Jews, Money, and 2026: JLF’s Annual Political Education Series
Oct
28
to Dec 14

Jews, Money, and 2026: JLF’s Annual Political Education Series

Jewish Liberation Fund presents this program as nonpartisan public education. Nothing in this program is intended to support or oppose any candidate for public office or any political party, or to advocate how anyone should vote. Speakers participate in their individual professional capacities; their statements and opinions are their own and are not endorsed by, and do not represent the views of, Jewish Liberation Fund and its fiscal sponsor, Proteus Fund.

We're excited to announce that JLF's annual political education series is back. Join us this fall and winter for Jews, Money, and 2026, a series of conversations about philanthropy and the way it shapes the Jewish community's politics, conversations, and culture.

The Series:

Throughout this series, we'll analyze the role that American Jewish philanthropy plays in each of these topics: how it's shaped where we are, and how it can help us build where we need to go.

Featured Speakers

Session 1: AIPAC, Elections, and How We Build Lasting Power | October 28, 7pm ET | New York City, NY + Online

Akela Lacy Akela Lacy is a Senior Politics Reporter at The Intercept and co-host of The Intercept Briefing podcast. She was previously The Intercept’s inaugural Ady Barkan Reporting Fellow; prior to that, she was a Politics Fellow in the D.C. Bureau. She has also worked at Politico and the Pulitzer Center. She is currently a PhD student at the City University of New York Graduate Center and graduated from the College of William and Mary with a B.A. in sociology and Italian. She is based in New York.

Molly Schultz Hafid, MPA  Molly is the Executive Director (part-time) of the Butler Family Fund, a limited lifespan foundation whose mission is to seek lasting solutions to homelessness and an equitable criminal legal system. She also manages a consulting practice, MSH Consultants, and works closely with individual donors and foundations, providing strategic guidance on grantmaking, next-generation engagement, lifespan strategies, leadership transitions, governance assessment, and organizational development.

A sector leader who provides strategic guidance and thought leadership, Molly is a co-founder and the current Chair of the Board of JustFund, the only nonprofit grantmaking solution created by funders and organizers of color.  She serves as the Vice Chair of the Philanthropy New York Board of Directors and recently completed a decade of service on the Board of Directors of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP), which promotes accountability and the highest standards of integrity and openness within the philanthropic sector.  She regularly serves as an expert panel reviewer for Lever for Change awards, including a recent round of the Yield Giving Open Call (Mackenzie Scott) grants.  Molly was honored to be selected as an Aspen Institute and Neighborhood Funders Group Philanthropy Forward Fellow in 2021-2022 and to receive the Neighborhood Funders Group Award for Excellence in Philanthropy in 2018.

Molly is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Service at New York University and part-time faculty at The New School, teaching strategic philanthropy, nonprofit management, and fundraising.  In 2023, she was appointed to the U.K-based National Centre for Social Research International Advisory Board, which guides the Centre’s social research expertise with a global outlook. She also teaches a course on corporate sustainability at the Africa Business School in Rabat, Morocco, and served for over a decade as a faculty member for Philanthropy New York’s Essential Skills and Strategies course for new grantmakers.  She has a Master of Public Administration specializing in International Nonprofit Management from New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, an executive education certificate in Nonprofit Financial Sustainability from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School, and a bachelor's degree in Anthropology and Literature from Antioch College.

Alex Kane (Moderator) Alex Kane is the senior reporter for Jewish Currents.

Session 2: AI, Gaza, and Funding Work That Uncovers the Truth | November 9th, 7pm ET | Washington, DC + Online

Sarah Anne Minkin Sarah Anne Minkin, PhD, works at the intersection of human and civil rights advocacy, philanthropy, and education, with a special focus on Israel/Palestine. She is the Director of Programs and Partnerships at the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP), where she leads programming, works to deepen FMEP’s relationships with existing and potential grantees, and builds relationships with philanthropic and other partners. She co-founded the Palestinian Voices Study Group, a program that guides Jews in leadership positions through rigorous engagement with Palestinian texts in an effort to develop empathy, insight, and tools for engagement. Sarah Anne earned a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley for research focusing on Jewish American identity, the sociology of emotion and nationalism, and Jewish relationships to Israel/Palestine. She is a trained community mediator.

