Lila Corwin Berman is Professor of History at Temple University, where she holds the Murray Friedman Chair of American Jewish History and directs the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History. She is currently writing a book entitled “The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex: The Historical Formation of a Multi-Billion Dollar Institution.”
Read a response to this letter from Brandeis University Press here. We are a group of scholars whose research is connected to American Jewish history and experience. All of us have read the preface that Professor Marc Dollinger submitted to Brandeis University Press this fall. We hold a variety of perspectives about its claims and…
As reports surface about Leslie Wexner’s connections to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Jewish voices from many different quarters are beginning to ask whether the Wexner name is tainted. Over three decades, Wexner has built a philanthropic empire, funding a vast array of programs and institutions and building a reputation as a thoughtful and careful…
This week, a series of exposés by Josh Nathan-Kazis in these pages revealed that an Israeli charity that appears to run the blacklist site Canary Mission received funding from a foundation controlled by the Jewish Community Federations of San Francisco. A second piece identified the Jewish Community Federation of Los Angeles communal fund as a…
On Thursday, an exposé in the Jewish Week chronicled eight women’s stories in which they accused Steven M. Cohen of exploitative conduct. The personal and institutional dimensions of these serious allegations will ripple far into the future in ways we cannot know. However, as historians of American Jews, we do know that these allegations reflect…
For charitable organizations to demur from their political responsibilities in today’s world is to mask the political leadership these organizations already exercise through their financial practices. Take, for example, a recent story reported in the Jewish press about a wealthy Los Angeles couple that holds a donor-advised fund (DAF) at the Jewish Community Foundation of…
When I learned of Trump’s first round of political appointments, I turned immediately to my community. I knew that the leaders and organizations that have nourished me and been part of my family’s Jewish life would understand the dire call to act. The possibility of white supremacists occupying the White House would surely draw a…
If you asked most people why the year 1969 was important in American life, few would mention that year’s federal Tax Reform Act. But Norman Sugarman’s fingerprints on that document may have had as much of a lasting effect on this country’s history as Neil Armstrong’s feet on the moon. More than $50 billion in…
I had to apologize to my younger self when I agreed to teach a course at the National Havurah Summer Institute a few years ago. My parents were part of a Havurah — a Jewish fellowship group with roots in the hippie era — and although we never attended the institute, my brothers and I…
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