For the life of me, I can’t picture Madonna in Tsfat. The Material Girl in the land of the immaterial?
Madonna’s celebrity trip is being organized by the Los Angeles Kabbalah Center, starting on Rosh Hashanah and ending on Yom Kippur.
In a parallel move, the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach is in the process of establishing its own Kaballah Center in Tsfat– one of Judaism’s four holy cities. Supported by a seed grant of $100,000 (perhaps from one of those ladies we read about before?), the federation is seeking an additional $8 million for its full establishment, including a building and programming.
But how does Madonna fit in?
“We are a public organization dedicated to developing a pluralistic center for anyone, regardless of background or religious affiliation, whereas the Kabbalah Centre is a private enterprise with a very clear profit motive,” federation representative Sharon Levin asserts.
Must we expect a celebrity contribution from Madonna that is anything but spiritual? Does every famous person that comes have to give something to Israel?
You don’t have to be a moneymaker to make a difference. You just have to want to improve the lives of others and take steps to make it happen. Here are two feel good examples– and one fortunate honorary mention.
1. Israeli tennis star Shahar Peer took some time out of her US Open schedule to lead a tennis clinic for underprivileged kids in New York.
An initiative of the Consulate General of Israel in New York and the New York Sports Commission, Peer’s presence had the additional goal of “enhancing our relations with different communities in the United States such as the African Americans and Hispanics… that will help us build strong and solid bridges with them,” said Assaf Shariv, the consul general.
Look how appealing a video can be to convey your message and give a personal side to a story. (Thanks, Isrealli.)
If you are not an insider in the formal world of Jewish philanthropy, you may not be familiar with the Lion of Judah pin. Boy, are you ever missing out. And you thought there was no such thing as philanthropy pop culture. Well, I am here to prove otherwise.
I haven’t found a good representation of the pin online, so I’ll describe it to you in hopes you can picture it. In truth, I’ve only seen the pins on a number of occasions when top level federation donors are congregated for seminars or tours in Israel.
I first noticed the pin at such an event recently and was taken aback at its size and statement. Then I noticed that everyone in the room was wearing one and made it my mission to find out what it was. Allow me to fill you in so you too can be in the know on this little pop culture tidbit.
The pin was nationalized in 1980 with a campaign logo created in 1983. Gemstones are added to denote levels of giving, with more variations added over time as the pin’s popularity and women’s generosity grew.
It’s late August and change is upon us. In Israel, a familiar chant is beginning: “After the holidays, after the holidays, after the holidays” (acharei hahagim). If you are working with Israeli foundations, expect a slowdown in what can get done and be patient with the national culture. The time of year between Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot is the equivalent of our Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years season– and just as significant.
August falls during the Jewish month of Elul when Jews are taking an accounting of their lives and thinking about what changes need to be made. It is also a time when we ask forgiveness from those we may have wronged. I’m not sure what this will mean for the upcoming giving cycle, but it is something to be aware of as a trend in the Jewish– and therefore the Jewish giving– world.
Your philanthropy news– top giving highlights of late August:
Dorothy Seaman: $1 million to women’s philanthropy division of South Palm Beach Jewish Federation
Brandeis tops previous fundraising records: $89.4 million earned this fiscal year
Sheldon Adelson’s dream of an Israeli casino dissipates: Jewish state won’t allow it
The women of the South Palm Beach Federation are known for their top dollar giving, garnering 207 gifts of $100,000 this year. Ms. Seaman is the second woman to donate $1 million, following Toby Weinman Palchick’s March contribution to create the Federation’s Center for Jewish Philanthropy.
The Bedouins of Al-Sayyid have something to say. And it doesn’t involve talking.
Al-Sayyid is one of the only towns in the world to have developed its own language, independent of neighboring tongues. With a rate of deafness 50 times the norm, community members have a recessive gene for profound deafness traceable to one of the town’s founding couples.
Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language
Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL) is a new form of communication that has developed in the last 70 years. Created by members of the Al-Sayyid community– 3,500 people based in the southern Negev– to cope with its inherent deafness, ABSL is noted for its complex grammatical structure and sophisticated linguistic patterns.
