JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Sex sells Israel part II: The ‘come to Israel’ condom

By Jacob Berkman · June 8, 2009

Israeli Tourism Ministry adopts new approach to arousing visits to Tel Aviv.

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Loose Change: Chabad in Buffet land, recession hits AZ synagogues, and changes in Jewish higher ed

By Jacob Berkman · May 1, 2009

Some really interesting stories floating around the Jewish media this week.

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Hadassah to start military medical school

By Jacob Berkman · April 29, 2009

I will have more on this tomorrow after I talk with Hadassah’s president, Nancy Falchuk, but it seems that Hadassah will partner with the Israeli government to form Israel’s first military hospital.

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UJC to black out its Web site for Yom Hazikaron

By Jacob Berkman · April 27, 2009

The United Jewish Communities, the umbrella organization of the Jewish federation system, will be blacking out its Web site Tuesday, in honor of Israel’s Memorial Day.

1 Comment | Share This | federations, Federations, Fundraising, fundraising, Israel, ujc, UJC

The Jewish Funders Network hopes to pump $2.5 million into Israel PR

By Jacob Berkman · October 3, 2008

The Jewish Funders Network has announced that it has started a matching grant program to fund pro-Israel organizations:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Judy Mann
212-726-0177, ext. 204

The Jewish Funders Network has launched a new matching grant opportunity: Pro-Active, Pro-Israel: The JFN Matching Grant Initiative for Strengthening Israel ‘s Image.  This new matching grant program, offered by two anonymous member foundations, was borne out of a need to dispel distorted images and understandings of Israel.  The goal is to positively impact the way that Israel is perceived in political, academic, virtual, cultural, and social spheres throughout the globe. The two foundations are providing $1,250,000 funding pool to match first-time major gifts by JFN members to non-profit organizations working proactively to strengthen Israel ‘s image.

We’re thrilled to add Pro-Active, Pro-Israel to our stimulating program of matching grants.  As our initiatives in the fields of Jewish education, Jewish camping, Israel, and the Jewish elderly poor have shown, matching grants are a powerful incentive to encourage donors to make investments in funding areas that are new to them of importance to the Jewish community. Over the past four years, our matching grant initiatives have generated over $60 million in new funds within the Jewish community. Today’s donor wants to get more value from their philanthropic dollar and these types of matching grants allow them to maximize their impact.  - Murray Galinson, JFN Board Chair

Projects supported by grant funds must have as their primary aim the promotion of a pro-active, pro-Israel agenda, consistent with the policies of the government of Israel, through one of the following means: research; constituency organizing, mobilization and education; making current advocates more effective through support, education training or networking; forming and sustaining coalitions; using media to reach the targeted audiences. Eligible organizations will not simply provide a positive experience or present a positive image of Israel , but will actively work to change the public opinion towards Israel .

While only Jewish Funders Network members are eligible for the match, if someone is eligible for JFN membership but not currently a member, they may submit a membership application along with their matching grants application.  JFN membership is open to individuals and foundations which grant at least $25,000 annually to Jewish and/or secular causes.

Program Guidelines:

* To participate, a donor must be making their first-ever gift to support an organization or project promoting a pro-active, pro Israel agenda or the donors must increase his or her largest previous gift in this area threefold (i.e. from $10,000 to $30,000).
* Gifts must be a minimum of $25,000 and matching funds will be available up to $50,000.
* Donors who have given previous gifts to other Israel-related organizations or projects, but not to projects that directly engage the issue of Israel advocacy are eligible for this program.

Additional application information is available on the Jewish Funders Network website: http://www.jfunders.org

About Jewish Funders Network Jewish Funders Network is an international organization of family foundations, public philanthropies, and individual funders dedicated to advancing the quality and growth of Jewish philanthropy. JFN’s members include independent philanthropists, foundation trustees and foundation professionals – a unique community that seeks to transform the nature of Jewish giving in both thought and action.

