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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we examine the growing calls of Diaspora Jewish leaders for the Israeli government to crack down on extremist violence against Palestinians, and report on a recent gathering, organized by Natan Fund and Upstart, to boost grassroots organizations that were formed post-Oct. 7. In the latest installment of eJP’s exclusive opinion column, “The 501(C) Suite,” Barry Finestone encourages institutions to examine whether their governance structures and practices can better meet present-day needs; Michal Ben-Dov offers a window into the internal dilemmas facing Israeli fundraisers during the current war; and Rabbi Simcha Scholar draws a lesson for Jewish philanthropy from the flurry of Passover prep underway in so many households this week. Also in this issue: Flora Cassen, Dov Ben-Shimon and Nikki Farahanchi.

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Some of the leading figures in Jewish philanthropy, as well as communal leaders and even right-wing Israeli commentators, are raising their voices in a rare chorus against the rise of violence by Israeli extremists against Palestinians in the West Bank, as the frequency and brazenness of the attacks prompted even those who once dismissed the issue as fringe and exaggerated to issue public condemnations and calls for action. 

Likely by design, this rise in extremist violence comes as Israel and the broader Jewish world are focusing their attention and resources elsewhere. Israel is currently fighting a war on two fronts — an air campaign against Iran and ground-and-air operations against the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon — and is defending its military actions in the international arena. Jews abroad are both grappling with rising antisemitism, much of which is at least nominally connected to Israel and Zionism, and also rallying diplomatic and public support for Israel.

If nothing else, all of these efforts are hampered by Israeli extremist violence against Palestinian civilians. The Israeli military has already diverted several hundred troops from Lebanon to the West Bank to address the issue. For many of Israel’s supporters abroad, at a time when the country is facing growing challenges on the world stage, these attacks give ammunition to the Jewish state’s detractors.

More than 3,000 Diaspora Jewish figures — donors, rabbis and organizational leaders, among others — have so far signed onto a letter to Israeli President Isaac Herzog, which was drafted by The London Initiative, a growing international network of liberal Zionists that launched last year, calling on him to push the government to crack down on the violence.

Herzog responded to the letter today, writing to the signatories that he shared their “conviction that these acts of violence stand in stark contradiction to the values upon which Israel was founded and to the enduring ethical tradition of the Jewish people. Our heritage emphasizes the sanctity of human life, and grounds it in a basic biblical tenet: ‘You shall love the stranger’ — a foundational moral principle that has defined the Jewish people across generations.”

In recent days, a growing number of right-wing Israeli figures have also started condemning the violence, including some voices from within the settlement movement, who see these attacks as jeopardizing the entire enterprise. Israeli commentator Amit Segal — who previously dismissed allegations of Israeli extremist violence as a “scam” — published an extended condemnation of the phenomenon yesterday, calling it “morally inexcusable.”

This growing chorus of condemnations from within Israel’s security services, as well as from these Israeli right-wing figures, are signaling to Diaspora Jews that this is an issue they can weigh in on. For Diaspora donors, efforts to combat this violence — through interventions for the at-risk Israeli youth who are more likely to perpetrate it or by supporting peace initiatives and efforts to strengthen the rule or law — may also become a greater priority.

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

One of the many consequences of the Oct. 7 terror attacks and subsequent global rise in antisemitism has been the emergence of a host of new grassroots Jewish organizations and initiatives, led by a new generation of Jewish leaders. Last month, a group of grantmakers brought approximately 100 of those emerging leaders to Louisville, Ky., for a “Collaboratory,” aimed at helping the new sector “professionalize” and connect them to more established Jewish organizations, Adina Poupko, executive director of the Natan Fund, which helped spearhead the gathering with Upstart, told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim. 