Margalit Fox, author of Talking Hands, notes the necessary conditions for the creation of a “signing village:” an inherited gene for deafness that can be passed through a large population quickly (via polygamy and the marriage of cousins or other close relatives). These conditions are present in force in Al-Sayyid.
Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language has been highlighted by linguists for the following reasons:
It is one of the few languages to arise without an outside influence. ABSL is not based on the Arab or Hebrew patterns of the surrounding languages, but has a unique grammatical and linguistic structure (Science Daily)
Linguists look to ABSL to give them clues about how languages originated. Prof. Carol Padden of UC-San Diego remarks: “Because ABSL developed independently, it may reflect fundamental properties of language in general and provide insight into basic questions about the way in which human language develops from the very beginning.” (ibid)
In its third generation, ABSL presents a strong model for linguistic study in helping to understand how languages are formed and developed
Let me tell you something I bet you don’t know about Gaza: it is rumored to have some of the best beaches in the world.
While I wish we lived in a world where the only rivalry between the Palestinians and the Jews were who caught the biggest wave or had the best surfboard, that is far from the reality.
But let’s imagine.
What would the world be like if peace was based on making real improvements in the lives of regular people? Dorian and David Paskowitz provide a glimpse.
Founders of Surfers for Peace and both world class surfers in their own right, the father and son team read an article in the LA Times entitled “Gaza Surfers Find Freedom in the Sea” about how Palestinian surfers were facing shortages.
The solution? The Paskowitzes masterminded a plan to get 12 surfboards to Gaza through the famously secure Erez Crossing. They put together a team of supporters that included surfing legend Kelly Slater, pro-peace organization OneVoice, and Tel Aviv surfing activist Arthur Rashkovan, who convinced Israeli surfing companies to donate the boards. They then managed to garner the approval of the Israeli military to secure safe passage.
What motivated the Paskowitzes beyond their love of the wave? It is easy to believe that their own history played a role. Dr. Dorian Paskowitz learned to surf during the Depression, convincing his parents to move from Texas to California to be closer to the waves.
In following up on yesterday’s post about viral marketing and social networks, today I’d like to talk about e-mail communication and listservs.
This is a tricky area because while listservs are composed of users associated with an organization, the behavior of users represent the organization as a whole. Many organizations avoid monitoring or sanctioning users on listservs as the goal of listservs is to get the highest number of users to be as interactive as possible.
I think this is a mistake. A listserv is like a party: it’s only as good as its participants and rowdy or miscreant guests detract from everyone.
But it’s not usually as bad as all that. Barring trolls, most listserv users have good intentions, but sloppy e-mailing can waste everyone’s time.
A well managed listserv that states its user guidelines upon registration will make everyone happy and maximize use of the service.
3 Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them 1. The e-mail headline does not provide enough information. Users have to click to the body of the e-mail to figure out its point. This is a waste of time.
2. The listserv is national and is dominated by regional posts by users who do not state their exact locations. For instance, the e-mails I get from Israeli organizations usually assume that everyone is in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv and often fail to state the city (perhaps only mentioning a restaurant or street name). There are too many Ben-Gurion, Mesada, and Trumpledor streets for me to parse these details quickly. This is a waste of energy.
3. Posts are off-topic. Just because people on a listserv share common values, this doesn’t justify off-topic posting. I am a member of a number of listservs for community service organizations, but I limit my interest in their posts to their relevancy in my daily life. I understand that someone who is searching for an apartment or selling furniture might want to make a transaction with someone with allied values– it’s nice to share with friends– but on a listserv about Jewish volunteering, I really don’t care to receive notices about San Francisco sublets or pets for sale in Ra’anana. This is a waste of value.
The key purpose of listservs is for those with common interests to have access to broad swaths of information from like-minded users. Access should be quick and painless.
You work for a small to mid-sized nonprofit organization. Your demand is steady, your employees happy, and your finances good. But you know you can do better. What can you do to further promote your cause?
“Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological or computer viruses.”
Nonprofit (and profit) organizations can use viral fundraising to promote the reach of their organization, the power of their brand, and the impact of their cause by using existing social network technologies.
