The Glue, with Eric Fingerhut

This year’s General Assembly marked 30 years since the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister and Peacemaker Yitzhak Rabin. With so much that has happened in these decades, and the past two years in particular, we partnered with SAPIR Journal to host a debate about the future of the two-state solution. 

Arguing in favor of it was Michael Koplow, the Chief Policy Officer of Israel Policy Forum. In the opposition, we had John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary Magazine. The debate was moderated by Tamar Ish-Shalom, a journalist and news anchor for Channel 13 News Israel.

Find all the clips from General Assembly on this YouTube playlist.

"The Glue, with Eric Fingerhut," is brought to you by Jewish Federations on North America, the backbone of the North American Jewish community, representing over 350 communities across North America. Find out how you can get involved or donate to your local Federation at www.jewishfederations.org.

Have something to say about the show? Email us at [email protected].

Executive Produced by Niv Elis. Produced by Charlie Freedman.

This year’s General Assembly marked 30 years since the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister and Peacemaker Yitzhak Rabin. With so much that has happened in these decades, and the past two years in particular, we partnered with SAPIR Journal to host a debate about the future of the two-state solution. 

Arguing in favor of it was Michael Koplow, the Chief Policy Officer of Israel Policy Forum. In the opposition, we had John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary Magazine. The debate was moderated by Tamar Ish-Shalom, a journalist and news anchor for Channel 13 News Israel.

Find all the clips from General Assembly on this YouTube playlist.

"The Glue, with Eric Fingerhut," is brought to you by Jewish Federations on North America, the backbone of the North American Jewish community, representing over 350 communities across North America. Find out how you can get involved or donate to your local Federation at www.jewishfederations.org.

Have something to say about the show? Email us at [email protected].

Executive Produced by Niv Elis. Produced by Charlie Freedman.

Over the course of three years, a period that saw the war in Ukraine, the October 7th attacks, and a sharp spike in antisemitism, Julie Platt helmed Jewish Federations of North America's board, leading the communal response. This summer, she passed the torch to Gary Torgow, Chair of Huntington Bank and until recently the Chair of Detroit's Jewish Federation. In this episode, Eric Fingerhut speaks to both about the past, present, and future of the Jewish community.

Note: This episode was originally recorded in July, just hours before the 12-day war between Israel and Iran broke out. We held it until now to provide a more timely episode about our six-point security plan.

"The Glue, with Eric Fingerhut," is brought to you by Jewish Federations on North America, the backbone of the North American Jewish community, representing over 350 communities across North America. Find out how you can get involved or donate to your local Federation at www.jewishfederations.org.

Have something to say about the show? Email us at [email protected].

Executive Produced by Niv Elis. Produced by Charlie Freedman.

Jewish Federations have long played a critical role in securing our community, whether advocating for the creation of the Nonprofit Security Grant Program in the wake of 9/11, helping create the Secure Communities Network, or launching LiveSecure, the $130 million initiative to ensure that every Federation community has a professional security director to help all our institutions protect themselves. 

Still, after all these incidents, we knew that it was once again time for action. The safety and security of all Americans in our places of worship and communal gathering is the responsibility first and foremost of the government, so we mobilized representatives from over 100 communities for an emergency mission to Washington. There, we laid out a six-point plan for government to meet this moment and help keep our communities safe.  

In this episode of The Glue, we hear from members of the communities that have most been affected, as well as security experts on what our community and the government can do to make sure Jewish communities are safe.

"The Glue, with Eric Fingerhut," is brought to you by Jewish Federations on North America, the backbone of the North American Jewish community, representing over 350 communities across North America. Find out how you can get involved or donate to your local Federation at www.jewishfederations.org.

Have something to say about the show? Email us at [email protected].

Executive Produced by Niv Elis. Produced by Charlie Freedman.

How do Jewish communal professionals go about the work of building community in this complex time? How is the community dealing with grief, antisemitism, mental health, and also focusing on the positive draws that bring people together?

In the episode--recorded in front of a live audience of 1,300 Jewish communal professionals at the "Leading Edge Presents JPro25, in Partnership with Jewish Federations of North America" conference in Baltimore, Maryland--Eric speaks to Sarah Fried, the Chief External Affairs Officer at Hillel International; Josh Miller, Chief Program officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation; and Miryam Rosenzweig, President and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Milwaukee.

"The Glue, with Eric Fingerhut," is brought to you by Jewish Federations on North America, the backbone of the North American Jewish community, representing over 350 communities across North America. Find out how you can get involved or donate to your local Federation at www.jewishfederations.org.

Have something to say about the show? Email us at [email protected].

Executive Produced by Niv Elis. Produced by Charlie Freedman.

Studies show that in the aftermath of natural disasters such as hurricanes and tsunamis, indicators of resilience were better predictors of how well a community recovered than the things you might expect, like wealth or physical infrastructure. Amazingly, communities with stronger social relationships and more informal, grassroots networks had higher survival rates and were able to rebuild faster. Their economic recovery was faster, and their rates of stress and trauma were lower.

This is a concept that speaks to the very core of what The Glue is all about, the idea of what holds communities together in these most difficult times.

In this episode of The Glue, we speak to Dr. Daniel Aldrich, Director of the Security and Resilience Studies Program at Northeastern University, and one of the foremost scholars on Resilience, who has also done quite a bit of research on resilience in Israel and the Gaza Envelope, in particular, even before the October 7th attacks, most recently serving as an advisor to Tkuma, the government’s rebuilding task force. You can learn more about Daniel Aldrich's work on resilience in this presentation about natural disasters.

