In a keynote address to the 2019 LIFE & LEGACY/Create a Jewish Legacy Leadership Gathering sponsored by the Harold Grinspoon Foundation and The Jewish Federations of North America, JFN President & CEO Andrés Spokoiny discusses the "disintermediation of the world": the removal of "middleman" functions in all aspects of life—including philanthropy, where centralized communal giving has been challenged by the rapid growth of independent philanthropy. This trend brings both problems and opportunities.

When JFN originally scheduled this webinar with Yohanan Plesner, president of the non-partisan Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), it was to discuss news reports about a proposal to effectively remove the Israeli Supreme Court's power to hold the Knesset and ministries accountable to Israeli Basic Law, virtually eliminating the important democratic principle of checks and balances from Israel’s political system. But mere hours before the webinar convened, PM Netanyahu was unable to form a coalition, the Knesset dissolved, and new elections were scheduled for September.

In this video, Plesner provides a comprehensive overview of the Israeli political scene — how we got to this unprecedented situation, what to watch over the coming months, what could change, what probably won't change, and what it all means for the future of the original topic of this webinar: safeguarding the principles of checks and balances, democratic accountability, and the rule of law in Israel.

At the Jewish Funders Network 2019 International Conference, Marcy Gringlas of Seed the Dream Foundation discussed the urgent task of meeting the needs of Holocaust survivors.

At the Jewish Funders Network 2019 International Conference in San Francisco, three distinguished Jewish thinkers discussed how technology is reshaping Jewish life.

At the JFN 2019 International Conference in San Francisco, Yossi Klein Halevi, a leading Israeli writer and analyst, and co-director of Shalom Hartman Institute’s Muslim Leadership Initiative, discussed the need of the Jewish people to find in its national movement a “third way” between the impulses toward tribalism/ethnocentrism or a multicultural paradigm that demands people shed their particular identities. Rabbi Noa Kushner, Founder of The Kitchen, an independent religious community in San Franciso, spoke to the possibility of another identity and group-building rubric, one centered on Jewish experience, mission and commitment. How do Jews in Israel and the Diaspora alike navigate the perplexity and complexity of these issues as the Jewish people navigate painful differences and seek a common story, a common purpose, and a common identity?

Dr. Tali Sharot spoke at the Jewish Funders Network 2019 International Conference in San Francisco in March 2019. These are brief highlights of her talk. 

Video: At the JFN 2019 International Conference, Jay Kaiman, President of The Marcus Foundation, thanks Judy Mann (retiring COO of Jewish Funders Network) on behalf of the whole JFN community, for her many years of dedicated work and wisdom.

David Rittberg, Director of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation's U.S. Jewish grantmaking portfolio, was presented with the 2019 JJ Greenberg Memorial Award at the JFN 2019 International Conference in San Francisco. The award honors foundation professionals engaged in grantmaking, age 40 and under, who have demonstrated extraordinary leadership in Jewish philanthropy. Felicia Herman of NATAN presented the award.

This webinar will empower first-time conference attendees to get as much out of the conference as you can. We discuss everything you need to know to have an enjoyable and productive experience—from the flow of a typical conference day to strategies for networking and side meetings to information about site tours and hosted dinners.

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.