, on the square. The restaurant plays Jewish-style music, serves Jewish-style food, and is decorated as a lost Jewish home, with green walls, wooden floors and a chandelier. There is a toy Jew on a shelf. He is perhaps four inches high, and he carries a large coin in his hand… This is the Lucky Jew, a Polish good-luck charm said to bring financial benefits. You can buy a Lucky Jew in Kraków or, if you prefer, a cuddly dragon. They are equally mythical… The Jewish Museum [in O?wi?cim] is attached to a small synagogue renovated with funds from the Diaspora. I have never seen such a pristine synagogue, but then it has no congregation… It is attached to the house of the last Jew of O?wi?cim, Szymon Kluger, who died in 2000. In his honor, it is now a hipster café: pale wood, board games, exotic teas, badges for sale that say COEXIST. I slowly eat a bagel and think, Isn’t it a little late for that?” [Harper’s]
Frame With Care: New research manages to quantify how big the difference in response can be if a nonprofit asks for “a unit of good” versus a monetary donation, reports Rasheeda Childress in The Chronicle of Philanthropy. “The study found that donors gave 57% larger gifts when they were asked to donate units of food for refugees compared to when they were simply asked to give cash… Asking for large-unit donations maximized total dollars raised, but fewer donors gave when asked that way. More donors were willing to give at the small unit size. [Lead researcher Raphael] Epperson says this suggests that nonprofits that ask for unit donations need to figure out their goals and what works best with their donors… The researchers also wondered if telling people how much their money could do in unit sizes and then asking for money, rather than units of charitable good, would impact how much donors gave. It did — and not in a good way. Telling people they could feed a child for $1 a day or for $30 for a month and then asking for a monetary donation, resulted in smaller gifts.” [ChronicleofPhilanthropy]
Around the Web
Jewish Insider looks at how Jewish groups are keeping a low profile at the Democratic National Convention to avoid being targeted by anti-Israel protesters: keeping most events invite-only and far away from the main areas, with the locations kept secret…
The families of some of the six Israeli hostages who were killed by Hamas in Gaza held funerals for their loved ones after the Israeli Defense Forces retrieved their bodies from the enclave…
El Al is offering fixed-price flights from Israel to four destinations — $199 to Larnaca, Cyprus; $299 to Athens; and $349 to both Vienna and Dubai, United Arab Emirates — amid allegations that it is taking advantage of other airlines’ refusal to fly into and out of Israel to hike its prices; the company has seen back-to-back record high quarters and due to past losses has not paid taxes on its windfall profits…
Puck reports on transitions at Estee Lauder Companies, Inc., including CEO Fabrizio Freda’s retirement announcement and whether Jane Lauder will step in to run the family’s cosmetics empire…
Edgar Bronfman Jr. raised his bid to purchase Shari Redstone’s National Amusements to $6 billion, up from $4.3 billion earlier this week…
Rabbi Menachem M. Orenstein, who leads the Tigard, Ore., Chabad center, was commissioned as the Oregon Army National Guard’s first-ever Jewish chaplain…
Craig Newmark Philanthropies awarded a $250,000 grant to the Women in CyberSecurity nonprofit; the funding will go toward the organization’s Security Training Scholarship program…
Philadelphia’s Jewish Exponent explores how local Jewish day schools in the area will look to connect their students with Israel and Israelis in the coming year…
The Hebrew Free Loan Society of Greater Philadelphia has launched a new program, Shalom Bayit (Hebrew for “peace in the home”), which will give free loans to women who need financial assistance as they leave domestic violence situations…
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who once vied to be the Republican presidential nominee, donated $10 million to the Democrats’ House Majority PAC last month; earlier in the summer, Bloomberg donated $20 million to President Joe Biden’s campaign…
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are investigating after more than 100 Jewish institutions across Canada received identical bomb threats…
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate students can refuse to pay dues to the school’s Graduate Student Union and instead support the charity of their choice; the decision comes after Jewish students opposed paying dues to the union, which supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel…
Pic of the Day
Rabbi Aharon Ariel Lavi, right, the managing director of the Modern Orthodox Ohr Torah Stone network’s interfaith center, leads a session at this week’s G20 Interfaith Forum in Brasilia, Brazil.
“In a time when religious identities often divide us, our goal is to build bridges and transform our unique identities into sources of connection and collaboration,” Lavi said in a statement. “With the Jewish community facing heightened global challenges, it is more important than ever to ensure our voice is heard in international discussions.”
Birthdays
President of the University of Kentucky since 2011, he traces his heritage to a small Sephardic community on the Island of Rhodes, Eli Capilouto…
Emmy Award-winning television news journalist, Morton Dean… Former director of Prozdor, the high school program of the Hebrew College in Newton, Mass., Margie Tarmy Berkowitz… Founder, president, co-CEO and co-chief investment officer of Elliott Management Corporation, Paul Elliott Singer… Professor emeritus of Bible and Hebrew literature at both Bar Ilan University and Harvard, James L. Kugel… Dermatologist in Beverly Hills, Joyce Naness Fox, M.D. … Founder of the magazine “American Lawyer” and the cable channel Court TV (now TruTV), he also co-founded NewsGuard, Steven Brill… Chief of staff to former Vice President Dick Cheney, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby… Former chairman of Israel Military Industries, he was a member of the Knesset for the Yisrael Beiteinu party, Yitzhak Aharonovich… Robin Zetzel Elcott… Former MLB outfielder, then investment banker, he was the U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand and has served as president of B’nai Torah Congregation in Boca Raton, Ambassador Mark Gilbert… Former investment banker who left his job to run a Los Angeles-based homeless service provider, he is now a professor at USC, Adlai W. Wertman… Chairwoman of Israel’s Strauss Group, Ofra Strauss… Co-founder of Marquis Jet and part owner of the Atlanta Hawks, Jesse Itzler… Director of political information and education at AIPAC, Ed Miller… Director of strategic partnerships at the Paul E. Singer Foundation, Deborah Hochberg… Partner in Ducat Investment Group, Michael A. Fragin… Mayor of Louisville, Kentucky since the start of 2023, Craig Greenberg… Director of operations at the University of Pennsylvania Hillel, Rachel Saifer Goldman… Partner in the Century City office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Stuart A. Graiwer… Co-executive director of Christians United for Israel, Shari Dollinger Magnus… Attorney and author, best known for her New York Times bestseller Notorious R.B.G.: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Shana Knizhnik… Principal at CSR Operations LLC, an HR consultancy, Claire Stein-Ross… Actor known for his role as statistical genius Sylvester Dodd in the television series “Scorpion,” Ari Stidham… Professional baseball player for nine years, he now manages a foundation for families affected by Alzheimer’s, Braden Adam Bishop…
