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Good Friday morning! 

In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we interview Itzik Shmuli, director of UJA-Federation of New York’s Israel office, about his organization’s work over the past month of war with Iran and Hezbollah. We speak with friends and colleagues of Edna Foa, the developer of a revolutionary treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, who died this week, and report on a new American Jewish Committee study, which found that social media was driving the current wave of antisemitism. We feature an opinion piece by Yaron Neudorfer on the role of cross-sector collaboration in ensuring Israel’s national resilience, and one by Tsahi Shemesh on shifting assumptions about Jewish visibility and safety among Jewish youth. Also in this issue: Theodore Sasson and Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis, Ariella Raviv and Bret Stephens and Jeremy Ben-Ami.

Shabbat shalom!

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For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent eJewishPhilanthropy and Jewish Insider stories, including: Kiryat Shmona mayor’s tirade brings Israeli North’s plight to the fore; Summer Israel trips still up in the air, but after 2025 war delay, Maccabiah ‘100%’ plans to proceed; and From WhatsApp chats to City Hall, a new Jewish activism is born. Print the latest edition here.

Itzik Shmuli, the head of UJA-Federation of New York’s Israel Office, spent the past week crisscrossing Israel, visiting the sites of major Iranian and Hezbollah strikes, speaking with survivors and local government officials from the southern towns of Arad and Dimona to the northern city of Kiryat Shmona and the Upper Galilee. “Some of our ability to have a finger on the pulse when things are really at a dizzying pace is to be on the ground,” Shmuli told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross. 

“We are supporting nearly 500 organizations, and we try to be in touch with them daily. We are also in contact with the [Israel Defense Forces’] Home Front Command and government ministries, to try to understand the chaotic reality that we are living in,” he said in a phone interview on Wednesday, which was interrupted by two rounds of air-raid sirens. “We are trying to find where the weak points are, where we can play a role, what's relevant for philanthropy.”

In the current war, Shmuli said, UJA-Federation of New York has four primary focuses in Israel: emergency aid to the municipalities hit by Iranian and Hezbollah attacks and their displaced populations; supporting Holocaust survivors, elderly citizens and people with disabilities; increasing mental health services; and improving public bomb shelters. 

Reflecting on his visit to Dimona this week, after it was hit by an Iranian missile, wounding dozens and leaving hundreds homeless, Shmuli said he was struck by how many volunteers and nonprofits had turned out to help. “On one side of the street, you see the destruction. And on the other side of the street, you see this [organization’s] tent and that [organization’s] tent. There were thousands of volunteers, all in their T-shirts, from this nonprofit and that movement and that youth group. It was Israel at its absolute best,” he said.

Commenting on the challenges facing Israeli society today, Shmuli noted that the current conflict follows more than two years of war, amid a “tsunami of trauma and burnout,” especially for children and teenagers. “There's really strong resilience, but this doesn't come without a cost,” he said. “The population hasn't had much time to recover and to take a breath.” 

Shmuli heaped praise on his American colleagues, whom he said were stepping up to support Israel even as the number of requests has grown. “We put our needs on the table for the federation, and the answer we get is ‘YES,’ in all capital letters,” he said. 

“I don't see any erosion in that support,” he said. “American Jewry is showing up.”

Read the full interview here. 

Before Edna Foa, there was little hope of recovery for those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Existing treatments were rarely scientifically rigorous, and remission rates were low. With her prolonged exposure therapy, the Haifa-born Foa developed an intervention that dramatically improved the treatment of PTSD, turning what was a chronic condition into something that could even be cured. Described by peers as a “true giant” and a “powerhouse,” Foa died on Tuesday at 88 in Philadelphia, having trained a generation of therapists in Israel and around the world in her methods, which revolutionized not only the treatment of PTSD but also obsessive-compulsive disorder, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher.

Giving life: “There's so many people in the world whose lives have been improved by what she did, people with PTSD who have their lives back, people with OCD who have their lives back,” Sheila Rauch, professor in psychiatry at in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University’s School of Medicine, told eJP. She “was the most influential person as far as my career and what I do research on and how I do research,” said Rauch, who worked with Foa until her death. “She was just a powerhouse.”

Read the full obituary here.

A new report by the American Jewish Committee, released on Friday, found that 73% of American Jews saw or heard antisemitism online in the last year and 21% said that the antisemitism they witnessed made them feel physically threatened, reports Marc Rod for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.

Getting to the root: Top officials at the group say that this pervasive antisemitism online is the fundamental root of the current wave of antisemitic sentiment society-wide, including violent extremist attacks on Jewish communities in the U.S. and globally, and that protecting the Jewish community requires making real progress in tackling that problem. The group’s CEO, Ted Deutch, told JI in an interview on Thursday that the report further finds that those pushing antisemitic content have found an “alarming number of ways” to avoid rules on various platforms to safeguard against hate.

