Curated by Judah Ari Gross & Rachel Kohn |
with assists from the eJP Team |
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we examine the latest Giving USA report on philanthropy in 2025. We spotlight the Jusidman Foundation’s support for the Desert Stars organization, which provides education and leadership training to Bedouin Israelis, and report on the makeup of a new advisory board for Robert Kraft’s Blue Square Alliance. We feature an opinion piece by Sandy Cardin reflecting on the third anniversary of the Global Jewry network and its mission to link organizations across the Jewish institutional ecosystem, and Roz and Jerry Rothstein address the discourse about whether devoting resources to combatting antisemitism is a lost cause. Also in this issue: Michel Mizrahi, Larry Ellison and S. Asher Gelman.
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New York saw a number of anti-Israel candidates win their Democratic congressional primaries yesterday against more moderate opponents, alongside the victories of Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and state Assemblyman Micah Lasher, both of whom have long supported Israel. Read Jewish Insider’s coverage of yesterday’s races here. |
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Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) will speak today in conversation with Jewish Council for Public Affairs CEO Amy Spitalnick as well as leaders from other religious groups, including the Union for Reform Judaism and Orthodox Union, about the Jewish American Security Act. |
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Israel’s Kibbutz Movement is hosting a panel discussion today about the challenges facing communities on the country’s northern border. | |
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A QUICK WORD WITH eJP'S JAY DEITCHER |
Riding the wave of a strong stock market in 2025, philanthropic giving reached $617 billion last year, an inflation-adjusted 3% increase over the previous year, according to the latest Giving USA report, which was released yesterday.
While the S&P 500 spiked more than 16% in 2025, gross domestic product jumped by 2.2% and impending tax changes incentivized charitable giving, massive cuts to nonprofits by the Trump administration, coupled with surging need, complicated the overall economic picture. Yet donors stepped into the breach, with individual giving, giving by foundations and bequests all rising last year, according to “Giving USA 2026: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2025.” The $617 billion figure represents the second-highest yearly total in inflation-adjusted dollars.
Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ → |
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Last week, the most recent class of students graduated from Desert Stars, a Bedouin leadership organization whose new Jusidman Campus for Bedouin Leadership sits in Israel’s northern Negev. The gleaming new campus, which stands in stark contrast to the overcrowded and under-resourced schools that are common in the area, is the embodiment of a vision that Igal Jusidman, president of the Jusidman Foundation, has been pursuing for more than a decade.
Preemptive measure: "The Bedouin community is at the very bottom of any socioeconomic measurement you can find," Jusidman told eJP. "It's not a huge problem today, but it will grow exponentially. It's a recipe for disaster."
Read Rachel Gutman's full report →
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The Blue Square Alliance Against Hate announced on Tuesday the formation of its inaugural advisory board to help guide the organization. The group, founded by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, said the board will advise on strategy to combat antisemitism and help deepen institutional relationships.
Who’s who: The five advisory board members of the organization are: Dentons CEO Kate Barton; Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff; Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan; former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; and Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav.
Read Haley Cohen's full report →
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“The challenges facing the Jewish people are too large for any institution to solve alone. They span borders, generations, denominations and ideologies. They demand faster knowledge-sharing, stronger relationships and a capacity for collective action that currently does not exist at scale,” writes Sandy Cardin, founder of Global Jewry, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Funding the future: “What Global Jewry has learned in three years is that when people are given genuine opportunities to connect across traditional boundaries, they do. The hunger is real. The need is urgent. And the infrastructure — still nascent, still growing — is beginning to take shape. The next great advance in Jewish philanthropy will not come from funding something new. It will come from investing in relationships that make everything else possible.”
Read the full piece →
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“Many donors understandably question whether the enormous resources devoted to combating antisemitism are producing results. If antisemitism has existed for thousands of years and is now rising again, why continue to expend tens of millions of dollars to fight it?” write Roz and Jerry Rothstein, co-founders and international executive leaders of StandWithUs, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
We can’t afford to ignore it: “If the antisemitism and misinformation we confront every day can fuel such threats and deadly violence, letting those bad ideas spread unchecked increases the risk that more of our people will die. … This reality does not mean the fight is futile. It means we must focus on what we can control and be clear about what success looks like.”
