Pew and the Jews, Part 2: Experts Say Leveraging Poll Data Trumps Numbers

Posted on June 21, 2015 by JNS.org and filed under Features, Jewish Life, U.S.. By Maayan Jaffe/JNS.org Caption: The Jewish Community Festival in Bellevue, Wash., in August 2007. At left is the booth of the Secular Jewish Circle of Puget Sound, which brings people together “to celebrate Jewish culture and heritage in a non-religious setting.” Surveys on American Judaism by institutes such as the Pew Research Center often ignite debates on religious vs. secular Jewish observance and identification. Credit: Joe Mabel via Wikimedia Commons. Since the Pew Research Center released its U.S. Religious Landscape Study in May, most discussion of its findings has been quickly drowned out by  Read More…

Reaching The Tipping Point For Campus Anti-Semitism

Source: Times of Israel A wave of anti-Semitism is sweeping across American universities. During the 2014-2015 school year, resolutions calling for a boycott of the Jewish state were passed by 15 student governments — and considered by more than 15 others.   At UCLA, the student government passed a boycott resolution against Israel by a wide margin – and a Jewish student was almost prevented from joining the same government’s Judicial Board following accusations that her Jewish identity gave her dual loyalties. At Stanford, a young Jewish woman running for the Student Senate was subjected to a barrage of hostility due to her  Read More…

Moving and Shaking: AFHU Award Dinner, TRZ Yom HaShoah Event and Fire Safety at B’nai David-Judea

Source: Jewish Journal by Ryan Torok New Community Jewish High School (NCJHS) celebrated its upcoming name-change to de Toledo High School — which goes into effect July 1 — during the school’s annual gala at the Skirball Cultural Center on May 17. The event honored members of the de Toledo family: Alyce and Philip de Toledo and the couple’s sons, Benjamin, who graduated from the school in 2014, and Aaron. The family made a gift of an undisclosed amount last year to the school — the impetus for the school’s name change — that will fund an endowment to offset tuition costs, and which has supported renovations to  Read More…

Joining Forces To Fight The Anti-Israel Boycott

Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson convene Campus Maccabees Summit in Las Vegas, attended by 50 groups, to formulate strategy on how to defeat boycott campaign against Israel • Adelson: We must be united. Time has come to initiate and stop reacting. Everyone who asked American Jewish businessman and philanthropist Sheldon Adelson over the weekend the question of how the boycott campaign against Israel could be defeated received the same answer: “Cooperation.” On Friday, Adelson and his wife, Dr. Miriam Adelson, convened the Campus Maccabees Summit at The Venetian hotel in Las Vegas involving around 50 different groups engaged in the  Read More…

The Israeli-Americans: Who They Are, What They Want, Where They’re Headed, Why They Matter

Source: Jewish Journal by Jared Sichel Last November, a group of ambitious Israeli-Americans captured the inside-the-Beltway limelight for a weekend with a large, flashy conference at the Washington Hilton. Among the highlights were billionaire businessmen and political donors Sheldon Adelson, a Republican, and Haim Saban, a Democrat — who had an animated, moderated onstage discussion — as well as appearances by former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, and Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). The conference was staged by the Israeli-American Council (IAC), which formed eight years ago in its home city of Los Angeles and has an expanding nationwide  Read More…

Tennessee General Assembly Becomes First State Legislature To Condemn BDS

Source: JNS.org Posted on April 21, 2015 by Sean Savage/JNS.org. The Tennessee General Assembly on Tuesday became the first state legislature in the U.S. to formally condemn the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. Senate Joint Resolution 170, initially passed April 9 by the Tennessee Senate in a unanimous 30-0 vote, was approved by the Tennessee House of Representatives in an overwhelming 93-1 vote on Tuesday, with Democratic State Representative G.A. Hardaway the lone dissenter.  The resolution, which is expected to be signed next week by Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam, declares that the BDS movement is “one of the main vehicles  Read More…

The Times of Israel: Building a Community Network to Fight a Hate Network

Source: The Times Of Israel “Given your Jewish identity, how would you vote on divestment [from the State of Israel]?” Such was the question posed to Molly Horwitz this month, a junior at Stanford University, as she sought the endorsement of the Students of Color Coalition in her bid for student government. In March at UCLA, sophomore Rachel Beyda faced a similar interrogation, as elected members of the student government expressed concern at a public meeting about her ability to be unbiased given her involvement with Jewish organizations. Questions about bias do not seem to be thrown at students affiliated  Read More…

Jewish Journal: The Israeli-American Council (IAC) goes to Washington DC … and plans to stay

Source: Jewish Journal On the evening of March 1, just before a private Israeli-American Council (IAC) event for college students at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference in Washington, D.C., it was difficult for two of IAC’s co-founders, Shawn Evenhaim and Adam Milstein, to walk more than a few feet without being approached by attendees. Some thanked them for their support (both Milstein’s family foundation and the IAC have helped sponsor many students’ trips to AIPAC), others sought advice on Israel advocacy and on their careers, while the rest seemed simply to want to talk. The post-dinner gathering  Read More…

Kosher OC: Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation: Connecting and Getting Involved in the Cause

Source: Kosher OC Philanthropist Adam Milstein thinks there is a problem with the culture of many Jewish and pro-Israel organizations.  Because their priority is to raise funds, each one wants to stand out as the most important, effective organization.  “Just give us the money, and we can take care of it, is the way they present themselves,” he said.  If they work together, they can’t take all the credit, and then they can’t raise as much money.” Milstein, 63, thinks he has a better solution.  It started in Los Angeles, where Milstein and his wife live.  He brought big donors  Read More…

JNS: ‘Active’ philanthropist Adam Milstein a growing connector in the Jewish world

Source: JNS.org  BY JACOB KAMARAS/JNS.ORG The way philanthropist Adam Milstein sees it, the priorities of fundraising and survival mean that Jewish and pro-Israel organizations are held back by a natural instinct against intimate and robust collaboration. “Every one of those organizations would like to take all the credit for themselves [and say], ‘The BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel) resolution did not pass because we stood there, and we trained the students, and we stood with them all night long, and without us it wouldn’t have happened,’’ Milstein says. “And then you have some organizations trying to take  Read More…