Play nicely together: In addition to providing activists with access to each other to increase cross-field collaboration, the event was part of a larger effort to develop better relationships between newcomers and existing institutions, Felicia Herman, Maimonides Fund’s managing director, North America, told eJP. “The thing that we wanted to forestall was too much animosity between the grassroots and the established organizations,” Herman said. “I really believe that the grassroots organizations and the established organizations each have their own role to play.”

Read the full report here.

“I have written before about VUCA — volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity — and about the pace of change reshaping our world and Jewish communal life,” writes Barry Finestone, president and CEO of the Jim Joseph Foundation, in the latest installment of eJewishPhilanthropy’s exclusive opinion column, “The 501(C) Suite.” “If the world around our institutions has changed so dramatically and so quickly, compelling our professionals to change, it begs a question: have the systems through which we govern our Jewish institutions changed as well? The answer, in many cases, is not nearly enough.”

The innovator’s dilemma: “The very qualities that make institutions trusted, stable and effective can also make them inflexible. … Speed, clarity and decisions rights — who gets to make decisions over certain matters in certain situations — matter. We can balance those needs without being reckless and abandoning consultation.”

Read the full piece here.

“The war with Iran started on Feb. 28, and the very next day we held a webinar for our board members and supporters,” writes Michal Ben-Dov, vice president of strategic partnerships at the Taub Center, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “We wanted them to hear directly from our researchers about what was unfolding — economically, socially, geopolitically — but we also wanted to do something simpler: to check in and let them know that we were safe and continuing our work. Since then, we have held these webinars every week.”

Balancing act: “[S]ociety cannot survive on emergency response alone. Someone must still be thinking about the day after, and the year after that. This is my key dilemma as a fundraiser. We sit in the uncomfortable space between urgency and patience, between the immediate cry for help and the slower work of building resilient institutions and policies. Wartime sharpens the tension between those roles. But perhaps wartime is also where the role matters most.”

Read the full piece here.

“As Pesach approaches, many Jewish homes around the world fall into a familiar, frantic rhythm. It is a season defined by preparation, by detail, and — let’s be honest — by a fair amount of exhaustion,” writes Rabbi Simcha Scholar, CEO of Chai Lifeline, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “It is very easy to look at this process as a burden that stands in the way of the holiday itself. But I believe the opposite is true: The preparation is exactly where the lesson of the holiday begins.”

Checking the corners: “In the world of professional philanthropy, we spend a lot of time talking about scale. We look at dollars raised and the number of programs expanded. These metrics are important, but they can sometimes hide a deeper truth. What actually sustains a community is not the big, visible splash. It is the quiet, consistent care that happens behind the scenes.”

Read the full piece here.

The Nonprofit Advantage: In the Harvard Business Review, Wei Shi examines the potential benefits to for-profit companies of maintaining a robust relationship with nonprofits. “Competitive advantage increasingly depends on navigating complex regulatory environments, understanding diverse stakeholders, and identifying opportunities in underserved markets. Nonprofits offer unique value as boundary spanners who reduce uncertainty, reveal new opportunities, and help firms build capabilities for contested environments. Capturing this value requires moving beyond purely philanthropic relationships. Board connections can provide stakeholder intelligence, while strategic partnerships enable deeper capability development. The right approach depends on whether a firm seeks incremental insight or more fundamental strategic change.” [HBR]

Good News, Bad News: In a new report for Media Impact Funders, “Rebuilding Local Journalism at Scale: A Field-Level Analysis of Infrastructure Needs,” Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro identifies a “fragmentation paradox” in the local media ecosystem. “Over the past two decades, nonprofit local journalism has expanded rapidly in response to the collapse of commercial local news. Philanthropy has played a central role in this transition, supporting new outlets, experiments, and intermediary organizations. As the field matures, however, its most binding constraints are increasingly ecosystem-level rather than organization-specific. Across workforce development, collaboration, audience connection, revenue systems, publishing infrastructure, and civic data access, missing shared capacity raises the marginal cost of producing reliable local journalism and limits the durability of local information ecosystems. It also constrains the field’s ability to concentrate innovation in ways that generate visible, replicable models others can adopt.” [MediaImpactFunders]

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition narrowly beat a deadline that would have triggered early elections, passing the 2026 state budget early Monday morning, a day before the March 31 deadline, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports…

World ORT and ORT America announced that they are merging into one organization, which will be led by the former’s CEO, Dov Ben-Shimon…

A new survey by the Israel Democracy Institute found that while most Israelis still support the war against Iran, the number has dropped from 81% when the conflict began to 68%, while opposition has risen from 4% to 11.5%...

