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Will the Giving Pledge affect Jewish causes?

Jews on the Giving Pledge list: How have they given ‘Jewish’?

 
 
 

This is what we know so far about the Jewish giving of the Jews who have accepted the Giving Pledge, according to searches of their foundations’ 990 tax forms and media reports:

Michael Bloomberg: Already one of the world’s most generous givers, the mayor of New York City has been ramping up his charity in recent years. His foundation does not yet have 990 forms that show where his money is going, but according to a New York magazine profile he is a major donor to New York’s Jewish Museum.

“Being charitable is an important part of Jewish identity,” Joan Rosenbaum, director of the museum, told the magazine. “And Michael has been an extraordinarily generous supporter of the museum since 1988.”

Eli and Edythe Broad: The Broads, who have made their biggest splashes of late in education and by practically singlehandedly building the art scene in Los Angeles, seem to get a bad rap in the Jewish world. The foundation gives away from $60 million to $400 million in a year, but only about $1 million goes to overtly Jewish causes. Still, its 990 tax forms show a bevy of four- and five-figure gifts to Jewish causes, including the American Jewish Committee, the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Anti-Defamation League, and B’nai B’rith.

In 2006, the largest Jewish gift was a $100,000 grant to Friends of Israel Arts. The same year, the Broads gave more to the United Way than to the UJA-Federation of New York.

In 2002, the foundation gave away about $2 million of the $360 million it pledged to Jewish causes, but Broad had this to say about his Jewish giving: “If I had only a little to give away, my emphasis would be on Jewish and Israeli causes,” he told the L.A. Jewish Journal. “Once you get beyond several hundred thousand dollars, you become a better and more respected citizen if you also give to the Music Center and universities. If I would donate only a million dollars, I would split it between Jewish and general community projects.”

Barry Diller and Diane Von Furstenberg: The DDVF foundation does not yet have any 990 forms available, but the foundation’s website does list a number of Jewish organizations among its grantees: Temple Sholom in New Milford, Conn., The Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side of New York, American Friends of the College of Judea, the Anti-Defamation League, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Larry Ellison: In 2007, the founder of Oracle gave $500,000 to fortify Sderot while on a mission to Israel organized by the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Joan and Irwin Jacobs: Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs is one of San Diego’s most generous men, but aside from propping up the San Diego Symphony with a more than $100 million gift last decade, the Jacobses have decided to give away most of their money through a donor-advised fund at the Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego. Last year, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, they gave the fund $24 million.

George Kaiser: The Tulsa billionaire, the son of refugees from Nazi Germany and worth about $9 billion right now, is one of the pillars of the Oklahoma Jewish community along with Lynn Schusterman. Kaiser, who gives millions to Tulsa causes — about $100 million in 2007 — also gives to Jewish causes. Among his 2007 gifts were five-figure amounts to B’nai B’rith, Cong. B’nai Emunah, the Illinois Holocaust Museum, and the Jewish Federation Foundation, according to his foundation’s 990 form for 2008.

Lorry Lokey: Lokey says he wants to die broke or close to it. Among his largest gifts was a $33 million pledge to the American Technion Society. He also has given heavily to the Leo Baeck School in Haifa, one of Israel’s two Reform Jewish schools. He also has given to Ben-Gurion University. Lokey told JTA last week in an interview that while he has already pledged away most of his $700 million fortune, he expects to make another few hundred million dollars before he dies, and the next $60 million or so would go to Israeli education.

Bernie and Millie Marcus: Bernie Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot, spent some $200 million in building the Aquarium in Atlanta, where he is based. The aquarium and Marcus hosted an evening event at the annual conference of the Jewish Funders Network back in 2008, and the Marcus foundation also has a branch dedicated to Jewish giving. The foundation’s 990 tax form for 2008 shows only two gifts to Jewish causes — $4 million to the Jewish Federation of Atlanta and $250,000 to the Institute for Jewish and Community Research in San Francisco.

