JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Houston plants a tree in Israel

By Jacob Berkman · August 27, 2009

Former New York Knick Allan Houston plants a tree with the JNF in Israel.

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Where’s the celeb love for Jewish charities?

By Jacob Berkman · August 27, 2008

Since the New York Times Magazine ran Natalie Portman’s mug on the cover of its money issue in March, which featured a story about celebrity influence on giving, it seems that the charitable world has gone a bit TMZ.

The phenomenon is legit enough that the Chronicle of Philanthropy held an interesting online panel discussion this week about celebrity involvement in charity.

That discussion turned me onto Looktothestars.com, a comprehensive Web site that provides daily updates about celebrities and their giving.

For the Jewish philanthropy-phile, it’s definitely worth a perusing.

The site has two pieces about Natalie Portman’s involvement with the micro-loan group FINCA, including a Q&A.

Did you know:

• Adam Sandler donated 400 Playstations to Israeli families that were victims of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war.
• Goldie Hawn, Michael Douglas and Bill Clinton support the Jewish National Fund.
• And Don Cheadle, who is not Jewish, is a supporter of Jewish World Watch, an organization that “works to mobilize synagogues, their schools, their members and the community to combat genocide and other egregious violations of human rights around the world through education, advocacy, and refugee relief,” according to its Web site.

Jewish celebrities have historically been involved in high-profile philanthropy, from the Jew who runs the world’s most famous telethon, Jerry Lewis, to Paul Newman, who is now giving away to charity all of the assets from his Newman’s Own line of food products.

A bevy of Jewish celebs show up on the site’s database of stars who notably give to charity. The database includes a listing of each of their causes.

But are Jewish charities missing the star-studded cruise?

Looktothestars also has a searchable database of charities that have been able to sign on celebrity sponsors, and aside from the JNF, Jewish World Watch and several foundations started by Jewish celebrities, few overtly Jewish causes show up on the list.

I know that there are some Jewish charities that have been able to enlist Jewish b-list celebs, older celebs and entertainment industry execs, but there seems to be a specific dearth of young Jewish gliterati involved in the old-school Jewish charity world.

There have been attempts to court them.

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Gen-D, a young leadership program, drew several celebs to a fund raiser in L.A. to help Cuban Jewry earlier this month. That event attracted Mischa Barton and Nikky Hilton (pictured above at the event).

And there have been strong whispers that the Joint and the UJA-Federation of New York have been courting Portman to help them with their non-sectarian causes in Africa.

For a society that is voraciously interested in the Hollywood elite, and that is trending towards emulating their behavioral patterns – good and bad – it is safe to say that celebrity involvement in a charity can help its fund-raising effort.

Maybe it’s not shocking that old-time organizations, like the Jewish federations, the Joint, the Jewish Agency and the ADL, are absent from Looktothestars. But not even the trendier stars of the J-philanthropy scene, such as Hazon and the American Jewish World Service, show up.

What gives? Or, more appropriately, who gives?

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Teach a man to farm

By Jacob Berkman · July 15, 2008

It’s always nice when stalwart Jewish organizations reach out to the broader world and help out the broader human community. So ... I enjoyed getting a press release from the Jewish National Fund announcing that it plans to pitch in at the Agahozo Shalom Youth Village.

The village in Rwanda was founded last year by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to give a home to orphans of the 1994 genocide in the country in which between 500,000 and 1 million people were killed during a civil war between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes.

Agahozo, modeled after the Yemin Orde youth village in Israel, which was a haven for orphans of the Holocaust, and later for other immigrants to Israel, is designed to give those who no longer have families a stable place to live and get an education that they can use to live productive lives. The Rwandan village, which is set to open in the fall, will be staffed in part by Ethiopian Israelis who grew up at Yemin Orde.

The JNF will give agricultural training at Agahozo and will establish agricultural plots, greenhouses, and honey-producing beehives on land adjacent to the village to give the residents the farming expertise to support themselves when they return to their native villages.

Here’s the release:

JNF-KKL to Provide Agricultural Training
at Youth Village for Survivors of Rwandan Genocide

July 15, 2008 – New York, NY – To aid young survivors of the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, Jewish National Fund-Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (JNF-KKL) will provide agricultural training at the Agahozo Shalom Youth Village (ASYV) – a project of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to help hundreds of children orphaned as a result of the genocide.

Modeled after the Israeli Youth Village of Yemin Orde, which was established in 1953 to accommodate Holocaust orphans and immigrant children, ASYV will offer a protected residential environment as well as innovative educational programs, recreational facilities, a health clinic, and psychological services. Situated on 143 acres in Rwanda’s Eastern Province, it will eventually be home to 500 orphans, graduating 120 people from high school each year.

JNF-KKL will establish agricultural plots, greenhouses, and honey-producing beehives on land adjacent to the village and will use this farm to train hundreds of young survivors in agricultural work, giving them the farming expertise to support themselves when they return to their native villages.

“By establishing plant nurseries and training the youngsters at the village, we are giving them tools to cope and helping them to support themselves with dignity in the future,” said JNF-KKL World Chairman Efi Stenzler.

During the course of just 100 days in 1994, over 800,000 people were killed in the Rwandan Genocide, which left even more people displaced, a country in ruins, and nearly 1.2 million children orphaned.