The Canadian Jewish News interviews Simon Wolle, the incoming CEO of B’nai Brith Canada, about rising antisemitism in the country… 

The Democratic National Committee is expected to vote next month on a resolution against outside “corporate-backed independent expenditures” that explicitly criticizes AIPAC and its affiliated United Democracy Project super PAC… 

The Wall Street Journal looks at San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie’s effort to address the city’s anticipated budget shortfall of $900 million through private contributions and the creation of the San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation to raise funds to revitalize the area…

Apollo Global Management is planning to open a second U.S. headquarters, with Austin, Texas, South Florida and Nashville reportedly among the shortlisted cities and regions…

Barry Diller purchased an $11 million duplex penthouse frequented by President John F. Kennedy at New York’s Carlyle Hotel; Diller purchased the property from Karen Pritzker, who with her husband paid $12.5 million for it in 2007…

Nursing home owner Daryl Hagler sold off five properties in Brooklyn and Queens for $332 million, months after a report from New Jersey’s state comptroller found that Hagler and his business partner owed $124 million to the government for redirecting Medicaid funding and understaffing two N.J. nursing homes…

A suspected member of the Jewish Defense League extremist group was charged with plotting an attack on Within Our Lifetime founder and anti-Israel activist Nerdeen Kiswani…

Inside Philanthropy spotlights 12 billionaire families who have increased their giving in recent years, including: Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz; Lynn and Stacy Schusterman; Steve and Connie Ballmer; John and Laura Arnold; Michael and Susan Dell; and Sergey Brin…

On the Jewish Federations of North America’s blog, Rabbi Joshua Stanton writes about growing ties between the Jewish and Cambodian communities of southern Maine…

The Times of Israel reports on a new exhibit at the National Library of Israel about the crypto-Jews of Mashad, Iran…

Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy is investigating its Muslim Philanthropy Initiative, after the Washington Free Beacon found that it had indirect ties to Hamas…

The Wall Street Journal examines the Iranian wealth that has been used to purchase high-value properties in London, apparently as a way to avoid sanctions…

Yeah that’s Kosher released the 2026 edition of its annual guide to kosher ballpark eating…

Moshe Yitzhak HaCohen Katz, a U.S.-born IDF soldier from New Haven, Conn., died in combat in Lebanon on Saturday; he was 22…

Steven Gruzd, a South African Jewish writer and analyst, was kidnapped and murdered in what local officials have said appears to have been “purely a criminal act,” not connected to his Jewish identity or work; he was 53…

Deb El Food Products and the Gibber Family have partnered with New York City’s Met Council for the organization’s largest-ever Passover food distribution, providing more than 3.5 million pounds of kosher-for-Passover food — including 2.1 million eggs — to more than 350,000 people across New York City and Long Island…

Igor Tulchinsky, alongside Yitzchak and Leah Mirilashvili, Moshe and Leah Tabacinic and the Gabriel ben Ephraim Memorial Fund, awarded $2.5 million to the Chabad Lubavitch movement’s Keren Hashluchim for its emissaries, particularly those in Israel and Sydney, Australia, ahead of Passover….

