Charitable Giving

Making The Most Of Gleaning

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:45:20 +0000

Using volunteerism and philanthropic dollars to feed the growing ranks of Israel’s needy citizens.

Michele Chabin

Israel Correspondent

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Rehovot, Israel — When students at the Ulpana Orot Modi’in, a religious girls’ high school, learned that a classmate’s 18-year-old brother had fallen into a coma during the summer, they began to recite prayers and psalms for the young man’s recovery.

The 12th graders also decided to do good deeds on the injured man’s behalf, believing that he will be credited with the mitzvot and, hopefully, be healed.

Essay: Rebranding Tzedakah

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:43:32 +0000

Moving the concept from charity to sacred spending.

Daniel S. Nevins

Special To The Jewish Week

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

The third paragraph of birkat hamazon, the prayer after eating, presents an odd conflation of concerns. Opening with a petition for divine mercy toward Israel, its people, capital, temple and monarchy, the prayer veers into an anxious plea to escape material dependence on other mortals: “Do not make us dependent upon the gifts of people, nor on their loans, but only on Your full, bountiful, and capacious hand, that we not be ashamed or humiliated forever.” .

Giving’s All In The Family

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:41:19 +0000

Inside one clan’s collective philanthropic effort.

Tamar Snyder

Special To The Jewish Week

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

In June, Becca Linden’s extended family gathered at the Chicago Inn in Illinois. Some 80 relatives attended the weekend soiree, flying in from places like California, Toronto, Arizona, Colorado, and New York. The family reunion featured a sumptuous Shabbat dinner, family videos on Saturday night, and games like “two truths and a lie” (wherein players attempt to separate truth from fiction about each other’s lives).

For ‘Friends’ Groups, A New Normal

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:39:00 +0000

With the philanthropic ground under them shifting, American ‘Friends of’ nonprofits having to adjust to new realities.

Helen Chernikoff

Staff Writer

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Giving to American “Friends of” Israel organizations dropped sharply in recent years, but don’t blame the economic downturn, say the writers of a recent report that documented and analyzed the dip. The recession exacerbated the decrease in donations suffered by such groups as the Jerusalem Foundation, the American Friends of Open University and the Hadassah Medical Relief Organization but didn’t cause it, the report’s author, Avrum Lapin of EHL Consulting Group, told The Jewish Week..

Hands-on Tzedakah Education

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:37:00 +0000

In the classroom and extra-curricular activities, local Jewish schools are teaching today’s students to be tomorrow’s givers.

Steve Lipman

Staff Writer

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

In the Yeshivah of Flatbush’s Sephardic Beit Midrash, faculty member Sara Ovadia is leading a few dozen students in a lunch-hour discussion about charity late one recent morning.

While the students, members of the school’s Tzedakah Commission, an educational-activist project, quietly pick at pizza and pasta in the crowded study hall, Ovadia outlines several upcoming programs for which she will need volunteers. A food pantry. A scavenger hunt. Pledges for teachers racing in a fund-raising marathon.

Charitable Giving November 2011

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:33:52 +0000

From a yeshiva in Brooklyn to the orchards of Rehovot, learning the lessons of tzedakah. Plus, American ‘Friends Of’ groups adjusting to new giving realities, and one family’s giving circle.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

A Leadership Training Program Struggles For Funding

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 22:39:24 +0000

In tough economic times, what’s seen as a particularly valuable
federation initiative needs a donor or two.

Doug Chandler

Special To The Jewish Week

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Melissa Donald, a staff member at the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan since 2003, decided only a few years ago that her work in the Jewish world was not just a job, nor even a career, but “a calling.”

But that discovery wouldn’t have come at that point in her life if it weren’t for the Muehlstein Institute, she said, referring to the training program sponsored by UJA-Federation of New York for Jewish communal professionals at the start of their career.

Charity Begins At The Beginning

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 22:37:15 +0000

Instilling the spirit of tzedakah at a young age,
and keeping it going.

Merri Rosenberg

Special To The Jewish Week

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

F rom the time Sue Blumberg’s 12-year-old son Sam was 2, she’s made sure to include him in meaningful volunteer activities.

For The Perplexed, A Guide To Giving

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 22:35:10 +0000

Experts weigh in on how to judge requests and
vet charities. The philanthropic road from
Maimonides to Guidestar.

Steve Lipman

Staff Writer

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

A middle-aged professional in the Jewish communal world, Ari H. deals with a dilemma of Jewish life every time he returns from his Manhattan office to his home in Bergen County — how to honor the mitzvah of giving tzedakah with integrity while sorting out the constant requests for his money.

A Foundation With A Cause

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 22:33:32 +0000

One family foundation has made the inclusion of special needs children in the Jewish community its signature issue.

Tamar Snyder

Staff Writer

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

L ike most family foundations, the Ruderman Family Foundation at first operated as a checkbook, giving away money to a variety of different causes. Then, about six years ago, the foundation partnered with Gateways: Access to Jewish Education and Boston’s Combined Jewish Philanthropies to launch the Initiative for Day School Excellence, a $45 million effort that enabled Jewish children with special needs to access any of the 14 Jewish day schools in the Boston area.

When Facebook And Philanthropy Meet

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 22:31:25 +0000

Chabad schools poised to win big money
from Kohl’s national schools giveaway.

Sharon Udasin

Special To The Jewish Week

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

H ebrew Academy in Huntington Beach, Calif., might only have 300-odd students, but when it comes to community outreach, it seems to have no trouble harnessing the power of social networking to press its cause.

Using Philanthropy ‘To Solve Problems’

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 22:29:30 +0000

Mark Charendoff, the departing Jewish Funders Network president, looks back, and ahead.

Tamar Snyder

Staff Writer

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

When Mark Charendoff publicly announced his decision to step down as president of the Jewish Funders Network at the end of the year, he was following his own advice. In an Opinion piece in The Jewish Week last month, Charendoff called for term limits for heads of Jewish communal agencies. “How long is too long at the top?” he asked. “I’m not dogmatic, but eight to 10 years feels like it’s enough. While it may seem a short time, it should.

Charitable Giving October 2010

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 22:26:44 +0000

Outgoing Jewish Funders Network president on present, and future, of Jewish philanthropy; family foundation makes special needs a signature issue; Chabad schools poised to reap Kohl's contest money.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Keeping Pace With Nature's Fury

Amy Spiro — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 20:16:22 +0000

Charitable Giving

Amy Spiro

Editorial Intern

As a succession of disasters strike, Jewish relief organizations struggle to raise enough funds to respond.

Almost four years after the 2004 tsunami in South Asia, one of the deadliest natural disasters in history, relief and rebuilding efforts in the affected areas are far from over.
But in the years since, disasters and crises in other areas of the world have also demanded attention and humanitarian aid, including the cyclone in Burma and the earthquake in Sichuan, China, both of which hit in May of this year, and more recently the war in South Ossetia, Georgia. Add to that the damage on U.S. soil from a succession of tropical storms and hurricanes.

AJWS Amy Spiro charitable giving charity earthquake JDC tsunami

Facing Israel’s ‘Katrina’

Gabriela — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:43:04 +0000

Charitable Giving

by Michele Chabin

Israel Correspondent

JERUSALEM — When northerners holed up in bomb shelters needed food during the recent war between Israel and Hezbollah, local municipalities contacted non-profit organizations, which in turn delivered the food at their own expense. Numerous other organizations and individuals delivered everything from medications and toys to the northerners, most of whom had fled to the hot, neglected shelters with little more than the clothes on their backs.