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By Jacob Berkman · October 28, 2008

JTA is live video streaming the Covenant Foundation’s 18th anniversary celebration today starting at 10:30 a.m.. It’s worth checking out. Here’s the link.

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Post-hurricane woes continue in Houston—and it could get worse

By Jacob Berkman · October 23, 2008

The aftermath of Hurricane Ike and the rebuilding effort in Houston and Galveston have been lost in the media frenzy surrounding the economic crisis and the presidential election. Because of that, the fund-raising effort to help Texans has suffered, according to the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston.

“The fact of the matter is the hurricane got wiped out of the media because of what’s happened with the economy and the presidential campaign,” Lee Wunsch told The Fundermentalist. “But Houston is recovering, and there are still some issues in the metro area in terms of home repairs and other issues. And Galveston is still a mess. It reminds me of New Orleans after Katrina. And that story is not known.”

While Houston was in large part spared the mass devastation that some expected when the hurricane ripped through coastal Texas in late summer, Galveston was devastated.

Galveston, which has about 350 Jewish families, according to Wunsch, suffered serious damage to its Jewish infrastructure. The island town has two synagogues, and the Conservative one suffered “catastrophic damage,” he said. While the structure is in tact, the entire building has molded, and all of its contents, aside from its Torah scrolls, which were removed before the storm, are a total loss. The two Jewish cemeteries in the town also suffered heavy damage, with gravestones overturned.

Wunsch’s federation is working on an estimate for the cost of the damage to both Galveston and Houston.

But the call he and the federation’s umbrella organization, the United Jewish Communities, put out to the national Jewish community immediately after the hurricane struck has gone largely unanswered.

Wunsch said the UJC has been quite responsive and helpful, but in total only $50,000 has been raised through a mailbox UJC set up, and right now it seems like no one will be able to pay the reconstruction bill.

There is no fund-raising structure set up for the Jewish community in Galveston, Wunsch said, and there is no major benefactor to underwrite rebuilding the island’s Jewish infrastructure.

The Houston Federation simply is not in position to undertake the rebuilding on its own, he said.

The federation, which has an annual campaign of around $9.5 million and raises another $9 million to $10 million per year in supplemental gifts, has no reserves upon which to draw.

“We have no reserves,” he said. “This is a pretty typical large-intermediate community. We are new to the endowment business. And do not have money put away for this situation.”

And there is more bad news.

Houston’s economy had survived relatively unscathed over the past year by the softening national economy because the local economy is so heavily based in oil and energy. But even those sectors are not immune from the current economic meltdown, Wunsch said.

Houston’s Jewish social service organizations are now seeing clients who once were donors. They’re asking for help because they simply cannot pay for the repairs they need to make to their homes and businesses, Wunsch said.

This could foreshadow the serious fund-raising hit Houston’s federation may take in the coming months. The federation already has delayed the start of its 2009 campaign so that it can make an assessment of its needs.

Wunsch is in the process of meeting with 25-50 of the federation’s largest donors, who give between $50,000 and $400,000 per year to the federation, to ask them what they can give next year.

He has met half a dozen so far and has been told that their giving would not increase.

“It doesn’t bode well,” he said.

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Rabbis tell Time that the Talmud would have spared us from this ecnomic mess

By Jacob Berkman · October 13, 2008

A rabbi from Yeshiva University and a rabbi from the Jewish Theological Seminary – the flagship institutions of modern Orthodoxy and Conservative Judaism, respectively, told Time magazine that if bankers and Wall Streeters had held by the rules of the Talmud, none of this economic jibber-jabber would have happened.

Rabbi Aaron Levine, chair of the economics department at Y.U., and Rabbi Eliezer Diamond, a professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at JTS, assert that rabbinical law would have prevented many of the shenanigans that got us into this mess.

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Loose Change: The state of the economy, implications for philanthropy and goodies for Jewish lobbyis

By Jacob Berkman · October 10, 2008

In the Jewish media:

• The New York Jewish Week gets inside the economic effect on the Jewish world with a series of articles:
  
  
  
  • The economy has hit the Jewish main street in Queens.
  
  
  • The country’s largest Jewish federation, the UJA-Federation of New York, could dip into its reserves to offset losses from the Wall Street meltdown.
  
  
  • Financial aid requests are up in the Jewish community.
  
  
  • The economy could shift the Jewish vote.
  
  
  • A bailout for Tel Aviv could be in the works.

• The Forward says that Jewish lobbyists were able to get two provisions into the Fed’s Wall Street bailout: One to extend the IRA rollover tax credit and one to provide a tax credit for mental health expenses.


• The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington has started a $300,000 emergency fund to help agencies get through the financial crisis.


• The historic Lloyd Street Synagogue in Baltimore gets a $1.2 million face lift, reports the Baltimore Jewish Times.


• Nonprofits call for compassion during the financial crisis, says the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.