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

“In a Knesset Finance Committee session in November 2023, just one month into the Swords of Iron war, the committee chair declared that the welfare of many Israeli citizens depends at least 50% on ‘the third sector,’ the Israeli term for civil society. That same discussion revealed that of the roughly 100 billion shekels ($32 billion) in total third-sector expenditure, only 4% was coming from direct government funding,” writes Yaron Neudorfer, co-founder and CEO of SFI Group, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. 

Beyond ad hoc: “The past few years have shown that the best outcomes emerge when all sectors work together. Over two years of war, major banks established funds totalling hundreds of millions of shekels for the reconstruction of southern and northern Israel, alongside direct donations to those affected. Tech companies provided equipment and infrastructure, and international philanthropy channelled billions of shekels into Israel. Yet ad hoc cooperation during wartime is not enough. After more than a decade of working to bridge sectors — government, business and nonprofits — what we see time and again is that when there is a permanent infrastructure for collaboration, with shared data and impact measurement, resources are used wisely and spontaneous mobilization doesn't erode.”

Read the full piece here.

“Jewish philanthropy has spent decades investing in identity formation. Camps, youth movements, day schools, Israel trips, campus engagement initiatives, leadership development programs — they have all operated under the working assumptions that Jewish life in Western democracies is fundamentally secure and that the primary challenge is engagement and continuity. Those assumptions are being recalibrated by a generation that is growing up in an atmosphere where Jewish identity can attract hostility,” writes Tsahi Shemesh, founder of Krav Maga Experts in New York City, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.

What our youth see: “Young Jews are forming conclusions about their place in Western society at this moment. They are evaluating whether institutions apply moral standards evenly. They are observing whether Jewish trauma is named directly. They are measuring whether adults speak with steadiness or retreat into ambiguity. These impressions shape long-term identity far more than promotional campaigns or symbolic programming.”

Read the full piece here.

War of Narratives: In INSS Insight, Theodore Sasson and Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis consider what can be done to prevent the further politicization and erosion of U.S.-Israel ties. “Trump’s wide-ranging explanations for the war and the twin narratives about Israel’s role quickly reverberated in congressional debates, on the campaign trail, and in the broader public discourse. They struck an anxious chord in the American Jewish community as well. The long-term consequences of the war for Israel will depend not only on its tactical or strategic outcomes but also on how it shapes American perceptions of Israel and attitudes toward the US–Israel alliance.” [INSSInsight]

What’s in a Name?: In his Substack “Notes From a Liminal Time,” Andrés Spokoiny observes that the anti-“legacy institutions” discourse extends beyond the Jewish community to society in general. “The term becomes elastic enough to mean almost anything — and therefore nothing in particular. It becomes a placeholder for dissatisfaction, a way of saying: these are the institutions I do not trust, the authorities I do not recognize. … There are, of course, institutions that deserve criticism — sometimes severe criticism. Some are sclerotic, others captured by internal interests, others simply ineffective. Some have failed to adapt; others have adapted in precisely the wrong ways. But the category ‘legacy’ does not distinguish among them. It collapses the difference between the corrupt and the merely imperfect, between the self-serving and the constrained, between the obsolete and the deliberately cautious.” [NotesFromaLiminalTime]

The Right Question: In an opinion piece for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Brian S. Cohen advises parents and teens considering prospective colleges to examine how antisemitism is handled on campus, not whether there is antisemitism on campus. “What actually shapes a Jewish student’s experience isn’t the absence of incidents, it’s the support in place if they occur. Is there a professional staff that knows administrators and community partners by name? Does the campus have a Hillel or other Jewish student organization with deep relationships across the university, faculty, deans, trustees, forged over years, not assembled in a crisis? And while it may seem counterintuitive, a university that has demonstrated, when tested, that it will take action and stand up for Jewish students is probably preferable to one that has not.” [JTA]

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Hundreds of Jewish philanthropists, rabbis and other communal leaders from the Diaspora have sent a letter to Israeli President Isaac Herzog calling on him to push the Israeli government to take action against growing settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank… 

Lean In, the nonprofit founded by Sheryl Sandberg, has lost approximately a quarter of its staff as the Sandberg Goldberg Bernthal Family Foundation scales up its efforts to combat the “manosphere” and “tradwife” movements gaining traction among young people…

Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch announced three more recipients of this year’s Israel Prize: Dr. Avraham “Avi” Rivkind, a trauma specialist at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem; Chantal Belzberg, a co-founder of OneFamily Fund, which supports families of terror victims; and Irit Oren-Gundares, the founder, chair and CEO of the Or L'mishpachot Association, which supports the families of fallen IDF soldiers… 

Organizers of the Canadian delegation for the 2026 March of the Living announced that they will not be traveling to Israel this year as part of the Holocaust commemoration mission due to the war with Iran…

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency examines a new curriculum released by AMIA, the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, for the 50th anniversary of Argentina’s 1976 military coup, during which an estimated 1,900 Argentinain Jews were “disappeared” by the military junta…

The Jewish Federation of Detroit condemned “recent remarks from prominent individuals praising U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hezbollah and downplaying the attack on Temple Israel,” following Detroit News interviews with prominent Arab American activists in the Detroit area, including the publisher of the Arab American News, expressing support for the terror group…

A judge in Montreal dropped charges against a woman who made a Nazi salute at pro-Israel demonstrators and repeatedly threatened that they would be targeted with a “final solution” after she told the court she’d “completed a program”...

