Your Daily Phil |
SEPTEMBER 23, 2026
GOOD WEDNESDAY MORNING.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we interview UJA-Federation of New York’s Hindy Poupko about her recent promotion to executive vice president as part of the organization’s growing focus on political advocacy. We spotlight Portland Trust Israel’s new Oz Va'Ruach initiative that helps move wounded reservists into high-tech jobs, and we report on a proposed Trump administration policy change to strip tax exemptions from colleges and universities that have DEI policies. We feature an opinion piece by Seattle Jewish leaders Sam Jefferies and Joe Schocken raising an alarm about rising antisemitism that they see as spreading from their city, and a piece by retired British Army Col. Richard Kemp spotlighting Club Z’s strategy for preparing and supporting teens through encounters with anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hate. Also in this issue: Mindy Feldman, Mikhail Fridman and Will Scharf.
Have a tip? Email us here.
ADVERTISEMENT
What We're Watching
UJA-Federation of New York, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the New York chapters of the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee and the Israeli-American Council are among the groups holding a rally near the U.N. this evening calling on world leaders to scale up efforts to address antisemitism. More on this below.
The 92nd Street Y will hold a ribbon-cutting this evening to unveil newly renovated spaces on its Upper East Side campus, part of a $250 million multiphase redevelopment led by Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners.
Climate Week NYC is underway, running through the weekend. The Jewish climate nonprofit Adamah will be holding a number of events throughout the city connected to the event.
In Washington, American Friends Of Lubavitch is hosting its annual Lamplighter Awards dinner. This year honorees include U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council Chairman Jeff Miller and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
Elsewhere in the capital, the Anti-Defamation League is bringing survivors of antisemitic attacks to Capitol Hill for meetings with legislators.
Montreal’s Federation CJA will hold its annual general meeting this evening.
What You Should Know
This evening, thousands of people are expected to gather tonight near the United Nations’ headquarters in New York City to demand that world leaders take serious action against antisemitism as Jewish communities continue to face violent attacks — most recently in Canada, where a gunman opened fire at a synagogue on Yom Kippur evening, seriously injuring a police officer stationed outside.
The demonstration — held in partnership with a wide range of local and national Jewish organizations — is the latest such event to be spearheaded by UJA-Federation of New York, as the group, which historically focused on raising and distributing philanthropic funds, deepens its political advocacy and community relations work. As part of that expansion, the organization has promoted the head of those efforts, Hindy Poupko, who will now hold the title of executive vice president for community strategy and external relations, and has also grown her department, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross. As one of New York City’s largest philanthropies, which funds a broad array of social and educational programs, UJA-Federation of New York has considerable sway in the city.
Last week, eJP spoke with Poupko to discuss her expanded role, representing New York City’s politically diverse Jewish community and how the federation is preparing for anti-Israel demonstrations this week.
News
RECOVERY NATION
Portland Trust Israel pilots program to move wounded reservists into lucrative tech careers
In the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks, hundreds of thousands of Israelis — most of them men in their 20s — put their lives, studies and careers on hold to serve in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. For the thousands of Israeli reservists who have returned wounded, in body or mind, to the workforce, the trip back has been an uphill battle. A new program from Sir Ronald Cohen’s Portland Trust Israel, dubbed Oz Ve’Ruach (“Strength and Spirit”), is piloting an effort to close that gap, training reservists in AI and other tech fields to help them reintegrate into the Israeli tech workforce, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Justin Hayet.
Not charity: “Helping them achieve quality employment isn't just compassionate, it's a high-impact investment in Israel's future… from injury to meaningful employment, empowering human and economic progress to advance hand in hand,” Cohen, the British-Israeli venture capitalist and impact investor, who serves as chairman and co-founder of the Portland Trust, told eJewishPhilanthropy.
MONEY MATTERS
Treasury moves to terminate tax-exempt status for some universities, private schools
The Treasury Department in early September issued a proposed regulation that would rescind tax-exempt status from private universities and schools that “engage in racial discrimination,” another escalation of the administration’s efforts to roll back Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs in academia, reports Marc Rod for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
Tax policy: The regulation would allow schools to maintain religious affiliations and to select admittees based on religion. The move has prompted concerns from various institutions of higher education, and critics have described it as a politicization of tax policy. The Treasury is taking comment on the regulation until early November, but it would not go into effect until June.
Read the full report and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff →
Opinion
WORD OF WARNING
Canary song from the Seattle coal mine
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Sam Jefferies and Joe Schocken express alarm over what they see as “a lack of urgency from our neighbors and our leaders to address a growing anti-Jewish consensus where we live.” Jefferies is the founder of a pro-Jewish political action committee in Washington state and a former American Jewish Committee board chair for the Seattle region, and Schocken is a longtime Jewish community and Democratic Party activist.
“We see Seattle not as an anomaly but as a laboratory. Here, new tactics and new messages are tested to discover just how far the scapegoating of Jews can be taken.”