• A NORC grows in Metrowest New Jersey, thanks to a $478,000 federal grant, reports the New Jersey Jewish News.


• The Jerusalem Post says that a new Israeli startup will help train leaders in humanitarian efforts.


• The Boston Jewish Advocate reports a similar story.
• Tech CEOs in San Fransisco help give at-risk Israeli teens tech training via Net@, according to J.


• The Jewish Community Foundation of Milwaukee gave away $74,000 worth of grants, says the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle.


• Teens in Arizona help run philanthropies through the Grinspoon Foundation’s B’nei Tzedek initiative, reports the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix.


• A JCC in L.A. has a new executive director, says the L.A. Jewish Journal.

And some news from the general philanthropy world:

• The Chronicle of Philanthropy says that philanthropies are trying to figure out what to so with the the Wall Street meltdown – but at the same time this might not be the end of philanthropy.
• The Council on Foundations and the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers are joining forces.


• Campbell Soup is giving away $10 million to help improve live in Camden, N.J., according to the South Jersey News.


• Georgetown University’s finances have taken a hit, reports the Hoya.


• The economy has put the pinch on nonprofits in New Jersey, according to mycentraljersey.com.

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Edgar Jr. flips his pad for a cool $21 million

By Jacob Berkman · September 23, 2008

Edgar Bronfman, Jr., the CEO of Warner Music and the son of Edgar Bronfman, grandson of Samuel Bronfman and nephew of Charles Bronfman, sold his 1040 Fifth Avenue co-op apartment for $21 million to Gerson Lehrman and Marjorie Lehrman, according to coopsales.com. Bronfman never lived in the house, which he bought for $19.5 million in January and then immediately put on the block for $24 million. He got $3 million less than he hoped. I guess the real estate market really is sagging.

Okay, it’s not a great philanthropic story, but indulge your inner yenta. The link has a layout of the enormous five-bedroom pad.

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Mid-day roundup: Dell ups his giving, Lauder in Ashkelon, Spielberg props gay marriage, and Bill Cli

By Jacob Berkman · September 23, 2008

Since the weekly digest of news in the Jewish media seems to be a hit, I’m going to start offering a daily update on what is going on in the philanthropic world according to the general papers – including a quick-hit look at grants of interest to the Jewish non-profit world, trends in the general philanthropic world, and other news of note.

(And of course I will still focus on the important items in separate posts as well.)

Here’s what’s happening today:

• Michael Dell, the CEO of Dell computers, announced that his company would increase its corporate and employee giving to 1 percent of Dell’s pre-tax profits, according to Marketwatch.com. Dell, who is Jewish and was in London for a conference on IT development in emerging countries, said that he and his company would focus on a global youth initiative. “The next billion Internet users coming online will largely live in emerging countries, such as Brazil, Russia, India and China,” he said. “Our new giving strategy is rightly focused on equipping youth in these areas, and around the world, for success.”
• Steven Spielberg and his wife have given $100,000 to help fight legislation in California that would ban gay marriage, according to AFP.
• In London, two longtime Jewish charities are merging. The Fed, formerly the Manchester Jewish Federation, a welfare agency for people in greater Manchester, and Heathlands, the Manchester Jewish Homes for the Aged, will join forces, according to the London Jewish Chronicle.
• Countries that are donor nations to the Palestinian government are urging Israel to lift restrictions on the Palestinian territories. Those countries have so far this year pumped $1.3 billion dollars into the Palestinian economy, but they are saying Israel is strangling the economy, according to AFP.
• Meanwhile, Ron Lauder and the governing board of the World Jewish Congress are set to meet in Ashkelon, just across the Palestinian border on Wednesday, reports the European Jewish press.
• This just in from the Chronicle of Philanthropy: On the eve of his foundation’s annual forum on philanthropy, Bill Clinton tells the Washington Post that he is worried that the economy could undermine philanthropic giving around the world. “Around the world, the thing that I worry most about with other stock markets going down and the American market here is that it will reduce the availability of capital . . . to do things that otherwise make good sense,” Clinton said, according to the Post. Participants in the fourth annual conference must pledge $20,000 to global philanthropic initiatives.
• Also from Marketwatch, non-profit health care facilities are expected to take a hit because of the staggering economy.
• On a nice note, the Viterbi Family Foundation has contributed $2 million to the University of Southern California’s (and Spielberg’s) Shoah Foundation Institute Web site, which documents genocide survivors, according to the San Diego Union Tribune.

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Sandy Cardin says foundations should stay socially responsible during downturn

By Jacob Berkman · September 19, 2008

The head of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, Sandy Cardin, preaches financial and social responsibility through these tough financial times in an Op-Ed for Ha’aretz.

Most philanthropic foundations are invested in conservative stocks and have relatively safe portfolios, he says – because they have learned from past economic turbulence. It is now up to them to keep spending philanthropically as needs increase:

Yet, as frightening and overwhelming as times like these may be, it is important to remember that the non-profit and NGO world has been in similar situations before and has always managed to survive, and even thrive, by adapting to a changed world.

