In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we examine a new survey finding that while most Americans use nonprofits’ services, only a tenth are cognizant of that fact. We spotlight the Har Initiative, a donor collective formed in 2024 that has been providing tens of millions of dollars to organizations fighting antisemitism, and report on the launch of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to combat antisemitism, which has drawn middling response from Jewish leaders. We feature an opinion piece by Amanda Cohen, Lauren Halperin, Alexandra Meyer and Noa Nir about the need to focus programming on personal relationships, and one by Yoel Shulman and Jennie Gates Beckman about how “job carving” can attract and benefit neurodivergent nonprofit professionals. Also in this issue: Evan Gershkovich, Rabbi Rick Jacobs and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

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What We're Watching

Authorities are investigating after a FlyDubai flight from the United Arab Emirates to Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport was diverted to Saudi Arabia this morning local time after what Israeli officials have indicated was an attempted terror attack by one of the pilots. 

In Jerusalem, The Next Step, a nonprofit that helps Israelis who have lost limbs, is holding a fundraiser at the Jerusalem Brewing Co. 

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, State Department Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, Moment magazine and the Romanian Embassy are holding an event today in Washington honoring Elie Wiesel. Elisha Wiesel is slated to speak at the event commemorating his father’s life and works.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD FROM eJP'S NIRA DAYANIM

Even as the vast majority of Americans engage with or depend on a variety of nonprofits, most do not recognize that they are doing so, according to a survey conducted by researchers at Indiana University’s Lilly School of Philanthropy in March, which was released this week.  

Nearly three-quarters of the nearly 1,800 respondents — 71.9% — reported engaging with at least one service provided by nonprofits, among them enrollment in private universities, receiving food support, visiting museums and attending religious services. However, asked broadly about their use of nonprofit services, just 7.4% of respondents said that they or someone in their immediate family had received or used services from a charitable organization in the past year. That 7.4% represented a 2% increase since the survey was last conducted three years prior. 

“That recognition gap matters. It affects not just things like whether they donate, but how they react to events or policies that affect the nonprofit sector as a whole,” Jon Bergdoll, the report’s lead analyst and interim director of data and research partnerships at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, said in a statement.

Read the rest of 'What You Should Know' →

News

A STEEP CLIMB

While many funders have been pulling their support for initiatives to combat antisemitism, a coalition of donors — dubbed the Har Initiative — has doubled down on combating the world’s oldest hatred through innovative initiatives centered on building Jewish pride, supporting boycotted initiatives, cultivating cross-cultural partnerships and educating potential allies, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher reports. In 2024, the Har Initiative mobilized nearly $75 million from 11 donors to support 15 grantees between 2024 and 2025, and this year it expects to distribute $120 million — unusually structured as five-year unstructured donations. 

Investment mindset: “In the private equity world, for example, when someone comes with a pitch deck to an investor around a new idea, oftentimes, they get five years of money and a lot of runway to figure out how to make a company work,” Co-chair Lindsey Spindle, president of the Samueli Foundation, told eJP. “If that’s how we know innovation works in the private sector, why wouldn’t we treat the same thing in the social sector when we have a problem that is this complicated and dynamic?” The initiative is made up of 12 funders, including The Tepper Foundation, The Einhorn Collaborative, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies and Maimonides Fund.

Read the full report →

BIG APPLE BLUEPRINT

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration on Tuesday released what it calls the country’s first municipal strategy to combat antisemitism, a 30-page plan that provides $7.4 million for security and prevention grants, but declines to adopt a definition of antisemitism and does not address Israel-related hate, reports Haley Cohen for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider. 

Pros and cons: Jewish leaders offered a mixed response to the mayor’s new strategy. In a joint statement, UJA-Federation of New York, JCRC-NY, AJC New York and New York Board of Rabbis praised the plan for featuring “a number of positive elements, including some increased security funding for Jewish institutions and expanding proven programs,” but noted that “it fails to address a central issue that the mayor himself has perpetuated: rhetoric that demonizes and delegitimizes Israel inevitably leads to the targeting of Jewish New Yorkers.”

