In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we get the scoop on American Jewish University’s Ziegler rabbinical school sticking with the Conservative movement after considering going nondenominational. We report on a $1.9 million donation to fund a permanent position at West Chester University Hillel, and on New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision to opt the state into the federal scholarship tax credit program, which delighted Jewish groups. We feature an opinion piece by Yehudis Smith responding to the news that a Reggio Emilia conference in Italy required participants to sign a “values charter” denouncing Israel and one by Connie Kanter, Deanne Weiss Etsekson and Melissa Rivkin responding to a recent op-ed calling for communal mobilization to address antisemitism in Seattle; plus ֵEthan Zadoff joins the ongoing conversation about the day school “bubble.” Also in this issue: Maya Kenig, Stephanie Epstein and Gil Pazy.

Correction: Friday’s edition of Your Daily Phil incorrectly identified the date of our election event. The panel will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 14. Sign up here.

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What We're Watching

Israeli emergency services are responding after at least 20 people were injured, one of them critically, in an explosion in Israel's Upper Galilee region today; the cause of the blast was not immediately known, but unexploded ordnance is reportedly suspected.

The Global Jewish Educators Summit, spearheaded by Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Ministry, kicks off today in Jerusalem; some 250 Jewish teachers, principals and thought leaders are expected to take part in the four-day conference. 

Jewish and Israeli aid groups are responding after a powerful earthquake struck Panama on Friday. 

Former Israeli hostage Eliya Cohen and his wife, Nova music festival survivor Ziv Abud Cohen, are slated to speak at tonight’s UJA Young Leaders’ Oct. 7 commemoration in New York.

The Jewish Federation of Detroit, in partnership with the local Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee chapters, is hosting “Call Me Back” host Dan Senor tonight for a conversation focused on Judaism and Zionism in public life.

What You Should Know

The American Jewish University's Ziegler School of Rabbinical Studies, it turns out, is staying in the Conservative fold — but with a dramatically revamped curriculum for the 2027-28 school year that stresses real-world financial and technological skills rabbis need to succeed in today's market, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher.

And, at a fraught moment in the Jewish community, the seminary is reaffirming its deep connection to Israel — though it says it will not impose a Zionist litmus test on its rabbis-to-be.

In announcing the changes exclusively to eJP, including that Ziegler admissions for next year are now open, AJU's president, Jay Sanderson, said, “The school is going to continually evolve as the community needs to evolve. ... There's a gaping hole in the education rabbis need to get to lead synagogues and lead non-synagogues,” he said.

Read the full report →

News

MAJOR GIFTS

An anonymous family foundation donated a $1.9 million endowment last week to fund a permanent Hillel staff member at West Chester University in southeastern Pennsylvania, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross reports. 

Growth trajectory: Since launching in 2018 with its first full-time staff member, the university’s Hillel has added an additional full-time position, and Philly Hillel said that it now reaches hundreds of Jewish students each year. “I’m incredibly proud of the growth I’ve helped lead on campus over the past several years,” Jenn Reiss, the Hillel’s director of Jewish student life, said in a statement. “Seeing that foundation create the momentum and opportunity to invest in staff is incredibly meaningful.”

Read the full report →

NEW YORK STATE OF MIND

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Friday that she will opt New York into the new federal scholarship tax credit program, making her the second Democratic governor to do so since the administration published formal regulations for the program, reports Marc Rod for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider. 

Two sides: Hochul’s decision bucks intense opposition from teachers’ unions, but has won her support from the Jewish community, which has been urging governors to opt in.

Read the full report and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff →

Opinion

A LEARNING EXPERIENCE

In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Yehudis Smith, director of early childhood education at Miami’s Center for the Advancement of Jewish Education, not only captures the sense of betrayal and grief expressed by several professionals who wrote to eJP in response to the news item “Jewish preschool educators forced to condemn Israel to attend Reggio Emilia conference” (Jewish Insider, Oct. 8), but also identifies an opportunity that can come out of this controversy.

“We’ve been so focused on whether we can embrace Reggio Emilia while remaining unapologetically Jewish that we may have overlooked something: the educational values we’ve looked to Reggio to articulate have existed within our own tradition for thousands of years.”

Read the full piece →

READERS RESPOND

In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Samis Foundation CEO Connie Kanter, trustee Deanne Weiss Etsekson and Melissa Rivkin, director of day school strategy, respond to Sam Jefferies and Joe Schocken’s recent op-ed “Canary song from the Seattle coal mine” (eJewishPhilanthropy, Sept. 23).