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Report: American giving between 2001 and 2006 to Israeli organizations outpaced giving to general or

By Jacob Berkman · September 15, 2008

American giving to Israeli organizations outpaced American giving to general philanthropies between the years 2001 and 2006, according to a Philadelphia-based Philanthropy consulting group, EHL Consulting.

EHL studied the 990 forms of 80 “American friends of” organizations that collected money for Israeli groups and institutions over that period. The findings (contained in a set to be released Monday): Their intake outpaced giving to general charities in the areas of arts and culture, education, health care and human services.

Over that period, giving to Israeli groups rose 64 percent, with an 82 percent gain in gifts to the arts in Israel, 42 percent growth in education, 66 percent in health care and 66 percent in human services, according to the report, co-authored by Robert Evans and Avrum D. Lapin, the principals at EHL.

Giving to 19 Israeli arts organizations grew from $52.2 million in 2001 to $94.9 million in 2006. The percentage increase far exceeded that of giving to similar American organizations, which grew from $114 billion in 2001 to $126.8 billion in 2006, according to stats EHL culled from the annual Giving USA report put out by the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy. Israeli groups took in 82 percent more money for the arts in 2006 than they did in 2001, while U.S. groups took in 11 percent more in 2006 than they did in 2001.

Similarly, Israeli education groups took in $206 million in 2001 and $294 million in 2006, an increase of 42 percent, while American groups grew by 24 percent to $40.7 billion.

Israeli health care groups raised $170.5 million in 2006 and human services took in $156.3 million.

EHL is suggesting that giving to Israeli groups was spurred by the second intifada, Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon and by a significant increase in travel to Israel from the United States.

“These factors, among others, seemed to have created increased opportunities for many Israel-based organizations to develop emotional appeals for a compelling need and to try to attract increases in U.S. and worldwide philanthropic support,” the report says.

But EHL is also looking at the rise in giving directly to Israeli organizations as a signal that American Jews are more and more looking away from Jewish federations as a means of supporting Israel. Growth in giving to the Jewish federation system during 2001-2006 was on par with the growth that general charitable umbrella groups such as the United Way saw, but it did not see a significant increase.

“We have found that many American donors have made broader philanthropic decisions toward Israel and some have turned their money away from Jewish federations and other similar organizations that have traditionally attracted major Jewish donors for Israeli funding, and instead donated directly to specific Israel-based organizations,” the report says.

The report does not address current levels of giving to Israeli causes in light of the economic downturn and widespread concern over a general slowing in philanthropy.

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Benny Landa goes bearish on Israel’s future

By Jacob Berkman · July 22, 2008

You think Israel’s economy is on the rise? That the Israeli third sector is growing fast enough to make American philanthropic dollars less necessary? That Israel is on the cusp of being an international financial power?

Think again, Benny Landa told the Fundermentalist.

Landa sold his Israeli-based company Indigo – which revolutionized digital color printing – to Hewlett Packard in 2002 when it was worth about $1 billion. He has since committed $50 million to social welfare projects in Israel and recently published a manifesto about the Israeli economy.

And while much has been said recently about the rise of Israel’s ultra-wealthy class, its fast-growing economy and its burgeoning philanthropic sector, Landa did not paint a rosy picture in the wide-ranging telephone interview Tuesday from Israel.

“The Israeli economy, despite all of the hoopla and excitement over foreign investment and the rising shekel, is a bubble that is going to pop,” he said.

The gap between the wealthy and the poor is rapidly growing, and the majority of the poor are Israeli Arabs and Charedi Jews – two sectors that can cause considerable unrest. For all of the talk about Israel’s economic growth, a look at the Gini Index, which measures the wealth gap, shows that Israel is far behind most of the developed world. The perfect distribution of wealth, according to the index, is zero. Israel’s is 39, more than twice that of progressive European countries, Landa said.

