In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we examine JFNA’s new $35 million push to combat antisemitism, which some experts worry may be doubling down on unsuccessful strategies, and speak with Michigan Jewish leaders ahead of tomorrow’s contentious Senate election in the state. We feature an opinion piece by Rabbi Danielle Parmenter about crafting a congregational community that addresses today’s spiritual hunger and search for home, and one by Tessa Veksler about the significance of programs like Jewish Student Union in helping young Jews not only form strong Jewish identities but also lead with them. Also in this issue: Jehuda Reinharz, Yaron Maor and Sabena Donath and Rabbi Avichai Apel.

Have a tip? Email us here.

What We're Watching

It’s the final day of campaigning before competitive midterm elections, which could give Democrats control of Congress.

Birthright Israel kicked off its inaugural Global Business Summit in Tel Aviv last night, ending tomorrow. If you’re there today, say hi to eJP’s Justin Hayet!

The Jewish Students Union's Presidents Conference kicked off yesterday in Connecticut, running through tomorrow. 

This evening, JCC of Greater Pittsburgh is hosting a discussion on the Israeli election as part of its “Come Curious Leave Wiser” event series, featuring left-leaning Israeli political strategist and pollster Dahlia Scheindlin and Moshe Koppel, the founding chairman of the Kohelet Forum, a conservative think tank behind the outgoing Israeli government’s controversial judicial overhaul. 

Ending speculation, Israel Beiteinu party leader Avigdor Liberman said today that he will endorse Gadi Eisenkot, head of the Yashar party, for prime minister; he also supports replacing the current Knesset speaker from the Likud party with Yair Lapid, No. 2 on the B’Yachad party list.

Boy George landed in Israel for two Tel Aviv shows sponsored by philanthropist Sylvan Adams, including one for survivors of the Nova music festival…

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD FROM eJP'S JAY DEITCHER

Last month, the Jewish Federations of North America announced a new $35 million initiative to combat antisemitism, dubbed Frontline, which calls for placing 100 new employees in local federations to advocate against antisemitism and cultivate community relations.

Several leading experts on combating antisemitism told eJewishPhilanthropy that they worry that Frontline is doubling down on interventions that have failed to meaningfully curb the marked rise in antisemitism over the past three years. With Jew hatred still soaring across the world, they all understood why JFNA and its donors want to push funds into combating antisemitism. However, they said, without new strategies that are studied for effectiveness, there is the potential that the initiative will stumble or even do damage.

For JFNA, however, this initiative is about providing critically needed resources to the smaller Jewish communities that have been struggling to deal with local antisemitism for want of them. “We want to make sure that the focus is always about leading to outcomes that make our community safer,” Shira Hutt, executive vice president at JFNA, told eJP. “It is safer to live in Pittsburgh when BDS does not win at the local food co-op. It is safer for students to go to a public school when the school doesn't tolerate swastikas in schoolbooks and on school walls.”

Read the rest of 'What You Should Know' →

News

ANALYSIS

Even before Rep. Haley Stevens’ (D-MI) surprise endorsement of GOP former Rep. Mike Rogers against Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, leaders in Michigan’s Democratic and Jewish communities were expecting a significant swing in the Jewish community vote towards Rogers in tomorrow’s Senate election, they said in conversations with Marc Rod of eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider, who spent nearly a week on the campaign trail in the state.

Theory of relativity: On the other side, Jewish leaders who have been working to support El-Sayed say they’re speaking to concerned Jewish Democrats who they expect will ultimately come home to the party in the voting booth, driven by an overriding concern that Rogers will be a rubber stamp for President Donald Trump and his MAGA coalition, whom they also see as dangerous for Jews.

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

‘60 Minutes’ spotlight: El-Sayed said on CBS’ “60 Minutes” last night that Palestine has a right to exist but offered conditions when asked if the same is true of Israel…

Opinion

RADICAL HOSPITALITY

In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Rabbi Danielle Parmenter reflects on the personal journey that contributed to the founding of Darchei Noam, a post-denominational Jewish congregation in Ambler, Pa.

“[M]any of the people walking through our doors were carrying their own versions of the same story: They believed they were not Jewish enough, observant enough, knowledgeable enough, spiritual enough or worthy enough to belong.”

Read the full piece →

LEADERSHIP PIPELINE

In an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, Tessa Veksler highlights the role Jewish Student Union played in the formation of her identity both as a Jew and as a Jewish leader years before she was targeted as a “Zionist” during her tenure as student body president at University of California, Santa Barbara in 2024.

“It is why I am coming to the JSU Presidents Conference in Stamford, Conn., this November. I want the students there to understand the significance of what they are already doing, and I want the adults investing in them to understand how far that investment can reach.”

Read the full piece →

Worthy Reads

Good Tech Hunting: In a Jim Joseph Foundation blog, David Goodman, the foundation's program director for technology strategy, details its effort to strengthen grantees’ tech systems, from maturity assessments and cybersecurity reviews to an AI training cohort that drew more than 140 staffers. “Many nonprofit professionals simply haven’t experienced ‘good tech’ in the workplace.”

Tel Aviv Blues: In The Atlantic, Gal Beckerman finds Tel Aviv’s liberal elite reeling after an election that kept Netanyahu’s bloc ahead, with many weighing emigration as a surge of Arab votes forces the anti-Netanyahu camp to decide whether to govern with Arab parties. “The bigger shift will be a mental one. Israelis who want a liberal democracy can no longer afford to sideline the Arab parties. That was the message Arab Israeli communities sent: If liberal Tel Aviv has any hope of bringing its values to bear on the future of the country, it’s going to need those voters in Abu Ghosh.” 

