Your Daily Phil: With beefed-up security, a slightly ‘subdued’ JFN kicks off in Calif.
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we cover the first day of the Jewish Funders Network conference in San Diego and a conference last week for funders and activists examining gender issues in Israel in wartime. We report on the security preparations at Temple Israel outside Detroit that prevented a disaster when a gunman rammed a truck through its front doors. We feature an opinion piece by Tova Dorfman reflecting on the need to maintain Israeli-Diaspora connections as war and differences of opinion drive a wedge between us, and one by Stephen Bronfman about aligning our resources with our values when it comes to climate philanthropy. Also in this issue: Jacki Karsh, Jeffrey Lurie and Tovah Feldshuh.
What We’re Watching
The Jewish Funders Network annual conference continues today in San Diego. More on this below. If you’re there, say hi to eJP’s Jay Deitcher.
The Anti-Defamation League’s Never is Now conference begins today in New York.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is slated to briefly meet today with a group of largely local Orthodox Jewish leaders in the city, following a series of incidents in which Mamdani has had to address antisemitism in the context of his wife’s professional work and social media activity. Mainstream groups, such as the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Community Relations Council-New York and the American Jewish Committee, were not invited to the meeting.
Also in New York, The Next Step, a nonprofit helping Israelis who have lost limbs, is holding a gala tonight, after the originally scheduled event was postponed due to a snowstorm.
What You Should Know
It was the same temperature as every day in San Diego — a pleasant 70 degrees, not too hot, not too cold — as over 600 attendees, individual funders and representatives of family foundations and large grantmakers from nine countries made their way to the Funders Network’s 2026 International Conference. Actor and activist Jonah Platt even broke out a linen suit and gilded glasses for the event, the first time the convening has returned to California since 2019.
In a sign of the fraught moment, this year’s event was initially meant to have a team of six security guards. By the time the event kicked off yesterday afternoon, 17 guards were on premises, many wearing bulletproof vests and armed with pistols. “That’s a new reality,” Andrés Spokoiny, president and CEO of JFN, told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher on the sidelines of the conference. “The times in which you could have a Jewish event without security are gone. This is a new normal, and that has to be something that funders need to consider.”
Pivoting philanthropy away from changing the minds of antisemites and towards security and resilience was one of many topics funders were discussing at this year’s event, often while funders sipped coffee by the hotel’s fountain or lounged under umbrellas in the California sun. Other discussions included the need to bring overt politics into the philanthropic world, rebuilding Israel and supporting social service agencies after recent government cuts. But the topic that seemed top of mind was best exemplified by an oft-repeated quote that came up organically throughout the day: “Jewish education is my passion.”
Despite the familiar topics, a pall hung over this year’s gathering. “The mood is a little subdued for obvious reasons,” Spokoiny told eJP. “Because we’re in the middle of a war, so we have that ambivalence. We’re very happy to be together. We feel the energy of the community. We feel the strength of the philanthropic community. But we can’t forget that as we’re meeting here, people are running to shelter in Tel Aviv and around Israel.”
Indeed, while security guards were ever-present at the conference, Israeli funders were harder to find, as dozens who had planned to attend were unable or unwilling to make the trip in light of the closure of Israeli airspace due to ongoing Iranian and Hezbollah attacks. “Shalom, everybody,” Ronny Douek, the Israel-based co-chair of the conference, who serves as president and chairman of Sheatufim, an Israeli organization that addresses social challenges through multi-sector collaboration, began his speech during the event’s opening plenary. “I can’t believe I’m here today, especially with my son, Ariel, about to enter Lebanon with the commander brigade.”
The opening plenary emphasized the need for new voices, new leaders and new approaches. “I’m honored to stand before this extraordinary group of funders at a defining moment in the history of Israel and the Jewish people,” Zoya Raynes, managing director at Bank of America and chair of JFN, said. She immigrated to the U.S. from Kyiv in 1979, supported by a combination of philanthropy, activism and government policy. “It was coordinated power, not passive generosity,” she said.
The core programming in the plenary was a Q&A session, led by Lisa Eisen, co-president of Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, with actor and activist Jonah Platt, Iranian American businesswoman Mandana Dayani and investor Marc Rowan. “We have yet to understand the power of this room and the power of other rooms like this,” Rowan, who heads UJA-Federation’s board, said. “And we’re uncomfortable talking about power, because it’s one of the [most harmful] things that people say — the Jewish cabal that controls the world. Well, if you’re going to live with the insult, you might as well actually get some benefit.”
