Elye Robinovitz:
Hi everyone. Thank you for joining us. My name is Elye Robinovitz. I am a sophomore here at Brandeis and current treasurer of Brandeis Hillel. Our speaker today is Rabbi Dan Judson. Rabbi Judson received his doctorate from Brandeis University in 2016 and presently serves as the dean of the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College. He is the author of Pennies for Heaven: The History of the American Synagogue and Money, published through Brandeis University Press. His book was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. His research on trends in synagogue finance have been featured in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, NPR, The New York Jewish Week, and Haaretz. Rabbi Judson is also a gifted storyteller and has appeared on the national Moth radio show. For this event, Rabbi Judson will speak for around 20ish minutes, and during this time, please feel free to put any questions you have in the chat, and I will be moderating that and then asking them during the Q&A period.
Dan Judson:
Great. Thank you, Elye. Thank you everybody coming tonight. It's nice to see some people that I know. I see Jan Schwartz is here. My friend Shirley Idelson, who runs the Hornstein Program at Brandeis, is here. I think my brother, actually, is here, whose daughter, my niece, goes to Brandeis Hillel. I just want to say a word about Brandeis Hillel. Brandeis is dear to me, and I'm grateful to be here. It's an important place in my own education. It's a place where I learned a tremendous amount, and when my niece, who's now a sophomore at Brandeis, started going to Brandeis last year, which I was super excited about, I took her and Rabbi Stephanie Sanger-Miller, the assistant director of Brandeis Hillel, out for dinner. I just saw in Stephanie, the way that Stephanie was able to relate to my niece Rachel, the engagement, the sincerity, the warmth. Brandeis Hillel's a special place. It's a delight for me to be here and help Brandeis Hillel in any way possible, so thank you very much Celine and Stephanie for having me.
Dan Judson:
We're talking tonight about the history of Jewish philanthropy. There's a lot going on in the world right now, so the history of American Jewish philanthropy may not be on everybody's minds as something that they've been thinking about, but it's a really interesting topic. I'm going to try and cover a few different episodes. We're not going to cover, obviously, the entire history of American Jewish philanthropy in 20 to 25 minutes. What I'm going to do is cover a few episodes that I think are particularly interesting and shed particular light on the Jewish community, and its evolution, and how we think about giving, and then from there, take questions, but if you have a question that you feel like is pressing, just you'll put it in the chat, and Elye will.... I told him he should interrupt me if it's a really good question. That's how you'll know your question is a good question. If he interrupts me, then it's a really good question. If he doesn't interrupt me, it was an okay question, and I'll get to it at the end.
Dan Judson:
When we talk about American Jewish philanthropy, what the term usually means, how scholars understand it in general, is this is about Jews, not particular Jews, not individual Jews, but how Jews give to Jewish organizations, Jewish institutions, and so what I want to do is begin by tracing where that starts and very quickly move into the beginning of Jewish federations and say some words about where we are today. When Jews come to America, unlike other communities, immediately, Jews are involved in philanthropy because Jews have to support synagogues.
Dan Judson:
When Jews begin coming to this country in the 18th century, other religious communities have institutions, which are established churches. Depending on what state you are, each state had an established church. If you were a Quaker in Pennsylvania, if you were a Protestant in most states, if you were a Congregationalist in Massachusetts, all of those states were paying their clergy. In fact, what it meant to be a member of a church in New England was to be a taxpayer, that every taxpayer, even if you were not a member of a church, could show up and vote for whether the minister should stay or not by the simple fact that you paid taxes because those taxes were supporting the churches. That is the nature of establishment.
Dan Judson:
When America, state by state, takes away the establishment of churches, some scholars suggest that that is the largest single move of philanthropic resources in the history of America when all those churches go from being state funded to being funded by each individual. You may not know this, but there was a huge argument between those who thought that churches should be disenfranchised, should be moved from being state established to non-established, you all know the name, in fact, for all those who were against the states no longer establishing churches. The name for people against states establishing churches was... Does somebody want to write it in the chat? It's everybody's... Yes. Elye, did anybody get this yet, what the word is for people who are against-
Elye Robinovitz:
Not yet.
Dan Judson:
Exactly. Rabbi Sanger-Miller was the first person to get it. Antidisestablishmentarianism, that word we all learned in fourth grade as the longest word in the English language, means those people in the early 19th century who were against disestablishing churches in America. What is all this about? This is all about the idea that, from the moment that Jews come to these shores, they are responsible for their own upkeep. They are responsible for their own philanthropic organizations. The Jewish community has always been responsible, in effect, for itself. One of the rules that was stated when it first came and allowed to settle in the mid-17th century were that Jews would have to take care of their own, that the Jewish poor could not apply to the state for aid. It wouldn't be given. Jewish community had to figure out how to have its own synagogues and how to have its own aid groups.