Bernard and Barbro Osher: The Oshers have two foundations, the Bernard Osher Foundation, which gave away more than $100 million to general causes in 2007 — many of them $1 million-plus gifts to universities — and the Bernard Osher Jewish Philanthropies Foundation, which is run by the Jewish Federation of San Francisco. The latter gave away $4 million in 2007 to an array of groups ranging from the Jewish Music Festival in San Francisco to the Osher JCC in Marin County. The largest gift that year was a $2 million capital grant paid in shares of Wachovia to Cong. Beth Sholom in San Francisco.

David M. Rubenstein: The billionaire behind the Carlyle group is perhaps best known for his recent mammoth gifts to the Lincoln Center in New York Cit, but he has given to Jewish causes as well. In 2008, for instance, he pledged $500,000 to help establish a $1.5 million professorship in Jewish studies at the University of North Carolina. More interestingly, in talking about his philanthropy, he has a knack for bringing up his Jewish identity.

Herb and Marion Sandler: The Sandlers, the philanthropists behind ProPublica, also seem to have gotten a bad rap in the Jewish world — perhaps because some do not appreciate their liberal views on Israel. A look at the 990 tax form shows that their foundation “made grants in support of the charitable, educational, scientific, or religious purposes of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, Marin, the Peninsula, and Sonoma Counties.” The foundation gave away $94.5 million in 2007, with $65,000 going to the New Israel Fund and $1.3 million to the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco.

Jeff Skoll: Those looking for overtly Jewish gifts in the philanthropic portfolio of this Jewish-born Canadian eBay executive are going to be disappointed. There’s nothing in the $28 million in giving listed in his 990 tax form that suggests any overtly Jewish giving. But Skoll has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to organizations such as Common Ground that are working toward better understanding and peace in the Middle East.

Shelby White: Although we are not sure if White is Jewish, her late husband Leon Levy was, and the foundation of which she is the trustee has given seriously to Jewish causes. Most recently the foundation, which is heavily into archeology, history and the arts, gave $860,000 to the Center for Jewish History for an archival project. According to its latest 990 form, in 2007 the foundation gave $90,000 to Harvard’s Ashkelon archeological dig, $220,000 to the Center for Jewish History, $1.3 million to the Harvard Semitic Museum and $3.5 million to the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Sanford and Joan Weill: Sanford Weill, the Citibank mogul, is most philanthropically famous for his $250 million gift to the Weill Cornell Medical Center. He was honored with the Center for Jewish History’s Emma Lazarus Award during the mid-1990s, which means he likely has given there, but according to a CJH source it has not been for quite some time.

(This article was adapted from JTA’s philanthropy blog, Fundermentalist.com.)

 

More on: Will the Giving Pledge affect Jewish causes?

 
 
 

The philanthropic world got a happy jolt when 40 members of the world’s wealthy elite — including 13 Jews — announced that they would give away more than half their money before they died.

The participating philanthropists were responding last week to a challenge issued earlier this year by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates to their billionaire peers to donate more than half of their wealth in their lifetimes. Buffett and Gates called it the Giving Pledge.

But without any obvious signs of where their money will go, it’s unclear what impact this will have on Jewish nonprofits.

 
 
 
 
 
 
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‘Historic partnership’ recalled

Rosenwald Schools had national impact

In the late 1800s, seeking funds to build Alabama’s Tuskegee University — then Tuskegee Normal School — the author and educator Booker T. Washington went up north to solicit help from known philanthropists. Among them was Chicago resident Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck, and Co.

“A lot of northern philanthropists were looking to help out with education in the South,” said Tracy Hayes, field officer and project manager for the Rosenwald Schools Initiative of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

In the end, she said, Rosenwald’s contribution would help not just Tuskegee, but the cause of public education throughout the south — and the nation as a whole. Through his efforts, some 5,000 schools were opened for African American children, some of which still function today.

