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Good Thursday morning!

In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we examine last night’s car-ramming at Chabad’s international headquarters in Brooklyn and cover Global Jewry’s prize ceremony yesterday for Jewish collaborations. We also reflect on the significance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day statements that omit references to Jews. We feature an opinion piece by Stephanie Hausner about the mission of a new leadership program launched by the Conference of Presidents, and one by Rabbi Cantor Hillary Chorny critiquing a staple of contemporary communal discourse: “the Big Jewish Letter.” Also in this issue: Rachel Goldberg-Polin, Michael Koplow and Deann Forman.

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The reports came in quickly last night, just before 9 p.m.: A driver repeatedly rammed his car into the international headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. No injuries were reported.

With the reports came the commentary, tying the event to rising antisemitism generally and, more specifically, to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s anti-Israel rhetoric and fraught relationship with the Jewish community. Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, tweeted that she was instructing prosecutors to open a civil rights investigation into the ramming. The satirical Twitter account “Rabbi Linda Goldstein,” which lampoons progressive antisemitism with sarcasm, wrote in a tongue-in-cheek post that “there is no evidence the car ramming attack at 770 Chabad HQ was an anti-Semitic attack. Jumping to conclusions only stokes Islamophobia.”

As additional information emerged about the attack, however, Chabad officials began saying that, in fact, the attack on the synagogue-headquarters was not motivated by antisemitism. “Antisemitism does not appear to be a factor in this,” Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone, who runs social media for Chabad, wrote in a tweet. A spokesperson for Chabad, Motti Seligson, also noted that the motivations behind the ramming were “unclear.” This was not a perfunctory comment.

It appears that the driver, whose name has not yet been released, had been attempting to convert to Judaism and had been rebuffed. Sources familiar with the incident told eJewishPhilanthropy that he also appeared to be struggling with mental health issues. As he was taken into custody, the man could be seen wearing shorts in single-digit weather. 

Of course, there was ample cause to assume that this ramming was indeed an antisemitic attack. The day before, a rabbi was assaulted in Queens by a 32-year-old man who screamed at him, “Fuck the Jews.” Earlier this month, a synagogue was severely damaged in an arson attack in Jackson, Miss. And last month, Chabad’s Hanukkah candlelighting event in Sydney, Australia, was attacked by terrorist gunmen, who killed 15 people and injured scores more. 

The Jewish community is on edge, and for good reason. But particularly when that’s the case, an event like last night’s car-ramming not only demonstrates the wisdom of refraining from making assumptions until more information is available but also shows that reality can be messy and individual events do not always fit neatly into the broader narratives playing out around us. 

The fact that this ramming does not appear to have been motivated by hatred of Jews, but by some combination of mental health issues and misdirected anger from rejection, also does not diminish the communal demands for additional protection. Jews and Judaism being topics of discussion in the public discourse also makes it more likely for Jewish people and institutions to be targeted — as they were last night — even if not for explicitly antisemitic reasons.

Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here.

Global Jewry, the emerging network of international Jewish organizations, awarded its inaugural prizes for collaboration to Mem Global’s Jewish Learning Collaborative and to a joint initiative by Jewtina y Co. on Wednesday, giving both a $10,000 cash prize for initiatives undertaken in partnership with other Jewish organizations, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross. The prize ceremony was held shortly after Global Jewry received a grant — for an undisclosed sum — to create the Global Roundtable Fund to support additional new collaborations across the Jewish world, the organization said. 

Better together: Created in the summer of 2023, Global Jewry quickly grew to include hundreds of member organizations. Over the past 2 ½ years, the organization has refined its purpose, focusing now on improving collaboration and communication between Jewish organizations and their leaders. “What we're trying to do is create this environment for greater conversation, communication, cooperation and collaboration,” Sandy Cardin, the group’s founder, told eJP ahead of the ceremony. “But [the organizations] are the ones that are gonna have to do it. It's not going to be a top-down thing. What we can do is create this climate and environment for it, and have a platform that makes it as easy as possible.”

Read the full report here.