Read the full piece →
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Baruch Dayan Emet: In The Canadian Jewish News, Joel Ceausu speaks with friends and neighbors of Michel Mizrahi, the Canadian Israeli man who was killed in a shooting attack in Montreal on Monday, alongside police officer Mohamed Lamine Benredouane. |
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Safety First: In GQ, Grayson Schaffer spotlights the bodyguards protecting the wealthiest Americans. |
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Across the Pond: In the U.K.’s Jewish Chronicle, Angela Epstein examines whether Andy Burnham, the presumed next leader of the Labor Party, will be “good for the Jews.” |
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SPONSORED | Email us to place an advertisement to the JI readership of your upcoming event, job opening or other announcement. |
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After Scottish fans descended on Boston for the World Cup, emptying some bars’ stocks of beer and embracing the city, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft is considering returning the favor and having his NFL team play a game in Scotland… |
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The New York Times spotlights the annual Great Nosh picnic that took place on Governors Island on Sunday, calling it “a kind of New York-centric Coachella for Jewish food and culture”... |
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Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who lost last night’s Democratic primary race, rejected a Justice Department plan to open an investigation against a Brooklyn cafe that refused his business because of his connections to Israel, saying the federal government should be focused on “other people in the Jewish community who are really scared”... |
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A wide array of Jewish organizations, from the National Council of Jewish Women to Agudath Israel of America, are coming out against the Supreme Court’s ruling in Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety, which found that a Rastafarian prison inmate could not directly sue the officers who shaved his hair in opposition to his religious beliefs…
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Haaretz’s lead editorial today condemns the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund’s decades-long efforts to evict a Palestinian family from their home in Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood… |
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The Wall Street Journal examines how Larry Ellison became a close ally of President Donald Trump following a previously undisclosed $45 million donation to a nonprofit connected to his 2024 presidential campaign… |
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Despite opposition from the city’s mayor, a city-funded venue in San Antonio, Texas, will host a July 4 concert by Ye despite the performer’s history of overt antisemitism… |
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The Wall Street Journal interviews Israeli-born KISS co-founder and bassist Gene Simmons about the impact that his mother, who was a Holocaust survivor, had on his worldview… |
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Israeli officials are exploring listing Israel Aerospace Industries and defense manufacturer Rafael on U.S. stock exchanges rather than in Israel, where they may face more burdensome disclosure requirements, according to Bloomberg… |
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The Jewish Telegraphic Agency spotlights “The Zionists,” a new play by S. Asher Gelman, the son of Jewish philanthropists Susie and Michael Gelman, about a family grappling with the issue of Zionism in the post-Oct. 7 world…
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday completed his testimony, after 98 hearings over the past year and a half, in his ongoing corruption trial… |
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A manifesto allegedly left by the gunman behind Monday's rampage in Côte-des-Neiges, a heavily Jewish neighborhood in Montreal, repeatedly targeted Jews and Zionists, specifically identifying “influential Zionists” among his intended victims, according to a copy of the document published by Rebel News, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports…
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ALICE SACCO / POOL / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES |
France's President Emmanuel Macron speaks yesterday in front of the two flag-draped cenotaphs of Marc Bloch, a Jewish historian and French resistance fighter, and his wife, Simonne Vidal, during the induction ceremony for the couple in the Pantheon in Paris. Bloch was tortured and executed by the Gestapo in 1944.
The selection of Bloch, whose 1940 book Strange Defeat examines how France fell to Nazi Germany and who is the first historian to be inducted into the Pantheon, was widely seen as politically informed, serving as a form of rebuke to far-right and far-left voices in France ahead of a national election. In his speech, Macron highlighted the risks of antisemitism and extremism.
“Bloch's case clearly illustrates that whenever you turn against a Jew, there's always a prefect who will order the police; there's always a policeman to go [make the arrest], a judge who will authorize the action, a journalist to comment positively on it, and so many others ready to turn their gaze away from it,” Macron said in his speech. “And we should never forget this.” |
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COOPER NEILL/GETTY IMAGES |
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Rich Eisen 57 The first on-air talent of the NFL Network when it debuted in 2003, he has become the face of the network, which merged with ESPN in 2025
Nelson Peltz Activist investor, he is a co-founder of Trian Partners, turns 84
Sam S. Gill Professor emeritus in the Lam Family College of Business at San Francisco State University, turns 84
Seymour "Sy" Sternberg Former chairman and CEO of New York Life Insurance Company, turns 83
Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff Professor of philosophy at American Jewish University and founding dean of its rabbinical program, turns 83
Rabbi Avraham Haim Yosef (Avi) Weiss Founder of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, he is also the founder of Yeshivat Maharat for Orthodox women, turns 82
Robert Reich Former secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, he is an author and professor emeritus at UC Berkeley, his newest book came out in 2025, turns 80
Moshe "Bogie" Ya'alon Former member of Knesset and former chief of staff of the IDF, turns 76
Carol Glassman Early childhood specialist at Columbus City Schools and Columbus School for Girls in Columbus, Ohio
Kevin Goldman Former EVP at Edelman, he is the author of a book on the Saatchi & Saatchi ad firm
Stanley Steinreich President and CEO of public relations firm Steinreich Communications
Beth Francine Bloom U.S. district judge for the Southern District of Florida, turns 64
Rabbi James Kennard Principal from 2007 until 2023 of Mount Scopus Memorial College located in Melbourne, Australia, turns 62
Alona Barkat Israeli businesswoman and owner of the soccer team, Hapoel Beer Sheva, her brother-in-law is Israel's economy minister, Nir Barkat, turns 57
Shulem Deen Author and columnist, he is the managing editor at Shtetl, turns 52
Ariel Marcus Rosenberg Singer and songwriter known professionally as Ariel Pink, turns 48
Todd Strauss-Schulson Film director, screenwriter, producer, editor and cinematographer, turns 46
Matthew Continetti Director of domestic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, he is the son-in-law of political analyst and commentator Bill Kristol, turns 45
Brett Rosner Digital marketing manager at Guardian Pharmacy Services
Steven C. Mitzner VP of Houston-based RIDA Development, a multi-national real estate development company
Matthew Barnett "Matt" Jackson A 2015 contestant on "Jeopardy!" who earned $413,612 by winning 13 consecutive episodes, he is a son of United States District Court Senior Judge Amy Berman Jackson, turns 34
Elizabeth Greer "Beanie" Feldstein Actor and singer, turns 33
Moshe Gruber Director of legislative fiscal affairs at the Rockland County (N.Y.) legislature
Spencer Freedman College basketball player for the Harvard Crimson until 2022, then a graduate transfer player at NYU until 2024, turns 28 Lois Charles |
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