For a simple analogy, think of viral marketing along the lines of gossip. Tell one family member about a new boyfriend or girlfriend and you can guarantee a distant cousin you haven’t heard from in months will be calling within days. Your mother tells your aunt, who tells your uncle and cousins, who tell your grandparents, and on. Soon everyone knows.
Viral marketing follows the same exponential principle: direct contact with 10 people will lead eventually lead to a thousand. The key is to use an established networking platform so that your organization can do the basic promotion and the proficiency of the application will do the rest.
Kiva.org allows internet lenders to offer interest-free microfinance loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Impact: almost 90,000 lenders have loaned $10 million since the fall of 2005
Project Agape enables Facebook users to create online communities for their favorite causes. Impact: 2.5 million users raised $300,000 since May 2007
MySpace Impact Awards allow users to vote on charities that used MySpace to their greatest advantage. The winning charity is awarded $10,000. Note the beauty of this endeavor in that it promotes nonprofit philanthropy while forwarding its own branding
As a late twenty-something Jew living in Israel, my primary question is and has been for a long time how do I become more professionally involved in service to the Jewish community and to Israel at large?
National Service
I am of the firm belief that national service is critical to a person’s mental health and overall well being. I have always been deeply involved in community service from volunteering on the Navajo (Dineh) and Hopi reservations, doing public health work in Latin America, and leading youth groups to promote tolerance and minority rights.
But when it came time for me to graduate college, I found myself at a crossroads: how would I serve? I had two primary options. I was offered jobs as the assistant director of a public health project in Latin America (one in Central America, the other in the Caribbean). My other choice was to join a national teacher service corps called Teach For America.
Jewish Web Master Daniel Sieradski lit the blogosphere on fire last week with his appointment as Director of Digital Media at the Jewish Telegraph Agency.
A self-proclaimed Orthodox Anarchist, Sieradski has taken the plunge from being the king of the Jewish blogosphere to the mainstream of Jewish media.
Founder and author of the blogs Jewschool, Radical Torah, Corner Prophets, and Jew It Yourself/ Shul Shopper, Sieradski got his start as a Manhattan-based web developer for major Jewish communal organizations, including the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, JDub Records, NCSY, Matisyahu, and others. He also DJed on the Israeli-Palestinian All For Peace Radio.
Sieradski’s values and priorities are useful to understanding the threshold where Judaism stands today. Perched between denominations, supporting Israel and invoking criticism of its government’s policies, promoting a two state solution with the Palestinians, but decrying the violent obstacles in its wake, Sieradski epitomizes the concerns of the young, analytical Jewish adult.
3. Margot Freudenberg, a Holocaust survivor who established a network of free residential cancer treatment centers, turned 100. Ad meah v’esreem!
4. Minnesotan Jewish organizations offer aid in bridge crisis: Jewish Family and Services of Minneapolis and the Jewish Community Relations Council provide free counseling for survivors, as well as victims’ families and responders.
“A man’s workweek in 2006 was 45.4 hours long, while a woman’s was 34.8 hours long. On average, the men’s wages were 58% higher then the women’s, but considering the difference in the workweek, said the CBS, that gap was reduced to 20%.”
I have identified five best practice principles for international fundraising: attract the donors, interest the donors, invest the donors, impress the donors, and inform the donors.
Sami Shamoon College of Engineering provides a best practice model for international fundraising in Israeli higher education.
As the fastest growing college in Israel, Sami Shamoon College of Engineering focuses on the nation’s most underserved students, enabling them to get a high tech science education.
Boasting among their graduates 11 Ethiopian engineers (the most of any Israeli college or university) and the only female Bedouin engineer in the the nation, Shamoon College should be considered a hot philanthropy prospect for anyone who cares about Israel.
I’ve identified Shamoon College as a best practice fundraising model for the following reasons. Their:
Stellar website
Great promotional video
Clearly articulated mission statement and goals
Proven track record, even it its early days
Established American Friends office
Keep reading to find out why Shamoon College is a best practice model you can learn from.
It has always been my view that strategic volunteering is one of the best ways to work toward tikkun olam. I am very excited about a new project in Kathmandu, Nepal for Israelis and Jews from around the world to do Jewish study and social action work.