Two British men arrested in connection with arson attack on Hatzola ambulances in London’s Golders Green suburb were released on bail…

The State Department is sending $1.25 billion to the Board of Peace, the majority of which was taken from funds earmarked for international disaster assistance…

Marica Vilcek, a historian and patron of the arts with her husband, Jan, who served as a consultant to the Commission for Art Recovery of the World Jewish Congress and the Jewish Museum in New York City, died on Monday at 89…

Ariella Raviv has been named chief operating officer at PEF Israel Endowment Funds Inc.; Raviv has served as a board member of the organization for several years… 

The Brown University-Rhode Island School of Design Hillel appointed Rabbi Yair Lichtman as its next Orthodox rabbi…

COURTESY

Conservative New York Times columnist Bret Stephens (left) debates Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the progressive Israel lobbying group J Street, about Israel and the war in Iran on Wednesday at the JCC of Greater Pittsburgh. 

The discussion, which was attended by 330 people, was the first in a six-part series by the JCC, titled “Come Curious. Leave Wiser,” that will feature “thoughtful, civil discourse” around contentious issues related to U.S.–Israel relations.

ACTUALITTÉ/CC BY-SA 2.0/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Author of eight best-selling novels including in 2003 The Devil Wears Prada, based upon the author's time as an assistant to Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, Lauren Weisberger turns 49 on Saturday… 

FRIDAY: Composer and violinist, he has been active in the presentation of new music and dance since the early 1960s, Malcolm Goldstein turns 90... President for 28 years at the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, he is now its executive vice chairman, Steven B. Nasatir turns 81... Principal technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal until 2013, then the executive editor of The Verge and editor-at-large of Recode, he is now retired, Walter S. Mossberg turns 79... Executive director at Milwaukee's Grand Avenue Club (a mental health center), Rachel Forman... Chairman and CEO of First International Resources in Fort Lee, N.J., Zev Furst turns 78... Sports agent who has represented the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft eight times, he is the real-life inspiration of the sports agent in the film "Jerry Maguire" in 1996, Leigh Steinberg turns 77... Retired host of the "Matty in the Morning Show," which ran for 41 years in Massachusetts on KISS 108, Matt Siegel turns 76... Deputy director of leadership giving at Baruch College, Linda Altshuler... Former member of the Knesset, he resigned in January 2026 to become deputy communications minister, Yisrael Eichler turns 71... Moral philosopher, she is the director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, Germany, Susan Neiman turns 71... Former NFL linebacker, now president of Performance Coaching (training real estate agents), he was a captain of the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl XVII (1983), Steven Mark Shull turns 68... Economist and banker in Latvia, Valerijs Kargins turns 65... Smooth jazz saxophonist, he has been recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Dave Koz turns 63... Actress and producer, now serving as senior vice president at the Youth Renewal Fund, Sabrina Wachtel Kurzman turns 62... Managing director of Maimonides Fund, he is a 1994 graduate of Columbia Law School, Daniel Gamulka... CEO since 2004 of BBYO, an organization launched almost 100 years ago (formerly B'nai B'rith Youth Organization), Matthew Grossman turns 55... President of NYC's Tenement Museum, Dr. Annie Polland... Founder and CEO of the Movement Vision Lab, a grassroots think tank, she is a political commentator and community organizer, Sally Kohn turns 49... Associate professor at Columbia University School of the Arts, she is the author of six full-length collections of poetry, Dorothea Lasky turns 48... Human rights attorney and head of the Sydney office of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, Arsen Ostrovsky turns 46... Senior political reporter at MS NOW, Jacob Hirsch Soboroff turns 43... Hitting coach in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization, he played for Team Israel at the 2017 World Baseball Classic and the 2020 Olympics, Blake Shane Gailen turns 41... Former professional ice hockey player, he played on Israel's national team and in the U.S., Canada and Japan, now a partner at McKinsey & Company, Oren Eizenman turns 41... Vice president at SignalFlare.ai, he is a former associate director in the NYC area for AIPAC, Adam B. Engel... Assistant principal at Snowden Farm Elementary School in Clarksburg, Md., Kayla Brameyer… Communications and social media specialist, Daniella Greenbaum Davis... Son of Jared and Ivanka, Theodore James Kushner turns 10…

