Your Daily Phil: Zioness launches 501(c)(4) as it gets deeper into politics
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on a cafe in Tel Aviv that is giving evacuees from southern Israel a place to work. We feature an opinion piece by Elizabeth Leiman Kraiem advocating for more attention from Jewish donors to New York City’s public university system; and one by Pastor Todd Stavrakos encouraging continued interfaith work with mainline Protestant communities — with the help of Christian allies. Also in this issue: Rachel M. Cohen, Farhan al-Qadi and Dr. Gary and Alya Michelson. We’ll start with a new action fund launched by the Zioness Movement.
As some left-wing circles become increasingly hostile to pro-Israel voices, the Zioness Movement has launched a new political action fund to bridge that divide, with the aim of both bringing Jews and Zionists closer to Democratic politics and demonstrating that Zionism and progressivism can go hand-in-hand, reports Efrat Lachter for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Officially launched six weeks ago but publicly unveiled at last week’s Democratic National Convention, the 501(c)(4) fund is meant to allow the Zioness Movement a way to make a direct impact on American politics.
While the Zioness Action Fund endorsed Kamala Harris for president, the organization will not donate to any political campaigns but will instead be focusing on “reminding the Jewish community to get activated to protect our bodies and our rights and our democracy, and reminding the Democratic Party how pivotal the Jewish community is as a voting bloc, especially in swing states,” Amanda Berman, the founder of the Zioness Action Fund and the Zioness Movement, told eJP. This will include “get out the vote” efforts in the Jewish community, the organization said.
The fund will focus on eight domestic policy areas that it says reflect progressive, Jewish and Zionist values: reproductive health; trans-inclusive healthcare; gun violence prevention; refugee and immigrant justice; LGBTQ+ equality; environmental justice and climate change; civil rights; and bail and pre-trial detention reform. The organization’s “key policy areas” do not include ensuring U.S. support for Israel or any other related foreign policy matters.
The organization said that the fund has so far focused on the launch and other events at the DNC but plans to continue its efforts through the election. “We wanted to make sure that there are Zionist Democratic spaces at the convention and within the party,” Berman said. “We will now figure out our next steps,” she added.
“The Zioness Action Fund’s events were met with such enthusiasm that we had a waiting list for attendees, including a mix of Jewish and non-Jewish members of Congress and senators, all eager to participate and show their support,” she added, although acknowledging that “because the speeches ended so late, the turnout wasn’t as big as expected.” Among the speakers were Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Ilan Goldenberg, the Harris campaign’s newly named Jewish liaison.
The DNC provided a significant platform for the Zioness Action Fund to assert its presence. Berman said that most American Jewish attendees left the convention feeling deeply appreciative of the party’s leadership and the carefully curated stage lineup, which reflected a broad consensus across the Democratic spectrum.
Berman noted that “tens of thousands of Democrats stood in solidarity with the Goldberg-Polin family, cheering them on and chanting, ‘Bring them home.’ This display of support for the hostage families underscored the alignment between the party’s progressive values and its commitment to Zionism, contrary to concerns that the party might lean away from its support for Israel.”
Berman said she is aware of potential shifts in political dynamics that could affect pro-Israel representation within the Democratic Party. She acknowledged concerns about the Democratic Party’s future stance, particularly if progressive factions within the party gain more influence. “We need to ensure that our ideological home remains a place where Jews can advocate for our values,” Berman explained. “It is essential for us to be vigilant and actively engaged to safeguard our place within the Democratic Party.”