A week after President Donald Trump took office for the first time in 2017, the White House ignited a political and media firestorm by releasing a statement commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day that failed to mention Jews. Nearly a decade later, Vice President JD Vance’s statement commemorating the day, which marks the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of Auschwitz by Allied Forces, did not mention Jews or antisemitism, leading political rivals on the left to pounce, writes Gabby Deutch for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider. But despite the visibility of Vance’s tweet — which his defenders pointed out included pictures of him and his wife at Dachau, standing in front of a sign that said “Never again” in Yiddish — he was far from the only politician or public figure that failed to mention the fact that the Holocaust targeted Jews. 

Soft denial: Does it matter that these politicians or media don’t reference Jews if they are still highlighting the significance of the Holocaust? Norman Goda, a Holocaust historian at the University of Florida, told JI that modern remembrances of the Holocaust that fail to mention Jews are “a soft form of denial.” Rising antisemitism, coupled with declining knowledge about a genocide that targeted and killed 6 million Jews, means that reminding people of the facts — the specifics — remains crucial. “Do we do this with any other mass catastrophe?” Goda questioned. “We don’t do it, and anybody who would do that is engaged in an almost willful misunderstanding, either a profound historical ignorance, on the one hand, where you almost have to try to be that ignorant, or something that is simply more nefarious.”

Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.

“One of the greatest challenges plaguing the Jewish community is the inability to speak across differences of opinions and worldviews,” writes Stephanie Hausner, chief operating officer of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “Imagine if the incoming presidents of our diverse member organizations had preexisting relationships and friendships. The potential change in the tenor of conversation and how the organizations would relate to each other could have a monumental impact on the entire American Jewish community.” 

Ambassadors on board: “Designed as a 13-month leadership development initiative, the Ambassadors Program will guide rising lay leaders from Conference of Presidents member organizations as they grow into more impactful communal roles. Participants complete the program with enhanced leadership skills, a deeper understanding of the American Jewish ecosystem and a greater appreciation for the diversity of the community they serve. … At the conclusion of the program, participants may apply for microgrants to support collaborative projects between member organizations and will join an alumni network dedicated to sustained collaboration. … The Ambassadors Program launched at a moment when the stakes could not be higher, and its participants have committed to carrying forward a culture of shared purpose and respectful disagreement.”

Read the full piece here.

“We are navigating an endless archipelago of crises, hopping from one earth-shattering piece of news to the next,” writes Rabbi Cantor Hillary Chorny, an officer of the Cantors Assembly, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “Some responses have been powerfully effective at returning a sense of spiritual and/or political control … [a]nd then there is the Big Jewish Letter: the formulaic public missive masquerading as a positive force for collective change, all too often a clunky, fruitless attempt at organized protest.”

Let’s do better: “Even when we receive a letter with a decent window for consideration that is constructed in a way we feel invites proper signing-on, our officer corps is opposed to messaging without associated action. We are allergic to ‘clicktivism,’ the pretense that by signing a letter we are doing nearly enough to effect change. It is rarely the case that letters are accompanied by plans of action or invitations to engage with systemic advocacy or protest. … We are responsible to be like Aharon the High Priest: ohev shalom v’rodef shalom — to love peace and to pursue it. Without the latter, we are only serving our anxiety.”

Read the full piece here.

It’s Not Over: In The Free Press, Rachel Goldberg-Polin reflects on the repatriation of the body of Ran Gvili as she continues to mourn the death of her captive son, Hersh, who was killed by Hamas in 2024. “For me, when Hersh came home, it was not a happy day. At all. It changed the rest of my life forever, and every day is sodden with grief and pain. So it was confusing for me yesterday to receive many messages telling me how happy I must be. But as more and more texts and emails swam to me, I began to understand the messages were because this specific agonizing mission, to get every hostage home, has concluded. … But for us bereaved families, the eternal hurdle is figuring out how to wake up each morning with part of our souls elsewhere. It is doable, because millions of people around the world do it every day. But sadly, this lazy-eight infinity symbol does not end for us; it keeps looping.” [FreePress]

The Business of Hate: In an opinion piece for Fox News, Aviva Klompas draws attention to the financial incentives that reward online hate speech. “In today’s digital ecosystem, outrage fuels visibility. Visibility drives traffic. Traffic brings revenue. Antisemitism becomes content and content becomes cash. Extremist figures understand this well. For some, antisemitism is strategic. Provocation drives attention. Attention drives donations, subscriptions, merchandise sales and influence. … Too often, responses treat antisemitism as a content moderation problem alone. That misses the larger issue. As long as platforms profit from engagement regardless of substance, hateful material will continue to surface. As long as advertisers fail to scrutinize where their dollars appear, they risk indirectly funding extremism. And as long as policymakers avoid examining how existing incentives function, the cycle will persist.” [FoxNews]

