And thank YOU for all that you do. Together, we do extraordinary things.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
JDC Thanks San Diego Jewish Community for Support of Ukrainian Jews
In April the San Diego Jewish community stepped up to support the 300,000+ Jews who are living in tumultuous Ukraine in these uncertain times. Through Federation, our community sent more than $25,000 through 250+ gifts to provide security, blankets, medicine and food to our Jewish family abroad. Federation partner, The American Jewish Join Distribution Committee (JDC) is on the ground in Ukraine, ensuring the safety of Jewish people across the former Soviet Union. See their thank you to the San Diego Jewish community, below.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Bring Back Our Boys
On June 12, Israeli teens Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar and Naftali Frenkel were kidnapped on their way home by members of Hamas. Join us in expressing solidarity with their families by adding a message below.
To the families of Eyal, Gilad, and Naftali,
As the search continues for your sons, we pray for them like they are our own.
We stand together with you and send our prayers, thoughts and support to you and all of Israel as we stand up to terror and mount every possible effort to safely #bringbackourboys.
Show your support by adding a message below.
Sign this letter by clicking here.
Federation and the San Diego Jewish Community stand with Israel in praying for the safe return of three teenaged boys who were abducted Friday in the West Bank. JFNA recently sent a letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu, expressing support and solidarity with the families. #bringbackourboys
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| Thousands gather at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City to pray for the release of three kidnapped Israeli teenagers, June 15, 2014. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90) |
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Thousands gathered at the Western Wall to pray for the safe return of three teens kidnapped in the West Bank.
More than 25,000 people attended the Sunday evening service led by Chief Rabbi David Lau. Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef also was at the service, as were members of the Chief Rabbinate council and Knesset members.
“We prove to our enemies that the nation of Israel is alive and will never be broken,” Lau said at the service. “Everyone gathered here at the Kotel as one, with one heart, unified in a prayer for the safety of the kidnapped, that they will be swiftly returned to their families.”
Meanwhile, a Facebook page dedicated to the return of the teens, Bring Back Our Boys, has garnered more than 64,600 likes since its establishment on Friday.
The three Israeli teens, including one dual Israeli-American citizen, have been missing since Thursday night. They were last seen trying to get rides home from a yeshiva high school in Gush Etzion, a bloc of settlements located south of Jerusalem.
The missing teens were identified Saturday as Gilad Shaar, 16, from Talmon; Eyal Yifrach, 19, from Elad; and Naftali Frenkel, 16, from Nof Ayalon, the American citizen.
Meanwhile, it was cleared for reporting by the military censor on Sunday evening that one of the kidnapped teens had made a call to the police moments after the kidnapping, at approximately 10:30 on Thursday night. The teen reportedly whispered “We have been kidnapped!” before the call was disconnected.
Police did not report the suspected kidnapping to the military until about 4 a.m.
West Bank police receive dozens of false reports of attempted kidnappings each day, the Times of Israel reported.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/2014/06/15/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/thousands-gather-at-western-wall-to-pray-for-abducted-teens#ixzz34pVycyIL
Friday, June 13, 2014
Donate Today and be Entered to Win an iPad!
Donate to Federation's Annual Campaign before midnight on June 15 and automatically be entered to win!
Sunday is the last day to win this generously donated iPad.
Every gift counts - help us reach our donor goal for 2014! Federation's campaign closes June 30.
Thank you, for all that you do.
Monday, June 9, 2014
Friday, June 6, 2014
Federation Kicks Off the Jewish Advocates Fellowship
This week, Federation hosted the first session of the Jewish Advocacy Fellowship program and the agenda was packed. Twelve selected Jewish Fellows had an opportunity to get to know one
another as they shared personal stories and participated in a values based
exercises.
State
Senator Marty Block had a lively and personal conversation with the cohort as
he shared how his Jewish identify informs his work, spoke about the important
work of the Jewish Caucus and explained the importance of lobbying. In
August, the cohort will join Senator Block in Sacramento to meet with members
of the California Jewish caucus.
Modeled
after the work of the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of CA (JPAC), the largest
single-state coalition of Jewish organizations in the nation, the cohort was
presented with three possible topics upon which to build the focus of the
Fellowship: Human Trafficking, Safety Net Cuts, Bullying. After
thoughtful discussion and consideration, the group voted to focus on Safety Net
Cuts relating to San Diego's senior population.
Created and facilitated by the Jewish Community Foundation, Jewish
Community Relations Council, Jewish Family Service, Leichtag Foundation and
NextGen, the program is five sessions long, culminating in a trip to Sacramento to lobby
on the selected issue and work in partnership with the Jewish Caucus chaired by
Senator Block.