“The warnings about rising hostility toward Jews in our state are justified. But [a 2026 community survey by the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle] points to a greater danger underneath the first: a generation growing up with too little Jewish knowledge and attachment to stand on when that hostility reaches them. If this hostility is part of a longer trajectory, how do we prepare coming generations of young Jews for the world they may inherit?”

Read the full piece →

READER RESPONDS

In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Ethan Zadoff, principal of DRS Yeshiva High School for Boys in Woodmere, N.Y., responds to David Zalik’s recent op-ed in eJP (“Jewish day schools are a bubble, and that is the point,” Sept. 14) as well as discussions in other outlets about the risks of a generation of Jewishly uneducated Jews.

“The bubble is not good or bad in itself. What matters is what fills it, and that is always a question of values. … When values are not the explicit filter, something else takes over: the college list, parent pressure, the budget or simple habit. None of these is illegitimate, but none is a mission. A school that allows them to drive it will slowly drift from its own goals, often without noticing until a graduating class reveals it.”

Read the full piece →

Worthy Reads

Rejection Letter: In a letter, Highgate United Synagogue in the North London borough of Haringey dismisses an attempt by the leader of the local city council to assuage its members’ concerns after his Green Party passed a resolution declaring that “Zionism is racism” and affirming support for violence against Israel “If this motion does not mean that Jews in Haringey who have family or friends in Israel, or who attend our synagogue, or who maybe aren’t religious but believe that there is a place for a haven for the tattered remnant of the most persecuted race on earth, are considered by you and your party as racists and by implication fair game for ostracism, intimidation, violence or worse, please explain to us what else it means,” the letter reads.

Cinema Therapy: In Haaretz, Linda Dayan interviews filmmaker Maya Kenig about a new project creating films about and starring the children from several of the kibbutzim that were hardest hit in the Oct. 7 terror attacks. “Usually you see documentaries where they show and report things, but this is a little different. It's written and directed and they're acting, but it's no less real. Acting can allow a person to express their own life and experiences themselves in a way you normally wouldn't."

Modern Remake: In Tablet, Natan Sharansky, the former Israeli minister, Jewish Agency chairman and refusenik, reflects on the widespread, but unproven, charges of “genocide” against Israel, comparing them to previous blood libels against the Jewish People. “Of course, we are not above criticism, and we must acknowledge and correct course when we deviate from our own standards. But remaining vigilant about our shortcomings is not the same as accepting guilt we don’t deserve.”

Community Comms

The Bronfman Fellowship announces applications are open for its 41st cohort of Jewish 11th-graders.

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Major Gifts

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, donated $900,000 to establish a medical respite village in Lihue, Hawaii… 

Transitions

The board of the Jewish Federation of Orange County (Calif.) hired Stephanie Epstein to serve as the organization's permanent CEO; Epstein, who has been the federation’s COO since 2024, has been serving as acting CEO since November 2025…

Jonathan Stahl was named the next COO of Lehrhaus…

Alan Sweifach, who has worked at the Jewish Agency for Israel for 12 years, is moving to American Friends of Tel Aviv University to serve as associate vice president for institutional giving… 

Wendy Young has joined UJA-Federation of New York as a senior development executive…

Word on the Street

One in five Israelis struggles daily with mental health issues following the Oct. 7 terror attacks, according to a new study by Israel’s National Mental Health Barometer, a joint project by Clalit Health Services and American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee…

New figures from the U.K. Home Office show that British Jews faced the highest levels of religious hate crimes of any group — nine times more than the next highest group, with 117 crimes per 10,000 British Jews, compared 13 per 10,000 British Muslims…

The nonprofit collecting funds for President Donald Trump’s renovations to the White House ballroom, known as The Trust for the National Mall, raised more than $320 million last year, including $20 million from donors whose identities the organization is not required to disclose… 

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas postponed the PA’s upcoming elections, slated for late November, to Sept. 11, 2027; Abbas has repeatedly postponed Palestinian legislative elections, which were last held in 2006…

For the second time, seven women are scheduled on Wednesday to take Israel’s state rabbinical exams; the first exams that the women were allowed to take were marked by delays and apparent efforts by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate to prevent them from participating, despite a court order… 