COFFEE FOR A CAUSE
The cafe uniting a Western Negev moshav’s evacuees
A walk along Tel Aviv’s bustling Kaplan Street means passing a lengthy display of posters of hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7. Between all of the tragically familiar photos on the side of the Sarona shopping and cafe area is a small navy blue sign with a red flower and white lettering stating: Cafe Otef – Netiv Ha’asara. The small, unassuming coffee and gift shop in one of Sarona’s historic Templar buildings, where young residents of the moshav, who have been evacuated from their homes since Oct. 7, have found jobs, and residents of all ages have found a place to gather once again as a community, reports Lahav Harkov for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
Teach a man to fish: Tamir Barelko, the founder of the Arcaffe coffee shop chain, found a way to use his skills to help evacuees from the western Negev. “The idea for ‘Cafe Otef’ was born out of a basic need we identified among the displaced communities, which is the need to remain a united community while starting to build a new routine in their new, temporary, or permanent homes,” Barelko said when the cafe opened in May. “Unlike any other employment place, the advantages and capabilities of a coffee house are the connection between employing the displaced individuals and creating a meeting place for them among themselves.”
Spreading the idea: Working with marketing professional Michal Tzion and others, Barelko brought in celebrity chef Ruthie Russo to plan the menu, which includes sandwiches and salty and savory pastries. He raised funds to establish the coffee shop from the Tech4Israel fund, and other donors, and has since opened a second branch of Cafe Otef in Tel Aviv’s hipster Florentine neighborhood with residents of Re’im. Each Cafe Otef is owned by the community for which it is named and the profits go to that community’s rehabilitation. Eventually, when Netiv Ha’asara’s residents return home, its members hope to reopen the cafe locally, possibly as a food truck, Shaked said.
Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
SUPPORTING HIGHER ED
Jewish donors and the case for CUNY
“High-profile Jewish donors made headlines during the last academic year when they halted financial support for Ivy League universities, but there was surprisingly little public debate over where else those funds might go,” writes Elizabeth Leiman Kraiem, a senior program officer at the Charles H. Revson Foundation, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “‘If you are an Ivy League megadonor wondering how to better spend the money you no longer want to give to a Penn or a Columbia,’ [Bret] Stephens wrote, ‘maybe it’s time to forgo the fading prestige of the old elite for the sake of something else, something new.’ The City University of New York (CUNY) is likely not the ‘something’ Stephens had in mind, but it should be up for consideration.”
A significant Jewish presence: “CUNY has the largest number of Jewish undergraduates of any university system in the United States: some 13,500 undergraduates, according to Hillel International. Like most CUNY undergraduates, Jewish students are primarily first-generation college students and/or first-generation Americans. They come from Latin America, Israel, the former Soviet Union, Iran and Syria, and they attend CUNY for many of the same reasons earlier generations did when City College was known as ‘the Jewish Harvard’: the high cost of private college; ongoing family responsibilities; cultural preferences that discourage leaving home before they are married; and CUNY’s renewed attention to honors programs.”
Fuel the engine: “CUNY campuses are among the most powerful engines of upward mobility in the country. These campuses do not lack pluralism, nor merit; rather, they lack resources taken for granted at private residential schools, including academic and career advising services, mental health support, even cafeterias… Too often, CUNY is considered part of the Jewish past rather than a driver of its future. While megadonors ponder new elite centers of excellence for higher education, there are thousands of CUNY students who aspire to excellence right now.”
READER RESPONDS
Keep faith: Why the Jewish community shouldn’t abandon engagement efforts with mainline Protestants
“Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin once said: ‘You don’t make peace with friends.’ I’ve been thinking about this message in response to calls to pivot from the Jewish community’s traditional interfaith allies and its approach to engaging the mainline Protestant community [‘The American Jewish community needs a new interfaith strategy,’ July 30] — and in light of the positive results of Pathways’ engagement efforts around two major denominational gatherings this summer,” writes Pastor Todd Stavrakos, a member of the board of directors of Pathways, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Bracing for trouble: “Pathways focuses on promoting constructive approaches to the Israel-Palestine conflict and countering antisemitism in mainline Protestant churches. Earlier this summer, two major mainline Protestant denominations — The Episcopal Church (TEC) and the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) — gathered for their national assemblies. The expectation was that each would likely produce statements and resolutions that would pile onto the rhetoric continuing to emerge from campuses… These attitudes do more than just reflect the mob mentality playing out in various venues: When they come from purported voices of morality, it helps create justification for unfair attacks and double standards against Israel.”
