Good Friday morning. Ed. note: The next edition of Your Daily Phil will arrive on Wednesday, May 1. Shabbat shalom and chag sameach! In today’s edition ofYour Daily Phil, we travel to Gaza border towns with aJewish National Fund-USAvolunteering mission, and feature an opinion piece byAya Shechteron the need for a coordinated approach to addressing antisemitism and anti-Israel activism on U.S. campuses. Also in this newsletter:Rabbi Dennis C. Sasso,Rochelle FordandAbigail Idan.We’ll start with RootOne expanding its offerings this year in light of a drop in Israel program enrollment. RootOne ..read more

RootOne, which normally subsidizes extended Israel programs, will offer vouchers for shorter trips and for domestic programs that include large numbers of Israeli participants this year in light of a roughly 90% reduction in the number of North American teens expected to come to Israel this summer, the organization said. This year, the organization will also provide vouchers for two-week trips to Israel in the winter, a break from its normal requirement that trips last at least three weeks in order to be eligible for the subsidy. “We expected to bring 6,500 [teens to Israel] this summer, an ..read more

Anti-Israel orthodoxy was already trendy in academia and on U.S. college campuses before Oct. 7, with Israel regularly lumped into the shameful history of white European colonialism, but the virulent antisemitism that has emerged with shocking force post-Oct. 7 in protests on campuses across the country has taken the Jewish community by surprise. The most recent examples are the events still unfolding at Columbia University, NYU and Yale. Jewish and Israeli-American students and faculty have reacted with passionate activism and pro-Israel demonstrations, and communal backlash has succeeded i ..read more

KIBBUTZ URIM, Israel — Undeterred by the record-breaking 105-degree heat and the threat of rocket fire, a group of some 150 American visitors traveled from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on Wednesday to Kibbutz Urim, which was came under fire on Oct. 7, and Pri Gan, a moshav infiltrated by Hamas terrorists. On the trip, which was organized by the Jewish National Fund-USA, participants planted, painted, farmed and heard firsthand accounts from residents whose lives were upended on Oct. 7. Aviva Kaufman, 19, from Chapel Hill, N.C., participated in the mission with her father, Jeffrey. She told eJewis ..read more

Good Thursday morning. In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on next month’s March of the Living, which will focus on Oct. 7 and the destruction of Hungarian Jewry, and feature an opinion piece by Lily Goodman and Dena Verhoff about how their giving circle is responding to rising antisemitism. Also in this newsletter: Erica Pelman, Henrietta Szold and Hersh Goldberg-Polin. We’ll start with how Jewish donors are responding to antisemitic protests at Columbia University. Robert Kraft, who has given millions to Columbia University, announced he was halting support for his alma mater ..read more

Robert Kraft, who has given millions to Columbia University, announced he was halting support for his alma mater over its handling of at-times violent, antisemitic student-led protests on the school’s campus in which some faculty members have taken part. Another major Jewish funder, billionaire investor Leon Cooperman, said he was considering the same, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross. However, while Kraft said in a statement that he was “not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken,” he told CNN that he would continue to make donations to the unive ..read more

Holocaust survivors who also lived through the Oct. 7 terror attacks in southern Israel or were directly affected by them will be among the 55 survivors from around the world who will lead the 36th International March of the Living in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp next month, the organization announced on Thursday. This year’s March of the Living will have a dual focus: Commemorating the Oct. 7 massacre and its significance on Holocaust Remembrance Day; and marking the 80th anniversary of the destruction of Hungarian Jewry during the Holocaust. “This years March of the Living ho ..read more

How can young Jewish philanthropists make an impact on the American Jewish community? As young Jewish philanthropists ourselves, we have contemplated this question (and been asked it by others) frequently in the months since Oct. 7. Many of us are, for the first time, experiencing the difficulty of balancing our desire for a vibrant Jewish life that is rooted in joy and safety with the vulnerability of moving through the world without hiding our Jewish identities. We are alarmed by the escalation of antisemitism on college campuses and across our communities, and we feel the tensions in longs ..read more

Good Friday morning. Ed. note:In observance of Passover, the nextYour Daily Philwill arrive in your inbox on Thursday, April 25.Chag kasher vsameach! For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition ofThe Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recenteJewishPhilanthropyandJewish Insiderstories, including:New Haggadot, supplemental readings and initiatives look to bring the global state of affairs into this year’s Passover Seder; Relief group SmartAid providing thousands of tents to Gazans, says it’s the only Israeli NGO operating in the St ..read more

The waves were a bit strong and the breeze still chilly, on the official opening day of the Shirat HaYam gender-segregated beach in Bat Yam, Israel, last week as Waves of Hope began the first lesson of its therapeutic surfing course for a new group of at-risk girls from the Haredi community. Exhilarated from her first foray into the sea with a surfboard, Elisheva David, 17, from the mainly Haredi city of Elad, was still wearing a wetsuit while a few of the other girls had already changed into their ankle-length skirts and long-sleeved shirts. “I was afraid I would be cold, and that I would ..read more