In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we spotlight an ongoing discussion on social media about what America’s Orthodox Jews “need” in order to make aliyah. We report on Community O’s efforts to build a shared organizational infrastructure for Israeli social entrepreneurs and a new JINSA report recommending a fundamental shift in the U.S.-Israel relationship. We feature an opinion piece by Mike Leven and Hadara Ishak about leveraging the “great wealth transfer” for Jewish causes, and a piece by Alyza D. Lewin breaks down the significance of a recent federal court ruling for the American Jewish community. Also in this issue: Amy-Jill Levine, Ken Daniels and Lisa Daniels-Goldman, and David Danieli. 

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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: Lauder Foundation announces preparations to sunset support for seven flagship school systems with $75 million send-off gift; Sephardic leaders argue their tradition serves as a model for the future of Diaspora Jewry; Tel Aviv U. removes Sackler name from science faculty — the final department still named for the opioid-tied family.

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What We're Watching

Ben Gurion Airport officially became the world’s most disrupted airport today due to ongoing effects of Wednesday’s wildcat strike.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD FROM eJP'S RACHEL KOHN

There is a conversation unfolding this week about aliyah taking place in the digital shmoozing grounds where Modern Orthodox, Haredi and Hasidic figures mix and mingle and address their online constituencies. 

On another level, though, it is a conversation that captures different perspectives on what it means, as Jewish individuals and as Jewish communities, to need something — and it offers an opportunity to reflect on how the community prioritizes those needs and who carries the burden of meeting them.  

Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ →

News

CLOUD PHILANTHROPY

With more than 150 projects across 30 cities in Israel, when you ask Israeli social entrepreneur Nehoray Erdinast Ofri what Community  O is, he skips the nonprofit vocabulary and reaches for the clouds: It’s AWS — Amazon Web Services — for nonprofit organizations in Israel, he told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Justin Hayet. Amazon's cloud service allowed a generation of startups to launch without buying and running their own servers, and Community O wants to do the same for social ventures, serving as a fiscal sponsor and operational host that hands founders the legal, financial and administrative machinery of a nonprofit so no one has to build it from scratch. 

Market fit: “When I look at American Jewish and Israeli philanthropy there is amazing energy that we see in the last few years,” Erdinast Ofri said, crediting Jewish foundations, families and a wave of partnerships and ideas. The roadblock comes later. “We know how to mobilize capital, but there is a bottleneck about how to transfer capital to ideas and create solutions on the ground,” he said. “That's an infrastructure issue.”

Read the full report here →

RELATIONSHIP STATUS

A new report from the Jewish Institute for National Security of America demonstrates how, even among hawkish experts in Washington, the question is increasingly not how to preserve the traditional model of military aid to Israel, but what should replace it, Matthew Shea reports for eJewishPhilanthropy's sister publication Jewish Insider.  

Allies with benefits: “The question for policymakers is not what America owes Israel. It is what America gains from having Israel as an ally — and how much more both countries can gain by making that alliance stronger,” JINSA said in a statement accompanying the report, titled “Shifting the Center of Gravity: Transforming the U.S.-Israel Security Partnership.”

Read the full report →

Opinion

CALL TO ACTION

In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Jewish Future Promise’s Mike Leven and Hadara Ishak note that bequest giving jumped almost 20% last year, according to the latest Giving USA report — the third big leap in just four years.

“Some of the wealth now passing to a new generation is being redirected away from Jewish causes, not out of hostility, but because some heirs don’t see Jewish giving as distinctly theirs the way their parents did. At the same time, the mechanics of giving are shifting, too: more of it is moving through donor-advised funds, and more of it is going directly to individuals and informal causes rather than to institutions at all. The question facing Jewish philanthropy right now is not only where this wealth will go, but whether any of our institutions will get to see it.”

Read the full piece →

LEGAL VICTORY

In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Alyza D. Lewin, president of U.S. affairs for the Combat Antisemitism Movement, delves into this week’s ruling in a Washington, D.C., district court that held that Jews are a racial minority and that the Star of David on the Israeli flag is a symbol of Jewish racial heritage. 

“One of the defining characteristics of modern antisemitism is the deliberate erasure of Jewish peoplehood and the denial of the Jewish people’s ancestral connection to the Land of Israel. … Harassing, discriminating against or assaulting Jews because they refuse to disavow their people’s history and heritage is not a political debate. It is the unlawful targeting of Jews on the basis of their Jewishness. That distinction has legal significance.” 

Read the full piece →

Worthy Reads

Sounding the Alarm: In The Wall Street Journal, historian Tevi Troy writes that pervasive antisemitism has transformed New York for Jews since his 1970s Queens childhood, pointing to synagogue security committees, a mayor-less Israel Day parade and recent figures showing that the majority of the city's hate crimes targeted Jews. “In this period before Rosh Hashana, the daily shofar blasts are supposed to get Jews thinking about what they have done wrong in the past year and how they could be better in the next. This year that sound is also having them look to the city that has long been the center of American Jewish life and hoping against hope that it too can be better in the year ahead.”

Partnership Paradigm: In The Jerusalem Post, Editor-in-Chief Zvika Klein argues that Israel's leaders treat Diaspora Jews as students, immigrants and audiences rather than true partners. “Chikli sees ignorance and prescribes education. Smotrich sees exposure and prescribes evacuation. Lapid sees hurt feelings and prescribes respect. Those are sovereign instruments, and sovereign instruments produce students, immigrants, and audiences. They cannot produce partners, because a partner is someone whose judgment you have conceded in advance.” 