Proactive and prepared: “We coordinated teams of clergy, comprised of allies within TEC and PCUSA, to educate the delegates to their respective assemblies. These teams were equipped with compelling resources to counter one-sided assertions and attacks, and they executed a strong ground game to confront misinformation and deter harmful resolutions… The result? The best possible outcome for those who care about and value Israel as a Jewish state and a balanced approach to problem-solving for both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.”
Worthy Reads
The Difference You Make: Vox policy correspondent Rachel M. Cohen shares her reaction when experts advised her that individual acts of charity and volunteerism — not just top-down policies — are effective ways to have a major impact on problems like homelessness. “The reporting left me uneasy. Why did I think only about structural change and disregard more immediate help?… My coming of age in the 2010s coincided with critiques of individual action that were gaining prominence in media, politics and academia — overlapping with a growing national focus on inequality and the climate crisis… It struck me as rather sad that those of us who are not billionaires may have convinced ourselves that volunteering or fundraising was mostly a waste of time. When did I become someone who placed such exhausting value on optimizing my time, anyway? It suddenly felt much more arrogant than altruistic. Convenient, and uncaring. Perhaps most importantly, had distancing ourselves from charity and service made the world a better place? Has it made my own life better?” [Vox]
Quite the Contrary: In HistPhil, Jeffrey M. Berry offers a rebuttal to a recent article in the American Prospect raising the alarm about the security of nonprofit funding under a potential Trump administration. “Looking toward the future, the liberal nonprofit sector will continue to flourish for reasons beyond its role in service delivery. Although the number of individuals giving to charity has trended downwards, for nonprofits this is partially offset by the extraordinary giving by large contributors. And this philanthropy is decidedly liberal in orientation. Among the mega-givers there is no conservative cohort comparable to the money donated to nonprofits working in public health, human services, poverty and other liberal causes by donors such as MacKenzie Scott, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates and many others. Nonprofit entrepreneurs continue to proliferate, producing an enormous variety of new and imaginative organizations addressing the problems of the world. For nonprofits, despite the recent alarms, the future is bright.” [HistPhil]
Around the Web
Israeli hostage Farhan al-Qadi, 52, was discovered and rescued by Israeli special forces from a Hamas tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday after more than 10 months in captivity; he was taken to a hospital for tests and was released home this morning…
The Canadian Jewish News details how the Canada Revenue Agency lost patience with Jewish National Fund of Canada after several warnings dating back to 2019 that it planned to take away its charitable status due to “repeated and serious non-compliance” with the Income Tax Act rules governing charities, particularly covering JNF Canada’s work in Israel…
Surgeon and inventor Dr. Gary Michelson and his wife, Alya, pledged $120 million to the University of California Los Angeles to kickstart the creation of the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy…
The Dallas Jewish Historical Society is partnering with local marketing agency Tegan Digital to enhance their existing digital platform to better represent the significance of the organization’s mission…
The New Yorker published an exclusive excerpt from actor Al Pacino’s memoir Sonny Boy that includes recollections from his stint working in the offices of the American Jewish Committee when he was 17…
Martin Scorsese, who had a close relationship with comedian Jerry Lewis, will star in an upcoming documentary about Lewis’ infamous film “The Day the Clown Cried,” an unfinished, widely panned project about a German clown in Auschwitz that Lewis once said he was “embarrassed” to have made…
A $10 million gift from Ellen W.P. Wasserman to LifeBridge Health will create an endowment to fund scholarships for medical students training at the Regional Medical Campus at Sinai Hospital, a partnership with the George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences…
