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Good Thursday morning!

In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we cover yesterday’s American Jewry Un-Conference in Miami, and report on a $1 million grant to Brandeis University for a new initiative to create secondary transcripts for students. We feature an opinion piece by Chantal Belzberg about the imperative to protect the privacy and mental health of the most vulnerable victims of the Oct. 7 attacks even while fundraising on their behalf, and one by Sarah Gordon with takeaways from two recent regional conferences for Israel educators. Also in this issue: Michael Koplow, Sheryl Sandberg and Harriet and Leonard Schleifer.

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Last year, journalist Franklin Foer — a scion of one of American Jewry’s most prominent families — declared in an extended essay in The Atlantic that “the golden age of American Jews is coming to an end,” a prophecy that has since been repeated by a wide array of Jewish leaders and public intellectuals. Gidi Grinstein, the founder and president of the Reut USA think tank, is not so sure, or at least believes that it is not the end of the story.

Instead, “we believe that another golden era may lie ahead,” Grinstein said in his opening remarks at Wednesday’s American Jewry Un-Conference, subtitled “Toward a Decade of Renewal of American Jewry,” reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher from the gathering in Miami. “The current crisis is also an opportunity for community growth. We're here to build a mindset and identify the avenues that will make a great future feasible.” The event, which coincides with the 250th anniversary of American independence, was deemed an “unconference” because there was no hierarchy between the speakers and the attendees, who were also experts in the Jewish world and who voiced their opinions during panels. It gathered over 100 American Jewish leaders and philanthropists in Miami to develop concrete steps to combat this generation’s biggest issues.

Last July’s unconference, held in New York, came up with an 11-point agenda consisting of pivotal issues, with the goal of revitalizing the American Jewish community by 2054 — 400 years after the first Jews from Brazil set foot on what was then New Amsterdam. But the first unconference was “not ambitious enough,” Grinstein told eJP at this year’s event, because attendees weren’t given steps to take to combat the issues. This year would be different. This time, attendees will have a plan.

The event, with a price tag of around $60,000, was a partnership between Reut USA, the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History and the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, as well as eJP, the media partner for the conference. Attendance was free; panelists weren’t paid; and no one — except special guest, doyen of American Jewish history, Jonathan Sarna — was allowed to speak for over four minutes. The goal: 250 new ideas to nudge the Jewish world forward. “Funding our ideas will require a lot of money, but we are the wealthiest generation in Jewish history,” Grinstein told the crowd. “Our challenge is to bring forward good ideas and the leaders,” 

Many issues already firmly in the Jewish communal zeitgeist came up repeatedly during panels — particularly the high cost of tuition for formal Jewish education and the importance of better welcoming interfaith families. But other, more novel ideas, were also floated, including: training college students to attain positions in student governments; giving firm “nos” to funders when programs won’t push the community forward; being willing to shutter programs that are failing; investing in technology, data and research that are difficult to raise money for, but can advance the community; not simply sending people to Israel but setting expectations for them once they return; and uplifting Israeli voices living in the Diaspora to serve as a bridge between communities. 

In the coming days, Reut USA plans to send action items to attendees including the need to push for American Jewry studies at the college level; throwing distinctly Jewish celebrations for America’s 250th anniversary; developing curriculum for schools and camps about the resiliency of Jewish Americans; seeing polarization as an issue of national security to American Jewry; focusing on “purple issues” that overlap political parties in the center; and investing in community relations with other minority communities.

Read the full report here.

In its effort to better equip its students for a fast-changing job landscape, Brandeis University announced last Thursday the latest step in a university-wide overhaul: the creation of a secondary document, on top of the academic transcript, focused on skills attained outside the classroom, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher.

Ready for the world: The competency-based transcript aims to market students to the current job market by listing a student’s accomplishments and skills that were earned through extracurricular experiences that are not listed on traditional transcripts, such as extracurricular activities, research, fellowships and internships. The initiative is funded by a $1 million, 18-month grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. “Brandeis will prepare you to have one foot in the classroom and one foot in the street and make sure that you’re ready for the world after graduation,” Lewis Brooks, director of the university’s new Center for Careers and Applied Liberal Arts, which is running the transcript program, told eJewishPhilanthropy, paraphrasing the school’s president, Arthur Levine, who took office last September.

