Local

More than 27% of assets distributed to charities in all sectors

The Jewish Communal Fund (JCF), the largest Jewish donor-advised fund in the country, distributed a record $536 million in grants to charities in all sectors during the 2020 fiscal year ending June 30, 2020 – a 17.5% increase from 2019. JCF Fundholders recommended a record-number of grants – 64,188 – to thousands of charitable organizations, an 18% increase from 2019. The average grant amount was $8,352 – an increase of 16% as compared to the previous year.

The National Council of Young Israel (NCYI) this week expressed strong support for the US State Department’s decision to permit Americans born in Jerusalem to note “Israel” as their birthplace on their passports.

Along with cascading leaves, crisp temperatures, and changing clocks, the season has arrived for the fall semester of the Ateret Emet Seminary. This past Sunday heralded Emet Outreach’s latest installment of the higher-level learning initiative for young women. There was great reason to rejoice as the first class of this four-week program got off to a promising start at Congregation Bene Naharayim in Jamaica Estates.

For many, the end of the most contentious election in modern history signals a new beginning. The best way to start over is being nourished both spiritually and physically. Throughout the pandemic, the Kehilat Sephardim Food Pantry went above and beyond to arrange food distributions that in turn eased the financial burdens on literally thousands of local families by providing essential items during times of misfortune.

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, Managing Director of the Coalition for Jewish Values, condemned progressivism in an opinion piece appearing in Newsweek. He described it as opposing common values previously shared by all Americans – and said that it has already “proven to be a dangerous failure.”

(Courtesy of Yeshiva University)

Over the past few weeks, Yeshiva University has successfully welcomed back undergraduate students from around the country and across the globe to its Manhattan campuses. Since the middle of October, undergraduate men and women have returned to the dorms, cafeterias, batei midrash and classrooms on the Wilf Campus uptown and Beren Campus in midtown, all done with appropriate social distancing, mask wearing, a proactive COVID-19 monitoring program and daily temperature checks.