The Jewish Women’s Foundation of New Jersey, an affiliate of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater MetroWest, awarded $125,000 in grants to five local organizations benefiting women and girls…
Gratz College in Melrose Park, Penn., appointed Brendan Goldman as the inaugural holder of its Saul Philip Wachs chair of Jewish life and learning. Prior to this position, Goldman held the Hazel D. Cole postdoctoral fellowship in Jewish studies at the University of Washington…
The National Park Foundation, the fundraising arm of the U.S. National Park Service received $100 million — the largest grant in its history — from the Lilly Endowment…
Yana Agranovsky Berger has been appointed executive director of the Contra Costa JCC in the San Francisco Bay area, its first full-time staff member in years. The center has also operated without a building for 13 years…
In The Atlantic, author Joshua Leifer reflects on last week’s cancellation of an event at a Brooklyn venue about his new book; the gathering was nixed by a venue manager over the event moderator’s support for Israel…
Meta banned the Instagram account of the NYU chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, a day after banning the account for the group’s Columbia chapter…
A group of Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the American Jewish Committee, filed a motion to supply additional documents supporting the claim that California’s Santa Ana Unified School District violated the state’s open meeting laws and intentionally excluded Jewish community members…
Documentarian Ofra Bikel, whose PBS “Frontline” films helped to free more than a dozen wrongly convicted or charged people, died on Aug. 11 at 94…
Pic of the Day
Pictured here in their service uniforms, 50 U.S. military and veterans’ affairs chaplains — rabbis and cantors from every denomination — gathered last week for the JWB Jewish Chaplains Council’s annual chaplains’ training and plenum, held at the JCC Association of North America’s headquarters in New York City. The training agenda featured a faculty of distinguished Jewish scholars and senior military officials representing each division of the U.S. armed forces.
Birthdays
Israeli soldier held captive for over five years by Hamas before being released in 2011, Gilad Shalit…
Artist and chemist, he survived the Holocaust by living in a hole in the ground for seven months, Tibor Spitz… Independent international trade and development professional, Bernard Kupferschmid… Professor emeritus of quantum physics at Tel Aviv University, Yakir Aharonov… Honorary president of the Israel Policy Forum and the immediate past president of American Jewish Committee, Robert H. Elman… Filmmaker and founder of Brave New Films, Robert Greenwald… Retired general counsel of Queens College of the City University of New York, Jane Denkensohn… Founder and CEO of retail chain Indigo Books & Music and co-founder and past chair of Kobo, Heather Reisman… Psychoanalyst and author of a 2019 memoir about her father Norman Mailer, Susan Mailer… Former chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents, Merryl Hiat Tisch… CEO of the Consumer Technology Association and author of the New York Times best-seller Ninja Innovation, Gary J. Shapiro… Senior rabbi of B’nai Jeshurun on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Jose Rolando Matalon… Actor, best known for his roles in two “Home Alone” films and two “City Slickers” films, Daniel Jacob Stern… British actress, known professionally as Emma Samms, Emma Elizabeth Wylie Samuelson… Professor at the George Washington University, he was deputy counsel in the Biden administration and the National Security Council legal advisor, Jonathan G. Cedarbaum… Television writer and producer, he was the original showrunner and executive producer of “Family Guy,” David J. Zuckerman… CEO and founder of PharmStars and managing partner and co-founder of Ambit Health Ventures, Naomi Fried, Ph.D… Activist, documentary filmmaker and former COO of Meta/Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg… Early pioneer of contemporary Jewish rock music, Richard Samuel “Rick” Recht… General counsel of Guardian US and a lecturer at Columbia Law School, Kai Falkenberg… First vice president in the Hunt Valley, Md., office of Newmark Valuation & Advisory, Daniel “Doni” Greenwald… Olympic gold medalist in Four-man Bobsleigh in 2010, he is the co-founder and CEO of Classroom Champions, Steven Michael Mesler… Offensive lineman for the NFL’s Cleveland Browns, Michael Dunn… Ari Willner…
