Your Daily Phil: Shari Redstone on how Oct. 7 changed her philanthropy
Add EJP on GoogleGood Thursday morning. In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we interview Shari Redstone about her philanthropic and professional work post-Oct. 7 and spotlight a new initiative by Shomer Collective to help mourners through the shiva process. We feature an opinion piece by Rabbi Amitai Fraiman and Ezra Kopelowitz about the approach of the Z3 Project to boost the “Jewish” in Jewish community centers, and one by David Cygielman about how an upcoming invite-only gathering in the Catskills aims to expand the ranks of future rabbis. Also in this issue: Axel Springer, Jessica de Rothschild and Ariel Beery.
What We’re Watching
Mile Advisory and Pillsbury’s Climate Week are holding a daylong event today on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, focused on energy tech and development in the Middle East. Speakers include Rich Goldberg, Mark Donig and former Israeli chief scientist Dr. Gideon Friedmann.
Elsewhere in New York, the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan is holding a screening tonight of the first episode of the second season of “House of David.”
What You Should Know
Shari Redstone, 71, has been busier than she had expected after selling Paramount, where she served as chair, to Skydance Media in a widely scrutinized merger this summer.
The Jewish media mogul recently joined the Israeli entertainment studio Sipur as chair, and in leading the Redstone Family Foundation, she is involved in a range of projects fostering cultural ties between the Black and Jewish communities and combating the rise in antisemitism, among other initiatives.
In an interview with Matthew Kassel for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider, Redstone discussed her plans at Sipur and elsewhere, shared her thoughts on the broader news ecosystem and weighed in on President Donald Trump’s heightened efforts to silence his critics in the media industry, among other issues.
MK: You’ve suggested that your decision to leave Paramount and to sell the business was in many ways fueled by an increased desire in the wake of Oct. 7 to work more on fighting antisemitism and supporting Israel. Can you elaborate on your thinking there and what particular issues or causes you’re hoping to focus on now?
SR: Oct. 7 impacted me and made me want to get more engaged than I had ever been before. It just really accelerated my desire to be able to focus on the issues that were so important here and around the world. I made a trip to Israel in January, right after Oct. 7, and that was really what changed everything for me. The first stop was the Nova music festival [site], and just being there made me realize that this is what I needed to do, and I haven’t looked back. I’m really excited about being able to spend more time and resources addressing the issues of antisemitism and hate.
I already had a bunch of programs that I was working on, including a program I did at the Y with children aged 4 to 5 to really appreciate different cultures, and it uses books, activities and family events to introduce kids to various cultures with a focus really on fighting antisemitism. But we can’t fight antisemitism unless we really give individuals, especially kids, an understanding of all cultures and differences that exist, and how to address those differences. So I had a lot of programs going, but now I’m just full speed ahead and super excited.
GOOD MOURNING
Shomer Collective launch Shiva Circle initiative to offer ‘life jacket for grievers’
In August 2011, Rose Capin celebrated her bat mitzvah with her beloved grandmother Esther, then 76, beaming from the pews. Less than two years later, her grandmother would be diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Then — it seemed almost in an instant — she was gone. “I was maybe in middle school,” Capin told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher. “I didn’t even know what was happening.” At her grandmother’s shiva, “I remember there being a real sense of, ‘Don’t you dare ask a question. This is just what we do.’” Caplan is one of 40 volunteer shiva guides trained by the Shomer Collective, a Jewish, end-of-life support organization, that launched its Shiva Circle initiative this past spring in Atlanta. The initiative makes shiva practices accessible for Jews who lack the knowledge or connections traditionally provided by local synagogues.
Jewish wisdom: The initiative is funded by the Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life and several anonymous donors. Michael Steinhardt came up with the idea for the initiative and wrote about it in his 2022 book, Jewish Pride. He reached out to Shomer Collective to pilot it. “We want more American Jews to see the power of shiva,” David Gedzelman, president and CEO of The Steinhardt Foundation, told eJP. “Stay at home for a week after you’ve lost a close relative. Let us host you in your own home. We’ll arrange it. We’ll bring everybody in… We think that if people have this experience, they’ll realize, ‘Wow, my people are really wise,’ and maybe they’ll do other Jewish things… We want to do for shiva what OneTable does for Friday night Shabbat dinner.”
