Yotam Polizer: IsraAID’s frontline Humanitarian Work

08/09/23 • 45 min

What Gives? The Jewish Philanthropy Podcast

Episode 42 of What Gives? the Jewish philanthropy podcast from Jewish Funders Network. Yotam Polizer, CEO of IsraAID, talks to JFN President and CEO Andres Spokoiny about how IsraAid is able to deploy to places where Israel doesn't have diplomatic relations, and the knock on effects of sending aid from Israel to unfriendly territories. Yotam spoke about how a humanitarian organization fundraises at times when there isn’t a disaster in the news, and about the steps that he and his team take to ensure that they stay mentally and emotionally happy in the face of this difficult work.

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Casper ter Kuile: Building Spiritual Connections Locally and Digitally

Episode 41 of What Gives? the Jewish philanthropy podcast from Jewish Funders Network. Casper ter Kuile, CEO of the Nearness, talks to JFN President and CEO Andres Spokoiny about Casper’s work in seeking to create a new structure of community experience that uses the ease and accessibility of the internet while also building local connections that become deep friendships. Casper and Andres dive into what the spiritual leadership of the post-COVID world looks like, which models of community we can learn from in creating spiritual belonging, and the importance of the Jewish community asking itself the hard, uncomfortable questions about where it’s going, like what the boundaries of Judaism should be.

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Rabbi Leon Morris: How Do We Build Communities of Meaning?

Episode 43 of What Gives? the Jewish philanthropy podcast from Jewish Funders Network. Rabbi Leon Morris, President of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, talks to JFN President and CEO Andres Spokoiny about his essay in Sources, "In Defense of Surrender in Liberal Jewish Life." Morris argues that a Jewish response to individual agency having eclipsed every other important value is necessary, and can be done through a sense of surrender (of our defenses, our time, and our notion of isolated individualism) to community, rather than submission to authority. Leon talks about what he finds exciting about pluralistic spaces, how thoroughly modern Jews are having trouble finding places for Jewishness in their lives, the enormous relevance that traditional texts still have for our modern time, and what gives him hope for the Jewish future.

Works referenced in this episode: