More in ‘philanthropy’

Roughly 20 percent of Slate’s list of the top 60 donors in 2009 are Jews (including the top giver, Pittsburgh financiers Stanley F. and Fiona B. Druckenmiller). Folks you may have heard of include Michael Bloomberg (4); George Soros (6); Eli and Edythe Broad (7); and David Rubinstein (52). The Fundermentalist, JTA’s philanthropy blog, notes ...

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is arguably the most important person in the world of Jewish philanthropy. The one-time third-richest man in the world (the stock in his company, Las Vegas Sands, has fallen, pushing him down to 25th) has donated millions to Yad Vashem, Jerusalem’s Shalem Center, and particularly Birthright. Adelson is also the owner ...

One year ago today, the sons of asset management whiz Bernard Madoff informed legal authorities that their father had confessed to running a multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme. A central point in the financial web of Jewish-American personages and institutions, he was arrested the following day, and the rest is history. The Forward has a retrospective package, ...

• Rabbi Jonathan B. Freirich of the Roma Rights Network has joined Hindu groups in requesting a disclaimer on James Cameron’s upcoming 3D sci-fi flick Avatar, as the title is also “a Sanskrit term meaning descent or incarnation,” and “the central theme in Hinduism.” [All Headline News]
• British Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks is more concerned ...

The glass ceiling, regrettably intact at philanthropic institutions across the country, is even harder to break for women at Jewish organizations. That’s according to an alarming story in the Forward, which reports that while three-quarters of the workforce at 75 major Jewish social service agencies, educational and religious institutions, and federations are women, women hold ...

• Talks began between Western leaders and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Geneva yesterday; the United States is looking to be reassured about Iran’s nuclear program but is prepared with sanctions in case that doesn’t work out. [Reuters]
• A German court upheld a law that excludes property in housing estates from being returned to pre-Holocaust ...

United Jewish Communities, the money-hemorrhaging umbrella organization for the North American Jewish federation system, announced yesterday that its new president and CEO will be Jerry Silverman, who since 2004 has headed the small but scrappy Foundation for Jewish Camp, a non-profit dedicated to bolstering the fortunes of North America’s Jewish summer overnight camps. In a ...

Cheryl Saban knows exactly what she’s worth. Within minutes of sitting down recently for an interview in the second-floor lounge of the Ritz-Carlton in midtown Manhattan, overlooking Central Park, Saban—the wife of Israeli-born entertainment mogul and powerhouse political donor Haim Saban—leaned forward and said, conspiratorially, “He’s a multi-billionaire, so it makes me one, too.”
Saban is ...

“Pre-Pesach Mock Shabbat” at Moishe House Seattle, April 1, 2007
It’s Friday night in Seattle, and in a residential neighborhood not far from the bars and clubs where you might expect to find them, a bunch of twentysomethings are preparing Shabbat dinner. This is decidedly not the observant, day-of-rest crowd; many of them have plans to ...

Peter Paul Rubens, The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek, c.1625
Joel Fleishman, a professor of law and public policy at Duke University, wrote