Your Daily Phil |
SEPTEMBER 28, 2026
GOOD MONDAY MORNING.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we reflect on Sunkist's decision to revive its Fruit Gems after eJP’s report on its discontinuation sparked a national outcry, and spotlight the Pardes Day School’s global contest pushing Jewish educators to build AI tools for their classrooms. We feature an opinion piece by Rabbi Michael Siegel on the temporary nature of the sukkah and its significance for Jewish institutions, and one by Amanda Goldstein on the Jewish children left out of the “bubble” of day schools. Also in this issue: Allan Arkush, Andrew Belinfante and Eli Horvitz.
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What We're Watching
The Youth Renewal Fund tees off its 2026 golf tournament today at Quaker Ridge Golf Club in Westchester County, N.Y., where PGA Tour player Max Greyserman will take questions from golfers and all proceeds will go to Darca Schools in Israel.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD FROM eJP'S JUDAH ARI GROSS
It started with a WhatsApp message from a friend: “Important scoop big if true,” along with a link to the blog of a candy distributor about how the synagogue staple Sunkist Fruit Gems were apparently being discontinued. I passed the tip along to eJewishPhilanthropy’s intrepid reporter Jay Deitcher, who confirmed with the company that the beloved candy had indeed been discontinued in May, seemingly spelling the end of decades of American Jews using the individually wrapped, kosher treats to shower bar and bat mitzvah celebrants, soon-to-be-wedded couples and others marking joyous life events. The response was overwhelming.
In a time of grave polarization and division, Sunkist Fruit Gems brought the Jewish community together. Commenters were Orthodox, Conservative and Reform. Some belonged to explicitly right-wing organizations; others had “Jews 4 Palestine” in their bios. And the result of the national, unified outcry was: victory. Two days after eJP’s report — months after discontinuing the candy — Sunkist announced that it was reversing course and would be bringing back the Fruit Gems. More on this below.
Any journalist will tell you that their goal is impact, that their reporting and writing will result in real-world change. By any measure, eJP has had such an impact. And while the Fruit Gems scoop may seem trivial — compared, say, to exposing widespread fraud in the World Zionist Congress elections — the impact in this case was immediate, tangible and, well, sweet.
News
SWEET REDEMPTION
Sunkist says it will bring back beloved Fruit Gems after national outcry following eJP report
Days after eJewishPhilanthropy reported on the discontinuation of the synagogue staple Sunkist Fruit Gems, the company announced on Saturday that it would be bringing back the beloved kosher candy, eJP’s Judah Ari Gross reports.
Feeling heard: “We hear you, Sunkist Fruit Gems fans! The good news: Sunkist Fruit Gems are not going anywhere,” Sunkist wrote on its Instagram page. “We’ve been working with a new trusted family owned candy maker to help us bring back the same great flavor, quality, kosher certification, and fruit-forward goodness you know and love.”
TEACHING TEACHERS
Miami Jewish launches global challenge to get day schools to embrace AI
Last Passover, Rabbi Levi Druin, the principal of Pardes Day School in Miami Beach, Fla., was debating a group of teachers on the potential of using artificial intelligence in the classroom. From that interaction came an idea: a contest for educators using AI to create programs to support students. Presented by the Pardes Day School, The AI for Education Challenge launched on July 13, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher reports. Although only open to submissions for two weeks, entries flooded in from across the world, including Australia, England and South America. Some participants were computer experts; others were making their first app.
À la carte learning: “It’s so important that we encourage our educators to use every tool available to us to enhance what they’re doing,” Rabbi Druin said. “Pretend you’re a chef with 20 students all eating a different meal at the same time, and you don’t have 20 arms, 20 kitchens. That task used to be impossible or very rare for a teacher to actually give every student what they needed, but with the tools that we have available to us now, we have the ability to cater to every single student and allow the teacher to teach and not leave anyone behind.”
Opinion
PLANNING COMMITTEE
Will our sukkah stand in an ordinary wind?
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Rabbi Michael Siegel reflects on the temporary nature of the sukkah and its significance for Jewish communities struggling with rising security costs today.
“The challenge is that many of these facilities were built for demographic realities that no longer exist. Institutions now maintain more square footage than their missions require, and more buildings than their budgets comfortably support. Every additional door carries an ongoing cost. Today that cost includes security, which may push some Jewish spaces past the financial tipping point.”
READER RESPONDS
Who is the Jewish day school bubble for?
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Amanda Goldstein responds to David Zalik’s recent eJP op-ed on Jewish day schools (“Jewish day schools are a bubble, and that is the point,” Sept. 14), calling for greater consideration for the children who wind up outside the bubble.
“Advocates promise that children in these schools will be known, will belong, and will grow up certain of who they are. For many families, that promise holds. Yet it excludes the Jewish children outside that bubble: the ones our schools are not yet equipped to serve, the ones who did not find safety there, and the ones who never walk in the door. What does the Jewish community owe them?”
Worthy Reads
Bad History: In Jewish Review of Books, Binghamton University professor Allan Arkush takes down two new books — Molly Crabapple's history of the Jewish Bund, Here Where We Live Is Our Country, and Benjamin Moser's Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History — arguing both authors mangle their sources to cast Zionism as a racist movement in league with antisemites. “It's bad enough when such distortions are the stuff of sloganeering. It's worse when they appear in books that educated people take seriously.”