The Jewish Federation of Palm Springs and Desert Area (Calif.) renamed its building for longtime contributor Sherwyn Turbow, after a “major donation” of an undisclosed sum…

Sruli Fruchter is joining eJewishPhilanthropy and Jewish Insider as director of product; until recently, Fruchter served as director of operations for the 18Forty education nonprofit…

The Israeli government appointed Ran Livne as the next director of the Israel Space Agency…

Elad Granot was named undergraduate dean of Yeshiva University’s Sy Syms School of Business…

NIRA DAYANIM/EJEWISHPHILANTHROPY

A troupe of dancers, led by Nikki Farahanchi, performs a spring festival dance yesterday during the Museum of Jewish Heritage’s third annual celebration of Nowruz, the Persian new year, in New York City. 

While the celebration drew many Persian Jews and featured vendors and lectures focused specifically on Persian Jewish traditions, a majority of the over 500 attendees of the day’s events, were not Jewish, Sharon Nazarzadeh, the museum’s director of event and rental services, told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim. 

Taking place a month into the Iran war, for many of the attendees, ongoing internet blackouts have put distance between them and their families during the holiday season. “We're mindful of what's happening as is every single Iranian that you speak to, whether it's in New York or California. But when you think about the essence of Nowruz, [it represents] a new day, light over darkness, resilience, rebirth. We really wanted to honor that,” Nazarzadeh said.

RICH POLK/GETTY IMAGES FOR ANGEL CITY SPORTS 

Iranian-born L.A.-based retired actress, best known for her roles in "Crash" and the "Saw" franchise, also as the mother of the inspirational amputee Ezra Frech, Bahar Soomekh turns 51... 

Partner of Rose Associates, a real-estate firm in the NYC area, Elihu Rose turns 93... Professor of international trade at Harvard and winner of the Israel Prize in 1991, Elhanan Helpman turns 80... Cherry Hill, N.J., resident, Zelda Greenberg... Film and television director, Michael Stephen Lehmann turns 69... Comedian, actor, television personality, screenwriter, author and musician, Paul Reiser turns 69... Host of Public Radio Exchange's “The World,” Marco Werman turns 65... District attorney of Philadelphia since 2017, Larry Krasner turns 65... U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria under Presidents Obama and Trump, he is a past president of the American Foreign Service Association, Eric Seth Rubin turns 65... Actor best known for his role as Steve Sanders on the television series "Beverly Hills, 90210," Ian Ziering turns 62... Actress, director, producer and ballerina, Juliet Landau turns 61.. Owner and founder of D.C.-area's Ark Contracting (what else can you call your company if your name is Noah), Noah Blumberg... . U.S. special representative for international negotiations in the first Trump administration, now at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Jason Dov Greenblatt turns 59... Regional director in the Washington office at AJC: Global Jewish Advocacy, Alan Ronkin... Associate dean of students at Bard College, she helped 350 people escape Afghanistan amidst the U.S. withdrawal, Danna Harman... Tel Aviv-born actress, she appears on television and film in both Israel and the U.S., Mili Avital turns 54... Mexican-American chef, she won a James Beard Award for her PBS television series "Pati's Mexican Table," Patricia "Pati" Jinich turns 54... Financial services professional, he was formerly treasurer of Oakland County, Mich., Andy Meisner turns 53… Communications consultant, Gabriela Schneider... Jerusalem-born documentary photographer for the Associated Press, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography in 2007, Oded Balilty turns 47... Detroit-area Jewish leader and founder at Multifaith Life, Alicia Chandler... Best-selling author of The Oracle of Stamboul and The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, Michael David Lukas turns 47... Former senior advisor to then Ambassador David Friedman at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, Aryeh Lightstone turns 46... Chief program officer at Jewish Democratic Council of America, Robert J. Saferstein... Founder and editor-in-chief at Standard & Works, Zach Silber... Senior reporter at The Huffington Post, Jessica Schulberg... Third baseman for MLB's Chicago Cubs, he was the MVP of the 2018 MLB All-Star Game, Alex Bregman turns 32... Associate at Arnold & Porter, she is a granddaughter of the late Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Leora Einleger...