Dan Judson:
From the very beginning of our time on these shores, there's a kind of sense of expectation of Jewish philanthropy and an expectation of Jews taking care of their own that was literally part of the agreement reached for allowing Jews in this country was that we would take care of our own poor, so there was always an expectation that the Jewish community would support their own. Initially, it was synagogues, and synagogues had their own societies, which cared for the poor in the 18th century. One of the biggest sources of Jewish philanthropy in the 18th century was that people would come and move from synagogue to synagogue asking for money so that they would... Oh. No. That's not me. I'm not sure what's happening. Celine, is that... Did the stream change? Yeah.
Dan Judson:
People would come to the synagogue in New York, and they would ask the rabbi or the spiritual leader for funds, and that rabbi would give them five pounds on the agreement that they would leave town, and they would leave town and go on to the synagogue in Philadelphia. The spiritual leader there would give them five pounds on the agreement that they would leave town, and there was a whole network of people that moved from synagogue to synagogue up and down the East Coast, Jews, poor immigrants who would rely on the philanthropy of synagogues but under the proviso that they would then have to move on upon receiving funds.
Dan Judson:
But eventually, the Jewish community grows large enough that it needs its own organizations outside of synagogues to support those who are in need. That's where Jewish philanthropy grows beyond synagogues. It becomes orphanages, hospitals, organizations that take on a greater capacity to care for those in society. Again, throughout the 19th century, Jews are still, by and large, taking care of their own and are not really reliant on governmental aid in any sort of way.
Dan Judson:
I want to make two stops with you tonight on this. The first stop I really want to make is in the Civil War, actually, and look at one document from the Civil War that I found in my research. My research is on the history of how synagogues funded themselves, which sounds maybe not like the most interesting and exciting of topics, but I've found plenty of interesting stories. One of the interesting stories I want to share with you now is about what happened to two synagogues during the Civil War in the South.
Dan Judson:
I was interested in doing my research, like how did synagogues fund themselves during the middle of the Civil War? Did people pay dues? What did people do during the middle of the Civil War? Jews, you will remember, during the Civil War, if you lived in the South, you were a supporter of the Confederacy. You lived in the North, you were a supporter of the Union. I think a lot of us, looking back, would have some hope that, if you lived in the South, and you were Jewish, you had enough sensibility not to support the Confederacy. Of course, that wasn't the case. Location, location, location. If you lived in the South, you generally supported the Confederacy. It wasn't true for every Jew who lived in the South, but it was true for most Jews who lived in the South. Of course, Judah Benjamin at the time was the most well-known Jew in the country. He was also the secretary of state for the Confederacy.
Dan Judson:
But I looked through the board minutes of the two synagogues in Richmond in 1864 and 1865 to see, what were they talking about in Richmond during the Civil War? What were the kinds of conversations that the synagogue was having? How were they raising money? How were they spending it? What were they doing? What I found was that, in 1864, when Richmond was basically the capital of the Confederacy, the synagogues were having conversations about how much money they raised the previous year, how many kids were in their religious school, who was coming to services and who wasn't. Was the rabbi doing a good enough job? In other words, even in during the middle of the war, they were having the same kinds of convos that synagogues have all the time, which was surprising in itself, except for one thing. Celine, maybe you can put up the first slide I want to show people.
Dan Judson:
Folks can see that, yeah? There's two synagogues in town. Even in the middle of the Civil War, not everybody could pray together. One synagogue wrote to the other synagogue that... The synagogue Beth Ahabah wrote the synagogue Beth Sholom that, "All Israelites of the city should hold a mass meeting to take into consideration the conditions of the poor to find means for alleviating their suffering, also to consider such other matters as may be brought before the meeting to indicate our character and..." Oh. Sorry. I just messed myself up. Hold on.
Celine Ginsburg:
Sorry. I was trying to scroll... apologies.... just so you could keep reading.
Dan Judson:
Yeah. Now, I made it... Sorry. I messed myself up. I can't see it anymore. Celine, I'm sorry. Can you do that again and put it up again? I apologize.
Celine Ginsburg:
Can you see it?
Dan Judson:
Yeah. Yeah, "so that all citizens should hold a mass meeting to take into consideration the conditions of the poor and to find means for alleviating their suffering, also to consider such matters that might be brought before the meeting to indicate our character as Jews and good citizens, which has repeatedly and grossly assailed in public prints." Here was the deal. The Civil War, particularly as we got closer towards the end of the Civil War, beginning in 1964... Excuse me, 1864, 1865... was the first time in American Jewish history when there was a significant level of anti-Semitism. Scholars of the period called it an outbreak of Judeophobia. Right after the Civil War was the first time in American history that there was an attempt at a constitutional amendment to say that America was a Christian nation. They wanted to amend the Constitution, this notion, and put Jesus's name as part of the Constitution.
Dan Judson:
The amendment obviously failed, but there was a feeling at the end of the Civil War that the country had become asunder because of outside forces and agitating forces, and there was an idea that the union of the country would happen around religious cohesion, and if Christianity could be a guiding light to bring us all back together, and if Christianity was a guiding light to bring us all right back together, that kind of left us out, left us, the Jewish people, out. You saw this huge uptick in anti-Semitism.
Dan Judson:
That happens during the Civil War, and so this congregation is saying, as a response to that, we should do something as Jews to show that we're good citizens. We should give money as Jews, and everybody will see that the Jews, far from being bad citizens, are noble, good, worthy citizens. Now, they're noble, good, worthy citizens of the Confederacy, but nonetheless, this was the vision, and here's the congregation's response, the other congregation. One congregation is writing the second congregation, that congregation response that says, "Resolved one, that as citizens of Richmond, we will join cheerfully in any endeavor to ameliorate the condition of the poor of the city but think it unadvisable to take any distinct action as a religious body unless appeal is made to congregations of all denominations, that whenever such appeal is made on behalf of the poor, this congregation will cooperate cheerfully with other Jewish congregations of Richmond and raising contributions from the Israelites of this city for the purposes of carrying out such..." Great, thank you... "charitable designs, and resolved three, that while this meeting denounces the unfounded aspersions made against the Israelites and feel satisfied that this act of our coreligionists can well bear the test of comparison with those of other denominations yet think it the best and most dignified to be adopted would be to treat them with silent contempt, confident that the unenlightened and unprejudiced do not join in this unjust crusade against our people."
Dan Judson:
That's okay. Celine, you don't need to keep going down. That's okay. You can go back. I read that rather quickly. I'm going to stop sharing right now and just say... Oh. What happened there? I'll just do it again in simple language. No, we can stop sharing, Celine, and just come back all together. What was just read is one congregation said to the other congregation simply, "We're not going to give. We're happy to give, but don't point us out as Jews that we should give." In other words, "If everybody's going to give, if all the churches and all the synagogues in town are going to give, then we'll give, but we think it actually works against us to give as Jews at this moment." In other words, when people are saying anti-Semitic things, what shouldn't happen is for the Jewish community to separate itself out and try to prove that it's wrong... try to prove its fidelity to the community by giving as Jews.
Dan Judson:
Does that make sense to everybody? Are there any questions about that before I step on? This is an argument that has been repeated in American Jewish history repeatedly. When do we give and have our giving known as a Jewish community giving to undo ideas about the Jewish community? I should also say that part of the anti-Semitic trope during the Civil War was our being cheap. The Jewish community was thought of as cheap and kind of like Shylock. That was the big idea, that we were Shylocks who, of course, wouldn't actually give to people, and so there was a sense that, if we gave... As one synagogue said, "Let's give the Jewish community to undo that idea," and the other synagogue said, "By trying to do that idea, we call more attention to ourselves and make things worse." Elye, did anybody have any questions about that, or are we good?
Elye Robinovitz:
Not yet. I think that was perfectly explained. Everyone-
Dan Judson:
Fantastic. Okay. I'm going to move on from the Civil War, but to linger over that question just for one more moment, one of the initial questions in the 18th century about the history of American Jewish philanthropy is, when did Jews give beyond Jewish causes, and when did Jews give recognizably as a Jewish community to those causes, and why does that happen, this kind of question which repeats again and again throughout American Jewish history? By the late 19th century, early 20th century in a place like New York City, there's maybe 75 identifiable Jewish organizations. There's a Jewish orphanage. There's a Jewish guild for the blind. There are Jewish societies to help the poor. There are Jewish organizations for widows. There are Jewish organizations for young people. There's all sorts of Jewish organizations that have been established to help Jews who are in need.
Dan Judson:
There's a kind of story that I want to tell that I just read the other day from a document from the 1920s. I'm writing the history of Hebrew College, which is where I work right now. Hebrew College was trying to convince that communities throughout Massachusetts should raise money for Hebrew College. A rabbi tells a story, which I found in the archives of Hebrew College. He tells it in 1926, but it's about the Brisker Rabbi, who's a famous rabbi who lived in Eastern Europe 50, 60 years before. The story is the following.
Dan Judson:
A group of yeshiva leaders came to the Brisker Rebbe, and they said to him, "We each have to go around raising our own money. Wouldn't it be simpler if you, as the most important rabbi in this entire area just appointed one person to raise money for all the different yeshivas that are trying to raise money? That would stop us from competing with each other. That would make life so much easier if one person would raise money for all the yeshivas, as opposed to all the yeshivas raising money for themselves."
Dan Judson:
The Brisker Rabbi said, "That's a very interesting idea, but that is kind of like the difference between Berlin and Brisk. In Berlin, there's one..." In Berlin, he says that there's one power grid and that everybody's a part of the power grid, and it lights up people's home at night, but the problem is, if the power grid fails, which it often did in the late 19th century, then everybody's homes go dark. In Brisk, nobody's attached to any power grid. Everybody lights up their own home with their own candles, and it's better that way, so then if there's a problem, each house has its own candles, and he said so, too, every yeshiva should, as it were, make its own light. It shouldn't be attached to one central person. Everybody should do for themselves, and that's better that way so that, if there's a problem, they can each be responsible for themselves.
Dan Judson:
This was the argument that Hebrew College was making that every town in Massachusetts should try and raise money for Hebrew College, and it shouldn't be one central fundraiser. The problem with the Brisker Rebbe is that he's kind of completely wrong in that the Jewish community, turns out, works better if there's one central fundraiser. That kind of story is how the Jewish federations came to be in America. There were, in New York, as I just mentioned, about 75 different Jewish organizations, and in Boston, there were maybe 20. Don't take my word for that as history. I can't remember. That is not a exact number, but the Boston Jewish community in 1895 was the first Jewish community to have a federation.
Dan Judson:
The whole idea of the federation was exactly what those rabbis came to the Rabbi Brisker to say. "We're competing against each other. It's a waste of our time. We'd raise more money and do better if we all came together." As opposed to the Brisker Rabbi, the rabbis of the... Excuse me. Rabbis. The Jewish communal leaders at the time said, "Okay, let's try it." Starting in 1895 in Boston and then moving to Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Chicago, town after town, the Jewish community came together. All the individual and disparate small organizations came together to raise money as a single organization called the federation. When they did that, generally, they found that their fundraising increased from anywhere from two- to tenfold in a pretty brief period.
Dan Judson:
This idea of a federation comes to be in the early 1900s, and it sort of takes off like wildfire in that every city with any sizable population of Jewish community then starts a federation. The federation proves more adept at raising money than those singular organizations were doing previously. On the board of the federation was the director of all these small organizations. In New York City, for example, the original board of the federation of New York City was made up of the directors of the Jewish Guild for the Blind, and the Jewish Home for Aged, and the head of the Jewish Orphanage Society. That was what made up the federation, but pretty soon, there was a turn, and Celine, maybe you'll put up the second document, and we'll almost be...
Celine Ginsburg:
Sorry. Is that the one from CJP?
Dan Judson:
Yeah, exactly. No, no, the one about women.
Celine Ginsburg:
Oh, the one about women. Okay.
Dan Judson:
Yeah. Okay. This is from 1920. Women to Sell Philanthropy. "The ladies, God bless them, used to hold bazaars, but not now." I'll just read a little bit, and we won't read the whole thing. "In the good old days before the war when kind-hearted ladies and gentlemen came together to gather a few paltry thousands of dollars for the poor, the blind, or the orphans. This was their modus operandi. The gentlemen of the committee will hold a dinner at headquarters and will invite the city's most prominent citizen." Celine, maybe move down. If you can move down a little bit, that would be great. Then, I love this. "Mr. Brown, who knows the financial status of every man in town, will be chairman. Mr. Brown will call upon gentlemen present to secure a contribution for him according to his estimated means, and then ladies, God bless them, will make fancy work and hold a bazaar or bake cakes for a kaffeeklatsch or a card party. That will be enough for them to do, but the war changed many things."
Dan Judson:
Okay. This is from 1920. It's a seminal article in the history of the New York Jewish Federation. Here's the idea. The idea was that, before World War I, just to reiterate that, when the Jewish community needed to raise money, the men would get together, and somebody would call a card. Somebody would go rounds and say, "John Goldberg, how much are you going to give to this..." whatever it was, the Jewish orphanage, and John Goldberg, in front of everybody, would have to say how much they were going to give. It's an old-school way of raising money, and I don't recommend returning to those days, but you'll all do what you want. Stephanie or Celine, if Hillel is thinking about raising money this way, great, whatever you need to do but the author of this article is saying, but the women would just have a kaffeeklatsch. They would bake. They would have a bazaar. They would do something to raise money, and the men were raising all this money, and the women weren't raising enough money. Celine, if you want to get rid of this article for a second, and we can all come back together.
Dan Judson:
What the article goes on to point out is that those days... World War I changes everything in terms of Jewish philanthropy. It's right around when the beginning of the federations happen. World War I is a total catastrophe for the Jewish people. This is a kind of funny thing to say, so you'll forgive me if it sounds odd, but if it was not for the utter devastation of the Jewish people in World War II, we would recognize World War I as the greatest catastrophe that has happened to the Jewish people in the modern period. Hundreds of thousands of Jews lost their lives. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were displaced.
Dan Judson:
The American Jewish community became the... Because of all the displacement and the suffering, it was the American Jewish community that found itself suddenly as the world's most wealthy and strongest Jewish community, and philanthropists at the time set out a goal of raising tens of millions of dollars for the displaced persons that were as a result of all the fighting in World War I, and $25 million, it was a number that was way beyond what the Jewish community had done before, but the Jewish community was able to raise that money through new ideas about fundraising, the professionalization of fundraising.
Dan Judson:
That was that article I just showed you, which I spared you the rest of, but it was all about how women went from baking cake to becoming professional fundraisers, not just women but the men as well. That fundraising became a professionalized activity that some in the Jewish community did. The fundraising happened in a professional manner by targeting particular people, by creating interest groups. This will be familiar to anybody who's part of a Jewish organization. That is, if you're, say, Brandeis Hillel, you might have a Brandeis Hillel women's group, or you might have a Brandeis Hillel vegetarian group, or you might have a Brandeis Hillel this, and a Brandeis Hillel that, or a young professionals group at Brandeis Hillel. All these kinds of things only started happening in the early 20th century.
