In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we delve into the debate around the termination of Emory Hillel’s rabbi and how proper vetting could have prevented it, and report on the launch of a new political action committee in New York focused on combating antisemitism. We feature an opinion piece by Rabbi Noga Brenner Samia about bringing Israeli students abroad for encounters with Diaspora Jewry, akin to the journeys to Israel that Diaspora Jews have participated in for decades, and a piece by Andrea J. Martin that calls for greater support for Jewish legal studies programs and scholarship. Also in this issue: John Arnold, Hallel Silverman and Jonah Platt.

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What We're Watching

The Harold Grinspoon Foundation’s annual Life and Legacy conference kicked off yesterday in Springfield, Mass., continuing through Wednesday. 

President Herzog’s Voice of the People is hosting its final convening for its inaugural cohort in Budapest through Wednesday. If you’re there, say hi to eJP’s Justin Hayet!

Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund is holding a conference in Israel’s Jezreel Valley focused on recovery efforts in Israel’s North this week, as it marks NIS 1 billion ($322.8 million) allocated to the region. 

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD FROM eJP'S JAY DEITCHER

Since Thursday, Jewish social media has been buzzing over Rabbi Nikki Golomb’s firing from Emory Hillel, with fervent discussions and debates about Zionism, misogyny, pluralism, donors’ influence over nonprofits, Israel’s military control over the West Bank and workers’ rights. However, at the heart of the matter, senior Jewish figures say, is a failure in the hiring process, an apparent lack of transparency all around and a lesson for other Jewish organizations going forward.

This whole situation could have been avoided if Golomb had been properly vetted before her hiring, several experts told eJewishPhilanthropy. It’s essential that both potential employees and the nonprofits hiring them are transparent about their values to ensure they align. Similarly, conversations between donors and nonprofits about values need to take place before a crisis, not during. 

“A lot of times when these kinds of incidents happen, with people getting terminated around things that could have been discerned earlier in the process, [it] is probably a process issue,” Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, told eJP. “We're in a very delicate place around political commitments in Jewish life. Organizations have to be clear with themselves and transparent with candidates about their political expectations, even if that's costly for them.”

Read the rest of 'What You Should Know' →

News

ALBANY ALLIANCE 

Three Jewish politicos from New York’s Capital Region — all women, and all Democrats — have launched a new state-level committee dedicated to supporting candidates with liberal social views who also push back on anti-Jewish and anti-Israel forces, reports Will Bredderman for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.

Action item: Aleinu-NY PAC, named for the Jewish prayer that translates to “on us,” registered with the New York Board of Elections in late September and officially launched its website last week. It describes itself as “a new nonpartisan political action committee in NYS established to support candidates who stand up against Antisemitism and the scourge in violence against the Jewish community throughout New York.”

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

Opinion

A ‘REVERSE BIRTHRIGHT’ EXPERIENCE

In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Rabbi Noga Brenner Samia, CEO of Hillel Israel, calls for a more reciprocal approach to Israel–Diaspora relations — one grounded in curiosity, mutual learning and meaningful relationships rather than advocacy alone.

“How many young Israelis truly understand the remarkable power of American Jewish communal institutions? The culture of voluntary participation and philanthropy that sustains Jewish life without the structures of a Jewish state? The ways in which American Jewish communities navigate the intersection of Jewish particularism and universal values, balancing a commitment to their own people with a broader responsibility to society?”

Read the full piece →

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Andrea J. Martin, co-founder and director of the Center for Jewish Legal Studies, highlights the need for classes, field experiences and scholarship that expose law students to the weaponization of the legal system during the Holocaust and the conflict that can arise between what is legal and what is just.

“Today, antisemitism is too often misclassified, misidentified and misunderstood by the very institutions charged with addressing it: universities, civil-rights investigators, courts and employers. The lawyers my students will become will sit on the other side of those decisions. They will draft campus policies, investigate complaints, advise administrators and argue cases. Whether they can recognize discrimination against Jews in its contemporary forms depends, in part, on whether anyone ever taught them how law has been used against Jews before.”

Read the full piece →

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Worthy Reads

Lend a Hand: In a blog post for Philanthropy New York, Rona Sheramy, executive director of the Jewish Foundation for Education of Women, calls on non-Jewish philanthropies to support the Jewish community. “[It] is rare to find philanthropies outside of the Jewish community, even those that center social justice and anti-hate work, that consider antisemitism as part of their mandate. It is left to the Jewish philanthropic community to handle a malady that ultimately erodes pluralistic values and liberal democracy for everyone.”

Grade Inflation: In The 74, philanthropist John Arnold reacts to new studies showing that both more American students are graduating from high school and that they are performing worse on international tests. “Shielding students from high standards is not compassionate; it simply delays the consequences. It also signals to students that you don’t have to do the work to still graduate. That message is particularly dangerous: Why try if it isn’t going to matter? The result: more students unprepared for what comes next.”

First-Person Account: In The Jerusalem Post, Hallel Silverman reflects on a Palestinian rock-throwing attack that she survived yesterday while visiting the West Bank. “I can acknowledge that Palestinians have experienced profound suffering without excusing an attack on Jews. I can condemn violence against Palestinians without minimizing violence against Israelis. These principles are not mutually exclusive. They have to coexist if we are ever going to move beyond this.”

What They Deserve: In the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jonah Platt responds to a recent op-ed questioning nonprofit executive’s salaries. “How does this stance attract the best people, who could easily make more elsewhere, doing far less collectively beneficial work? … Why should the reward for being a devoted participant in Jewish service be settling for a lifelong limitation on the kind of lifestyle you want to provide for yourself and your family?”