A PEOPLEHOOD AMPLIFIER
From recreation to renewal: Z3 helps turn JCCs into centers for Jewish belonging
“Pioneers such as Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan envisioned the JCC as a cornerstone of an ‘organic Jewish community,’ integrating diverse activities and institutions for Jews, with the goal of fostering Jewish peoplehood, culture and religious life as primary values,” write Rabbi Amitai Fraiman, founding director of the Z3 Project at the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto, Calif., and Ezra Kopelowitz, CEO at Research Success Technologies and co-director of the Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “For much of the 20th century, however, JCCs largely functioned as general community centers, places for socializing, recreation and civic support, but with relatively limited investment in explicit Jewish education and identity-building.”
A theory of change, in action: “This began to change in the late 20th century. Facing rising concerns about assimilation and Jewish continuity, communal leaders realized that JCCs could not fulfill the full holistic vision of Jewish community without a stronger educational core. … Launched in 2015, the Z3 Project has positioned itself as a catalyst for this transformation, complementing and supporting JCC leadership and those working to provide JCCs with a values-driven framework to integrate Israel engagement and Jewish peoplehood into their institutional DNA.”
JEWISH LEADERSHIP PIPELINE
‘We want YOU!’: A creative approach to investing in the rabbinic pipeline
“Rabbinic school enrollments have gone down steeply in the non-Orthodox community, dropping nearly 60% since 2008. There are significant barriers for people entering rabbinic school, from the schools’ locations to their cost to finding denominational alignment,” writes David Cygielman, CEO of Mem Global, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “At the same time, the research is also clear that Jewish young adults need relationships with rabbis. Having access to great rabbis is critical as they form and develop their Jewish identities, find their place within Jewish communities and learn how to live Jewish lives that are full of joy and meaning.”
Positioned to help: “The same research that highlights the narrowing of the rabbinic pipeline also highlights the reason that most people join rabbinical school: a teacher, mentor or someone else they admire said they would make an excellent rabbi. Held in partnership with the H&F Baker Foundation, the [Rabbinic Accelerator Venture] retreat will leverage our network of rabbis, who have been empowered to invite young adults whom they think would make great rabbis to join the retreat.”
Worthy Reads
Let’s Get to Work: In the Jewish Journal, Steven Windmueller lays out a wide-reaching communal agenda for American Jewry in 5786, encompassing Diaspora-Israel relations, national concerns and dynamics with the Jewish community. “What will be required is a serious investment in exploring new models of leadership and governance in an age where many folks have lost confidence in and belief about the ability of organizations or governments to solve problems and bring peoples together. … As a society we must find some common threads, allowing us to engage with one another. … As Jews we know only too well the failed outcomes when we find ourselves divided and in discord. Drawing upon our own story, we must model a framework of connection and engagement.” [JewishJournal]
Widen Your Gaze: In the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Sara Ellis Conant and Jacob Harold share insights from conversations with leaders in philanthropy, nonprofits, government and business about future-oriented leadership. “It’s natural to think of strategy through our immediate experience, to focus on that which is near, soon, and similar. But the work of social change goes far beyond our daily to-do list or a plan for the next quarter. To change the world, we cannot retreat to the familiar. We don’t know how artificial intelligence will impact our work, when a changing climate will impact our communities, or where political leaders will shift the very nature of societies. But when we retreat to the familiar, we limit our ability to see beyond it. … Leaders need to stretch their minds and consider not only immediate objectives, but long-term trajectories (time), different regions (space), and multi-layered systems (scale).” [SSIR]
Word on the Street
“Red Alert,” an Israeli miniseries about the Oct. 7 terror attacks, will be released on Paramount+ on the second anniversary of the massacres; the show received support from the Jewish National Fund-USA Israel Entertainment Fund, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, The Film & Media Collaborative: the Gesher Multicultural Film Fund, the Avi Chai Foundation and Maimonides Fund, among others…
More than 20 people were injured, including two seriously, in a Houthi drone attack on the Israeli port city of Eilat…
A suspect was arrested on Monday in connection with the arson attack on a synagogue in Florida days before; the suspect’s mother, who turned him over to police, told officers that her son “has a hatred toward homosexuals and Jewish people that’s become worse over the past years,” according to an affidavit…
Smithsonian Magazine spotlights a Rosh Hashanah feast at the Ethiopian Israeli restaurant Tsion Cafe in Harlem, featuring traditional Ethiopian Jewish holiday foods, including a lamb stew, pumpkin stew with date honey, black-eyed peas salad, spiced whole wheat bread and honey cake with Ethiopian coffee extract..