Live from JFN: This year, eJewishPhilanthropy is serving as the conference’s official media partner, creating a bespoke daily newsletter for attendees, alongside our normal coverage. (Sign up for it here.)
WOMEN’S WORK
Forming a feminist future under fire: Funders, activists discuss Israeli gender issues amid war
An incoming missile alert sounded just as Kalela Lancaster, Israel director of the National Council of Jewish Women, was presenting about the future of gender equity in Israel during a webinar last week. After the immediate danger had passed and the video feed was restored, Lancaster returned, and the webinar continued. The event had been planned as an in-person conference in Tel Aviv on March 5, hosted by NCJW, Jewish Funders Network and the Hadassah Foundation. But as the war against Iran loomed, the organizers postponed the event to last Wednesday and shifted it to be online. “War teaches you to move quickly,” Lancaster told Rachel Gutman for eJewishPhilanthropy. The webinar, now retitled as “Women’s Leadership in Israel Through the War and Beyond,” focused not just an account of how the war is hitting women, but a concrete, fully-developed plan for what comes next, even as the bombs are still falling.
Wartime work: The plan is the work of NCJW Israel’s cohort-based leadership program, Connecting for Impact (CFI), bringing together CEOs and activists from feminist organizations across the spectrum of Israeli civil society. The program launched before the Oct. 7 attacks, and it has adapted to the past two-plus years of war. “We’ve been in this state for two or three years,” Lancaster said. “There are brief moments of respite — essentially, this is a constant state. And we have to build the future inside it. Because if we wait, we never will.”
SECURITY SUCCESS
Temple Israel leaders laud security officials who prevented casualties in shooting attack
Six weeks ago, Danny Phillips, the director of security at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., arranged for the FBI to hold an active-shooter training for the congregation, one of the largest Reform synagogues in the county. That training potentially saved the lives of 140 children and their teachers on Thursday when an assailant rammed a truck full of explosives and weapons into the building, the congregation’s rabbi, Josh Bennett, told Haley Cohen for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider, “It’s only because he brought that to the front of mind that we are ready at the moment,” the rabbi continued, referring to Phillips, who was hailed as a hero.
As marketed: Rachel Levine, director of Temple Israel’s early childhood center, said she gives tours to prospective families a few times a week and the first question is always about security. “Every time I tell them, in my life, I have never felt so safe in a building as I do here,” said Levine, who has previously worked at Jewish day schools and public schools, some of which were in downtown Detroit. “The men that are there to take care of us have really made us always feel like they are taking care of us,” she continued. “I knew [in the] moment [of the attack] that they were going to do what they had to do to make sure that none of us were hurt. And literally, they did.”
Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
ISRAEL-DIASPORA RELATIONS
Dispatch from a nation on the edge
“Spend enough time in Jewish spaces, and you will hear both narratives repeated as fact: Liberal Jews are distancing themselves from Israel, and Reform Jews are uncomfortable with Zionism,” writes Rabbi Tracy Kaplowitz, director of Amplify Israel at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “There is truth here, but only partial truth — and partial truths, when left unexamined, harden into assumptions that distort our decision-making and weaken our communal future.”
Ready and willing: “What liberal Jews want is honest engagement. They want moral seriousness, complexity and relationship — not slogans or litmus tests. They want to encounter an Israel that reflects their values as well as their questions. And when that Israel is made visible, they show up. … Over time, the movement’s absence [as a Birthright trip provider] reinforced a false binary: that one must choose between being pro-Israel or progressive, committed or critical, engaged or ethical. But in the intervening years, we at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue believed that there was still a hunger for Israel experiences among liberal Jews. So, we decided to test our theory.”
ALIGNING OUR ASSETS
Why climate action is the next great Jewish responsibility
“Climate change is no longer a distant or abstract concern. It is the defining challenge of our generation,” writes Stephen Bronfman, founder and co-chair of Jewish Climate Trust and co-chair of the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Family Foundation, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “The risks are rising and, if we are honest with ourselves, the Jewish world has not yet responded at the scale this moment demands. That is why we have just published the Jewish Guide to Climate Philanthropy.”
Many paths, one goal: “This guide is both a call to action and a practical resource. It offers a clear, strategic road map for funders, foundations, federations and individual philanthropists who want to align their resources with their values. It explicates climate mitigation and adaptation. It explains where philanthropic dollars can be catalytic, from climate innovation and blended finance, to education, advocacy and community resilience. It identifies opportunities in Israel and the Diaspora, in technology and in culture, in policy and in Jewish learning. Importantly, the guide does not assume that there is only one ‘right’ way to give. Instead, it helps readers understand the range of approaches available.”