Drawing the Line: In The Forward, senior columnist Rob Eshman speaks with David Sabastian, the Jewish-born artist behind a 40-foot Los Angeles mural depicting Jews dancing atop coffins, which was widely seen as antisemitic but which the creator said was political criticism. “In our conversation, Sabastian himself wasn’t sure who he was targeting. He called the dancing figures ‘Jews,’ not ‘the Israeli army.’ Then, defending the piece, he said he’s drawing ‘the Israeli army’ and that most of them ‘happen to be Jewish.’ That shift from Israeli army to Jews and back is the exact line that is so easily blurred when criticism of Israel bleeds into antisemitism.”
Flood Rescue: In The Canadian Jewish News, journalist Ellin Bessner interviews archivist Ava Garfinkel, whose overnight scramble after a flood saved all but one photograph in Winnipeg's Jewish archives. “Jewish history is so at risk to begin with. I think there’s a lot that has been destroyed and lost, and all that we can keep is just as important as everything else.”
Community Comms
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Transitions
Word on the Street
Haaretz reports that Israel has frozen the aliyah eligibility of two Jewish activists, a British man and an American woman, who worked to protect Palestinian communities from Israeli extremist attacks in the West Bank…
The Tree of Life, the nonprofit founded after the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, has renamed itself the Tree of Life Center for Humanity, a change its leaders say reflects its education-driven mission to counter antisemitism and hate…
In Calcalist, Eli Horvitz, CEO of the Israeli Trump Foundation (no relation to the U.S. president), argues that Israel's record-low 2025 PISA scores and record-high matriculation results are both real and urges extending the effort behind the high school gains to middle schools…
Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod interviews Daniel Grand, an Orthodox Jew who is at the center of a new Supreme Court case about local zoning processes after he was blocked from hosting a minyan in his home in University Heights, Ohio…
Gadi Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid, Yair Golan and Avigdor Liberman signed an opposition nonaggression pact Saturday evening at Lapid’s home and launched joint working groups ahead of Israel's Oct. 27 election, but left their collective pick for prime minister unsettled…
A Nor'easter canceled Ed Sheeran’s two weekend concerts at Robert Kraft’s Gillette Stadium following the ouster of the show’s opening act, Macklemore, which the rapper blames on a Kraft-led pressure campaign over his anti-Israel remarks…
Community leaders in Salford, near Manchester, England, are criticizing the city council for not giving Jewish organizations any of the £600,000 ($796,000) in government funding that was meant to help the area recover from last year's deadly Yom Kippur attack on the Heaton Park Synagogue.
The eastern German town of Heidenau voted to stop installing Stolpersteine, the brass plaques that honor victims of Nazi persecution, approving a motion proposed by local branches of the far-right Alternative for Germany and Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Christian Democrats…
Judith Avner, who led the Brain Injury Association of New York State for 19 years and was an avid volunteer at Albany synagogue Ohav Shalom, died Sept. 22 in a one-car crash in Albany; she was 74…
Photo of the Day
LAWRENCE FAMILY JCC/FACEBOOK
Students and families from the Nierman Preschool at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center in San Diego mark Sukkot on Friday afternoon shortly before the start of the holiday.
Birthdays
KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/GETTY IMAGES
Lenny Krayzelburg, winner of four Olympic gold medals in swimming for the USA (2000 and 2004), turns 51
Sir Jeremy Israel Isaacs, Emmy Award-winning Scottish television producer, turns 94
Madeleine Kunin, former governor of Vermont (the first Jewish woman elected to govern any state), she was also the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland, turns 93
Stuart Kauffman, physician and theoretical biologist, he was a 1987 MacArthur genius fellow, turns 87
Warren Lieberfarb, former president of Warner Home Video, turns 83
Alain Wertheimer, French businessman who, with his brother, own the controlling interest in the House of Chanel and several famous vineyards, turns 78
Jerry Weiss, real estate agent in New York's Hudson Valley
Gary Miller, Teaneck, N.J.-based real estate attorney
Bill Cassidy, physician and outgoing U.S. senator (R-LA), turns 69
Michael Harris, pediatrician and author of the book Winning A Debate with An Israel Hater about the fight against BDS
Ben Greenman, best-selling author of more than 25 books, he is also a magazine journalist, turns 57
Elliott Nahmias, area director for San Diego and Orange counties for AIPAC
Michael Lipin, news editor and White House correspondent at Voice of America
Nina Pekerman, Israeli Ironman triathlete, turns 49
Lauren France, SVP at the Katz Watson Group
Samantha Collidge, director of leadership engagement for the Anti-Defamation League
Hadassa Levenson, regional director for the Orthodox Union's Teach Coalition
Ayelet Cohen, VP of operations at Tel Aviv-based iAngels, a women-led venture capital firm
Raoul Wootliff, chief strategy officer at Number 10 Strategies
David Hopen, 2023 graduate of Yale Law School and author of a coming-of-age novel set in the Modern Orthodox community, turns 33
Daniel Braverman, former NFL, XFL and CFL wide receiver and kick returner, turns 33
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