Articles

We are all creatures of our environment. Our respective political cultures reflect our particular social orbits, belief systems and particular loyalties. Our respective political identities are shaped and influenced by our broader general beliefs about our society and our place within it. Certainly, our cultural experiences, personal values, and historical encounters inform and help to frame how we see and engage with politics.

Reason and truth represent the essential ingredients for preserving social stability and ensuring continuity, yet today these principles are under attack. In some measure, the celebration of “truth” and an appreciation for “reason” appears to be passing from the contemporary scene.

In 2007 Dan Brown, the founder and publisher of eJP, envisioned the design of this e-platform based on the mission of the now dormant ePhilanthropy Foundation and its role within the broader field of philanthropy. Dan reflected on how particularly helpful these folks were in conceptualizing this publication, along with the owners and operational team of CONVIO, an on-line nonprofit fund-raising platform.

For significant parts of the last several centuries, the great Jewish families of Europe, Asia, and North America were central players in international business and commerce but also created the infrastructure and framed the norms for modern Jewish philanthropy.

Words are simply not adequate to define or contain the emotions following the assault on January 6 on the U.S. Capitol and American democracy.

We Jews have a profound stake in this nation. We were here from the very beginnings of this experiment in democracy. Washington’s extraordinary letter to the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island, in August 1790 affirms this unique connection:

One of the most underreported components of the Jewish response to this pandemic has been the extraordinary contributions of the nearly 50 agencies that comprise today the International Association of Jewish Free Loans. Situated here in North America and across the Jewish world, these historic agencies, large and small, have made an essential difference in the lives of the thousands of families and individuals whom they have assisted over this past year.

A new year provides us with the appropriate occasion to offer resolutions, make predictions and even offer aspirations for what might be next!
Indeed, as so many have expressed, we will be happy to see the end of 2020. We should remind ourselves that we entered this year with the promise of a robust economy and the start of a new and exciting decade, these earlier expectations now seem so remote, to some extent unreal.

Community relations is an art form. And when it comes to the public affairs agenda of the Jewish community, communications management requires a mastery of intrigue and information. Nowhere was that mastery more evident than the Los Angeles Community Relations Committee (CRC) from 1934–2007, where I served as director from 1985-1995.

With the news of a COVID-19 vaccine being rolled out as soon as this week, many are rightfully dreaming of the day when we can finally exit our quarantines.

The “coming out” process no doubt will be slow, somewhat disjointed and likely to include a number of unexpected challenges. Longer term, lifestyle behaviors and choices may have changed permanently during the pandemic, just as they have transformed during prior moments in American history.

In my last piece, I explained why the Jewish community is in the midst of a “Pandemic Revolution.” Twenty-first-century economic and social changes have suggested that our community will be courting a new generation of Jews with different modes of engagement, operating with fewer resources, and managing amid a destabilized political and social environment.