Worthy Reads
In Our Fortress Era: In The Times of Israel, Jacki Karsh reflects on the impulse of Jewish institutions to bulk up security measures once again in the wake of last week’s attack on Temple Israel in Michigan. “Security is necessary, a nonnegotiable. Jews would be fools to outsource their safety to sentiment. But if our response to antisemitism always begins and ends with just defense, then hatred has already succeeded in shrinking Jewish life. … The answer is not that Jews must become consumed by those who despise us. The answer is not that we spend our lives spiritually organized around our enemies. The answer is not that we let the antisemite set the agenda and then call that strength. The answer is that we become even bigger, brighter, more alive.” [TOI]
No Thanks, We’re Good: In The New York Times, Theodore Schleifer reports on backlash among the billionaire ranks against Warren Buffet’s Giving Pledge. “Aaron Horvath, a sociologist who has studied the Giving Pledge, called it a ‘time capsule’ of that 2010 era. ‘It feels old school,’ he said. Billionaires, he said, now think: ‘I can keep my head down and keep making money. I don’t have to put up with this charity charade anymore.’ … ‘The value proposition has changed because [of] the erosion of general trust, the polarization of everything over the last years,’ said Tom Tierney, who advises wealthy donors at Bridgespan, one of the nonprofit sector’s blue-chip advisory firms, and is on the board of the Gates Foundation. ‘You’re more likely to be criticized for giving large amounts of money away now than praised. That probably wasn’t as true 15 years ago,’ he said, citing ‘contention’ around extreme wealth.” [NYTimes]
‘Our Children are Different’: In The Wall Street Journal, Feliz Solomon and Zvi Smith look at how Israelis are adjusting to the latest round of fighting. “After more than two years of war, [Shira] Oze says her family has grown accustomed to, and exhausted by, life in this modern-day Sparta. They keep go-bags by the door and sleep in bunkers, hoping each fight will be the last, but knowing that it probably won’t. … In Tel Aviv, which bears the brunt of Iranian drone and missile fire, fatigue is visible on the faces of people woken several times each night by air-raid sirens. Many who don’t have a special reinforced room in their home, called in Hebrew a mamad, choose to camp in communal bunkers instead of scrambling to safety every time an alert goes off. … Dana Mizrahi, 37, a single mother of five, also sheltered [in a fortified community center outside Tel Aviv] during Israel’s last war with Iran, in June. The place has been a magnet for families like hers with small children. … It is deafeningly loud, but parents said they are willing to sacrifice privacy and quiet so their children won’t feel afraid and isolated. ‘Most children hear the sirens and they cry,’ Mizrahi said. ‘Not ours. Our children are different.’” [WSJ]
Word on the Street
The Israel Defense Forces identified Ayman Ghazali, the suspect in last week’s synagogue car ramming outside Detroit, as the brother of a Hezbollah commander, who was killed in an Israeli strike…
A new poll from the U.K.’s Union of Jewish Students found that a quarter of all students surveyed — regardless of religion — observed antisemitic behavior, while one in five said they would be reluctant or would refuse to have a roommate who was Jewish…
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani publicly condemned Susan Abulhawa, a Palestinian writer whose book his wife, Rama Duwaji, contributed illustrations to, and who has referred to Jews and Israelis as “Jewish supremacist vampires” and “rootless soulless ghouls”…
The Dallas Morning News compares Dr. Miriam Adelson’s political donations to those of other Texas sports teams owners, finding that she far surpasses the others, with a focus on legalizing casino gambling in the state…
The New York Academy of Art is giving away money donated by Jeffrey Epstein and has apologized for their longstanding relationship with the disgraced financier…
As part of a program established after the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting, 200 Pennsylvania nonprofits and religious institutions will receive, collectively, nearly $11 million in security grants…
“October Shadows,” a documentary produced by Shari Redstone and the Redstone Family Foundation that highlights Oct. 7 survivors and their efforts to heal, premiered over the weekend…
Authorities in Amsterdam are investigating an explosion at a Jewish school in the city, days after an arson attack at a synagogue in the Dutch city of Rotterdam…
An investor group led by the cofounders of Wiz co-founders, who last week finalized the $32 billion sale of their company to Google, reached an agreement to acquire Len Blavatnik’s shares in Israel’s Channel 13 worth $20-25 million, with plans to put more than $125 million into the company over the next three years…
The University of Florida forced the school’s chapter of College Republicans to disband after the release of a photo of one of the chapter’s leaders doing a Nazi salute…
Elik Topolosky, the brother of Rabbi Uri Topolosky, died on Thursday at 39…
Lewis Lehrman, whose 1982 gubernatorial bid in New York was largely financed by the fortune Lehrman amassed transforming his family’s local discount chain into Rite Aid, died on Wednesday at 87…
Author and ecologist Paul Ehrlich, whose bestselling book The Population Bomb predicted global famines, died on Friday at 93…
Major Gifts
Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie donated $1.2 million toward autism research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, N.Y.…
Transitions
President Donald Trump confirmed that Richard Grenell was exiting his role as president of the Kennedy Center after just over a year in the position…
Palestine 1936 author Oren Kessler is joining Georgetown University as the school’s Goldman Visiting Israeli Professor for the 2026-2027 academic year…
Pic of the Day
Actress Tovah Feldshuh and theater director Richard Maltby Jr. spray the crowd with seltzer yesterday during the “opening spritz” of the second annual Brooklyn Seltzerfest, a celebration of the fizzy drink and its Jewish roots.
