Your Daily Phil: The gift that heals: The Jusidmans’ NIS 200 million for Israeli rehab hospital
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on a 200-million shekel gift from Daniel Jusidman to establish the largest rehabilitation hospital in Israel, cover the Jewish People Policy Institute’s annual conference yesterday in Jerusalem and spotlight new guidance on a federal education tax credit that Jewish groups hope will help more families access day school education. We feature an opinion piece by Debbie Wasserman about a grassroots interfaith initiative and a piece by Audrey Maman Bensoussan about a communal model for improving Israel education. Also in this issue: Amitai Fraiman, Martin Edelman and Gene Shalit.
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 SRE Network Convening, focused on advancing safety, respect and gender equity across the Jewish nonprofit sector, kicks off this afternoon in New York City.
Brothers for Life, an Israeli organization serving injured IDF veterans, is marking its 18th anniversary with a donor mission in Israel this week.
What You Should Know
Daniel Jusidman, a Mexican Israeli hardware magnate, has donated NIS 200 million ($68.5 million) through his family foundation to help establish what will become Israel’s largest — and he hopes best — rehabilitation hospital, Jusidman told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross last week ahead of the official announcement today.
Israel’s rehabilitative care infrastructure — providing the care for patients after they are out of immediate medical danger but still requiring support — has long been lacking. A 2024 report by Israel’s Health Ministry found that the country has 60% of the average number of rehabilitation hospitalization beds among OECD countries. In the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks and nearly three years of war, the need for greater rehabilitative care has only increased.
Speaking from his home in Tel Aviv, Jusidman stressed his expectation and hope that the new facility will become Israel’s top rehabilitation hospital.
News
SHARING THE STAGE
At JPPI’s annual conference, some heckling and some ‘cautious’ hope
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has for years cited, almost as an article of faith, that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel. Shuki Friedman, who runs the Jewish People Policy Institute, contends (based on JPPI’s research) that Israelis believe the gravest danger facing the country is internal divisions. “The majority of Israelis think the most threatening challenge is not the Iranian missiles coming tonight, but the lack of cohesion and the rifts within Israeli society,” Friedman told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Justin Hayet on Sunday just hours after protesters at JPPI’s annual conference in Jerusalem highlighted those divisions.
Reason for hope: The institute’s 2026 Israeli Society Index, released at the conference, paints a complex picture of rising optimism among Israelis alongside a growing sense of distance across differences. Yet Friedman noted that speakers from both the right and left acknowledged the cost of years of division and expressed a willingness to reach across the aisle. Although the tensions of the upcoming elections risk deepening the political divide, “the fact that they at least express a desire for something different is, in itself, a reason for hope,” he said.
MONEY MATTERS
Treasury guidance offers boost to Jewish groups preparing for new education tax credit
Jewish advocacy groups are celebrating a new set of tax guidelines released last week by the Treasury Department that offer clarity into a new federal education tax credit that they hope will help more Jewish families access day school education, reports Gabby Deutsch for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
Coming attractions: The program will provide a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit for people who donate up to $1,700 to organizations that fund certain approved education expenses, like private school tuition and tutoring costs. While final guidance on the tax credit — regulations for the organizations, where and how they can operate, who will be able to receive the scholarship funds — is not expected to be issued until September, the Treasury Department’s deputy assistant secretary for tax policy, Kevin Salinger, did a whirlwind tour of virtual briefings with nonprofits last week to preview the forthcoming new guidance.
Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
Opinion
INTERFAITH RELATIONS
The power of Small Conversations
“It should not need saying, but it must be said: No faith community is responsible for the crimes of those who hijack its name,” writes Debbie Wasserman, president of the International Council of Jewish Women, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “Treating a whole community as suspect because of a criminal who claimed its banner is not vigilance. It is the extremist’s own logic, adopted secondhand. We should refuse to give these terrorists what they want, and I believe that the most effective refusal is not a press release or a hashtag. It is a conversation.”
