View this email in your browser 

Good Friday morning! 

In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we cover the Koum Foundation's $200 million gift to Shaare Zedek, OneDay’s earthquake response partnership with the L.A. Federation, and Rabbi Mike Uram’s vision for Conservative Judaism’s "muscular middle." We feature an opinion piece by Tara Brown reflecting on Jewish motherhood post-Oct. 7 in advance of Mother’s Day this weekend; Rachel Gildiner finds that the glass-ceiling metaphor for women’s experiences in the workplace doesn’t tell the whole story; and Rabbi Kenneth Brander identifies a timely message about moral stewardship in this week’s haftarah reading. Also in this issue: Steven Roth, Sarah Green and Charles Kushner.

Shabbat shalom!

Today’s Your Daily Phil was curated by eJP Managing Editor Judah Ari Gross, Opinion Editor Rachel Kohn and Israel Editor Justin Hayet. Have a tip? Email us here.

Spread the word! Invite your friends to sign up.👇

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: Inside the Cooperman Family Foundation’s $10 million gift to Birthright Israel; Endowing scholarship for late husband, Sandberg offers Ramah to campers with ‘most significant need’; Tel Aviv peace summit offers alternative for Diaspora Jews looking to support Israel, but not its government. Print the latest edition here.

WhatsApp co-founder and philanthropist Jan Koum has donated $200 million to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center, marking the largest dollar donation in the history of Israel’s healthcare system, the hospital announced on Friday. The institution will be renamed the Koum Shaare Zedek Medical Center in honor of the gift, report eJewishPhilanthropy’s Justin Hayet and Judah Ari Gross.

“We are proud to partner with Shaare Zedek Medical Center, an institution that defines medical excellence in Jerusalem and beyond. This gift reflects our confidence in a future of medical innovation and research that will benefit patients in Israel and around the world,” Koum said in a statement. 

The funds are earmarked for an expansion that is expected to triple the hospital’s physical footprint and patient capacity. The investment will support a new inpatient tower to significantly increase the current 1,000-bed capacity and provide on-site housing for medical staff — a major drawing point in light of Israel’s pricey real estate market. 

“This is truly a special moment in Shaare Zedek Medical Center’s 124-year-old history. This record donation by The Koum Family Foundation reflects remarkable confidence in our hospital, our staff, the city of Jerusalem, the nation of Israel and a heartfelt embrace of Zionism,” Shaare Zedek President Dr. Jonathan Halevy said in a statement. 

The donation follows a $50 million gift by the Koum Family Foundation to Soroka Medical Center last year, after the complex sustained a direct hit from an Iranian ballistic missile in June 2025 that caused heavy damage to the hospital’s surgical wing and laboratories. 

Read the full report here.

Amid intensifying, multidirectional polarization, Jewish Theological Seminary Chancellor-elect Rabbi Mike Uram offers an optimistic vision for Conservative Judaism: “the muscular middle,” a movement that can offer a middle ground for all types of Jews. Still, he admits to taking the helm of JTS during a challenging era for all denominations, marked by historic levels of antisemitism, divisions over Israel among students and declining institutional affiliation among young Jews. 

Uram, who assumes the role on July 1, sat down with Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen for eJewishPhilanthropy to discuss his strategy for cultivating the next generation of American Jewish leaders at a fraught time.   

HC: The choice of Israeli President Isaac Herzog as commencement speaker later this month has divided the JTS student body, with a petition accusing him of inciting violence in Gaza and prompting calls for his disinvitation. How as chancellor would you address this polarization? 

MU: I am very proud that JTS invited President Herzog to be part of commencement. At the end of the day, JTS has shown its commitment to the State of Israel and the Jewish people. While there may be headlines about deep division, of all enrolled students, this is a small handful of students [pushing back]. Just like every Jewish family and every political issue under the sun, there are people who are going to speak out against something.

Choosing the president of Israel as commencement speaker is a very powerful statement, and it's a powerful statement that JTS held strong against the small number of students speaking out against it.  