“We have two societies. One country is like Denmark where people are prosperous and high tech; the other one is like El Salvador, where you have a $2,500 GDP per capita, huge families, terrible poverty and hopelessness,” he said. “Fixing that is priority number one. It is not a society that can survive.”

The biggest problem, according to Landa, is that, even though Israeli companies are selling for big money to foreign investors such as Warren Buffet, and even though foreign investors are pumping money into Israel financial indexes, Israel’s wealth is all liquid, and that investment is bringing in little manufacturing to Israel, which means very few jobs are being created.

Only 37 percent of Israelis actually work, he said, compared to the United States, where 50 percent of the population works. (He warned against looking at the unemployment rate, which only measures the percentage of those who have actually worked before who have jobs.)

It is the role of the wealthy class to help ease that gap between rich and poor, said Landa, who loathes the term philanthropist.

“I am a high tech industrialist. I am an industrialist. I don’t donate. I invest,” he said. “I look at something in terms of social investing, as something that I want pay back on. I want the most bang for the buck.”

On the business side, Landa made sure that when he sold out to HP that the computer giant kept jobs in Israel. Some 2,000 Israeli manufacturing jobs were created directly by the sale, and another 9,000 indirectly, he said.

On the social investment side, Landa is in the midst of a $50 million investment in helping Israel’s poor rise up.

During its first phase, he put some $25 million towards the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Atidim project, which takes precocious Israeli youths from the country’s poorest areas and gives them intensive math and science training and scholarships to Israel’s top schools so that they can take high-level jobs in the army before moving into the high-tech professional world.

In its second phase, he is now invested in other projects that do the same for Israelis that cannot serve in the army, primarily Israeli-Arabs and Charedi Jews – which he likens to an Israeli affirmative action program.

“We are on the verge of a major crisis in this country, a major economic crisis,” Landa said. “This is going to be a desperate situation. There is a total disenfranchisement of Israeli Arabs and a disassociation from Israeli society. We have a society that is going to fragment. I am a Zionist, and I don’t want historians to write one day, ‘There was a 100-year experiment called the Jewish state, and it just didn’t make it.’ We are not home free.”

And despite an increased interest in philanthropy on the part of Israel’s newly wealthy, it is not time for Americans to bail on giving their charity dollars to Israel – even in the face of an economic downturn here that promises to put a crunch on American non-profits, he said.

Landa estimates that about 75-80 percent of American Jewish philanthropic dollars given through the Jewish federation system stays in the U.S. “That is the wrong proportion,” he says, advocating that the split should be closer to 50-50.

“They say that when Europe sneezes, the U.S. gets a cold, but when the U.S. sneezes, Israel gets pneumonia,” Landa said. “I think that if the American Jews who give to federations or Jewish causes need to really understand the significance and importance of Israel to the freedom of Jews around the world.”

Because it spends so much money on defense, the Israeli government is strapped for cash, and social welfare projects are suffering. Israel, he said, spends only a half of what the leading 20 countries spend per student on education (** This statement corrects an earlier statement.). “Fifty percent of our kids in primary school are not being prepared for life,” he said. (Landa also chastised the government for “squandering huge resources on building settlements.")

“No one is going around saying, ‘Let’s hurt the poor.’ There is no one out there that is bad. There is just not enough money,” he said. “In business you learn that you simply have to drown the puppies when there is not enough money. In Israel, that is unfortunately what they are doing, and the puppies are unfortunately bright youths who end up with no hope of fulfilling their potential.”

Even though Israel reportedly has between 6,000 and 7,000 millionaires, there simply is not enough money in the economy to make up for the social welfare gap that Israel’s government cannot close. Oversimplifying the math, he admits, even if each of those millionaires gave one percent of their wealth to charity every year, that would only amount to between $60 million and $70 million in donations.

Landa is calling for Diaspora Jews to encourage more outsourcing and job creation in Israel and to become vocal on Israel’s economy – which most have shied away from because they liken the economy to politics and pressuring Israel on politics is taboo for many outsiders.