Choosing to connect: “It is no coincidence that the Small Conversations project was started by a women’s organization. Across faith traditions, women have long carried the relational labor of community life — the meal trains and visiting committees, the sisterhood and the parish guild, the networks that hold a congregation together between services. That same capacity, turned outward, is one of the most reliable bridges between communities that the rest of the world tells should be wary of each other.”
LEARNING OPPORTUNITY
CAJE and Spertus Institute’s Israel leadership certificate program offers blueprint for other Jewish communities
“In a post-Oct. 7 environment, Jewish students are encountering conversations about Israel earlier and more intensely than ever before,” writes Audrey Maman Bensoussan, director of day school programs and services at the Miami-based Center for the Advancement of Jewish Education, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Preparation that empowers: “If we want young Jews to engage Israel with knowledge, resilience and pride, then we must invest not only in what students learn, but in how leaders lead. … When communities invest in leadership development, cross-school collaboration and strategic educational capacity, they create multiplier effects. One initiative can strengthen multiple institutions simultaneously. One cohort can influence hundreds of educators and thousands of students. The Jewish community often seeks scalable solutions to urgent challenges. This is one.”
Worthy Reads
Painful Pursuit: In an opinion piece for the Jewish News Syndicate, Robert M. Soffer observes echoes of a historical rite of humiliation in today’s attitudes toward Jews in America. “In 1547, during Rome’s Carnival, crowds gathered for a ritual designed to remind Jews of their place. Then it began: the sharp slap of bare feet against ancient cobblestones. Jewish boys — stripped completely naked, terrified, exposed — were forced to sprint through the streets as mobs spat, laughed and jeered. … Today, the spectacle is less literal but no less deliberate. It unfolds in classrooms, corporate boardrooms, protest encampments, online mobs and political debates. The message to Jews remains unchanged: You may participate, but your protection may vanish when it becomes costly. You may contribute, but loyalty to you may yield to political convenience. And your vulnerability will remain on display for all to see.” [JNS]
Paradigm Shift: In the Substack “Jewish Priorities,” Amitai Fraiman posits that while Jewish sovereignty has transformed Jewish history, Jewish consciousness is still playing catch-up. “Jews have not yet fully internalized what sovereignty requires. That failure manifests itself differently in Israel and North America. In Israel, it is expressed by the struggle to use power without needing to prove strength again and again, to accept the obligations of sovereignty rather than evade them, and to embrace Jewish power and particularity without embarrassment. In North America, it appears in the habits of a Jewish life too often received, supported, visited, or consumed rather than built.” [JewishPriorities]
Stagnation Nation: Eli Groner, former director general of the Prime Minister’s Office, argues in The Times of Israel that Israeli politics operates like a “village” — a closed insider network driven by loyalty and personal alliances — with no “river” of open, competitive public discourse. “The next generation of successful Israeli leadership will need to be bilingual: fluent in the River’s speed and openness, and the Village’s competence and execution. Pure River leadership is reckless. Pure Village leadership is stagnant. Israel has plenty of Riverian figures and plenty of Villagers. What it lacks are translators. The challenge is finding leaders who can operate in both worlds.” [TOI]
Major Gifts
Anthropic pledged $150 million to launch Claude Corps, a fellowship program that will embed AI-trained young professionals at nonprofits across the country…
Birthright Israel Foundation’s Long Island Gala on Thursday raised over $2 million, including a record-breaking $1 million raised and matched at the event…
The Staenberg-Loup Jewish Community Center in Denver received a $25,000 security grant from the Boettcher Foundation…
Transitions
Barry Weinberg joined Alpha Epsilon Pi Foundation as its Midwest director of development…
Word on the Street
Anne Arundel County, Md., passed a $150,000 security grant program for nonprofits and faith groups at risk of hate crimes — a victory for the Jewish Federation of Annapolis and the Chesapeake after the county executive had denied the request three times, as previously reported by Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen…