Read the full interview here.

Israelis are used to living through metaphorical earthquakes: Oct. 7, the fight over judicial reform and the future of the country's democracy, the Six-Day War, events where the political and societal ground shifts. Elad Blumenthal is warning about the real thing. Blumental spends most of his days talking with volunteers, municipalities and funders about earthquakes. It is the difference between life and death and this time, Blumental told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Justin Hayet last week, reacting after the fact will not be an option.

Before disaster strikes: Jewish Federation Los Angeles, in a community intimately familiar with the devastation of natural disasters, stepped forward as a strategic partner in OneDay, investing nearly $500,000 to help establish OneDay’s national network. “Our experience here in Los Angeles, especially through last year’s wildfires, has fundamentally shaped how we respond to emergencies,” said Rabbi Noah Farkas, the federation’s CEO. “Speed matters, but precision matters just as much. The wildfire crisis pushed us to build relationships and infrastructure in advance, so that when an emergency strikes, we’re not starting from scratch.”

Read the full report here.

“Since Oct. 7, 2023, being a Jewish mother, while always a gift, carries a different weight,” writes Tara Brown, CEO of Momentum, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “In the days, weeks, and months after the horrors of that day, I don’t know of any Jewish mother who could easily put her child to sleep. My daughter was the same age as Ariel Bibas. Every single night that I put her in her crib, I saw his face. And each night, I would pick her up and bring her to my bed, afraid to let her go.”

A mother’s message: “In her address to the Yeshiva University graduating class of 2025, [Rachel Goldberg-Polin] said something that could have been said to Jewish mothers — and to Jewish leaders — around the world: ‘You looked at what connects us and you said: “My agony is your agony. Your pain is my pain.”’ And then, she gave the class a gift — one that each and every one of us, feeling the pain and weight of this moment, should seize. She said: ‘We people, we are not what we say. We are not what we think. And we are not even what we believe in this life. We are what we do. So go do.”

Read the full piece here.

“We often talk about barriers to women’s leadership using the metaphor of the glass ceiling: a single, visible obstacle at the top. But for many women, as well as people with identities intersecting across race, gender identity and other dimensions, leadership does not feel like a ladder with one barrier at the end. It feels like what professors Alice Eagly and Linda Carli describe as a labyrinth, a path with constant turns and obstacles that appear again and again,” writes Rachel Gildiner, the executive director of SRE Network, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. 

A nonlinear process: “In recent decades, there have been meaningful, hard-won advancements in gender equity. Yet, we are also witnessing backlash, retrenchment and regression. … So we must hold two truths at once: the work has in fact been wildly successful, and it remains profoundly incomplete. Knowing that progress will be punctuated and incomplete, how should we contribute to the work?”

Read the full piece here.

“The return of Jerusalem to the Jewish people since 1967 is a modern miracle, one that continues to move anyone who takes seriously the sweep of Jewish history and the depth of Jewish prayer. But the question Yirmiyahu places before us [in this week’s haftarah reading] is: Are we acting as worthy stewards of this gift?” writes Rabbi Kenneth Brander, president and rosh yeshiva of Ohr Torah Stone, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy in advance of Yom Yerushalayim next week.

An honest accounting: “Yirmiyahu understood that a nation's ability to remain in its land is not a matter of geopolitical strength alone. ‘God searches out the heart and examines inner thoughts,’ he proclaims, ‘so as to treat each person according to …the fruits of his actions’ (v. 10). In other words: it is not about the flags we carry, the songs we sing, the passion with which we ascend to the Old City. It is about the ‘fruit’ of our actions — the way we behave, how we treat the people around us. That is the measure by which we are judged.”

Read the full piece here.