For Landa, the quest to create economic parity is all very personal.

“I grew up in a very poor home. And that never leaves you. When you are poor, you feel different and you feel the frustration and the humiliation, and it never leaves you. I was just very lucky, and it is my objective to share that luck,” he said. “I’m trying to help the poor be less desperate and to give people a level playing field.”

5 Comments | Share This | Benny Landa, federations, gifts, Israel, Jewish Agency, poverty

Olmert responds to UJC’s plea to intervene in conversion crisis

By Jacob Berkman · July 21, 2008

Ehud Olmert has apparently responded to a letter earlier this month from the leaders of the United Jewish Communities in which they asked the prime minister to intervene in the conversion crisis in Israel.

The UJC’s chair, Joe Kanfer, and president and CEO, Howard Rieger, had sent the prime minister a letter July 9, imploring him in fairly strong language that they expected him and his government to step in to help the country settle the dispute over what conversions to Judaism are considered legitimate.

It is a longstanding conflict that was reignited earlier this year when Israel’s Rabbinical High Court dismissed Rabbi Haim Druckman, the head of the Conversion Committee that was established to facilitate the conversion process. In dismissing Druckman, who was considered relatively lenient on conversion, the court said it would annul thousands of conversions of immigrants from the former Soviet Union that he had approved.

Olmert wrote back to the UJC last week – and one can assume his response was not a form letter – saying that the conversion issue was one of utmost importance to him and that he values the relationship between UJC and Israel. Help is in the works, he added.

The prime minister said that he would discuss the issue further when the UJC holds is annual conference, the General Assembly, in Jerusalem this fall.

“It is my hope that the two strategic decisions made byt my Cabinet in the past six months related to this issue will begin catalyzing the conversion process in Israel,” the letter said. “I expect that, in the coming weeks, the new directorship of the Conversion Authority will begin to tackle the complexities of this issue, and that by the time we meet at the General Assembly in November, we will see concrete results.”

(We’ll say this ... not everyone with Olmert’s sagging popularity and mounting legal problems would have the confidence to say he’d still be around in November. Of course, the other possibility is that he’s punting because he knows he’ll be out by then.)

Read the rest of the olmert letter.

Thanks to Rabbi Seth Farber, the director of ITIM: The Jewish Life Information center, an Israeli based organization dedicated to making Jewish life accessible, for alerting the Fundermentalist to Olmert’s letter.

Because he saw it first, I’ll give Farber first crack at responding. (For the annotated version – he isn’t satisfied):

“ITIM has received hundreds of phone calls in the past two months from converts concerned about their status and individuals who were hesitant to convert. The PM’s comments are an important first step in restoring confidence in the conversion authority. but words are not sufficient.  There must be actions as well. IN the past few weeks, very little has moved forward with little direction from the Prime Minister’s office. The search committee to appoint a new director of the conversion authority has not met, and the tender for the assistant to the director went unfilled.

It is my hope that this letter will be followed by concrete steps to rebuild the conversion authority and give it the power to move this issue forward in Israel.”

0 Comments | Share This | Israel, UJC

Falling dollar woes strike religious institutions in Israel

By Jacob Berkman · July 15, 2008

According to the Jerusalem Post story, a new report says that the falling dollar has cost religious institutions in Israel some 350 million shekels. (Or what used to be $90 million but is now more than $100 million.)

From the story:

The survey is based on data from more than 80 haredi charity organizations such as Yad Sarah, Ezer Mizion and others and educational institutions like Migdal Or and Viznitz.

Since July 2007, the US currency has lost 20% of its value against the shekel.

On average, the haredi organizations and institutions received annual donations of more than NIS 1 billion, narrowed by about 31% on average. Donations make up about 43% out of the total budget of these institutions.

The survey revealed that 48% of questioned institutions and organizations believed that the global financial crisis will have a significant impact on their future existence.

