What Gives? The Jewish Philanthropy Podcast

Episode 80 of What Gives?—the Jewish Philanthropy Podcast from Jewish Funders Network, hosted by JFN President and CEO Andrés Spokoiny. In this episode, Andrés speaks with Mitch Silber, CEO of the Community Security Initiative and former Director of Intelligence Analysis for the NYPD. Mitch and Andrés talk about the changing security landscape facing Jewish communities in New York, across the United States, and around the world. Mitch shares how 9/11 led him from corporate finance into counterterrorism, what he learned helping build the NYPD’s intelligence and counterterrorism capacity, and why the American Jewish community’s approach to security changed so dramatically after the attacks in Pittsburgh, Poway, Jersey City, and Monsey.

Also discussed are the range of threats facing Jewish institutions today, from white supremacists and Islamist extremists to violent anti-Israel actors, and the difficult questions that follow: what volunteers can and cannot do, when armed security is necessary, how local and national security organizations coordinate, and where philanthropy can make the most concrete difference.

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Episode 79 of What Gives?—the Jewish Philanthropy Podcast from Jewish Funders Network, hosted by JFN President and CEO Andrés Spokoiny. In this episode, Andrés speaks with Naomi Firestone-Teeter and Elisa Spungen Bildner of the Jewish Book Council, an organization that has spent a century championing Jewish books, Jewish writers, and the readers who find themselves through Jewish stories.

In this conversation, Naomi, Elisa, and Andrés talk about why books remain such a powerful entry point into Jewish life, especially at a time when Jewish identity, Jewish culture, and Jewish authorship all feel newly urgent. They explore the history of the Jewish Book Council, from its beginnings as Jewish Book Week in 1925 to its current role as a convener, advocate, and ecosystem-builder for Jewish literature. And they discuss the challenges facing Jewish writers and publishers after October 7, the need to make room for Israeli voices and a wider range of Jewish stories, and why funders should see culture as central to Jewish continuity rather than peripheral to it.

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Episode 78 of What Gives?—the Jewish Philanthropy Podcast from Jewish Funders Network, hosted by JFN President and CEO Andrés Spokoiny. In this episode, Andrés speaks with Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, Senior Rabbi at Park Avenue Synagogue and a leading voice in American Jewish life. Through his writing and public leadership, Elliot has been deeply engaged in some of the most contentious debates shaping the Jewish community right now.

Andrés and Elliot take a close look at the questions raised about the role of rabbis in political life that arose during last fall’s New York City mayoral campaign. They explore how Jewish leaders decide when to speak out, where the boundaries of communal discourse should be drawn, and how questions around Zionism, anti-Zionism, and internal disagreement are playing out across synagogues and campuses. They discuss the pressures facing today’s rabbinate, the challenge of holding communities together amid deep division, and what responsible leadership looks like in a moment that resists easy consensus.

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Episode 77 of What Gives?—the Jewish Philanthropy Podcast from Jewish Funders Network, hosted by JFN President and CEO Andrés Spokoiny. In this episode, Andrés speaks with Mijal Bitton, spiritual leader of the Downtown Minyan in New York City and scholar in residence at Maimonides Fund, and Yehuda Kurtzer, President of the Shalom Hartman Institute. This episode takes on one of the hardest questions facing Jewish communities right now: how we think about boundaries, belonging, and the obligations we owe one another.

Using their two recent essays as a point of departure, Andrés, Mijal, and Yehuda explore the tension between kinship and consent in Jewish life, the legacy of radical inclusion in liberal Jewish institutions, and the ways October 7 forced many American Jews to reconsider what peoplehood actually asks of them. They also get into the difficult questions that follow from there: when disagreement becomes rupture, whether some forms of Jewish dissent cross a line, how institutions should think about red lines without becoming consumed by policing them, and what role funders can play in clarifying values without shrinking the tent beyond recognition.

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Click here to read Mijal's piece.

Click here to read Yehuda's piece.

Episode 76 of What Gives?—the Jewish Philanthropy Podcast from Jewish Funders Network, hosted by JFN President and CEO Andrés Spokoiny. In this episode, Andrés speaks with Eugene Kandel, former Chair of Israel’s National Economic Council, chairman of the Board of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, and founder and chairman of the Israel Strategic Futures Institute. Over decades of advising Israeli governments and institutions, Eugene has become one of the leading voices thinking strategically about Israel’s political, economic, and social future.

In this wide ranging conversation, Andrés and Eugene explore the deep internal divisions shaping Israeli society, the tension between Israel’s Jewish and democratic identities, and the demographic and political forces reshaping the country’s trajectory. They reflect on why polarization has become so dangerous, what October 7 revealed about Israel’s vulnerabilities, and why Jews around the world should be paying close attention to what comes next.

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