Warehousing Wealth: In Inside Philanthropy, Mike Scutari explains why legislative efforts to accelerate charitable payouts remain stalled despite donor-advised funds swelling to $326 billion. “Of course, one person’s genuine philanthropy reform is another’s unwarranted government meddling, and I see nothing to suggest that legislators will tackle the issue anytime soon…Charities and their communities are struggling, but they can’t compete with the wealth management industry’s lobbying muscle and foundations’ collective commitment to perpetuity…We respect funders’ rights to operate within the law, but we also want them to hold up their end of the civic bargain, and based on the ungodly amount of tax-free money in DAFs and private foundations that’s not reaching charities grappling with life-and-death challenges, that isn’t happening." [InsidePhilanthropy] 

Be featured: Email us to sponsor content with the eJP readership of your upcoming event, job opening or other communication.

Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the man who firebombed a June 2025 Run for Their Lives event in Boulder, Colo., was sentenced to life in prison, plus an additional 2,128 years, after pleading guilty to 101 state charges… 

Jewish Federation Los Angeles condemned the California secretary of state’s decision to allow the inclusion of “despicable antisemitic content” in a voter guide statement from one of the state’s gubernatorial candidates. “These are not only offensive ideas, they are dangerous falsehoods,” the federation said in a statement…

The Trump administration is weighing a proposal to let billionaires donate company stock to child investment accounts — also known as Trump Accounts— in exchange for massive tax breaks…

The U.S.-based America-Israel Democracy Coalition is organizing a "Fly & Vote" initiative to help thousands of Israeli expats return to Tel Aviv for the 2026 elections, as Israel does not offer absentee ballots…

J. The Jewish News of Northern California reports the San Francisco school board has permanently adopted an ethnic studies curriculum that includes Jewish American history but intentionally omits any mention of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to avoid the controversies that plagued previous versions…

The founder and CEO of Dayeinu: A Call to Climate Action criticized the decision by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state Legislature to roll back portions of the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act as part of a budget deal; proponents of the move say it is necessary to protect consumers facing rising energy prices.…  

Vornado Realty Trust Chairman Steven Roth compared the phrase "tax the rich" to "from the river to the sea" during a recent earnings call in reaction to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's proposed tax on luxury second homes…

A crowdfunding effort by local Jews to purchase the building of a historic Lafayette, Ind., synagogue was ultimately unsuccessful; the buyer plans to turn it into a coffee shop and event space…

The Wall Street Journal spotlights a new exhibit at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History on the relationship between the fledgling United States and a Dutch Caribbean island’s Jewish merchants during the American Revolution… 

The Times of Israel interviews Israeli Eurovision contestant Noam Bettan…

Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky revealed he is one-eighth Jewish, sparking a debate among sports fans about whether "the Great One" is technically the greatest Jewish hockey player of all time…

The David & Nicole Tepper Foundation committed $1 million in grant funding to support girls high school flag football programs in North Carolina and South Carolina; the announcement followed the North Carolina High School Athletic Association vote to officially sanction girls flag football as a varsity sport in the state…  

Mizzou Hillel has hired Scott Gerstel as its new executive director, starting in the fall 2026 semester…

Sarah Green was promoted to senior director of resource development at the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington…

COURTESY

C-suite leaders and senior executives closed out PowerNET 2026, the flagship conference of the Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies, with a group activity bringing together themes and reflections from the conference.

More than 550 Jewish human service professionals, funders and community leaders from 116 organizations across the U.S., Canada and Israel convened in Toronto this week for the conference.

BEN HIDER/GETTY IMAGES

Holocaust survivor, philanthropist and social activist, she marched in Selma, Ala., with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1965, Eva Haller turns 96 on Saturday...

