Weekly Round-up July 29-Aug 2
Dear Colleagues,
Tensions ratcheted up in the Middle East this week after the targeted killings of senior leaders of both Hamas and Hezbollah in the wake of last weekend’s horrific attack on a Druze village in the Golan Heights, in which twelve children were killed as they played soccer. Israel also officially confirmed yesterday that an IDF strike in mid-July in Gaza assassinated the head of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif, who was an architect of the October 7 attacks.
The US State Department is now preparing for Iran to launch a major missile attack against Israel within days and is redeploying forces in the Middle East to help counter the threat.
See the leadership message on what we are doing to help the Druze community and watch yesterday’s webinar on developments in Israel. We encourage you to watch this excerpt from the webinar with an update on the Israel Emergency Fund.
In addition, Jewish Federations and AJC called out major media organizations for their egregious bias against Israel vis a vis the coverage of the attack on the Druze village.
For more on the volatile situation in the Middle East, see yesterday’s Israel Update and this week’s Community Mobilization Center Dispatch.
A new impact report has found that, as of June, Jewish Federations of North America has collected an astonishing $833 million – more than half of the overall funds contributed by the global Jewish community – and allocated $433 million to a total of 520 Israeli NGOs. Those funds have provided 1.2 million hot meals, sheltered 37,000 evacuees, and offered economic relief on five business loan platforms. Learn more about the impact of your Federation dollars in the full report or this visual summary.
Next week, we will roll out Serve Israel, an initiative to activate and support volunteer trips to Israel through 2024. This opportunity is available to all Federations and partner organizations who are interested in recruiting participants for either 7-10 day trips or 4-week visits. Serve Israel is made possible through support from Mosaic United, the Jewish Agency for Israel, the Government of Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, and the Israel Emergency Fund – in collaboration with Birthright Israel Onward and Masa Israel Journey. Keep an eye out for an email with details.
After 16 months of captivity, Jewish WSJ journalist Evan Gershkovich was finally released by Russia yesterday in a complex prisoner swap in Ankara, Turkey involving seven planes carrying 24 prisoners from six different countries. We hailed his release, which has been a major focus of our advocacy. We thanked the Jewish Federations of New Jersey for their unremitting efforts to bring Evan home.
This week, Jewish Federations of North America, ADL (the Anti-Defamation League), American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CoP) and Hillel International jointly announced a comprehensive set of recommendations for campus administrators to guide them in responding to antisemitism when classes resume this Fall. Read Eric’s campus messageand sign up for our weekly webinars on campus issues starting next Thursday at 2 pm ET. Registration is required, but you are welcome to share the links with others in your community.
We are pleased to share a toolkit to support your planning of October 7th community-wide commemorations as well as resources to communicate Federation impact in Israel over the past year. Assets will continue to be added to the toolkit leading up to October 7th.
In the coming weeks we will also release a website featuring all the community-wide commemorations across the US and Canada that Federations are leading, along with recommended actions to honor the fallen and heroes, including a collective prayer for the people of Israel. To submit your event, please click here.
Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill Chabad Synagogue and the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh were vandalized this week with anti-Israel graffiti. We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Jewish community of Pittsburgh, which has already been traumatized by the Tree of Life massacre, the deadliest antisemitic attack in our nation’s history. Read the Pittsburgh Federation’s statement here.
Yesterday, the Senate voted down a motion to expand the Child Tax Credit (CTC), which had already passed the House. We will continue to urge Congress to reinstate and expand this anti-poverty prevention policy.
Rabbi Joshua Stanton, our AVP for interfaith and intergroup initiatives and Rabbi Yehiel Poupko, rabbinic scholar of the Jewish United Fund (JUF) of Chicago, co-authored an op-ed in eJP on the Jewish community’s need for a new national interfaith strategy. This week, we released our Interfaith Outreach Action Guide to support Federations. Also, see this week’s impact blog featuring JUF’s third mission to Poland for Evangelical Christian leaders.
Finally, a pathbreaking study released on Thursday by our Strategic Health Resource Center (SHRC) argues for a robust public-private partnership to defray the cost of long-term care insurance for older adults, given that the average lifetime cost of long-term care exceeds a quarter million dollars, which is far more than most Americans can afford.
For additional updates and reminders, please see below.
General Assembly 2024: Register now for the 2024 General Assembly, taking place from November 10 - 12, 2024 in Washington, DC and will focus on the most important and timely issues facing our communities in North America and around the world. To learn more, visit generalassembly.org or check out the FAQs.
Sullam Israel Residency: Taglit Birthright Israel Onward, in partnership with M², brings you the Sullam Israel Residency, a new professional development opportunity for Jewish community professionals in the early stages of their careers. The program is a month-long, immersive program based in Tel Aviv. For more information, email Rebecca Zuck Sowers.
Dues Process Webinar: Every year, Federations are asked to complete a Revenue Survey to capture our collective financial impact. One way we use this data is to calculate the dues amounts for Federations. Dues payments make up a large portion of our operating budget and enable us to build flourishing Jewish communities. Join our Impact & Growth team for a webinar on Friday, August 23 at 1:30 pm ET to learn more about this process and how we use this data.
Creating a Culture of Candor and Safety: This session for C-Suite Leaders will take place on Tuesday, August 20 from 1-2 pm ET. Jewish Federations have received a grant from SRE (Safety, Respect, Equity) Network to create “speak-up” cultures. Research shows that engagement, productivity, inclusion, and performance all increase when employees feel safe to raise concerns, share ideas, admit errors, and have constructive disagreements. The session will be led by workplace climate expert Fran Sepler, who will offer both practical guidance and Federation-focused case studies. Please register here and read more about the session here.
Overview of Professional Development Opportunities: We offer Jewish Federation professionals across North America opportunities to learn and grow. Please review our robust schedule of upcoming programs. Bookmark the page and check back often as new ones are added weekly!
Rosh Hashanah Toolkit: Rosh Hashanah is just around the corner! Inspire your community to imagine a brighter future together with our marketing toolkit, including engaging social media posts, a stirring video that celebrates unity and hope, and a direct mail letter to spark meaningful conversations and drive donations.
Shabbat Shalom,
Shira Hutt
Executive Vice President
Jewish Federations of North America