Dan Judson:
It was a move where the Jewish community begins to take philanthropy in a much more serious way. It moves from just needing to take care of ourselves and those in need to a much more robust and rigorous sense, where the Jewish community could actually make significant changes, not just for itself but even out into the broader world. You see the Jewish community at this time starting to raise money for organizations outside the Jewish world. The 1918 influenza epidemic, for example, is a time when the Jewish federations start raising money for what, at that time, was health services for everybody, that the Jewish community was moving beyond its sort of parochial scope, continuing to raise money for itself but also thinking broader. The change in philanthropy, not just for the Jewish community but across the board, was that, at that time, people started trying to answer bigger questions with philanthropy.
Dan Judson:
One of the interesting things that the early federation documents all say is that the federation couldn't hold onto money, that as soon as money came in, they had to spend it. For example, if my brother, who's on this phone call somewhere... I've lost him, but if he was going to give to, let's say, Brandeis Hillel as a result of, say, everything that Rabbi Stephanie Sanger-Miller has done for my niece, the idea would be that the bylaws of every Jewish organization was that whatever came in had to spent that year, which sounds like it makes sense. Jewish communities shouldn't hold money.
Dan Judson:
Throughout the 20th century, that idea starts getting chipped away pretty quickly, and people start having these things called endowments, which are the exact opposite of, "You have to spend the money as soon as it comes in." Jewish community organizations started holding onto money, and so there is, in fact, a book that just came out two months ago called the American Jewish Philanthropic Complex written by a scholar at Penn that argues that one of the biggest problems in Jewish philanthropy today is that the Jewish community holds enormous amounts of money, the federation, other kinds of organizations. The Jewish community holds tremendous amounts of money and is not spending it. They're simply holding it in endowments that are spinning off small amounts of interest and are only spending that when the world has significant problems that Jewish wealth could attach itself to both within and outside the Jewish community, but so much money is now in endowments, and that became the predominant way throughout the 20th century that Jews thought about philanthropy. That is, with the professionalization of philanthropy beginning in the World War I era, part of that professionalization meant, "Oh, well, we should stop spending money. We need money for a rainy day, and we're going to start building these things called endowments."
Dan Judson:
So, in the 1920s, Jacob Schiff, who's... Jacob Schiff's important contribution to the world, besides being super wealthy, was that... Sorry. Jacob Schiff was a financier in New York City who was so outraged by... I'll make this story short... was so outraged by what the Russians did in allowing for the Kishinev pogrom that when Japan went to war against Russia, he was financing, in large part, the Sino-Japanese war because he wanted to get back at Russia. He was a New York City Jewish financier who founded JTS if you're familiar with that institution, founded all sorts of Jewish organizations, and was a real pioneer, to some degree, in Jewish philanthropy. When he died, he said, "I know the federation needs to spend its money as soon as he gets it, but if it's willing to start building an endowment, I will give it a few million dollars."
Dan Judson:
So, to accept Jacob Schiff's gift when he passed away, the New York federation changed its own rules and said, "Okay, so we'll have an endowment up to $5 million," and then, soon enough, it became, "We'll allow an endowment for $20 million," and then it was an endowment for 50 million. You get the idea. Now, these endowments, of course, occupy a lot of what the Jewish community and the federations are involved in. It's building endowments to allow them to spend money, but it also creates problems in terms of when that money's spent, and are there urgent issues of the day that some of that money should be utilized to spend now? I'm going to stop there. There's much more that we could say, but I'll take any... Elye, are there questions that people want to...
Elye Robinovitz:
Cool. I will give people some time to think about some questions they have, but I actually have a quick question if you don't mind.
Dan Judson:
Okay.
Elye Robinovitz:
I was curious what got you interested in researching this stuff.
Dan Judson:
What got me interested in researching this stuff? Elye, it's a really good question. I went to Brandeis, and I studied with Jonathan Sarna. I was going to write a dissertation on something... on an obscure writer who wrote a book about Judaism in 1812. The book was called The History of the Jewish People from the Destruction of the Temple to the Year 1812. None of you have heard of this book. None of you have heard of the woman. Her name is Hannah Adams. She was the fourth cousin of Samuel Adams. She lived in Boston. Her archives are in Boston, so I thought, "Great." It was going to be a super boring dissertation. It was going to be a super boring book.
Dan Judson:
I think in one of my first days of studying with Jonathan Sarna, he walked into his office. We were having a one-on-one class because he's a total mensch and an incredible person, and most of my classes with him were just his giving me his time and doing one-on-one classes with him, and he showed me a new book that somebody had written about Hannah Adams, and he said, "The world doesn't need two books about this obscure female writer. You need to pick a whole new topic."