After deep plunges in both 1987 and 2001, U.S. stocks fought their way back to previous levels in less time than many expected. Even if the underlying fundamentals of the current financial crisis are different than what led to the other precipitous declines, the lessons previously learned are still quite helpful.

Then, as now, the key to emerging from the current turbulence bruised but unbroken was to be both socially and fiscally responsible.

For both large and small contributors, social responsibility is a motivating force, one we know remains present even in times of financial stress. It is reassuring to remember in times like these that the small savers and investors upon whom charities rely for the bulk of their support are committed to giving as part of the fabric of their lives, and will continue to contribute to the causes most dear to them. (In 2006, 83 percent of total contributions in the United States came from donations from individuals, including bequests.)

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Digesting the Jewish media: Tracking down the Lehmans, the Cleveland federation will move, and no mo

By Jacob Berkman · September 19, 2008

Another good week in the Jewish news. I’m dreading the holiday slowdown, because some of this is good reading.

• The Forward tracks down members of the Lehman family. They are are sad about their bank going under, but not that sad. And Sheldon Adelson shrinks his giving to Birthright Israel. (I had this story last week, Anthony Weiss, but back-burner-ed it. But no excuses. You win this one.)
• The Baltimore Jewish Times has a cover story about CHAI, the Jewish housing and urban renewal organization that has helped revitalize part of Baltimore’s Jewish landscape.
• The Hillel Day School of Metropolitan Detroit will become a community Jewish day school rather than a day school affiliated with the Conservative movement, reports the Detroit Jewish News.
• Orthodox yeshiva high schools in New Jersey adopt an anti-drug program, reports the New Jersey Jewish News.
• Jews in Phoenix are working with their local federation and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to help rebuild Polish Jewry, says a first-person piece in the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix.
• After a long and heated debate, the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland is moving to the suburbs, but also keeping a presence downtown where it has been historically, says the Cleveland Jewish News.
• The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco has drawn 150,000 visitors – better than expected – since it opened in June, reports J.
• The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles will not give grants to local synagogues to beef up security for the High Holidays. Since 2006, the federation has given $1,000 grants to increase security to each of the 150 shuls that hold services, but the federation will not do it this year because it is too expensive, reports the L.A. Jewish Journal.
• Jewish education is going green, according to the New York Jewish Week.
• A Birthright alumni, the Washington federation and local donors sponsor a “reverse Birthright” and bring 10 Israelis to the D.C. area, reports the Washington Jewish Week.
• Jews in Wisconsin support raising the minimum wage in Wisconsin, but it could put the squeeze on a Jewish camp there, reports the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle.
• A nonprofit in Philadelphia called the Collaborative, which is sponsored by the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, tries to bring singles, the 20’s and 30’s set, and young professionals in through the Jewish doors, reports the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.

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A history of Lehman and Aish reaches out to bankers

By Jacob Berkman · September 17, 2008

Nextbook has an interesting short piece about the history of Lehman Brothers, the latest bank at the center of our economic crisis, which was started 158 years ago by three Jewish brothers from Bavaria.

Thanks to The God Blog of the LA Jewish Journal’s Brad Greenberg for pointing it out. Greenberg also writes about Aish Hatorah’s efforts to reach out to those who are losing their jobs at Lehman.

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What would you tell Max to do?

By Jacob Berkman · August 11, 2008

CAJE organizers ruffled a few feathers when they announced that their annual conference would start on Tisha B’Av, the day of infamy on which both Holy Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed, the Jews were expelled from Spain, and the Nazis’ deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka death camp began.

It is a day, traditionally, that is for fasting and mourning, not for conferences.

But CAJE officials told the Fundermentalist last month that the conference’s first day would be heavy with Tisha B’Av-related programming.

They enlisted Storahtelling, the progressive theatrical troupe started by Amichai Lau Lavie that gives modern interpretations of biblical themes, to produce that programming.

Toward dusk, just before the end of the fast – which was optional for CAJE participants – Storahtelling divided the 1,500 participants into seven groups. Each group was given one discussion scenario based on a personal tale from one of seven calamities that happened on Tisha B’Av, from the time of the Jews’ wandering in the desert until, most recently, the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I sat in with the group led by Lau Lavie.

He told the story of Max, an older Jewish man from Poland that Lau Lavie says he actually met. Max told him that he had given up his Judaism several years before the war started. He was tired of the religion and angry at it and felt that he was more likely to become a victim if he was a Jew.

But in 1942, on Tisha B’Av, he was walking near a shul in Warsaw. He heard a song being sung at the synagogue that he remembered from his youth. He stopped outside the shul and debated whether he should enter or keep his distance from his Jewish heritage.

What would you tell Max to do and why, Lau Lavie asked.

I’ll tell you what Max actually did later. But what would you suggest?

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