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Blavatnik to give $5 million to Tel Aviv U.

By Jacob Berkman · July 7, 2008

The Blavatnik Family Foundation will give Tel Aviv University $5 million to help build the school’s computer science program.

The foundation of Russian-born American industrialist Len Blavatnik will fund an extensive expansion of the school’s interdisciplinary research in computer science, award multiple graduate fellowships and create new positions for gifted young faculty, according to a release from Tel Aviv U.

The University will rename its computer science program The Blavatnik School of Computer Science.

Blavatnik, the CEO of Access Industries, ranked number 45 on the 2007 Forbes 400 list, with an estimated wealth of $7.3 billion.

Here’s the press release.

Blavatnik Family Foundation Donates $5 Million to
Expand Computer Science at Tel Aviv University

Gift Will Promote Cutting-Edge Discovery, Augment Faculty,
and Strengthen University’s International Impact on Industry

Tel Aviv - Tel Aviv University’s computer science graduates, already the most heavily recruited in Israel, just gained an even bigger edge in the global business world.

A $5 million gift awarded on June 4th by The Blavatnik Family Foundation, headed by American industrialist Len Blavatnik, creates a wellspring for expanding the scope of Tel Aviv University’s interdisciplinary research, funds additional positions for gifted young faculty, adds multiple scholarships and fellowships, and fosters a partnership of TAU scholarship with local and international industry.

In recognition, the university’s School of Computer Science will be known as The Blavatnik School of Computer Science.

The Blavatnik Family Foundation has an impressive history of underwriting scholarships to advance science at Tel Aviv University, and to support other educational programs in Israel and globally.  Mr. Blavatnik is the founder and Chairman of Access Industries, a U.S.-based industrial group with investments in three sectors: natural resources and chemicals, media and telecommunications, and real estate.

A Giant Leap For Israeli Scholarship

Tel Aviv University’s computer scientists are already recognized worldwide for their excellence and ingenuity.  They lead R&D teams at multinational corporations, including Google and CheckPoint, and continue to create innovative technology - such as computer-assisted pharmaceutical drug design - with substantial implications for the future.

Tel Aviv University President Zvi Galil, a widely respected theoretical computer scientist and former chair of the university’s Computer Science Department, says “the donation from The Blavatnik Family Foundation not only demonstrates an extraordinary commitment to Israel’s leading center of higher learning, it is an important commitment to reversing ‘brain drain’ in Israeli academia - standing it on its head to create, instead, a ‘brain gain’.”

Prof. Haim J. Wolfson, Dean of the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, says the donation is destined to strengthen Israel in many ways.  “Our scientists and graduates are key players in the impressively growing Israeli high-tech based economy,” Prof. Wolfson says.  “Computer scientists at Tel Aviv University are pushing forward the frontiers of every imaginable discipline, including medicine.  While nobody knows exactly where computer science will take us, the generous spirit and support of The Blavatnik Family Foundation will play a large part in shaping the future.”

Investing in “Brainpower”

A portion of the gift will be used to support the immediate recruitment of new faculty members, and will fund approximately 15 doctoral fellowships. The remaining portion of the gift will endow additional graduate fellowships, create opportunities to widen the scope of research, and allow new joint-study tracks in emergent interdisciplinary areas such as quantum computation and bioinformatics.

“This very generous gift will help us maintain our leadership position in research and education,” says Prof. Amos Fiat, head of The Blavatnik School of Computer Science. “The new funding will allow us to double the number of student fellowships, and will create important opportunities for great research.”

American Friends of Tel Aviv University supports Israel’s largest and most comprehensive center of higher learning.  It is ranked among the world’s top 100 universities in science, biomedical studies, and social science, and rated one of the world’s top 200 universities overall. Internationally recognized for the scope and groundbreaking nature of its research programs, Tel Aviv University consistently produces work with profound implications for the future.

1 Comment | Share This | Blavatnik, Education, foundations & funders, gifts, Israel