Dan Judson:
So, we started talking about it. I had read a book about the history of Christianity and money, and he had simultaneously thought that this would be a good topic. He said to me, "That'll make a good topic. You're going to become the expert on it because you're the only person who's ever going to care enough to write about it. People are then going to start asking you questions about synagogues. You're going to form a consulting group to synagogues to help them with their financing, and then you'll have a field of one about writing about the history of Judaism, and synagogues, and money."
Dan Judson:
Everything that Jonathan Sarna thought, because he's really, really smart, is exactly what happened. I started writing and researching about synagogues and money and ended up doing a lot of consulting to synagogues, and I'm still the person... I've not exactly been joined in this field by other people. So, it was really Jonathan Sarna and the idea that... The only other thing I'll say about this is... What was that movie where they say, "Follow the money?" What was the movie? Help. Ellen, what was the movie? Why am I blanking? Help. What good is having a sister-in-law in this phone call if she can't help me? Wait, Ellen, you have to unmute yourself.
Ellen Judson:
Yeah. Tom Cruise. "Show me the money."
Dan Judson:
No, not "show me the money," where they say, "Follow the money." Help.
Ellen Judson:
Oh.
Dan Judson:
They say, "Follow the money." Oh. Oh. Watergate. All the President's Men. Follow the money. If you follow the money, then you will... Right? All the President's Men.
Ellen Judson:
He should have known it.
Dan Judson:
Yeah, I should have asked my brother about TV and film. That would've been better. The other thing I'd say about this is, of course, how you spend money says something about your values and who you are, and if you follow the... So, one of the things I was interested in was I follow the money. How did synagogues traditionally spend their money? How did Jews spend their money? You learn something about people's values, and ethics, and are able to say something about Jews' place in society. A lot of my work is thinking about, well, how are rabbis paid in 1890 versus how ministers were paid? Tells you something about what Jews valued, about how much money they had, about how Christians viewed their clergy, about how the two religious groups looked at each other, and et cetera, et cetera. As I said previously, I'm also interested in money as a sociological marker. Okay, that was a super long-winded answer. I'll make my answers much shorter, Elye.
Elye Robinovitz:
All right, so we have a question from Susan Howard-Weiss. Is the Jewish community less philanthropic today than in the past few generations?
Dan Judson:
Great question. That is a great question. The Jewish community is... I think this is not going to surprise any of you, I'm sure. The Jewish community is intensely philanthropic. I use the word intensely comparative to other... As far as we can tell, comparative to other ethnic groups, the Jewish community gives away a tremendous amount of money. What has changed dramatically over the course of one and two generations is... Again, this is not going to be surprising... is where that money is going. Whereas two generations ago the bulk of those resources were going towards Jewish organizations themselves, federation, UJA, some sort of Zionist cause, the money now given by individual Jews is... the lion's share of which goes outside the Jewish community, goes to fund all the kinds of causes that we might... American Cancer Society, Raphael Warnock's campaign, all sorts of places that Jewish money is going so that the community, by percentage, is more philanthropic today than it was previously, but more money goes outside the Jewish community than in previous generations, which is probably not a surprise to folks. There is more demands on money. Elye, is there another question?
Elye Robinovitz:
Yes, we have another question from Kenneth Cohen. Many Jewish organizations that are part of a federation also seem to have their own fundraising drives.
Dan Judson:
Yeah.
Elye Robinovitz:
Are there federation rules that limit such independent fundraising efforts?
Dan Judson:
That is a good question. The Boston federation, for example, there are... The answer, in short, is not really, but for example, my own organization, Hebrew College, in the 1980s... well, actually, throughout the first 60 years of its life... was a constituent organization of the federation, which meant we received about 75% of our budget from the federation. The good side of that is that we received 75% of our budget from the federation. The bad side of that is that any decision Hebrew College wanted to make, it had to check with the federation to make.
Dan Judson:
So, a decision was made by both parties to stop being a constituent organization. We, Hebrew College, still to this day receive money from Combined Jewish Philanthropies, which is the Boston federation, but we have our own fundraising mechanisms. The downside is we no longer receive 75% of our budget from the Jewish federations. The upside is we are on our own to make decisions and try and figure out how best to support ourselves in a marketplace which has become more competitive and less centralized, that is, the end of the story, where I talked about how the Jewish community became centralized, one federation for each city, that story about the Brisker Rebbe. That now has started to chip away a little bit, and the federation is no longer the central address in every town for fundraising, but there are family foundations, which are giving away a lot of money to Jewish causes. The centralization is going away, and so independent organizations are at liberty to raise funds from various institutions and various individuals. Elye, that wasn't the most eloquent answer, but I hope it suffices.
Elye Robinovitz:
Okay. Awesome. Oh. Another question.
Dan Judson:
Yeah.
Elye Robinovitz:
Nice. Okay, so this is from Judith Goldberg.
Dan Judson:
Yeah.
Elye Robinovitz:
Endowments, what are the opposing views nowadays? She's thinking of Madoff.
Dan Judson:
Yes. She's thinking... Wait, I'm sorry. Who said that question?
Elye Robinovitz:
Judith Goldberg.
Dan Judson:
Judith, you're thinking of Madoff... If you want to unmute yourself, you're thinking of Madoff, I presume, to say...