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

Soros supported: In a post on X, Alex Soros hailed the plan, writing that it’s “great to see Mayor Mamdani address this scourge [of antisemitism] head on with concrete action!”

Opinion

IT’S THE PEOPLE, STUPID

In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Amanda Cohen, Lauren Halperin, Alexandra Meyer and Noa Nir make the case for focusing Jewish communal programming on relationship-building. 

“For funders, this is a case study emphasizing the why of a project over the how to sustain impact after funding winds down. For organizations, this is a reminder that people and relationships are the foundation for vibrant, thriving, sustainable Jewish communities. Instead of asking, ‘Did people show up?’ let's ask: ‘Did people show up for each other?’”

Read the full piece →

KEEP IT SIMPLE

In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, disability advocates Yoel Shulman and Jennie Gates Beckman urge Jewish organizations to “carve” up nonprofit jobs into their component parts — a tool that they say both makes positions more accessible to neurodivergent people and benefits all other workers as well. 

“Job carving should not be viewed only as a disability inclusion strategy. It is also a workforce strategy. As Jewish organizations face ongoing challenges with recruitment, retention and employee burnout, redesigning roles may help create workplaces that are more sustainable, flexible and accessible.”

Read the full piece →

Worthy Reads

Circle of Trust: In Candid, Ivonne Arauz Simms, an educational programming manager, writes on what giving circles can teach philanthropy amid federal funding cuts. “By the end of the session, one message was clear: Giving circles are not primarily about writing checks. They are about building community power, trust, and participation. In many ways, a giving circle is a reminder of something we already know: We’ve been taking care of us for a long time.” 

Citizen Journalism: In the Jewish Review of Books, author Matti Friedman reviews Haaretz reporter Amos Harel’s new book, 06:29: The Anatomy of a Failure — the time that Hamas’ invasion began on Oct. 7, 2023 — that reveals Israeli intelligence had 13 separate warning signs before the terror attack, more than previously known, and places primary blame on IDF and government failures under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “06:29 is yet another example of a scenario that we in Israel have seen again and again since that fateful hour nearly three years ago, and that indeed can be said to have saved the country: The state fails, and a citizen rises to the occasion.”

Community Comms

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Major Gifts

The Canadian Jewish community launched a GoFundMe campaign for Jeff Smith, the Belleville, Ontario, police officer gravely wounded stopping a Yom Kippur attack on a synagogue; it has so far raised CAD 878,171 ($619,000), with the goal of reaching CAD 1 million ($700,000)…

EarlyJ committed more than $510,000 to open six preschool-based Jewish Parenting Centers in Los Angeles and the Bay Area and renew nine more, bringing its investment in the program to nearly $1 million…

The U.K’s United Jewish Israel Appeal raised nearly £2 million ($2.6 million) at its annual London dinner, which featured “Call Me Back” host Dan Senor…

Citadel CEO Ken Griffin pledged $3 billion to Carnegie Mellon University, including $2 billion for a new Miami campus, in what the school calls the largest individual gift to higher education…

Transitions

Lisa Boyars was hired by Birthright Israel Foundation as its new senior vice president of marketing…

Word on the Street

The State Department abruptly postponed a Sept. 30 memorial for American victims of Oct. 7, giving no reason or new date to families planning to travel to Washington days before the attack's third anniversary on the Jewish calendar…

Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund will limit visits to the Nova festival memorial site in the Re'im Forest to remembrance and commemoration events ahead of the third anniversary of Oct. 7; the move comes after festive gatherings were held at the site last year, distressing survivors and victims’ families…

Israel's government-set gas price will hit a record NIS 8.27 ($2.70) per liter in October, despite a temporary tax discount, as the Iran war keeps global energy prices high…

J. The Jewish News of Northern California spotlights the Jewish Founder Network, a new initiative of the Jewish High Tech Community, aimed at connecting Israeli and American Jewish startup founders, beginning with a summit next month in Palo Alto…

Organizers of the upcoming Tech Week in San Francisco said that a hackathon event associated with the conference had been canceled for violating Tech Week’s terms and services after an Israeli applicant was told he could not participate by an organizer who cited Israel’s 2024 pager attack on Hezbollah, saying, “Hackathon participants carry pagers, smartphones and laptops … What happened in Lebanon shouldn't happen in California”...

