Adelsons give $1 million for Israel advocacy on campus

Published on April 21, 2011

Philanthropists Miri and Sheldon Adelson have pledged $1 million to further expand the Israel Fellows program on North American college campuses, The Jewish Agency said. The pledge, which was announced Thursday, will increase the number of campuses with the program to 50 from 34. The Israel Fellows program, a collaborative effort of the Jewish Agency and Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, places recent Israeli college graduates in Hillels on U.S. and Canadian campuses to assist with Israel education and advocacy.

North American immigrants lead in Israel’s nonprofit sector

Published on March 18, 2011

When David Portowicz was a new immigrant to Israel from Brooklyn in the 1970s, he began research on poverty in Jaffa that would lead to his life’s work: the creation of a nonprofit organization that now serves thousands of disadvantaged children and their families. A doctoral student in social work at the time, the small NGO he co-founded in 1982, the Jaffa Institute, today is a veritable force of nature with 35 programs and an annual operating budget of $6 million. The institute runs afterschool activity centers to help keep kids off the streets, offers university scholarships for 170 graduates of Jaffa programs, has shelters for runaways and even provides music lessons.

Yoffie Emphasizes Need to Forge Links

By Joe Berkofsky
Published on November 13, 2003

Reform Jews cannot go it alone.

That was the message at the Reform movement's 67th biennial in Minneapolis last week.

Despite numerically dominating the North American Jewish landscape, Reform Jews must reach out to other Reform Jews in Israel and Eastern Europe and fight anti-Semitism by forging closer ties to Christians, said the movement's president, Rabbi Eric Yoffie.

Jewish Croatia: Through the Looking Glass

By Gene Lichtenstein
Published on December 2, 1999

The Croatian Tourist Office in conjunction with Lufthansa had generously put together a 12 day guest package, hoping we would like what we saw (after all, parts of Croatia, especially the Dalmatian coast on the Adriatic Sea, are quite beautiful). The thought was we would combine descriptions of the famous tourist sights with a report to our readers on the life and times of Jewish Croatia.

Connections: Israelis and Americans

Published on December 3, 1998

About two weeks ago, I attended a three-day conference in Jerusalem along with more than 3,400 Americans and Canadians and 2,000 Israelis. We North Americans had all made the journey despite State Department warnings that travel in the area was unsafe, in part because of an expected confrontation with Iraq. But when we looked to see how Jerusalemites were reacting to our presence, we discovered that, in general, the Israeli world outside our convention center all but ignored us.