The city of Los Angeles declared July 15 Wallis Annenberg Day to honor the late philanthropist who donated over $1.5 billion to thousands of Southern California organizations in her lifetime…
Several British Jews were recognized in the King’s Birthday Honours List with the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire, an award presented to individuals for prominent national or regional roles and one rank below a knighthood…
Despite regional instability, Passages announced that over 150 American Christian students traveled to Israel on the program so far this summer…
KKL-JNF’s chairman, Eyal Ostrinsky, vowed to cut organizational waste and refocus the agency on forestry and rebuilding border communities in an interview with The Times of Israel…
Anti-Israel super PACs have notched several Democratic primary victories, alarming pro-Israel groups ahead of key upcoming races in New York and Michigan, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports…
Real estate attorney Martin Edelman, a key advisor to the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates, was awarded the country’s second-highest civilian honor on Thursday by UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan…
In The Wall Street Journal, Phelim McAleer, who wrote a play with his wife Ann about the survivors of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks, reflects on antisemitism in his native Ireland ahead of “Bloomsday,” an unofficial holiday celebrating author James Joyce’s Ulysses and its main character, a Jewish man named Leopold Bloom…
Film critic Gene Shalit, a fixture on NBC’s “Today” show for more than 40 years, died at 100…
Pic of the Day
Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority stand next to two 1,700-year-old marble statues discovered during an archaeological excavation near Binyamina, in a photo taken today in Tel Aviv. The statues, unearthed in a Roman-Byzantine winepress, will go on display later this week.
Birthdays
Co-anchor of a CNN global news show, Bianna Golodryga turns 48…
Former president of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Phoenix, Stuart C. Turgel… Former president of the National Rifle Association, Sandra S. (Sandy) Froman turns 77… Ethicist and professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, Laurie Zoloth turns 76… Internationally recognized authority on Yiddish folk and theater music, Zalmen Mlotek turns 75… Entrepreneur, currently living in Estonia, he rebuilt a synagogue and a community center in Estonia, Alexander Bronstein turns 72… President and CEO of the PR firm Edelman, founded by his father Daniel Edelman in 1952, Richard Winston Edelman turns 72… Chief rabbi of Poland, Rabbi Michael Schudrich turns 71… Israeli Druze politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Likud, Fateen Mulla turns 66… Novelist, screenwriter, teacher and freelance journalist, Jill Eisenstadt turns 63… First woman certified by the NFLPA as a player agent, she is now general counsel for USA Football, Ellen Marsha Zavian turns 63… Director at Citrin Cooperman Advisors, Reuben Rutman… Los Angeles-based attorney, Daniel Brett Lacesa… Former regional director of the ADL based in Los Angeles, now managing member of Abrams Advisors, Jeffrey I. Abrams… Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, now deputy publisher of The Athletic and Wirecutter at The New York Times Company, Clifford J. Levy turns 59… Chief political correspondent for CNN, born Dana Ruth Schwartz, Dana Bash turns 55… Retired news anchor for Israel Public Broadcasting, she is married to Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Geula Even Sa’ar turns 54… Former head speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama, she is the author of 2025’s As A Jew: Reclaiming Our Story From Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us, Sarah Hurwitz… Ethiopian-born Israeli marathoner, he represented Israel at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Zohar Zimro turns 49… Former chief of staff to Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), Adam Jentleson turns 45… Co-founder of Evergreen Strategy Group, he is a former director of speechwriting for Hillary Clinton and was also the principal collaborator on memoirs published by HRC, Daniel Baum Schwerin… Director of corporate communications and public affairs at Google, Rebecca Michelle Ginsberg Rutkoff… Chief advancement officer at Birthright Israel Foundation, Jaclyn “Jackie” Saxe Soleimani… Senior recruiter at The Carlyle Group, Victoria Edelman Klapper … PBS News correspondent Ali S. Weinberg Rogin… Associate at Affinity Partners, Elli Sweet… Jimmy Ritter… Joel Winton…