Stay tuned for an update on our next session to be held later this month, “Advocacy 101 Training” hosted by Jewish Family Service.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Israel Gives Young Social Entrepreneurs a Boost
From San Diego Jewish World
Israel’s Consul General David Siegel presents $1,000 check to Tali Edid, Noah Villalobos and Vanessa Ramirez (Photos: Donald H. Harrison)
By Donald H. Harrison
Donald H. Harrison
LA JOLLA, California – It might have been a project on homelessness, or cleaning up the environment, or any other of a number of efforts by Jewish and Latino high school students to impact major social problems, but the project that caught the eye of the judges—and won a $1000 prize for three students to divide—was one envisioning teaching urban youth through YMCA’s and similar facilities how to grow and eat healthy foods.
Collecting a check on Sunday, June 1, for $1,000 from the Consulate General of Israel —were Tali Edid of the San Diego Jewish Academy, along with teammates Noah Villalobos and Vanessa Ramirez, who attend high schools in the Scripps Ranch and La Jolla areas. The presentations of the projects—and the later award of a check enlarged many times for photographic purposes—were given at UCSD’s Rady School of Management which has committed itself to develop ever more intense programs for social entrepreneurship.
In awarding the prize, Israel’s Los Angeles-based Consul General David Siegel told of the Jewish State’s interest in spreading the knowledge it has gained trying to solve large social problems and to likewise benefit from ideas developed in other nations.
Dean Robert Sullivan, Rady School of Management
This particular program for high school students was co-sponsored by the regional offices of the Anti-Defamation League, which fosters inter-communal relations between Jews and other communities, and by the Spanish-speaking Ken Community Center, which provides a gathering place for Jews who have immigrated to San Diego from Mexico, Central America and South America. Tali, a 10th grader, was born in Mexico to a family with numerous relatives in Israel.
In developing their projects, the students were mentored by graduate students in MBA programs. High schoolers and mentors met two hours each Sunday, for five weeks, to develop their ideas, and to create power point presentations. The winning team now will work together with mentors for an additional six months in an effort to implement their ideas.
Siegel said that currently in Israel more than a half million college students receive scholarships and stipends to serve as mentors of high school students, so the program involves well over one million people. He added that Mexico has adopted the Israeli mentorship model and now offers similar incentives to students to become mentors at 61 universities and colleges throughout that nation.
Michael Sonduck, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of San Diego County, told the students that “nothing important happens without collaboration.” He added, “whether it is Jewish-Latino collaboration, or MBA-High School collaboration, regardless of what it is, there isn’t an important issue that we face that doesn’t happen and won’t get solved without collaboration.”
Robert S. Sullivan, dean of the Rady School of Management, told the students that UCSD is forming a new center for social innovation, which will be headed by Ayelet Gneezy, an Israeli professor. In addition, he noted, over the last two years, UCSD has been operating a U.S.-Israel Center for Innovation and Economic Stability.
Uri Gneezy
An important question, Sullivan said, on “how do you go from ideas to doing something with ideas that have an impact on lives? ‘Economic sustainability’ literally means that over time that these ideas need to be sustainable solutions. They can’t just be great ideas that cost so much no one will ever do them.”
Over the long term, he said, UCSD will try to qualify as a “change maker campus,” that will be part of an international organization “in which the entire campus develops a responsibility, an intent, for dealing with these large social problems, that when you address them they make lives better.”
Along with certificates for their participation, the students were awarded a copy of The Why Axis, a book by Gneezy’s husband, Uri, who is an economist, and co-author John A. List. Uri Gneezy later gave the students a brief synopsis of some of the problem-solving work he is trying to accomplish.
He said non-profit agencies that try to resolve social problems are important contributors to society, but ordinary donors do not want to pay for those agencies’ overhead. Rather donors want their money to go directly to the cause, whatever it may be. Yet, if donors don’t wish to contribute to overhead, the non-profit agencies won’t be able to hire staff, and especially not at salaries that are competitive with those in private industries. How then, asked Uri Gneezy, can important non-profit agencies attract top-flight individuals to their ranks?
Gneezy answered that a study indicates donors don’t mind contributing to non-profit agencies, even with high overhead, if they know that their own individual contributions will in fact go to the project, not to salaries, or other overhead. So, he said, an apparent solution is to develop two streams of giving – one, from ordinary donors, that will be guaranteed to go for services; the other, from “rich guys,” government or foundations, that can, in fact, be used for overhead.
Participants in the Jewish-Latino, High School-MBA collaboration pose after receiving participation certificates
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
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