Ringing Bells is an AIDS education program aimed at Israeli backpackers, ages 18- 32. An initiative of the Jerusalem AIDS Project, participants are armed with training materials, travel stipends provided by Israel’s Foreign Ministry, and professional contacts as they spread across the world.
Scientists estimate that 14,000 new HIV infections arise daily, often in developing countries where Israelis commonly travel. Ringing Bells seeks to provide Israelis with a way to give back as they travel throughout the world on their personal adventures.
Ben Gurion University: International Health & Medicine Program
Ben Gurion University is educating a small cadre of American doctors in infectious diseases and international medicine. Originally titled the “Medical Pioneers Program,” this innovative initiative trains students not only in medicine, but cross-cultural sensitivity, sending them to developing countries as part of their internship program.
Bottom line: I feel bad about the title (although not the content) because it serves to undermine the generosity of Jewish philanthropy worldwide to the State of Israel.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.// This world in arms is not spending money alone.// It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
Now I’m no expert on the Israeli budget, but I do know that our military spending is for a very specific reason: our survival.
As an American, born and raised, I’m used to questioning the government’s choices about our domestic budgets in relation to our foreign spending. As an Israeli, I’m not sure that there is as much of a distinction.
The high tech sector is in full throttle, but universities decry the brain drain. We are lacking sufficient infrastructure to support and retain gifted doctors, scientists, and academics, as many of our brightest minds are forced to seek jobs overseas.
If we are in a financial crisis related to our existence that threatens our stability as the home of Am Yisrael (the Nation of Israel), shouldn’t Jewish donors who can afford to help support their brothers and sisters? Overseas Jews help with Jewish revitalization projects, support of vulnerable communities, recovery after wars, etc. Why then shouldn’t they step in, as Larry Ellison pledged to do, and offer Israel support in its time of need?
I’m not a proponent of one side or the other, but as a thinker, a writer, and someone who cares about this deeply, it is important to me to discuss these ideas and consider the range of results that each act brings.
Larry Ellison, billionaire CEO of Oracle Software, has pledged $500,000 in aid to the Israeli border town of Sderot.
Accompanied by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and US congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA), Ellison made the pledge upon hearing that the Sderot community center was not fortified from bombs and offered to pay for its protection.
Whose Responsibility to Fortify Sderot?
Personally, I wonder about the implications of such an investment for international relations and relationships, particularly as they affect Israel and the United States.
Although Ellison is a private individual, the community center in Sderot is a public entity. While it is true that Ellison is not buying the center, only ensuring its continuity, what does it mean for the government of Israel to be seeking donations from Westerners? Is it not a primary job of the government to provide protection for its people? What are the consequences of a private person stepping in to take on such a role?
Arcadi Gaydamak
The same has been asked of Arcadi Gaydamak’s ongoing support for Israelis in crisis. Although full discussion of Gaydamak will be saved for a future post, it is important to note him as an example in our discussion of the roles of private individuals and the government.
During the long days of the Second Lebanon War, Gaydamak donated $15 million (the equivalent of $500,000 a day) to establish tent villages for Northerns who evacuated. In November 2006, he funded a week long trip for residents of Sderot to Eilat, Israel’s seaside resort, to give them a break from the constant barrage of bombs from Gaza.
These donations were met with awe at their generosity and scepticism at their intent as Israelis pondered Gaydamak’s future political plans.
The Role of Private Individuals versus the Government
Both Ellison’s donation to Sderot and Gaydamak’s ongoing support to Israelis in their times of need are to be gratefully appreciated for their direct results. But it does lead one to wonder: what is the role of the government and what is the role of a private citizen?
Ellison did not happen upon the Sderot community center, but was guided there by one of the most powerful players in Israeli politics.
In my post on Charity versus Philanthropy, I stated that philanthropists step up when the government isn’t able to fulfill its role in protecting the people and bridging social divides.
Is that what is happening here? If so, what are the long term implications of Israel’s dependency on foreigners, even foreigners from among the Nation of Israel?
Posted by Maya Norton 
Posted by Maya Norton 
Posted by Maya Norton 