Judith Goldberg:
Jewish organizations that invested their money with him... I don't know if those were endowments, but they were definitely investments... lost their money, and did that change anything?
Dan Judson:
Yeah. Yeah, it's a great question, Judith. I don't think the thinking has changed very much about endowments. It would be interesting to get Brandeis' endowment officer here to ask him or her what their sense of Madoff is. I think people bestride... Everybody bestride Madoff. People's lives were ruined. Some institutions lost, obviously, a tremendous amount of money that was invested in Madoff, but I don't think that has caused anybody to pause in terms of the idea of their building of endowments. The market continues to have such positive returns, and these endowment managers continue to perform well, so people view it as a mistake if they weren't getting an opportunity to build endowments. The answer should be, Judith... I think the answer should be different than what I think the answer is. I think the answer is that it hasn't stopped anybody from thinking about endowments but probably has caused people to look closer at who some of their investments are with. I think that's certainly the case.
Elye Robinovitz:
Okay, so if there aren't any other questions, I think no better way to end this... Oh, we got another question. Never mind. Okay, so another question. Many organizations, such as the ASPCA centers, et cetera, raise money at $19 a month. Would more Jews donate if it was changed to $18 a month?
Dan Judson:
I think what you're asking... It's a great question. I think what you're asking is how much non-Jewish... Do non-Jewish causes try and go after Jewish philanthropic dollars? The answer to that... I think you're asking in a cheeky way, which is great. For those of you who are not following, $18 is the Jewish number for Chai. It's how Jews often give charity, so if the ASPCA said 18 instead of 19, that might attract Jewish dollars. It's a cheeky question, but if you think about colleges these days, Brandeis is different because of Brandeis's historic Jewish association, but there are a lot of colleges which are invested in creating really good Hillel's precisely to attract Jew-oriented philanthropic dollars. It is certainly the case that there are non-profit organizations out there that are thinking about how to attract Jewish dollars. Whether the ASPCA would attract more money by going 18 instead of 19, I'll leave that to somebody else. Pictures of my adorable dog, I think, would also increase Jewish gifts to the ASPCA because she's super, super cute. Elye, what was the next question that came up? I wasn't following.
Elye Robinovitz:
I actually got sent a private question I would ask.
Dan Judson:
Yeah.
Elye Robinovitz:
Can you talk a little bit about Sheldon Adelson, and his legacy, and how this relates to the bigger picture of Jewish philanthropy?
Dan Judson:
Okay. This is a complicated question, and certainly some of this comes down upon where you stand in the world and where your political allegiances lie as to the extent to which Sheldon Adelson was a force for good or not. Without commenting on Sheldon Adelson and that question, one of the things that... It relates to something I was saying very quickly before about other sources of wealth in the Jewish community. Sheldon Adelson alone represented a massive outpouring of wealth to the Jewish community.
Dan Judson:
If you think about an organization like Birthright, which was a recipient of Adelson funds, Birthright has caused significant... Birthright has been an incredible thing for the Jewish community. That happened, initially, outside of the federation's purview. That is, it was individual donations from a few wealthy philanthropists that made Birthright happen. That notion that family foundations, donors like Adelson, could create change in the Jewish community, national change, big, mega changes in the Jewish community, if you think about all the people who've gone to Birthright and its lives been changed, that is the kind of giving that is relatively new.
Dan Judson:
In a previous generation, that only could have come from federation, and federation is seen by many givers now as kind of old school, and family foundations and singular givers, they're more nimble. They don't have to answer to the whole community. They can fund startup projects in a way that federation can't, and so there's a way in which Adelson and mega-givers like Adelson have changed the landscape by making Jewish giving more nimble, trying to be more startupy for better or worse. Whether you find that the particular causes that Adelson gave to attractive or not, I will leave to you all to decide for yourself. How did I do, Stephanie? Was that a politically appropriate answer to that? Is that okay? Did I do okay?
Stephanie Sanger-Miller:
Great. That wasn't my question, but-
Dan Judson:
No, no, I'm looking at you if I had... I really was trying to hold a very-
Stephanie Sanger-Miller:
Two thumbs up, as always.
Dan Judson:
Yeah, very measured tone and not really answer the question totally. Yes. Elye?
Elye Robinovitz:
We have another question. I think it's pretty important for today's day and age.
Dan Judson:
Yeah.
Elye Robinovitz:
How do you define or identify a well-run and effective charity?
Dan Judson:
I have an article that I wrote, and my article was about how hard it was, five years ago, to find a synagogue that would put up their budget for public view for anybody who wanted to take a look at it. I did this project where I just called synagogues... It was for the federation of New York... where I called 50 synagogues and asked the questions about their finances. It was for a bigger project. Asking them questions about their finances, even though I was a professor, I was a rabbi, I told them I wasn't going to attach their name to it, you would think I was asking for state secrets that, somehow, if a synagogue put online their expenses that non-Jews could see, that members might see, it was like the... it was as if I was asking for some crazy thing.