Know What to Answer: In an opinion piece for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the Israel Policy Forum’s Michael Koplow addresses the questions implying dual loyalties put to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro during the vice presidential vetting process in 2024.“[U]psetting as Shapiro’s vetting experience is, it would be the wrong takeaway to conclude that antisemitism is now so rampant that no Jew could ascend to one of the highest offices in the land. The less worrisome, but more complicated, problem is this: what may be obvious to American Jews is not obvious to wider American society, and vice versa. This lack of basic understanding must be corrected, and to do so, American Jews should reactivate a muscle that has atrophied, and explain why being American and supporting Israel does not create dual loyalty. At the same time, American Jews must try to understand why what seems unremarkable to us may not seem unremarkable to others.” [JTA]

Breach of Trust: In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Rasheeda Childress writes about the challenge of regaining donor trust after an organization experiences a data breach, an increasingly common problem. “‘The number-one thing you have to do is follow the regulations,’ [Bennett Weiner, CEO of the BBB Wise Giving Alliance,] says. ‘And if the data is across multiple states, you’re going to follow the regulations of more than just one.’ Next up, give a sincere and genuine apology, says Lynne Wester, founder of Donor Relations Group, a fundraising consulting firm. … ‘Data breach commentary is stilted — it’s full of legalese,’ she says. ‘But nonprofits and giving are all about human relationships. So we need to distill that and make it clear.’” [ChronicleofPhilanthropy]

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Israel’s Knesset approved the first of three readings of the government’s 2026 budget; if the budget is not passed by the end of March, the Knesset will dissolve, sending the country to elections…

The Conference of European Rabbis held its annual meeting in Jerusalem this week, in which attendees from across the continent discussed the challenges facing their communities and their concerns that they are being ignored by Israeli leaders… 

Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar and other Chabad leaders met with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday to discuss the status of Jewish communities in the country…

The Forward spotlights the South Philadelphia Shtiebel, a new synagogue in the City of Brotherly Love led by Modern Orthodox Rabbanit Dasi Fruchter…

Israeli journalist Amir Tibon was awarded this year’s Wingate Prize for his book, The Gates of Gaza, which recounts his family’s experiences surviving the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks…

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The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, whose campus was destroyed in last January’s Eaton fires, is suing Southern California Edison, alleging the utility company’s negligence failed to follow security protocols that would have mitigated the spread of the fire…

A new report published by UNESCO found that three-quarters of the more than 2,000 teachers in the European Union who responded to a survey from the agency said that they had encountered antisemitism in the classroom, including 61% of respondents who said that Holocaust denial or distortion had been present among students…

J. Livingston Kosberg, a Jewish communal activist and former president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston, died on Saturday at 89…

Financier Ross Stevens donated $100 million to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams, ensuring that each member receives $200,000, regardless of their performance at the upcoming games in Italy; they will receive half of the sum either 20 years after their first Olympic appearance or at age 45, whichever comes later, and the other half will go to their families after they die…

Deann Forman will be the inaugural executive director of the JCC Association of North America’s Center for Innovation and Impact, one of three newly established “Centers of Excellence” that are part of the organization’s strategic framework. Read more about the restructuring here…

Carl Kaplan, the founder and managing director of Koret Israel Economic Development Funds, is retiring more than three decades after launching the organization…

Liz Vogel has been named executive director of New Pluralists, a funder collaborative aimed at connecting people from different backgrounds… 

Maddie Solomon has been hired as the next manager of programs and partnerships at the Jewish democracy group A More Perfect Union…

COURTESY/KKL-JNF

A flock of cranes gathers in the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund’s Hula Lake Park in northern Israel this week during a winter rainstorm, standing with their beaks facing the wind to ensure that the gales blow around their bodies and don’t rip off their feathers. 

MATT WINKELMEYER/GETTY IMAGES

Physician and an author of four New York Times best-selling books, he is a professor of medicine and engineering at USC, as well as a CBS News contributor, Dr. David Agus turns 61… 

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