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Rise and Tithe
Peter Paul Rubens, The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek, c.1625 Joel Fleishman, a professor of law and public policy at Duke University, wrote the book on American foundations. In The Foundation: A...
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House Party
“Pre-Pesach Mock Shabbat” at Moishe House Seattle, April 1, 2007 It’s Friday night in Seattle, and in a residential neighborhood not far from the bars and clubs where you might expect to find them, a...
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Morphed
Cheryl Saban knows exactly what she’s worth. Within minutes of sitting down recently for an interview in the second-floor lounge of the Ritz-Carlton in midtown Manhattan, overlooking Central Park,...
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New UJC Chief
United Jewish Communities, the money-hemorrhaging umbrella organization for the North American Jewish federation system, announced yesterday that its new president and CEO will be Jerry Silverman, who...
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Daybreak: Iran at the Table
• Talks began between Western leaders and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Geneva yesterday; the United States is looking to be reassured about Iran’s nuclear program but is prepared with...
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‘Forward’: Jewish Charities Keep Glass Ceiling Intact
The glass ceiling, regrettably intact at philanthropic institutions across the country, is even harder to break for women at Jewish organizations. That’s according to an alarming story in the Forward,...
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Sundown: Rabbis Protest James Cameron, Richard Dawkins
• Rabbi Jonathan B. Freirich of the Roma Rights Network has joined Hindu groups in requesting a disclaimer on James Cameron’s upcoming 3D sci-fi flick Avatar, as the title is also “a Sanskrit term...
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Today Marks Anniversary of Madoff Confession
One year ago today, the sons of asset management whiz Bernard Madoff informed legal authorities that their father had confessed to running a multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme. A central point in the...
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Adelson Denies Israeli Political Involvement
Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is arguably the most important person in the world of Jewish philanthropy. The one-time third-richest man in the world (the stock in his company, Las Vegas Sands, has...
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One-Fifth of Top Donors Are Jews
Roughly 20 percent of Slate’s list of the top 60 donors in 2009 are Jews (including the top giver, Pittsburgh financiers Stanley F. and Fiona B. Druckenmiller). Folks you may have heard of include...
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Teachable Moment
Last week, each of the three universities associated with the major American Jewish denominations received an $11 million grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation, a San Francisco-based Jewish...
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Sundown: Much Talk, Little Peace
• They talked for more than two hours—longer than planned—today in Egypt, and are talking in Jerusalem tomorrow. But the settlement freeze predicament is still unresolved. [NYT] • A dispatch from the...
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In Lieu of Gifts
When Jason Soll started preparing for his bar mitzvah in 2003, he had a clear goal in mind, and it wasn’t developing a deeper connection to his Judaism. What he wanted, really, was an MP4 video player....
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We Giveth, and Then We Giveth Some More
JTA’s Jacob Berkman counts the Jews so you (and I) don’t have to: 19 of the Chronicle of Philanthropy‘s list of 2010’s 50 top American donors were of the Tribe. They include five of the top six...
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Give If You’ve Got It
Commenter “Richard Marcus” offered a swell suggestion to yesterday’s list of the world’s richest Jews: “Perhaps an interesting follow up article might be, to what degree are these Jewish billionaires...
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Doing Mitzvah Projects Right
You know from mitzvah projects, right? They’re a relatively new thing—compulsory social-action projects run by synagogues for 12- and 13-year-olds as an official part of bar and bat mitzvah prep. The...
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Steinhardt Collection at Sotheby’s
With a reported net worth of over $1 billion, Michael Steinhardt presumably doesn’t need the money. But at 72, the philanthropist and hedge-fund magnate felt it was time to offer a new generation the...
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Win a Jewish Grant to Help #MakeItHappen
This week, the Schusterman Philanthropic Network launched an exciting new initiative called #MakeItHappen. Put simply, they are offering micro grants to individuals for creative Jewish-related events...
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Mark Zuckerberg, Wife Named Most Charitable
Just one week after Facebook’s tenth anniversary, the social networking giant’s co-founder, chairman, and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is back in the news. Zuckerberg, whose personal wealth is...
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What’s in a Building’s Name?
Years ago, in college, I was sitting in a library carousel distracted from my work by a scaffolding on an adjacent building. Over the course of several hours, the name Johnson, etched into stone over...
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Jewish Philanthropist Treats 400 U.S. Soldiers to a Quality Meal
In the true spirit of tzedakah, and the Jewish propensity to feed everything that moves, Los Angeles-based entrepreneur and philanthropist (and Mir Yeshiva grad) Shlomo Rechnitz jumped at the...
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A Pop-up Supper Club, Made Up of Teenagers Inspired by ‘Tikkun Olam,’ Feeds...
News flash: America’s youth are not dimwitted Lochtes, nor are they the sullen, eye-rolling Negasonic Teenage Warheads glued to their iPhones so often portrayed in the media. Many are engaged,...
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The Collegiate Sock Fairy Who Warms the Feet of New York’s Homeless
Adina Lichtman was doling out sandwiches to the homeless near her New York University dorm when one of the neighborhood regulars politely told her that what the homeless really need is socks. In colder...
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Soup for Good
It was a rainy, bleak Monday for me. The Steelers lost Sunday night and I hadn’t gotten normal sleep in days—I’d attended the Women’s March in D.C. and celebrated my birthday on Saturday. The rough...
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The Rockefeller Brothers Fund and BDS
At the time of his death in March, at the age of 101, it had been nearly 30 years since David Rockefeller, the legendary family heir and former head of Chase Bank, had last led the Rockefeller Brothers...
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