Dan Judson:
So, I wrote an article about how synagogues are the least transparent institutions in the non-profit world and that, if they had to pass the test which GuideStar, for example, which is an online organization, which rates charities, or Charity Navigator is another online, they would get a zero out of 100 because they were totally opaque to their givers and anybody else in the world about how they were spending their money.
Dan Judson:
Some people didn't like this article because I was saying bad things about synagogues, but one of ways, clearly today, that you recognize what a good charity is, is by the level of transparency. Are they transparent about where their expenses are going? Now, non-profit organizations have to file tax forms, which are open to the public, which you all can purchase through something like Charity Navigator, which they have to be transparent about how much they spend on their highest employees and where their basic funds are going, but I encourage every non-profit that I speak with for any reason that they have to go way beyond that and be detailing where they're spending their money, telling a financial story. Why are they spending the money that they're spending on it? They should devote space on their websites, not because people are necessarily going to think they're ganefs, they're crooks, but you're trying to create, amonsgt your donor base, this sense of trust.
Dan Judson:
I have a relationship with Grace Church, which is the largest church in New England. It gets thousands of people every Sunday at their church. It's an Evangelical church in Lexington, Massachusetts. For those of you who know Boston, the idea that there's an Evangelical church in Lexington is the weirdest thing in the world. Why are there Evangelical Christians in Lexington? But they get 5,000 people every Sunday morning. They're amazing at what they do, and they're lovely, lovely, lovely, thoughtful people. They changed, but five years ago, if you went to their website, on their website, on their homepage, it was a spacious picture of a church, and their chapel, and it was beautiful. Then, if you clicked on the button that said Who We Are, two things would come up. One thing was, "These are the 10 things we believe about Jesus," and the second thing was, "Here's our audited financial reports from last year." Those are the only two things they said about themselves in the Who We Are section on their website.
Dan Judson:
I called the minister, and I said, "Why do you put up your whole audited statement, and why do you put your audited financial statements just below the 10 things we believe about Jesus?" He said, "We want everybody who comes to this website to trust us. We want people to trust us. We know they're not going to read our whole audited financial statement, but even by putting that up, and they just see it, and they see the importance we give it, we're giving people a message." Sorry. This is a long-winded answer to say it's about transparency, and it's about telling a financial story, and it's about actually taking the time and the space, both on the website, to do those things, to build what I would see as a culture of trust to enable people to give to you in a thoughtful way. Elye, we probably have time for one more question, if that. It's 8:30, so maybe one more question, and then we're good if there was another question.
Elye Robinovitz:
Yeah.
Dan Judson:
My brother is curious about how I lost to him in fantasy football this year, but I will not answer that question. I told him I'm not going to answer that question as part of... So, if that's the question, Elye, please ignore that question. It's just my brother.
Elye Robinovitz:
I was about to ask that, but I guess I can ask a different one.
Dan Judson:
Thank you.
Elye Robinovitz:
My pleasure. Sharon asks, is it common for synagogues to give money, as an institution, to non-Jewish causes? She's thinking more about Reform temples and how they're concerned about social justice.
Dan Judson:
It's an amazing question. I love the question. Most scenarios are not. I mean, I would imagine some of you are members of synagogues, and you know where your budgets are even if your synagogue is not putting their budget online for anyone to see. You should encourage your synagogue to do that. Most synagogues are not giving. They're having a hard enough time making their own budgets to giving in any significant way. Synagogues will always... small amounts of money to charities, but generally, there's no line in a synagogue budget, 5% of the synagogue budget going to greater causes. That's very rare. It's very rare that you find that.
Dan Judson:
I want to say Temple Israel in Boston, which is a big, big synagogue and kind of the most social justice-oriented system in the Boston area... There's many social justice-oriented synagogues, but what they've done, though... They're a large synagogue. What they've done, though, is really made an effort and a commitment to... For example, they only buy now from... where they can... All their purchases, food, napkins, people who are going to do repairs around the building, they are committed to local, minority-owned businesses to get all the things that they purchase. They're also have committed to investing in philanthropic funds that provide loans to primarily black and minority-owned businesses in Boston.
Dan Judson:
There's a few what are called social venture funds in Boston... Every city has these now... where racially diverse, minority-owned businesses, people can apply for loans, and there's all sorts of checks and ways that these funds go about doing their business, but Temple Israel has committed to that, to both giving some percentage of people's dues to those funds, and it's also committed to paying for all their expenses out... Excuse me... for the services that it pays for to use local, black-owned businesses in the Boston area. It's one impressive and thoughtful model, and you're welcome... I'm sure Temple Israel would love to talk to you about it. You can just Google them if you're interested and see what they're doing. They would love to talk to you about it. I'm sure there are other models of synagogues that are out there.
Elye Robinovitz:
Okay. Awesome. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have, but I wanted to thank you, Rabbi Judson, and everyone for coming. Please stay tuned for future virtual conversations from Brandeis Hillel. All right. Thank you everyone.
Dan Judson:
Thank you.