BE PREPARED
A curriculum alone won't get Jewish teens through their time on campus. Immersion will.
In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Col. Richard Kemp CBE, a member of the board of Club Z, writes that while the Jewish community's instinct has been to answer antisemitism and anti-Israel hate by equipping teens with new content — better curricula, better talking points, better tool kits — this approach is insufficient.
“[E]ducation cannot do the job alone. What makes it hold is everything built around it: overnight retreats, practical experience in the community, mentorship, friendships and support that continues long after graduation. Each part reinforces the others.”
Worthy Reads
The Test Within: In The Atlantic, Graeme Wood contends that Israel's gravest threat is internal: the widening rifts among secular, religious-Zionist, Haredi and Arab citizens over who the country is for and how it should be governed. “We know how to control all the bad guys,’ Mossad’s former head of intelligence Zohar Palti said. “Forget about terror. Forget about ballistic missiles.’ The real issues are domestic. ‘Think whether we will know how to live with each other.””
Reading the Room: In an Institute for National Security Studies analysis, scholars Theodore Sasson, Ari Blumenthal and Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis find that the Democratic Party's harshest critics of Israel will remain its smallest congressional faction and urge Israel to actively engage the party rather than pin its hopes on any one election. “Fueled in part by statements from Israel’s leaders themselves, it is now the prevailing view that financial military aid to Israel should end, with the only question being how quickly and what will take its place.”
Fishing Season: In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, senior editor Rasheeda Childress reports that as inflation squeezes everyday donors, fundraisers are shifting their year-end strategy toward midlevel and major givers while relying on monthly giving programs to keep smaller supporters engaged. “It’s hard to make a case for a return on investment in digging in deep with small-dollar donors, several experts note. But even if the big fish get more attention, don’t write off the base — it’s important to still keep them connected to your organization.”
A Tale of Two Mayors: In New York Daily News, Herbert Block, American Zionist Movement executive director and former Jewish liaison to Mayor David Dinkins, argues that Dinkins' record of solidarity with Israel — including a 1991 emergency wartime visit — stands as a model that Mayor Zohran Mamdani has departed from. “Every generation writes a new chapter in New York’s history. The question facing today’s leaders is whether they will build upon the city’s longstanding tradition of engagement with Israel, or depart from it.”
Community Comms
Here's to 5787 reasons to learn, lead and inspire this year with Spertus Institute! Make this the year you choose to dive into Jewish leadership learning for yourself and bring that learning back to the community you love. Programs are taught through a creative combination of onsite seminars that build connection and distance learning components that meet real-life scheduling needs. Onsite seminars take place at our award-winning downtown Chicago campus. Applications for the next cohorts of the Executive MA in Jewish Professional Studies (EMAJPS), and the MA in Jewish Professional Studies (MAJPS) are open. Learn more here and Apply: Center for Jewish Leadership - Spertus Institute
Major Gifts
Actress and 2026 Genesis Prize laureate Gal Gadot has turned her $1 million award into a $3 million initiative — through a Jewish Funders Network partnership that matched it 2-to-1 — to fund 24 Israeli nonprofits providing mental health and trauma care to those still recovering from Oct. 7…
Palm Beach, Fla., developer Stephen Ross committed $100 million through his foundation to bring the private Pine Crest School to a new West Palm Beach campus, a gift that is among the largest ever to a single K-12 school…
JBI Library, a nonprofit that supports Jewish engagement for people who are blind or have low vision, has awarded $280,000 to Nathan L. and Suzanne K. Wolfson Merit Scholarships to support 28 blind or low-vision Jewish students…
The Jewish Federation and Foundation of Rockland County (N.Y.) donated a $100,000 emergency grant to the Bobbi and Barry Lewis Jewish Community Center to repair damage from a flood last month…
Transitions
Mindy Feldman began her new role as the executive director of JOFA Jewish Orthodox Feminist Aliance…
The Union for Reform Judaism hired Dan Lange as its executive director of camps and immersives…
The Jewish Federation of Florida’s Gulf Coast appointed Logan Sembler as its president and Dean Herskowitz as its vice president…
Phoebe Chapnick-Sorokin joined The Jane and Daniel Och Family Foundation as its philanthropy associate…
Eli Berne started his new role as director of government relations at the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland (Ore.)…
Word on the Street
The man accused of opening fire outside a synagogue in Belleville, Canada, on Monday died from injuries sustained during an exchange of gunfire with police outside of the building; the man, 29-year-old Sean Ward, was a military veteran who had espoused antisemitic conspiracy theories blaming Jews for the COVID-19 pandemic…