Read the full report here.

“Like most nonprofits, we tell the story, describe a need and demonstrate the impact of funds we raise. Yet our work with these orphans is guided by a different assumption: extreme privacy. This ethical line is nonnegotiable. Professional confidentiality in these cases takes priority over everything. This creates a huge organizational challenge,” writes Chantal Belzberg, founding director of OneFamily, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. 

Why the secrecy?: “We cannot fundraise through these children’s stories because exposure itself can be harmful. ... Even well-meaning attention can be destabilizing. It turns a child into an emblem. It invites strangers to react emotionally. It reinforces the child’s sense that they are permanently different, permanently ‘the tragedy.’ Furthermore, it is our responsibility and duty to respect their privacy for the sake of their future selves as well. Media exposure today will remain as a digital footprint, and they cannot yet understand what their adult selves will want in terms of privacy. It is our hope that each one will thrive and succeed, and as adults, decide whether and how to tell their story.”

Read the full piece here.

“It can often be lonely to be an Israel educator. Each day, Israel educators show up for their learners, teaching a discipline that does not have a clear home within schools, often living somewhere between history and Judaic studies,” writes Sarah Gordon, vice president of Unpacked for Educators, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “In response to these needs, with the support of Maimonides Fund and Natan Fund, Unpacked for Educators hosted two regional conferences on ‘Navigating Israel Education in a Changing Landscape.’”  

Widening the tent: “Israel educators benefit greatly from developing professional learning communities to discuss the unique challenges of this field, something increasingly emphasized in recent scholarship. Our regional conference model helped foster this, allowing educators to find community and thought partners in their geographic areas with whom they can continue to collaborate. Bringing together educators from day schools, congregational schools, youth groups and camps allowed us to see both the strength of the broader field and the shared challenges that connect us, even when our work and audiences differ. At the same time, another important takeaway from the conference is that teaching about Israel cannot be limited to those formally designated as ‘Israel educators.’” 

Read the full piece here.

Shelter From the Storm: In The Times of Israel, Ilan Amit highlights the lack of bomb shelters in Arab Israeli communities as the country faces regular bombardments from Iran and Lebanon. “In a different context and time, it was said that ‘the greatest inequality is the equal treatment of unequals.’ Watching the Home Front Command’s public safety videos urging citizens to follow protection regulations, that statement feels painfully relevant today. The instructions — asking the public to ‘remain in proximity to protected spaces’ or to ‘stay in protected spaces until receiving official clearance’ — are delivered in a tone, language, and visual framing that reflect a mainstream Israeli urban reality. Yet for large segments of Arab society, that reality simply does not exist. Nearly 46% of Arab citizens in Israel lack access to a protected space. In 60% of Arab municipalities, there are no public shelters at all.” [TOI]

What You Wish For: In his latest column on the Israel Policy Forum website, Michael Koplow, the group’s chief policy officer, warns that Israel’s success in getting the United States to take the threat of Iran seriously may come at the long-term cost of a diminished security partnership. “As will undoubtedly be prominently highlighted by Netanyahu in the upcoming Israeli election campaign, Israel is right now seeing its wildest American fantasies come true. Netanyahu has been waiting for decades for a president who would close the gap in threat perceptions between the U.S. and Israel with respect to Iran, and he got it in Trump. … Nevertheless, this success is already coming at a cost. … Israel’s American triumph is sowing the seeds for its American collapse. … Neither Israel nor American Jews can afford for one second the notion that Israel is leading the U.S. around by the nose to take hold, and particularly not when such high stakes are involved.” [IsraelPolicyForum]

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As the war with Iran and its proxies enters its sixth day, Israel has started repatriation flights, some of which were delayed by incoming missiles, with more planned through the weekend…

More than 80% of Israelis support the war against Iran, according to two recent polls, one by the Israel Democracy Institute and another by Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies; both surveys found that Arab Israelis were far less likely to approve of the conflict than Jewish Israelis… 