Marking 40 years since the death of German publisher Axel Springer, his eponymous company released documents on Monday from its archives about his long-standing ties to Israel, including his initially anonymous donation to build the Israel Museum’s Library for Art and Archaeology…
The Chronicle of Philanthropy investigates the SDG Impact Fund, a secretive crypto-based donor-advised fund estimated to be worth $10 billion that is allegedly not using its donors funds as directed…
Spear’s magazine interviews Jessica de Rothschild, the heiress, theater producer and co-chair of the USA for United Nations High Commission for Refugees’ Women’s Committee, about her philanthropic work following a $15 million donation to a UNHCR campaign to support the education of refugee women and girls…
Archeologists in northern Israel discovered a trove of coins dating back to the fourth century…
An op-ed in the Houston Chronicle spotlights the local efforts of the Tikkun Olam Society to rebuild the historical bonds between Black and Jewish communities…
American Israeli social entrepreneur Ariel Beery has launched a new journal, Prophesy, which considers the future of the Jewish People; the inaugural issue features articles by Yossi Klein Halevi, David Bryfman and Malka Z. Simkovich, among others…
Joshua Kushner and Karlie Kloss welcomed their third child, Rae Florence Kushner…
Investor Marshall Weinberg, a major donor and lay leader at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and United Jewish Appeal, among other organizations, died last week at 95…
Major Gifts
Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donated $70 million to the United Negro College Fund as part of a broad $1 billion effort by the organization to strengthen the country’s historically Black colleges and universities…
Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donated $70 million to the United Negro College Fund as part of a broad $1 billion effort by the organization to strengthen the country’s historically Black colleges and universities…
Transitions
Harold Marcus was named president of the Hebrew Free Loan Society of Greater Philadelphia…
Pic of the Day
Marjorie Harris (right), a co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers NBA team with her husband, Josh Harris, visits an Israeli girls basketball team that is sponsored by the couple’s foundation last week at the Hebrew University Secondary School in Jerusalem. The team is part of 48ers for Female Empowerment, a spin-off of the educational sports nonprofit The Equalizer.
Birthdays
Founder, chairman and CEO of Salesforce, Marc Russell Benioff turns 61…
Member of the U.K.’s House of Lords, Baroness Vivien Helen Stern turns 84… Former member of Knesset, he also served as Israel’s ambassador to France and then the United Nations, Yehuda Lancry turns 78… Lakewood Ranch, Fla., resident, Dvora Millstone turns 77… Israeli television anchor and popular singer, Yardena Arazi turns 74… Founder of ALMA, she served as a member of Knesset for Yesh Atid from 2013 to 2015, Ruth Calderon turns 64… President and CEO of Israel Aerospace Industries, Boaz Levy turns 64… Best-selling author and serial entrepreneur, Marissa Levin… Son and grandson of leading British rabbis, he is the senior rabbi at the Beverly Hills Synagogue, Pinchas Eliezer “Pini” Dunner turns 55… Director and co-creator of the award-winning HBO series “Game of Thrones,” known professionally as David Benioff, David Friedman turns 55… Former member of the Knesset for Likud, she has appeared on multiple Israeli reality television shows, Inbal Gavrieli turns 50… White House correspondent for NPR, Tamara Keith turns 46… Member of the California State Assembly where he serves as co-chair of the Legislative Jewish Caucus, Jesse Gabriel turns 44… Vice president of government relations at the ADL, Carmiel Arbit… Features writer at New York magazine and its culture magazine Vulture, Lila Shapiro… Actor and comedian, best known for his role as Gabe Lewis on the NBC sitcom “The Office,” Zach Woods turns 41… Videographer and virtual program producer for the U.S. State Department, Mitchell Israel Malasky… Assistant appellate federal defender at Federal Defenders of San Diego, Daniel Yadron… Former center and power forward for Maccabi Tel Aviv of the Israeli Basketball Premier League and the EuroLeague, Jacob Greer (Jake) Cohen turns 35… Asset manager for Capital Realty Group, Yanky Rodman… Senior director of Next Gen at Christians United for Israel, Destiny Albritton… Strategic director at Laurel Strategies, Adam Basciano…