U.K. police said that they foiled an “imminent” attack on the Manchester Jewish community following the arrest of two men just prior to Yom Kippur; the arrests came a year after two Jewish men were killed during an attack on a synagogue in the city last Yom Kippur…
In The Wall Street Journal, freed hostage Omer Shem Tov criticizes the documentary “NAZA,” which depicts Israeli forces allegedly needlessly killing Gaza civilians and is named for the Hebrew acronym for “collateral damage,” arguing that while in captivity, he saw firsthand that the Israeli military worked to avoid civilian casualties, including warning his captor’s mother of an impending attack…
Tulane University’s Stuart and Suzanne Grant Center for the American Jewish Experience launched a research initiative, co-chaired by Michael R. Cohen and former Brandeis professor Jonathan D. Sarna, to examine how American Jews understand their relationship to Israel…
The European Union lifted sanctions on Mikhail Fridman — the Alfa Group founder and a Genesis Philanthropy Group co-founder — as part of a three-year extension of its Russia sanctions regime, an exemption Luxembourg sought as Fridman sued it for 15 billion euros over his frozen assets…
The Art Institute of Chicago will return a 1913 Jean Metzinger oil painting to the descendants of the work’s Jewish owner, after the work was forcibly sold by the Nazis in 1940 following the German invasion of the Netherlands…
A Channel 12 investigation alleges that a nonprofit founded by Dror Amos, a candidate for the Shas party, which was created to help Oct. 7 bereaved families, instead spent most of its 2024 state funding on stipends for yeshiva students and party-linked patronage…
Comedian Jon Stewart spoke to The Associated Press about his philanthropic support and advocacy for Sept. 11 first responders…
Vandals tore down a Pride flag at Jerusalem's Reform Kol HaNeshama synagogue after Yom Kippur services, days after throwing a glass object into the building, marking the fourth attack on the Baka-neighborhood congregation over the past month…
Rákospalota Synagogue, a century-old Budapest synagogue that closed during the Holocaust, reopened after decades spent as a national library newspaper warehouse, restored with funding from American businessman Igor Tulchinsky…
Rabbi Al Axelrad, who served as executive director of Hillel at Brandeis and the university's Jewish chaplain from 1965 to 1999 and was known for his activism on Vietnam, civil rights and Soviet Jewry, died at 87…
Lucien Lazare, the Strasbourg-born French-Israeli historian who fought in the French Resistance as a teenager and later chronicled those who rescued Jews during the Holocaust as a member of Yad Vashem's Righteous Among the Nations commission, died yesterday in Jerusalem at 101…
Photo of the Day
YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90
People ride bicycles down the highway leading out of Jerusalem on Monday, as the country came to a halt for Yom Kippur.
Birthdays
STEPHANIE AUGELLO/SPORTICO VIA GETTY IMAGES
Marc Lasry, co-founder and CEO of hedge fund Avenue Capital Group and the co-owner of the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks until 2023, turns 67
Rabbi Shubert Spero, pulpit rabbi in Cleveland for more than 30 years, then a professor at Bar- Ilan University, turns 103
Julio Iglesias, Spanish singer, he has sold more than 300 million records and performed at more than 5,000 concerts for over 60 million people, turns 83
David Harris, CEO of the American Jewish Committee from 1990-2022, turns 77
Mark J. Dollinger, president at Trendlines America
Josh Fidler, co-chairman and COO of Chesapeake Realty Partners, he is also a founding partner of Boulder Ventures
Colin M. Winston, former deputy director of policy and government affairs at AIPAC
Seth Frisch, founder and director of Lerhaus/The New Shul of America
Jay Scott Greenspan, actor, famous for his role as George Costanza on “Seinfeld” and known professionally as Jason Alexander, turns 67
Darryl Nirenberg, U.S. ambassador to Romania
Angela Maddahi, past president of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, now a rabbinic student at the Ziegler School
Sheryl W. Kimerling, former vice chair of the Jewish Federations of North America, she is the president of the Birmingham (Ala.) Jewish Federation
Jonathan Peled, Israel's ambassador to Italy, turns 65
Oren Zeev, Israeli American venture capitalist and head of Zeev Ventures, turns 62
Kristen Silverberg, former U.S. ambassador to the EU, now president and COO at the Business Roundtable, turns 56
Naomi Seligman, chief strategy officer at Whistleblower Aid
Jay Feldman, executive director of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Foundation
Joshua Foer, author of two best-selling books and co-founder of the nonprofit Sefaria, turns 44
Michael Schmidt, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington bureau reporter for The New York Times, turns 43
Gabriella Schwarz, principal designer at Google DeepMind
Abby Glassberg, VP of sales at Idomoo Personalized Video
Naomi Chaya Kutin, record-setting powerlifter, turns 25
Eli Dershwitz, three-time Olympic saber fencer, he was the first American to claim gold in saber at the World Fencing Championships, turns 31
You are receiving this email because rachel@ejewishphilanthropy.com signed up for updates from eJewishPhilanthropy.
Submit an op-ed • Send a tip • Advertise With Us • Subscription questions
© 2026 eJewishPhilanthropy • 228 Park Ave S • PMB 40660 • New York • NY 10003
Manage Email Preferences • View in Browser • Tracking Preferences