FRIDAY: Senior judge in the U.K., Baron Leonard Hubert "Lennie" Hoffmann turns 92... Former president of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Stanley A. Rabin turns 88... International chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, he is a past president of the Canadian Jewish Congress and former Canadian minister of justice and attorney general, Irwin Cotler turns 86... MIT biologist and 2002 Nobel Prize laureate in medicine, H. Robert Horvitz turns 79... Former MLB pitcher who played for the Angels, Rangers and White Sox, Lloyd Allen turns 76... Chief rabbi in Dusseldorf until moving to Israel in 2021, Rabbi Raphael Evers turns 72... CFO for The Manischewitz Company for 13 years until 2024, Thomas E. Keogh... Retired USDOJ official, for many years he was the director of the Office of Special Investigations focused on deporting Nazi war criminals, Eli M. Rosenbaum turns 71... Former president of Congregation B'nai Torah in Sandy Springs, Ga., Janice Perlis Ellin... Third-generation furniture retailer in Springfield, Ill., Barry Seidman... Former president of Clayton, Mo.-based JurisTemps, Andrew J. Koshner, J.D., Ph.D.... CEO and founder of NSG/SWAT, a high-profile boutique branding agency he launched in 2011, Richard Kirshenbaum turns 65... Novelist, author of If I Could Tell You and movie critic for The Jerusalem Post since 2001, Hannah Brown... Co-founder and director of the Mizrahi Family Charitable Fund and a Maryland Climate Commissioner, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi turns 62... Israeli journalist, anchorwoman and attorney, she is best known as host of the investigative program “Uvda” ("Fact") on Israeli television, Ilana Dayan-Orbach turns 62... Longtime litigator and political fundraiser in Florida, now serving as a mediator and arbitrator, Benjamin W. Newman... Canadian social activist and documentary filmmaker critical of corporate capitalism, she is now teaching at the University of British Columbia, Naomi Klein turns 56... Israel's ambassador to the United Nations from 2015 to 2020 and again since 2024, Ambassador Danny Danon turns 55... Stand-up comedian, writer, actress and author, known for appearing on the ninth season of “America's Got Talent,” Jodi Miller turns 55... Novelist and memoirist, Joanna Rakoff turns 54... Senior advisor at West End Strategy Team, Ari Geller turns 53... Council member of Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s Voice of the People initiative and election committee member for the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, David Wiseman... Director of strategic initiatives at J Street, based in Los Angeles, Josh Lockman turns 44... Ice hockey player, Samantha Faber turns 39... Former international spokeswoman for then-Israeli prime ministers Lapid and Bennett, Keren Hajioff turns 37... Founder and CEO at Axion Ray, Daniel First... Canadian beach volleyball player, he competed in the 2016 and 2024 Summer Olympics, Sam Schachter turns 36... Former White House senior policy advisor, now a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, Amiel Fields-Meyer…

SATURDAY: Academy Award-winning director, producer and screenwriter, James L. Brooks (family name was Bernstein) turns 86... Guitarist and record producer, best known as a member of the rock-pop-jazz group "Blood, Sweat & Tears," Steve Katz turns 81... Israeli rabbi who is a co-founder of Yeshivat Har Etzion and the settlements of Alon Shevut and Ofra, Yoel Bin-Nun turns 80... Mashgiach ruchani (spiritual guide) of Baltimore's Ner Israel Rabbinical College, Rabbi Beryl Weisbord turns 79... Winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry, Michael Levitt turns 79... Pianist, singer-songwriter and one of the best-selling recording artists of all time, Billy Joel turns 77... Physician in Burlington, Vt., she was the first lady of Vermont from 1991 until 2003, Judith Steinberg Dean turns 73... Sharon Mallory Doble... Co-founder and board member of PlayMedia Systems, Brian D. Litman... Founding executive director of Chai Mitzvah, The Resource Center for Jewish Engagement, Audrey B. Lichter turns 71... Nursing home entrepreneur, he was nominated last October to become the U.S. ambassador to Hungary, Benjamin Z. Landa turns 70... Film director and producer, Barry Avrich turns 63... Staff writer at The Atlantic and author of five books, Mark Leibovich turns 61... Senior advisory partner of Bain Capital and owner of a minority interest in the Boston Celtics, Jonathan Lavine turns 60... Chief global affairs officer at Meta / Facebook, he was previously the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and a law clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, Joel D. Kaplan turns 57... NYC-based celebrity chiropractor, Arkady Aaron Lipnitsky, DC... and his twin brother, managing director at Baltimore's Pimlico Capital, Victor "Yaakov" Lipnitsky both turn 53... SVP at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Lesli Rosenblatt Gillette... Owner of NYC's Dylan's Candy Bar, which claims to be the largest candy store in the world, Dylan Lauren turns 52... Executive director of the Richardson Center and former IDF paratrooper, he has negotiated the release of political prisoners worldwide, Michael "Mickey" Bergman turns 50... Senior policy advisor on the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Aaron Scheinberg turns 45... Legal director at the State Democracy Research Initiative, Danielle Elizabeth Friedman... Opinion columnist and podcast host at The New York Times, he was a co-founder and editor-at-large at Vox, Ezra Klein turns 42... Jenna Weisbord... Principal at Blackstone Growth Israel, Nathaniel Rosen... Graduate of Harvard Law School, Mikhael Smits…