SATURDAY: Professor emeritus of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize in physics, Jerome Isaac Friedman turns 96… Chairman and CEO of the Hartz Group and Hartz Mountain Corporation, a leading seller of pet supplies, Leonard Norman Stern turns 88… Israeli electrical engineer and business executive, he was the founder and first general manager of Intel Israel and the inventor of the EPROM chip, Dov Frohman turns 87… Expert on the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, and wife of the late U.S. Sen. and vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman, Hadassah Lieberman turns 78… Glenview, Ill., resident, Genie Kutchins… Iranian-born CEO of Los Angeles-based toy company MGA Entertainment (maker of Little Tikes and Bratz and Lalaloopsy dolls), Isaac Larian turns 72… Former member of the Knesset for 13 years, she served as the leader of the Israeli Labor Party, Shelly Yachimovich turns 66… Special envoy and coordinator for the U.S. Department of State’s Global Engagement Center during the Biden administration, James Phillip Rubin turns 66… One of four hostages held at gunpoint for 11 hours at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, in January 2022, Jeffrey R. Cohen… Former rhythmic gymnast, now teaching yoga in Connecticut, she represented the U.S. at the 1984 Summer Olympics, Valerie Le Zimring-Schneiderman turns 61… “Lexington” columnist at The Economist, he is the younger brother of U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), James Douglas Bennet turns 60… Presidential historian and Jewish liaison in the Bush 43 administration, he is now a senior scholar at Yeshiva University and a senior fellow at the Ronald Reagan Institute, Tevi Troy turns 59… President and CEO of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, Adam Lehman turns 59… Journalist, crime writer and blogger who has spent most of his career in Japan, he assisted the U.S. State Department's investigation into human trafficking in Japan, Jake Adelstein turns 57… Israeli journalist, she is both a television and radio news presenter, Keren Neubach turns 56… Novelist, television producer and journalist, one of her novels was made into a major motion picture, Jennifer Weiner turns 56… U.S. senator (R-FL), she was appointed last year to the seat vacated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Ashley Moody turns 51… Member of the Knesset since 2015 for the Likud party, now serving as the minister of culture and sports, Makhlouf "Miki" Zohar turns 46… Benjy Spiro… Los Angeles-based, Israeli-born fashion designer, Yotam Solomon turns 39… Retired MLB outfielder for the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs, now a real estate developer in Bali, Indonesia, Ryan Kalish turns 38… Vice president at Tradepoint Atlantic, a 3,300-acre global logistics center near Baltimore, Michael Hurwitz… Senior vice president of asset management at Hackman Capital Partners, Zachary David Sokoloff… Quarterback for the Tulane University Green Wave football team, Jake Retzlaff turns 24…

SUNDAY: Israeli chemist, professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at UCLA, winner of the 1974 Israel Prize and the 1988 Wolf Prize in Chemistry, Raphael David Levine turns 88… Organizer of the annual morning minyan services since 1983 for runners in the NYC Marathon, Peter Berkowsky turns 84… Attorney, New York Times best-selling author and sports agent for many athletes, including Cal Ripken, Jim Palmer, Brooks Robinson, Kirby Puckett and Eddie Murray, Ronald M. Shapiro turns 83… Houston-based labor law, employment law and personal injury attorney, active in Jewish organizations, Carol Cohen Nelkin… University of Chicago professor and winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in economics, Roger Myerson turns 75… Investor, computer scientist and founder of D. E. Shaw & Co., a hedge fund based upon high-speed quantitative trading, David Elliot Shaw turns 75… Economist, professor emeritus at NYU and chairman and CEO of consulting firm Roubini Macro Associates, Nouriel Roubini turns 68… Miami businesswoman, JoAnne Papir… U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, he was the co-founder and co-CEO of Cerberus Capital Management, Stephen Andrew Feinberg turns 66… Hollywood mogul, CEO of Endeavor and CEO and executive chairman of TKO Group Holdings, which owns the UFC and WWE, Ariel Zev "Ari" Emanuel turns 65… Director of the Mossad, Israel's national intelligence agency, David Barnea turns 61… French film director and writer, best known for his 2011 film "The Artist," which won five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Michel Hazanavicius turns 59… Budget secretary for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Uri Z. Monson turns 57… Vice president and senior advisor at The Rockefeller Foundation and adjunct fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Eric Pelofsky… Founder of Leopard Strategies, Liz Jaff… White House staff secretary in the Trump administration, Will Scharf turns 40… Communications director for Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), David A. Bergstein… Associate director at Power Insights, Annie Rosen Pai… Director of business development at Logical Buildings, Alex Zafran…

BIRTHWEEK: Times of Israel news editor, he previously served as news editor of eJewishPhilanthropy, Ben Sales celebrated his birthday yesterday…