 

Tears in Teaneck

Lipstadt keynotes annual Shoah event

It was an emotional, bittersweet Teaneck Holocaust commemoration this year. Perhaps it was because long-time residents Arlene Duker, who lost her daughter to Arab terrorists many years ago, and Rabbi Johnny Krug, a son of survivors and dean of student life and welfare at Frisch High School, read the family names of those who were lost in the Shoah. Among them were Backenroth, Flanzbaum, Malca, Jacobowitz, Adler, Bacall, Goldberg, Greenwald, Morris, Kraar, Taffet, Lewkowitz, Weissler, Rosenberg, Hampel, Stern, and many other familiar names — all neighbors, all second generation, all families with decades-deep roots in Teaneck, tied together by the tragedies of the Shoah and the triumph of survival.

Teaneckers have played an important role in shaping Holocaust education since 1979, so it was appropriate for Deborah Lipstadt, the keynote speaker, to talk about the Adolf Eichmann trial and the politics surrounding it. Earlier in the evening, she told The Jewish Standard that the trial 50 years ago gave the world a universal view of the Shoah, because for the first time, survivors gave testimony.

 

A search that lasted 67 years ends at Frisch

Survivor meets family of Army captain who saved him

Frisch students, 650 of them, listened raptly as one of their teachers, Rabbi Jonathan Spier, grandson of Walter Spier, a survivor of the Shoah, described the moment in 2006, in Mauthaussen, that changed his life. He was on a “roots” trip with his grandfather, Walter Spier, a survivor from Marburg, Germany; his parents; and siblings. That day set him on a path to find the man who saved his grandfather’s life, because Walter wanted to say thank you.

It was a 67-year old quest that began in earnest when Jonathan went on the Internet on the anniversary of Kristallnacht 2011 to search for Capt. Mike Levy, the American captain who was Commandant of the Displaced Persons Camp in Mauthaussen. The captain made Walter his special project—providing him with clothing, preventing him from eating too much when food finally arrived, and by putting him on a train to his hometown to search for his brother—just one step ahead of the Communists. When Walter and Jonathan talked about their search at Congregation Ahavat Achim, Bergen County resident Randy Herschaft, a longtime Associated Press investigative researcher, heard about their quest and offered to help with data searches.

 

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Weiner quits Congress, apologizes for ‘personal mistakes’

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Rep. Anthony Weiner resigned and apologized in the wake of a scandal in which he lied about sexually explicit exchanges on social media outlets.

“I am here today to apologize for the personal mistakes I have made and the embarrassment that I have caused,” Weiner (D-N.Y.) said at a news conference Thursday at a home for the elderly in Brooklyn where in the past he has announced his intention to run for office.

 

From praise to anger, Jewish response to Obama’s speech runs the gamut

WASHINGTON – From accolades like “compelling” to accusations like “Auschwitz borders” to radio silence, to label the Jewish response to President Obama’s speech on Middle East policy as diverse understates matters.

The very breadth of the Middle East policy speech — 5,600 words and covering the entire Middle East and decades of history — helps explain the wildly divergent responses from Jewish groups and opinion shapers, even among some who are otherwise often on the same page.

One could as easily pick out points for Israel — slamming the Palestinian Authority’s pact with Hamas as well as its bid for unilateral statehood — as one could the demerits — for many, the most explicit endorsement of the pre-1967 lines as the basis for future borders by any American president.

 

Obama: 1967 borders with swaps should serve as basis for negotiations

WASHINGTON – President Obama said the future state of Palestine should be based on the pre-1967 border with mutually agreed land swaps with Israel.

In his address Thursday afternoon on U.S. policy in the Middle East, Obama told an audience at the State Department that the borders of a “sovereign, nonmilitarized” Palestinian state “should be based on 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.”

Negotiations should focus first on territory and security, and then the difficult issues of the status of Jerusalem and what to do about the rights of Palestinian refugees can be broached, Obama said.

 
 
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