Among the sponsors and partners of the event, which drew some 1,000 attendees, were Brooklyn Seltzer Boys (the last seltzer works in New York City), PJ Library, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, and The Workers Circle.
Birthdays
First baseman for MLB’s Texas Rangers, Ryan John “Rowdy” Tellez turns 31…
Former CEO and chairman of Citigroup, Sanford I. “Sandy” Weill turns 93… Dean emeritus and founder of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance, Rabbi Marvin (Moshe Chaim) Hier turns 87… NYC tax attorney and litigator, he served as a tax assistant to the solicitor general of the U.S., Stuart A. Smith turns 85… Actress and film director, she was married to Leonard Nimoy from 1989 until his death in 2015, Susan Linda Bay Nimoy turns 83… Computer scientist, he is a professor emeritus at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Andrew S. Tanenbaum turns 82… Israeli singer, best known as the original singer of “Jerusalem of Gold” (Yerushalayim Shel Zahav), Shulamit “Shuli” Natan turns 79… Film, stage and television actor and singer, Victor Garber turns 77… Customer service associate at Jewish Free Loan Association of Los Angeles, Judith “Judy” Karta… Mathematician, technology innovator (with 260 patents) and founder of four technology companies, Philippe Kahn turns 74… Peabody Award and Emmy Award-winning NPR journalist since 1977, now a host of NPR’s “Weekend Edition Saturday,” Scott Simon turns 74… Retired VP of external affairs and government relations at the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, Amy Reich Kaplan… Film producer, production designer and adjunct faculty member at Chicago’s Columbia College, Gail Sonnenfeld… Adjunct professor at both George Washington University Law School and Stanford In Washington, Andrew D. Eskin… Dean of NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, Polly Ellen Trottenberg turns 62… Head of special projects at Disney / ABC Television Group, Eric Avram… President of the Ruderman Family Foundation, Jay Ruderman turns 60… Actor and comedian, best known for playing the role of writer Frank Rossitano on the NBC sitcom “30 Rock,” Judah Friedlander turns 57… Senior producer of “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” at MS NOW, Amy Shuster… Head of the financial services practice at the BGR Group, Andy Lewin… Former speechwriter for President Joe Biden at The White House, now a partner at Bully Pulpit Interactive, Jeff Nussbaum turns 51… Co-founder of Chochmat Nashim, Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll… President and board member at My Warchest, Jason Rosenbaum… Winemaker at Covenant Wines and Hajdu Wines, Jonathan Hajdu… Retired soccer player in the Israeli Premier League who is now the first team manager of Maccabi Tel Aviv, Yoav Ziv turns 45… Detroit-based founder and managing partner of Ludlow Ventures, Jonathon Triest… Public policy director at Meta / Facebook’s Israel office, Jordana Cutler turns 44… Partner at FGS Global, he was previously a public affairs official at the Pentagon, Adam Blickstein… Head of U.S. government affairs at American Express, former counsel to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Alvin Isaac “Zack” Rosenblum… Senior director of global corporate partnerships at Global Citizen, Alexandra Stabler… Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter at The New York Times, Brian M. Rosenthal turns 37… Director in the New York office of the Jewish National Fund, Sarah Azizi… Spiritual leader and co-founder of Lower Manhattan’s Downtown Minyan, Mijal Bitton… Associate in the Philadelphia office of Morgan Lewis, Nathan Bennett… Jackie Stern… Jeremy Levin…