New Jersey’s Asbury Park Press examines the myriad lawsuits and allegations facing the Jewish nonprofit Kars4Kids, including criticism that only a minority of its budget goes to programs and claims that it relies on misleading advertising that hides its religious nature from potential donors…

The international development-focused outlet Devex examines Sheryl Sandberg’s new push to prevent child marriages internationally… 

Welsh Jewish philanthropist Sir Michael Moritz said that he is seeking German citizenship as an “insurance policy” in light of rising antisemitism in the United Kingdom…  

Florida International University is conducting a criminal investigation into a group chat of students associated with Miami-Dade County’s Republican Party in Florida where participants repeatedly used racial slurs, praised Nazi ideology and discussed violent acts against Black people…

Jewish leaders in Chicago are calling on Mayor Brandon Johnson to follow the recommendation of the city’s Commission on Human Relations and create an antisemitism task force…

The U.K. is undertaking an official review into antisemitism at British schools and universities, following a report from the Community Security Trust that showed that school-related antisemitic incidents had doubled since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks… 

Poland repatriated more than 90 artifacts from Greece’s Jewish community that had been looted by the Nazis’ Rosenberg Taskforce during Germany’s occupation of the country during World War II…

The New York Times reports on how the Australian Jewish community, and specifically the Sydney Jewish Museum, is memorializing the victims of the December terror attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach…

UJA-Federation of New York has allocated an additional $2 million to meet immediate needs in Israel, including supporting hard-hit communities and strengthening trauma services …

COURTESY

Harriet and Leonard Schleifer speak onstage on Tuesday with CNBC’s Becky Quick (left) at the news channel’s Cures Summit in New York City. The Schleifers discussed their efforts to help their 38-year-old son, David, who suffered from an array of disorders for most of his life that were only recently diagnosed as stemming from a rare genetic mutation that disproportionately affects Ashkenazi Jews, Transketolase deficiency.

Read eJewishPhilanthropy’s coverage of the Schleifers’ activities here.

DIA DIPASUPIL/GETTY IMAGES FOR TRIBECA FESTIVAL

Actor, screenwriter and film producer, he has been a contestant on three seasons of CBS' “Survivor,” Jonathan Penner turns 64… 

Particle physicist and astrophysicist, he is a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan, Carl William Akerlof turns 88… Retired university counsel for California State University, Donald A. Newman… Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, he is an associate fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Roy Gutman turns 82… Retired partner of Los Angeles law firm, Gordon, Edelstein, Krepack, Grant, Felton & Goldstein, LLP, Mark Edelstein… President of Los Angeles PR firm Robin Gerber & Associates, Robin Gerber Carnesale… Managing partner at Lerer Hippeau, a NYC-based VC firm, he co-founded Huffington Post and was the longtime chair of BuzzFeed, Kenneth B. Lerer turns 74… Political philosopher and professor at Harvard Law School, Michael Joseph Sandel turns 73… Founder and retired CEO of the DC-based News Literacy Project, Alan C. Miller… Author of Judaism: A Way of Being and former professor of computer science at Yale University, David Hillel Gelernter turns 71… Maryland state senator since 2019, Benjamin F. Kramer turns 69… Retired tennis player, she won 10 doubles tournaments, Elise Burgin turns 64… Former senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former NPR reporter, Sarah Chayes turns 64… Professor at Université de Montréal, most noted for his work on artificial neural networks and deep learning, Yoshua Bengio turns 62… Chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, former president and board chair of AIPAC, Betsy Berns Korn turns 58… President and founder of West End Strategy Team, Matt Dorf turns 56… Los Angeles area builder and developer, Michael Reinis… Renewable energy executive, Michael N. Kruger… Recording music industry executive, best known for his association with the game show “Jeopardy!,” Austin David "Buzzy" Cohen turns 41… Actor and screenwriter, Jason Isaac Fuchs turns 40… Chief communications officer at Jenner & Block, Daniel S. Schwarz… Managing director at Portage Point Partners, Steven Shenker… Disgraced and jailed founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried turns 34… Manager of operations support at TEKsystems, Andrew Leiferman… Singer and influencer, her career started with a song she performed at her own bat mitzvah, Madison Elle Beer turns 27...