Hillel Germany is moving its annual Hanukkah menorah lighting out of the town hall in Berlin's Neukölln district to a neutral site after the far-left Die Linke party won last week's city election…

The U.K.’s  Community Security Trust logged 95 university-related antisemitic incidents in the 2025-26 academic year, up 14% from the year before and, for the first time, including two cases of threats of “extreme violence,” such as “Jude die” written in blood on a Jewish student’s dorm room door…

The Washington Jewish Week interviews Sara Brenner, the first executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington's revived Jewish Community Foundation, about her push to double the foundation's $11 million in local giving last year within five years…

American Immigration officials are moving to deport an anti-Zionist Israeli member of the Satmar Hasidic community who was present during an incident in which an Israeli flag was removed from a local government building in Rockland County, N.Y....

The Jewish Federations of North America praised FEMA's award of $300 million in Nonprofit Security Grant Program funds and urged Congress to pass the Jewish American Security Act, which would authorize $1 billion for the program…

The MacArthur Foundation named 20 artists, scientists and historians as its 2026 "genius grant" fellows, each set to receive $800,000 over five years…

Union for Reform Judaism President Rabbi Rick Jacobs pressed Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion in an open letter to condemn four attacks in a month on Kol HaNeshama, a Reform synagogue in the city…

In an interview with New York magazine, former NBC and CNN chief Jeff Zucker speaks about his cameo as himself in the film “Primetime,” while insisting his private-equity career satisfies him while leaving the door open to a CNN return…

Photo of the Day

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY/X

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, joined by senior Ukrainian officials and local Jewish leaders, attends the 85th commemoration of the Babi Yar massacre, in which more than 33,000 Jewish men, women and children were murdered by Nazi forces and their collaborators and buried in a mass grave, outside Kyiv yesterday. 

“This tragedy reminds us how vital it is to defend against evil, against terrifying regimes for which human life means nothing. It reminds us why we must not turn a blind eye to terror and atrocities against people and why we should always support true defenders of life,” Zelensky said at the event. 

Birthdays

COURTESY

Yonatan Neril, founder of the Jerusalem-based Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development, turns 46

Ehud Olmert, former prime minister of Israel, turns 81

Sanford Kadish, retired volunteer and tutor

Rochelle A. “Shelly” Kassen, past president of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, she is on the board of the Tikvah Fund

Adam Maximilian Aron, chairman and CEO of AMC Entertainment, he is a former co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers, turns 72

Fran Drescher, actor and activist, she was president of the SAG-AFTRA labor union, turns 69

Ehud Hrushovski, professor of mathematical logic at Oxford, turns 67

Haim Taib, founder and president of the Menomadin Group and president of the Menomadin Foundation, turns 66

Allison Sommer, journalist for Haaretz since 2012

Jonathan Gruber, professor of healthcare economics at MIT and an architect of Romneycare and Obamacare, turns 61

Leora Lily Ihilevich Usman

Lisa K. Robbins

Gilad Menashe Erdan, Israel's U.N. ambassador until 2024, now global president of Magen David Adom, turns 56

Anastasia Goodstein, senior digital director at Inseparable

David Herszenhorn, international editor for The Washington Post

Jacques Stambouli, CEO of Via Trading Corporation, a liquidator of consumer merchandise

Rabbi Eliezer Kaunfer, president and CEO of Hadar Institute in Manhattan

Hildy Kuryk, founder and partner at Artemis Strategies, a boutique consultancy, turns 49

Ari Michael Shapiro, CNN contributor, former host of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” turns 48

Daniel Grossberg, member of the Kentucky House of Representatives since 2023, he lost his May 2026 Democratic primary, turns 48

Jonathan Peter Kasdan, screenwriter, director, producer and actor, turns 47

Stephen Cohen, computer scientist and entrepreneur, he is best known as a co-founder and president of Palantir Technologies, turns 44

Natan Levy, mixed martial artist who competed in the lightweight division in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, turns 35

Steven Russolillo, chief news editor at Business Insider

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