We also speak with Jewish Federations of North America’s Vice President of Israel and Overseas and Israel Office Deputy Director Rina Goldberg, who has been instrumental in helping allocate funds from the the astonishing $860+ million Israel Emergency Campaign Jewish Federations have raised. 

She helps us understand how resilience and resilience-building fit into our efforts to help Israel recover and rebuild its communities.

"The Glue, with Eric Fingerhut," is brought to you by Jewish Federations on North America, the backbone of the North American Jewish community, representing over 350 communities across North America. Find out how you can get involved or donate to your local Federation at www.jewishfederations.org.

Have something to say about the show? Email us at [email protected].

Executive Produced by Niv Elis. Produced by Charlie Freedman.

Studies show that in the aftermath of natural disasters such as hurricanes and tsunamis, indicators of resilience were better predictors of how well a community recovered than the things you might expect, like wealth or physical infrastructure. Amazingly, communities with stronger social relationships and more informal, grassroots networks had higher survival rates and were able to rebuild faster. Their economic recovery was faster, and their rates of stress and trauma were lower.

This is a concept that speaks to the very core of what The Glue is all about, the idea of what holds communities together in these most difficult times.

In this episode of The Glue, we speak to Dr. Daniel Aldrich, Director of the Security and Resilience Studies Program at Northeastern University, and one of the foremost scholars on Resilience, who has also done quite a bit of research on resilience in Israel and the Gaza Envelope, in particular, even before the October 7th attacks, most recently serving as an advisor to Tkuma, the government’s rebuilding task force. You can learn more about Daniel Aldrich's work on resilience in this presentation about natural disasters.

We also speak with Jewish Federations of North America’s Vice President of Israel and Overseas and Israel Office Deputy Director Rina Goldberg, who has been instrumental in helping allocate funds from the the astonishing $860+ million Israel Emergency Campaign Jewish Federations have raised. 

She helps us understand how resilience and resilience-building fit into our efforts to help Israel recover and rebuild its communities.

"The Glue, with Eric Fingerhut," is brought to you by Jewish Federations on North America, the backbone of the North American Jewish community, representing over 350 communities across North America. Find out how you can get involved or donate to your local Federation at www.jewishfederations.org.

Have something to say about the show? Email us at [email protected].

Executive Produced by Niv Elis. Produced by Charlie Freedman.

Two weeks ago, Jewish communal leaders from across North America convened in Washington DC for Federations' annual General Assembly, where we tackled the biggest issues facing our community. 

In this episode of The Glue, we bring you the conversation between Eric Fingerhut, Pulitzer-prize winning commentator George Will, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) as they discuss antisemitism, how Israel can win its war, the state of college campuses, and how American politics has changed since the election.

You can also check out another podcast that we recorded live at General Assembly: The “Wondering Jews” podcast with Mijal and Noam. Mijal Bitton was our “Scholar in residence” at General Assembly, and she and Noam recorded their very first live podcast episode there, with guest Megan McCain. Their conversation was extremely compelling, and I encourage you to check it out.

"The Glue, with Eric Fingerhut," is brought to you by Jewish Federations on North America, the backbone of the North American Jewish community, representing over 350 communities across North America. Find out how you can get involved or donate to your local Federation at www.jewishfederations.org.

Have something to say about the show? Email us at [email protected].

Executive Produced by Niv Elis. Produced by Charlie Freedman.

Over the summer, Jewish Federations joined with many other organizations to urge universities to make some changes in order to prepare for the onslaught we knew would be coming in the fall. While we’re happy to report that we’ve made some significant progress. there is still so much more work to be done, and unacceptable levels of vitriol and harassment of Jewish students. 

Earlier this month, at the University of Washington, we saw one of the ugliest versions of this phenomenon in play when a group of leaders speaking up about antisemitism–not Israel or Gaza, but antisemitism–were shouted down and forced to evacuate for their own safety. 

One of those leaders was Solly Kane, the President and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, and Lauren Steinberg, Managing Director of Civic Engagement here at Jewish Federations of North America, who is taking the lead on the college campus issue. In this episode, we discuss what's happening on campuses, what's working, and what's not in the fight against campus antisemitism, as well as how it affects the broader community.

Read Washington Gov. Jay Inslee's full letter in response to calls for him to speak out about what happened at University of Washington. 

To get involved, sign up for General Assembly Nov 10-12 at https://generalassembly.org/.

"The Glue, with Eric Fingerhut," is brought to you by Jewish Federations on North America, the backbone of the North American Jewish community, representing over 350 communities across North America. Find out how you can get involved or donate to your local Federation at www.jewishfederations.org.

Have something to say about the show? Email us at [email protected].

Executive Produced by Niv Elis. Produced by Charlie Freedman.

Last month, a delegation of North American Jewish leaders quietly arrived in Kyiv for a first-of-its-kind mission to take stock of the war and its effects on the Jewish community. During that trip, the group was granted a last-minute audience with Ukraine's (Jewish) president Volodymyr Zelensky. In this episode, we discuss what happened in that meeting and talk to Ukrainians on the ground about how their community is powering through these uncertain and difficult days.

We hear from Eli Buzunov, the American Joint Distribution Committee's (JDC) Missions Coordinator in Ukraine, and Keith Shapiro, a Chicago-based Federation activist who has helped lead the charge on the issue.

"The Glue, with Eric Fingerhut," is brought to you by Jewish Federations on North America, the backbone of the North American Jewish community, representing over 350 communities across North America. Find out how you can get involved or donate to your local Federation at www.jewishfederations.org.

Have something to say about the show? Email us at [email protected].

Executive Produced by Niv Elis. Produced by Charlie Freedman.