January 30, 2020

An Approach to jewish philanthropy

An Approach to Jewish Philanthropy

For the past decade, I have been the Grants Chair of the William Davidson Foundation, one of North America’s largest Jewish Philanthropies. A year ago, I was unanimously elected to another six year term in that role. Given this, I feel I have what to say on the subject of Jewish Philanthropy. The following represents my personal view.

Before I articulate the most current iteration of my approach to Jewish Philanthropy, I would like to offer the briefest of sketches of the evolution of my theory thus far. Keeping in mind, of course, that not only will my theory continue to evolve over time, but that it always represents an ongoing challenge to others working as Jewish communal leaders; particularly in the area of philanthropy.

Very early on in the life of the William Davidson Foundation, a couple of family members, colleagues and I asked the following question: if we were to model the William Davidson Foundation after a leader from Jewish Tradition, who would it be. The answer we settled on was Nehemiah.

Why Nehemiah?

In the mid-fifth century BCE, during the early Second Temple Period, Nehemiah led the effort not only to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, but also to repair all of the city gates. This repairing and opening the gates project was what really resonated with us. Firstly, Nehemiah undertook to reestablish and open all of the gates: not some, but all of the points of entry. These access points were on all sides of the city: that is, they were open from all directions.

I took this to mean that, if a philanthropy were to make investments in a given Jewish community, such as Detroit, they should ensure that all Jews will be able to find open access, and frictionless entry into the community, regardless of whichever direction any particular Jew may be coming from. To put this another way, if we were to invest in Nehemiah’s gates correctly, no Jew in Detroit should ever be able to honestly say that they couldn’t find a gate to fit their particular needs and interests.

We might say that, given the long and dark history of Jewish ghettoization in Europe -whereby Jews were quite literally locked into ghettos at night by the local non-Jewish authority- no Jew in our community should ever find themselves locked-out based on observance, identity, practice or any other factor. In this, we might also think of Sarah and Abraham, whose tent was open on all sides. Thus, we come to the view that our Jewish philanthropists must take Nehemiah’s example as an imperative to invest in keeping all gates to the Jewish community accessible, open, and active.

However, over time I began to wonder whether investing in the openness of so many gates and access portals was sufficient. I soon realized that although it is critically important that the full diversity of self-identified Jews be able to access the community in a way that is consistent with where they are Jewishly, this cannot be the end of the story. My colleagues and I found ourselves asking: what are the people to do once they have passed through a gate?

Turning back to Nehemiah, we observed that Ezra the scribe read the Torah in front of all the assembled people. For those who were not able to understand the Hebrew, Ezra had innumerable interpreters sprinkled among the crowd for support.

Ezra’s stationing of interpreters among the crowd seemed to us to be about human connection and “meeting Jews where they are”. But we found ourselves asking: what might it mean, in the twenty-first century, to “read Torah among the people”.

Now, before anyone reading this gets nervous about “reading Torah among the people”, I should say that I don’t feel burdened by an opinion of any else’s Jewish practice or level of observance. Over the course of my normal week, I move between Ultra-Orthodox segments of the community, to the committed secularists, trans-denominational, post-denominational, Jewish atheists, etc. I try to hold the principal: “if I’ve met one Jew, I’ve met one Jew”.

That said, I wholeheartedly believe that Jewish literacy is the foundation par excellence of Jewish identity. It bears repeating: Jewish literacy is the bedrock upon which Jewish identity is formed. The stronger the foundation, the more fully realized is the identity.

Like Nehemiah and Ezra’s Jews returning from Babylon, twenty-five hundred years ago, there are too many of us who suffer from the Jewish literacy crisis. If I may say, this is true even of many Jews who are incredibly accomplished in other areas of their lives. Indeed, I recognize the very significant gaps in my own Jewish knowledge and experience. I say this as a day school kid and former Jewish Theological Seminary student: the more I learn Jewishly, the more I realize how much more I have yet to learn.

Two quotes from the Rabbinic tractate Pirkei Avos seem apropos at this juncture:
“If you’ve learned a lot of Torah, do not take too much credit for yourself, because it is precisely for this purpose you were created!” Avos 2:8

“You are not required to finish the work. But you are certainly not free to neglect it!” Avos 2:16

The Jewish enterprise demands a level of active Jewish engagement on the part of the Jew, so that he or she can best contribute the completion and perfection of this world; each Jew’s involvement and engagement following a trajectory of positive, personal evolution. But of course this presupposes an underpinning of Jewish literacy -“for which you were created”- which the Jew should similarly always strive to increase: “you are certainly not free to neglect it”. This is especially true of those who have been charged with the deployment of communal assets and philanthropic investments.

To what can this be compared?

This is compared to a businessperson who would make investments in a given industry. Such a person would never put her money to work in a business she didn’t understand. Rather, she would endeavor to learn as much as she could about a given industry, determine whether this industry might be one in which she can create and add value, identify particular companies within the industry as the investments most likely to meet her goals of value creation and addition, and after making her investments, she would be diligent in continuing to expand her knowledge such that her companies remain vital and dynamic creators of value. We would describe such a person as someone who had a high and highly evolving literacy within her given industry.

My own father was such a businessman. I do not know how much he knew about the glass business when he came into it, but there is no doubt that a key component of his success was his unwavering commitment to continually expanding his knowledge of and fluency in that industry. My personal experience, observing him over many years as the owner of several successful sports teams, was that he began with a strong foundation based on knowledge and understanding, upon which he continually built, such that he was able to make the most informed investment, ultimately leading to multiple major league championships. I don’t know that he would have necessarily spoken in terms of an “investment thesis”, but it is clear to me that his personal practice fits the definition of a thesis, which he constantly refined, by continually adding to his industry-specific literacy.

It is his upon proven model of success that I base my personal thesis regarding Jewish philanthropic investment.

If the eventual outcome, if the return on our philanthropic investment is that Jews should be ever better contributors to the creation and perfection of the world for the benefit of all humanity, then Jews must be ever increasing their Jewish literacy. For Jews to increase their Jewish literacy, we must “read Torah in front of the people”, after the model of Ezra. We must do this in a manner translated for a twenty-first century context. To that end, the William Davidson Foundation has made substantial investments in efforts such as Sefaria and The William Davidson Talmud, Mechon Hadar, The Hartman Institute, PJ Library, and various efforts to make all levels of Jewish education more affordable and accessible.

We also must make sure that all of the gates of the community are open and active, after the model of Nehemiah. For without this, there is no possibility that we will be able to grow Jewish literacy among Jews.

But the first, and continuing step begins in the heart and the home of the Jewish philanthropic investor. The more Jewishly literate he or she becomes, the more effective and positively impactful will be the investments they make.