Community Comms

A warning from the past. A mirror for the present. Tippett’s A Child of Our Time, Oct. 26.

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Major Gifts

Alumni Terry and Sam Roth donated $500,000 to Hillel at Ohio University, which renamed its center for Jewish life in their honor at a ceremony yesterday… 

Detroit-based Quicken Loans co-founder and philanthropist Dan Gilbert pledged $1 billion to redevelop the city’s riverfront area… 

Transitions

American Jewish University’s Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies appointed Rabbi Stewart Vogel as senior advisor for recruitment, admissions and rabbinic innovation; read more about AJU’s relaunch of the Ziegler School here… 

Betsy Marantz was named senior director of development at American Friends of Bar-Ilan University…

Holocaust Museum Houston hired Lena Lieb as its director of philanthropy, annual giving…

Word on the Street

Former Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz, the leader of the Blue and White party, withdrew from the upcoming Israeli election, after polls showed Blue and White consistently failing to meet the electoral threshold to enter the Knesset…

Director and producer Rachel Greenberg has begun filming “The Emissary of Light,” a documentary about Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson told through his effort to promote public menorah-lightings… 

American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) will hold 250 menorah lightings in all 50 states during Hanukkah this year as part of a new initiative aimed at countering the “real darkness” of rising antisemitism and highlighting the Jewish community’s deep roots in American history shortly after the 250th anniversary of the United States, reports Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs… 

An auction house in Norway canceled the sale of a fragment of a Torah scroll that was looted by Nazis following pushback against the auction, which Israel’s Foreign Ministry called a “moral obscenity”...

The NYPD is investigating as a hate crime the vandalism of a Capital One bank on the Upper East Side that had a window smashed in and was graffitied with the words “Drop Elbit,” referring to the Israeli defense firm, and “Pal Action,” a reference to the U.K.-based anti-Israel activist group that has been designated by the U.S. as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist…

The U.K.’s Metropolitan Police arrested a man in northeastern London in connection with the assaults of three Jewish women, including one pushing a stroller, in the city’s Stamford Hill neighborhood; authorities are investigating the incidents as hate crimes…

The Israel Police are looking into a complaint made against ultranationalist Religious Zionist Rabbi Dov Lior, who issued a religious decree last week permitting Jews to harvest olives from Palestinian-owned properties in the West Bank…

Unemployment claims among Israeli high-tech workers grew by 59.3% over the past three years, despite an overall decrease in unemployment in the country…

Photo of the Day

COURTESY/MARISSA CARPER

Maryland Hillel leaders and supporters cut the ribbon on Sunday to celebrate the opening of the Ben and Esther Rosenbloom Hillel Center for Jewish Life on the University of Maryland’s College Park campus. 

The 40,000-square-foot, two-story building, which opened for students last month, features a cafe, outdoor terrace and kosher dining hall, which are meant to serve the school’s roughly 6,500 Jewish students. The ribbon-cutting was attended by Maryland Hillel CEO Rabbi Ari Israel, University of Maryland President Darryll J. Pines, Hillel International President and CEO Adam Lehman and Maryland Hillel Board of Directors President Ross Charkatz, as well as alumna Sandy Bobb and alumni Phyllis and Leonard Attman, along with other stakeholders and students.

“The Maryland Hillel community is renowned for the vibrancy of its Jewish life, which comes from our students and staff," Rabbi Ari Israel, CEO of Maryland Hillel, said at the event. “This center, which was built on the original site of Maryland Hillel from nearly 80 years ago, gives our community the space that their work deserves. I am looking forward to all of the joy that our new home will bring to future generations.”

Birthdays

DANNY BECK/GETTY IMAGES

Misha Nonoo, fashion designer, best known for her eponymous line of women's ready-to-wear, turns 39

Henry Kaufman, economist who earned the nickname “Dr. Doom” during his tenure as the chief economist at Salomon Brothers, turns 99

Robert Pinsky, former poet laureate of the U.S., he is a professor emeritus at Boston University, turns 86

Tsvia Walden, professor emerita at Ben Gurion University, she is the daughter of former Israeli PM and President Shimon Peres, turns 80

Rabbi Aharon Teitelbaum, one of two grand rebbes of Satmar, turns 79

Russell Galbut, Miami Beach-based real estate developer, turns 74

Melanie Mayron, actor and director of film and television, turns 74

Thomas Newman, music composer for many films, winner of six Grammys and an Emmy Award, turns 71

Thomas Salter Kahn, former longtime House Budget Committee staff director, now an adjunct professorial lecturer at American University

Jordan Heller, managing director and partner at Beacon Pointe Advisors

Rabbi Binyamin "Benny" Lau, former rabbi of the Ramban Synagogue in Jerusalem's Katamon area and a leading figure at the Israel Democracy Institute, turns 65

Kamala Harris, 49th vice president of the United States, turns 62

Brian Schatz, U.S. senator (D-HI)

and his identical twin brother, Stephen Schatz, the executive director of the University of Hawaii's P-20 programs, both turn 54

Hilla Vidor, Israeli actor, turns 51

Leila Josefowicz, classical violinist, she is a 2008 winner of a MacArthur Genius fellowship, turns 49

David Caspe, film and television writer, turns 48

Mike Levin, member of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-CA-49), turns 48

Eric Post, Long Island regional director at AJC Global

Alona Tal, Israeli-born actor, she was a recurring character on Paramount+’s “Seal Team,” turns 43

Michael Clark, director of fundraising and events for the National Association of Realtors' political action committee

Evan Zuckerman, partner in the NYC office of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett

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