The Long Game: In a LinkedIn post, Seth Katzen, the president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Delaware, reflects on 23 years in federation leadership, arguing that relationships, trust and collaboration form the true foundation of successful philanthropy, above dollars, metrics or efficiency. “Several years ago, a donor with whom I had developed a relationship over time told me something I have never forgotten. After discussing our community's needs and future aspirations, they said, ‘I don't give because you asked. I give because I trust.’ Those six words crystallized everything I had come to believe about philanthropy.”

Leading Roles

Brandeis University — President (Waltham, Mass.) Seeking a decisive, forward-looking president to lead the institution at a defining moment for higher education. $1M+ annually. Apply

SPONSORED | On Fridays, we are sharing sponsored job listings from across the Jewish nonprofit world. Email us to post a position.

Major Gifts

Marketing executive Alison Friedman Brod has pledged $1 million to Tulane University to endow a media and communications wing bearing her name…

An anonymous individual donated $1.47 million to the Portland, Maine-based nonprofit Project Home to double its TRUST program, which provides unrestricted cash to low-income single mothers…

Transitions

Elizabeth Krantz is leaving AIPAC to join the Israel on Campus Coalition as its new director of national coalitions… 

David Levinson was appointed chair of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation’s board of directors…

Dorit Jaffe is leaving her role as CEO of Hadassah Australia and Nicole Brooks was named the new CEO…

Melissa Engelberg is joining the Anti-Defamation League as its new individual gift officer…

Scholar Amy-Jill Levine was elected as the first-ever Jewish president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America…

Word on the Street

Hillel International is opening its first stand-alone undergraduate office at Clemson University, where Jewish enrollment has quintupled in recent years…

The Detroit Jewish News spotlights the Jamie Daniels Foundation, launched in 2018 by Ken Daniels and Lisa Daniels-Goldman after their 23-year-old son's fatal overdose; the foundation funds prevention, recovery and stigma-reduction programs for young people across Michigan…

The U.K.’s Board of Deputies is recruiting Jewish children ages 7 to 13 for short films on Jewish life that will anchor a free, immersive website letting primary school pupils virtually tour a Jewish neighborhood…

The Dallas Morning News highlights how the Better Together Fund is reviving its nine-year push to sell nonprofit mergers as growth, having backed 85-plus partnerships and $7.1 million in grants since 2017…

A 35-year-old man faces battery and religious-intimidation charges after police said he punched a Jewish man in Surfside, Fla., cursed the victim and his wife and threatened to kill them…

Photo of the Day

AMOS BEN GERSHOM

Israeli President Isaac Herzog meets with David Danieli at the President's Residence in Jersualem on Tuesday nearly 80 years after Herzog’s grandfather, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Isaac Halevi Herzog, helped rescue Danieli and hundreds of other orphaned Jewish children from postwar Poland.

Birthdays

NEW YORK YANKEES/GETTY IMAGES

Ron Blomberg, former MLB player, he was the first designated hitter in MLB history and was the manager of the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox in the Israel Baseball League, turns 78 on Sunday

FRIDAY 

Irwin Wecker, retired owner of Effective Strategy Consultants, South Florida resident

Ilana Rovner, senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, turns 88

L. Rafael Reif, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology until the end of 2022, turns 76

Eric S. Brown, former chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, he was the first Jewish chief justice in Ohio history, turns 73

Yossi Dina, Israeli-born pawnbroker and star of the reality television series “Beverly Hills Pawn,” turns 72

Sabina Berman Goldberg, Mexican writer, playwright and journalist, turns 71

Mitchell Rales, businessman and collector of modern and contemporary art, he is the leading limited of the NFL's Washington Commanders, turns 70

Jon Tester, former U.S. senator (D-MT), turns 70

Yehiel Lasri, Israeli physician who was a member of the Knesset, he now serves as mayor of Ashdod, turns 69

Jerry Avenaim, photographer best known for his fashion and celebrity images, turns 65

Ido Aharoni, Israeli career diplomat who served for six years as consul general in New York, turns 64

Scott Bessent, secretary of the U.S. Treasury, turns 64

Mark Stuart Charendoff, president at Maimonides Fund

Jack Weiss, co-founder of BlueLine Grid, he was previously an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles and a member of the Los Angeles City Council, turns 62

Chavie Kahn, member of the philanthropic leadership group for the UJA-Federation of New York

Ken Mehlman, global head of public affairs at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts-KKR, turns 60

Rachel Hirschberg Light, president of Berger Hirschberg Strategies

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, both Bloomberg and Forbes rank him as one of the ten wealthiest people globally, turns 53

Jason Marquis, former MLB pitcher for nine teams, he was the starting pitcher in three of Team Israel's first four games in the 2017 World Baseball Classic, turns 48

Chesa Boudin, former district attorney of San Francisco, turns 46

Adam Fisher, head coach of the Temple University Owls men's basketball team, turns 42

Adam Rosenblatt, founding partner of Bold Decision, turns 41

Erica Miller, missions manager for domestic and overseas travel at the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia

David Abadian Heifetz, communications director at Breakthrough Energy

Madeline Fuhrman, pop singer and songwriter, turns 33

Tzippy Baitch, associate editor at Simon & Schuster

Noa Rakel Perugia, an Argov fellow at the World Jewish Congress

Lynn Sharon

James Barton

Saturday & Sunday birthdays will be posted on the web version — have a great weekend. See this weekend's birthdays →

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