SUNDAY: Scion of a Hasidic dynasty and leader of the Beth Jehudah congregation in Milwaukee, Rabbi Michel Twerski... and his twin brother, who is a professor at Brooklyn Law School, following a career as dean at Hofstra University School of Law, Aaron Twerski, both turn 87... Real estate developer, his projects include NYC's Deutsche Bank Center, he is the principal owner of the NFL's Miami Dolphins, Stephen M. Ross turns 86... Leading Democratic pollster and political strategist, Stanley Bernard "Stan" Greenberg turns 81... British actress, she is a vocal supporter of Israel, Dame Maureen Lipman turns 80... Israeli businessman and philanthropist, his family founded and owned Israel Discount Bank, Leon Recanati turns 78... Founder and CEO of OPTI Connectivity (Operational Productivity Tool, Inc.), Edward Brill... CEO of Medical Reimbursement Data Management in Chapel Hill, N.C., Robert Jameson... American-born Israeli singer, songwriter and music producer, Yehudah Katz turns 75... Claims examiner at Chubb Insurance, David Beck... Anchor for "SportsCenter" and other programs on ESPN since 1979, Chris "Boomer" Berman turns 71... Former NBA player whose career spanned 18 seasons on seven teams, Danny Schayes turns 67... U.S. senator (R-MS), Cindy Hyde-Smith turns 67... U.S. senator (R-UT), John Curtis turns 66... Reform rabbi living in Israel, she is the sister of actress Laura Silverman and comedian Sarah Silverman, Susan Silverman turns 63... Brazilian businessman, serial entrepreneur and partner with Donald Trump in Trump Realty Brazil, Ricardo Samuel Goldstein turns 60... Neil Winchel... Attorney general of Colorado, elected in 2018 and reelected in 2022, he is now running for governor, Philip Jacob Weiser turns 58... Senior rabbi of Houston's Congregation Beth Yeshurun, Brian Strauss turns 54... Israeli rock musician, singer-songwriter, music producer and author, Aviv Geffen turns 53... Editor-in-chief, recipe developer, art director and food stylist of Fleishigs, a kosher food magazine, Shifra Klein turns 44... Israel-based reporter for the Associated Press, Melanie B. Lidman... Video games reporter at Bloomberg News, Jason Schreier turns 39... Partner at Converge Public Strategies, Fara Klein Sonderling... Associate director of communications in the D.C. office of Pew Research Center, Rachel Weisel Drian... Freelance reporter, he is the author of a book on the Obama-Biden relationship, Gabriel Debenedetti... Editorial director at The Record by Recorded Future, Adam Janofsky... Actress who has appeared in many films and television series, Halston Sage (born Halston Jean Schrage) turns 33... Scriptwriter and actress, she is the daughter of Larry David, Cazzie Laurel David turns 32... Mollie Harrison...

Birthday week: Jane Daroff, retired social worker in Cleveland, turned 88 on Wednesday…