In addition to providing the basic human needs of food, shelter, and protection for traumatized youth still struggling with the aftereffects of genocide, the ASYV aims to prepare these youth to take on leadership roles in their society and give them the chance for a productive future.

An initial delegation of JNF-KKL staff is currently touring Rwanda to examine soil and environmental conditions and determine which species will be suitable for cultivation at the farm.  They also plan to explore genetic preservation of the exotic species of fruits native to Rwanda; cultivation of stands of trees for use as cooking and heating fuel to reduce felling in Rwandan forests; and the introduction of beehives to produce honey for both local and commercial use.

“As a non-governmental organization, JNF-KKL places emphasis on pioneering breakthroughs in the management of open areas and woodland, in combating desertification, and in land and water conservation,” said Stenzler. “This delegation is just one example among many of the exportation of expertise and know-how to other countries and organizations throughout the world, including the US Forest Service and the International Arid Lands Consortium.

“Many delegations of JNF-KKL experts in forestry, combating desertification and erosion prevention have visited countries such as Nigeria, Paraguay, Chile, Indonesia and Mexico, while numerous other delegations come to Israel to learn and observe innovative developments and methods firsthand.”

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JNFuture’s Shabbat in the Park event was a hit—and a big miss

By Jacob Berkman · June 26, 2008

The Jewish National Fund’s young leadership division, JNFuture, held a lovely event last Friday night, hosting a Shabbat dinner in Central Park.

The event, which JNF touted as the first ever organized Shabbat in Central Park, drew a nice crowd, about 250 Jews in their 20s and 30s. And unlike a lot of Shabbat events on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, it drew a fairly mixed crowd in terms of denominational orientation.

About 250 Jews, who eschewed the Hamptons on the first official weekend of the summer, sipped champagne, schmoozed and Shabbated (yeah, I used it as a verb, sue me) under a tent on the northwest corner of the Sheep Meadow – a pretty good showing considering that JNF didn’t even have a young leadership division 18 months ago.

For most, the event was a positive change for the 107-year-old organization that helped settle the land of Israel. Or, as Amy Abramson, who made the trek into the city for the event with her husband, Jeremy, the president of the JNF’s Westchester, N.Y., chapter said as she surveyed the crowd: “It’s so nice to see people our own age at a JNF event.”

It was indeed a very nice event, and if that event and its attendance were any indication, JNFuture shows some real promise.

But JNFuture, please let the Fundermentalist give you a little advice for the next time you invite media to a dinner.

There are typically a few models for seating media at a gala event. Some organizations like to put press at tables toward the front of a room so they can hear speakers speak and pump out clear and accurate stories that convey what the organizations’ talking heads have to say. Some like to put reporters toward the back because, well, donors take precedent. Totally understood. Others like to disperse press throughout a room so they can sit and talk with people who are involved in the organization and get a more grassroots feel for it. That’s probably the best method.

But until Friday night I had never seen the kiddie table approach.

Event organizers actually put the press, which included The Fundermentalist, a reporter from the Wall Street Journal, one from the New York Jewish Week and television news producers from Fox and CBS, at a table that was about half the size of every other table set up for guests at the event. And I understand not putting press front and center in prime location, but putting the table virtually outside of the tent? Come on.

It was great that New York Congressman Anthony Weiner showed up to speak during dinner. I’m not the most Sabbath observant guy, but I wouldn’t have taken notes on what Weiner said. (To play on the words of the Big Lebowski’s Walter Sobchak, I don’t roll my pen on Shabbos.) But it would have been nice to have been seated close enough to hear what Weiner said. Judging by the laughs from the rest of the tent, I’m guessing he was funny.

Hey, I understand that we were invited guests and that we did not pay the $90 - $120 that others did to attend the event, and I appreciate that you let my girlfriend, the FundermentalMiss, come as well.

But don’t you know the old saying that you shouldn’t pick fights with those who buy ink by the barrel? Us lowly reporter folk spent three quarters of our talky time raggin’ on the fact that you made us feel like people who might actually use terms like “talky time.”

Really, though, how can I complain after what happened to Ben Rabizadeh, who ended up sitting next to me.

Rabizadeh, the CEO of Frumster.com, a more Orthodox and more marriage-geared version of J-Date, actually paid for his ticket. But Rabizadeh he lost his seat because, as he tells it, a bunch of girls decided that they wanted to sit together at an all-girls table, and none would budge so he could sit at the table JNFuture assigned him. (Not much of a chance for shidduch-making with that strategy, ladies.)

The guy paid full price and ended up at the kiddie table – and then had to listen to us complain.

So, let me make it up to you, Ben, with a little plug for Frumster.com and your new dating and marriage site for less religious Jews, Jwed.com.

For the marriage inclined, Frumster has made more than 1,000 matches, Ben told me, and it averages five weddings a week. Not bad.

Also, if anyone is in the market not for a bride or groom or date, but for a dating site, Frumster is up for sale. If you’re interested, contact me and I can pass you through to Ben. (And to the single women who displaced Ben: If you are the type of woman looking for a man who is a bread winner, judging by the price Ben quoted me for Frumster, you really missed out.)

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