Israel’s financial newspaper Calcalist reports that the country’s Finance Ministry is considering a capital gains tax exemption in a bid to prevent Israeli entrepreneurs from relocating abroad… 

New York GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman met with Allure Group founder and Satmar philanthropist Yoeli Landau at the nursing home executive’s home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn… 

In the inaugural episode of The London Initiative’s podcast, “Team Talk Israel,” former Israeli politician Stav Shaffir and Jewish philanthropy veteran Jeffrey R. Solomon discussed funding Israel’s liberal “endangered majority.” In the conversation, Solomon said: “The Jewish Diaspora has allowed itself to be politicized. So for every dollar that was coming in from the Diaspora to support organizations on the left, there were $4 coming in to support organizations on the right.”... 

Vandals burned an American flag outside the University of Oregon Hillel last week; this comes days after activists put up posters declaring the Hillel director an “enemy of the people”... 

J. The Jewish News of Northern California examines the findings of a study on Jews’ use of psychedelics by the nonprofit Shefa, Emory University and the Jim Joseph Foundation. Read eJP’s coverage of the study here…

Photo of the Day

MEIR PAVLOVSKI/ONEFAMILY

Members of the OneFamily team cross the finish line yesterday at the Chicago Marathon. The team, organized by the Israeli nonprofit that supports bereaved families, was made up of 25 parents, widows and siblings of Israelis killed in terror attacks and war. 

“The moment I saw it said Chicago, I knew I was signing up,” said Gil Pazy (not pictured), who was running in memory of his son, Cpt. Yogev Pazy, who fell in battle in Gaza in November 2024 and who had served as a shaliach (emissary) in Chicago after high school. 

“For me, the running is the means, not the goal,” Pazy said in a statement. “When they asked me what scares me about the run, I said nothing about the running scares me. What scares me is the day after, when this journey ends.”

Birthdays

NETANEL TOBIAS

Raanan Agus, longtime managing director at Goldman Sachs, now chairman of the David Group

Marjorie Berg Ancowitz, founder of Medical Reports Service, turns 101

Murray Chass, longtime baseball reporter for The New York Times, he is enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame, turns 88

Lewis M. Eisenberg, U.S. ambassador to Italy during the Trump 45 administration, he is a co-founder of private equity firm Granite Capital International, turns 84

Chris Wallace, longtime Fox News anchor, more recently at CNN, turns 79

Linda Gerstle, retired CEO of Wakefield, Mass.-based CAST, a nonprofit whose mission is to transform education for students with disabilities

John D. Lantos, pediatrician and medical ethicist, turns 72

Lamar A. Nelson, dermatologist in Los Angeles

Amy Eilberg, first female rabbi ordained in Conservative Judaism, turns 72

Richard B. Ancowitz, secretary to the New York State Tax Appeals Tribunal, turns 68

Tony Ressler, co-founder of both Apollo Global Management and Ares Management, he is the owner of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks, turns 66

Seth D. Harris, deputy director of the National Economic Council during the Biden administration, now a distinguished professor at Northeastern University, turns 64

Wendy Singer, former executive director of Start-Up Nation Central until 2022, now a strategic advisor to select Israeli start-ups including Remilk

Gary Rosen, former editor of The Wall Street Journal's Weekend Review section, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute

Babak "Bobby" Samini, Los Angeles-based trial attorney for many high-profile clients, turns 56

Alexandra Smothers, producer, actor and screenwriter

Yael Cohen Paran, former member of the Knesset, she now serves as the co-chair of the Green Movement of Israel, turns 53

Bram Cohen, computer programmer, creator of the BitTorrent protocol and founder of Chia cryptocurrency, turns 51

Rabbi Aharon Mordechai Rokeach, only son and heir -apparent of the current rebbe of the Belz chasidic dynasty, turns 51

Miri Bohadana, Israeli actor, model and television anchor, turns 49

Michael Barbaro, reporter and co-host of “The Daily,” a podcast at The New York Times

Lauren Book, former member of the Florida Senate, turns 42

Rosie Gray, freelance journalist, formerly the politics and media reporter for BuzzFeed News, turns 37

Naomi Preizler, Argentine fashion model and artist, turns 36

Alex Katz, pitcher for Team Israel in the 2020 Olympics and 2023 World Baseball Classic, he is the founder of Stadium Custom Kicks, turns 32

Noa Argamani, Oct. 7 hostage, she was rescued by the IDF in June 2024, turns 29

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