A webinar on the state of Holocaust knowledge and education in North America, with experts from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany (Claims Conference), Yad Vashem, and the Azrieli Foundation.

On this past Yom HaShoah, the Claims Conference released the findings of a Holocaust Awareness and Knowledge Survey, conducted in the United States. The study revealed alarming gaps in knowledge; while most Americans have some level of awareness of the Holocaust, 41% of those surveyed, and two thirds of Millennials, did not know about Auschwitz, and one third of all those surveyed thought fewer than 2 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

The Jewish Venture Philanthropy Fund announces the opening of its 2019 grant cycle on February 1. (Submission deadline: March 1.) The Fund seeks to support the Jewish community in North America and Israel by searching out and supporting those unique ideas that are backed by passion and by leadership with a plan to strengthen and positively impact our Jewish community.

Dr. Georgette Bennett, JFN's board chair, was among the inaugural recipients of the Global Impact Awards. The awards were presented on January 16th at a gala event in Tel Aviv, in the presence of the President of the State of Israel, Reuven Rivlin, to humanitarians who have excelled in making a positive impact in the developing world.

Antisemites think Jews cause everything bad. We’re to blame for capitalism and communism, ethnocentric nationalism and rootless globalism, and more. But I’m disappointed at their lack of creativity, because there’s one thing they haven’t yet accused us of: causing climate change and environmental catastrophe.

And the fact is, they’d have a kernel of a point if they did.

By JDC Israel and The Agudah: The Israeli National LGBT Task Force

This first-of-its-kind mapping report was created to give funders the opportunity to structure collaborations that support the LGBTQ field in Israel.

Dear friends,

Einstein famously — and disconcertingly — said that time is an illusion. But whether or not time may be illusory in terms of theoretical physics, this past Gregorian year of 2018 has been an eventful chunk of time. This just-completed year — for good and for ill — seemed to contain far more than a year's happenings, and yet to pass by in a blink.

For JFN and for our network the year was far from illusory; it was a chance for JFN and our members to make real accomplishments. Some activities were dictated by our own strategic directions, some programs by the evolving needs of our growing membership (1,840+ members at present, from a dozen countries), and some by the rocky realities of the world. Here are some highlights of our year:

Jewish foundations and philanthropists have taken on a critical role in Jewish life around the world, developing visions for the future and bringing those visions to life through their giving. We need to preserve the story of this work in funders' own voices — through their own records — so that future generations of Jewish communal leaders and historians will truly understand funders' visions, values, and activities. This task has taken on new urgency in a digital age as keeping and donating your “papers” is no longer such a straightforward task.

Speakers:

• Felicia Herman, Executive Director, Natan
• Lila Corwin Berman, Director, Feinstein Center for American Jewish History
• Annie Polland, Executive Director, American Jewish Historical Society
• Melanie Meyers, Director of Collections and Engagement, American Jewish Historical Society
  
  

The co-authors of Generation Impact: How Next Gen Donors Are Revolutionizing Philanthropy, Michael Moody and Sharna Goldseker, have developed a practical guide for family philanthropy’s next gen givers: the members of “Generation Impact.”

Encouraging Giving to Women’s & Girls’ Causes: The Role of Social Norms explores how perceptions of others’ behavior influences donors’ giving to women and girls causes—and whether that differs depending on the donor’s gender.

Question: What did the first three-headed clown juggling live baby goats say to the second three-headed clown juggling live baby goats?

Answer: I don’t know, but if I told you, you’d remember.

We tend to remember unusual and surprising things. That’s how our brain is wired; it’s an evolutionary mechanism that helps us notice new threats and opportunities in our surroundings. From ancient times to the present, memory masters have used this principle. In his book Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer explains how competitive memory champions use strange and unusual images to memorize the order of an entire deck of card in just seconds. The 7 of diamonds alone is just a card, but a 7 of diamonds being held by Einstein as he bounces around in lunar weightlessness is something unforgettable.