‘Moment’: Jewish Philanthropy

The state of Jewish philanthropy used to be measured by the local Jewish federations that raised money in cities across the country, notes Moment magazine (February). While the 156 federations continue to be a “central pillar of Jewish philanthropic life,” the federations are no longer the largest part of the total giving picture, the magazine says.

In addition to giving through Jewish federations, many wealthy Jewish donors are setting up their own foundations. The magazine estimates that some 7,000 such foundations now exist, and that they are worth $2-billion.

While Jewish giving appears to be on the rise, the magazine says, that will not continue unless fund raisers find ways to encourage greater giving to Jewish causes, especially by young donors. One way to do that, says Moment, is to create institutions to meet new needs and to restructure some existing organizations to appeal to a new generation of donors.

Some people think more should be done. “Some Jewish organizations need to go out of business, ” says Gary Tobin, of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, in San Francisco, told the magazine. “Jewish donors are besieged with literally hundreds of appeals from groups about which they know very little, while a lot of the major issues in Jewish life are not necessarily being addressed in ways Jewish donors relate to. Issues of making Judaism interesting, making it participatory in ways that make people want to come back, dealing with the fact that many Jewish households are mixed.”

Michael Steinhardt, a New York money manager who retired in 1995 to devote his time to philanthropy, tells the magazine he thinks the situation for Jewish philanthropy is very bleak, and he says he is worried that not enough is being done to appeal to young Jews. “Old organizations that have lost their raison d’être God knows how long ago, organizations that should die, don’t die. Jews have it in their head that as long as there’s a residual echo of the Holocaust, they have this great fear of anti-Semitism. So the ADL [Anti-Defamation League], the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, the Wiesenthal Center, all these wonderful organizations that do next to nothing for the Jewish future, see a much larger share of the pot than I think is correct.”

The article is available at http://www.momentmag.com.