Time is Money: In his Substack “Moneyball Judaism," Rabbi Joshua Rabin argues that time has become the scarcest currency in Jewish life, and organizations must make every hour count. “A key concept in economics is opportunity cost, the value we give up when we choose one thing over another. A free Shabbat dinner costs a participant no money, but it does cost time. Which makes me wonder whether we’ve been thinking about the cost of Jewish life all wrong.”

Community Comms

SPONSORED | Email us to place an advertisement to the eJP readership of your upcoming event, job opening or other announcement.

Major Gifts

The Blavatnik Family Foundation gave Yale School of Medicine $10 million to launch an inflammation research initiative and fund a new pipeline of graduate and postdoctoral fellows…

The Davis Family Charitable Foundation pledged $2 million to Holocaust Museum Boston, its largest gift yet ahead of its planned summer 2027 opening…

Transitions

Jehuda Reinharz, the president and CEO of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation since 2010, announced he will retire at the end of 2026… 

Neil D. Grossman and Arnold Kanarick were appointed to American Friends of the Hebrew University’s national board of directors…

The Jewish Agency for Israel hired Sophie Katz Sulam as the director of its outreach to Christian donors…

Orly Samuelov began her new role at ARC Sheba as its startup ecosystem director…

Rabbi Monica Kleinman started her new role at Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies as its director of learning operations…

CyberWell promoted Gabriel Rosenberg to director of communications and external relations… 

Noa Shulman joined Code for Israel as its new partnerships and impact director…

Issachar Zalmanovich, former spokesman for Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, is the new spokesperson of the Israeli Mission to the U.N....

Word on the Street

According to Jgive, donations of publicly traded shares have jumped 30-fold since 2023 and totaled about NIS 150 million ($48 million) over three years… 

Ynet speaks with Oct. 7 survivor Yaron Maor, who is blocking Kibbutz Nir Oz from razing his burned home until he gets enough compensation to start over elsewhere, a bill the kibbutz says the state must pay…

Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan, who is vying to become the first Jewish U.N. secretary-general, posted her best result yet in an informal Security Council vote, winning support from 11 of its 15 members, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports…

Salesforce signed a five-year and NIS 140 million ($44.6 million) lease for five floors of Tel Aviv’s ToHa 2 Tower…

Alex Witkoff, son of U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and CEO of the family’s real estate company, got engaged to his girlfriend, Batya, overlooking Jerusalem’s Old City and the Western Wall last week; on Thursday, Witkoff accepted Tel Aviv University’s George S. Wise Medal on behalf of his father…

Photo of the Day

KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The co-directors of Frankfurt’s new Jewish Academy, Sabena Donath and Rabbi Avichai Apel, hold a mezuzah today, which will be installed on the new building ahead of its official inauguration. 

Birthdays

EREZ UZIR

Elias Saratovsky, president and CEO of Birthright Israel Foundation, turns 46

Jeffrey A. Hoffman, former NASA astronaut who made five flights in the space shuttle and is currently a professor at MIT, he was one of NASA’s first two Jewish astronauts, turns 82

Marc Elrich, county executive of Montgomery County, Md., turns 77

Laurence D. Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock, the largest money-management firm in the world, turns 74

Susan Turnbull, former chair of the Maryland Democratic Party and vice chair of the DNC, turns 74

Rabbi Vanessa L. Ochs, professor emerita at the University of Virginia, where she co-founded the Jewish studies program, turns 73

Alan Abbey, research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem

Jamie Sue Gangel, CNN special correspondent, turns 71

Lisa Feldman, former head of school at Weizmann Day School in Pasadena, Calif.

David N. Myers, professor of Jewish history at UCLA and immediate past president of the board of the New Israel Fund, turns 66

Joan Cohen, commissioner of Maine’s Department of Professional and Financial Regulation, turns 64

Grant Arthur Gochin, president of Grant Arthur & Associates Wealth Services, he is the author of a book on the complicity of Lithuania in the Holocaust

Thomas Joseph “Joe” Talbott, president of global content at Viva Creative

Marc Solomon

John Sampson, head of U.S. public policy at Workday, following 25 years in various departments of Microsoft, turns 60

David Schwimmer, actor, director and producer, best known for playing Ross Geller in the sitcom “Friends,” turns 60

Makan Delrahim, chief legal officer at Paramount Skydance, former assistant attorney general for antitrust at the Justice Department during the Trump 45 administration, turns 57

Amy Finkelstein, professor of economics at MIT, she won a MacArthur Genius fellowship in 2018, turns 53

Alexander Markowits, founder and CEO of Spring Hills Senior Communities

David Sirota, journalist and bestselling author, he is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Lever, turns 51

Michael Cohen, U.S. EVP at the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation

Alexander Kushnir, former member of the Knesset, now CEO of the Israel Strategic Futures Institute, turns 48

Adam Kushner, deputy editor of “The Morning Newsletter” at The New York Times, turns 46

Elias Saratovsky, president and CEO of Birthright Israel Foundation, turns 46

Noah Taylor, Newton, Mass.-based senior scientist at Syensqo

Marc Rosen

Aaron Weinberg, former director of government relations at the Israel Policy Forum, now foreign policy advisor to Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY)

Celeste Lavin, Two-time Emmy Award-winning video producer, now working as a messaging editor for The New York Times, turns 36

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