Noa Yachot Noa Yachot is a senior editor at the Guardian. She works across news, features and investigations teams on coverage linked to US dimensions of the Israel-Palestine story, along with other pressing issues relating to civil liberties and power. She also oversees the Guardian's "featured essay", which is published on Sundays, and was a co-producer on the film NAZA. Prior to joining the Guardian, she edited at the ACLU, +972 Magazine (where she is a board member), and Haaretz. She is based in New York.

Annie Chabel (Moderator) Annie Chabel is The Intercept’s inaugural Chief Executive Officer.  Annie was previously the Chief Operating Officer at the Center for Investigative Reporting, where she oversaw all business operations for the organization and served as interim CEO in 2021. During her time at CIR, Annie developed organizational strategy, improved and professionalized CIR’s financial management and operations, and worked to create a more equitable and inclusive workplace. Prior to serving as the CIR’s COO, Annie focused on institutional fundraising and philanthropic partnerships, significantly expanding the organization’s foundation giving. Annie served on the Institute for Nonprofit News’s Emerging Leaders Council in 2021. She is based in the Bay Area. 

Session 3: Philanthropy, Accountability, and the Instrumentalization of Antisemitism | December 14th, 7pm CT | Chicago, IL & Online

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg is the award-winning author of eight books who now makes her primary writing home at Life is a Sacred Text. She has received the Lives of Commitment Award from Auburn Seminary, and the Rabbinic Human Rights Hero Award from the human rights organization T’ruah, was named by Newsweek as a “rabbi to watch,” and as a “faith leader to watch” by the Center for American Progress, and has been a Sunday Washington Post crossword clue (83 Down).  Her most recent book, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World is a National Jewish Book Award winner and an American Library Association’s Sophie Brody Honor Book. It was hailed by Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley as “A must read for anyone navigating the work of justice and healing.”  Her North Star is the belief that we have a moral and religious obligation to care for one another, and to fight for a more just world.

Graie Hagans (he/they) is an organizer, political educator, and casual midrashist who helps people discover their own capacity to build a better and more beautiful world. He currently serves as a full-time consultant supporting the Jewish Bridge Project, The Shalom Center, and the Black Jewish Liberation Collective.

A longtime movement leader, Graie previously served as Chief Vision Officer at Bend the Arc, where he led political education, training and narrative strategy on antisemitism, anti-Black racism, and multiracial democracy building. He is also a founding member of the Black Jewish Liberation Collective, a member of the steering committee for the Jewish Liberation Fund, and serves on the board of Kehillat Sankofa.

Graie holds an MPP from the Bloustein School of Public Policy at Rutgers University. 

Marty Levine A lifelong advocate for progressive social change, Marty founded the Jewish Alliance for Economic Justice. He is a long-time member and past leader of the Chicago chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. Marty is the Co-chairman of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (JCUA) Votes Political Committee and actively works as a member of JCUA as it combats antisemitism and works for a more equitable community. He is a member of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

Marty Levine, a social worker by training, lead the Jewish Community Centers of Chicago for 40 years until he retired in 2016.  Since he stepped down, he has consulted and helped build the strength of small, community service organizations from Gary to Waukegan. He was a contributing writer for Nonprofit Quarterly and currently publishes regular opinion pieces on Changecounts.net

Ari Bloomekatz (Moderator) Ari Bloomekatz is interim executive director at In These Times, where he was previously editor-in-chief. Before joining the team, Ari was managing editor of Rethinking Schools and Tikkun magazines, as well as an investigative reporter for Voice of San Diego and a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times from 2007 to 2014. His writing has also been published by the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the Seattle Times, among others. Ari is editor of the Haymarket Books–In These Times book series "Books for These Times" and also produced the popular volume Teaching for Black Lives. Ari was books editor at Jewish Currents, where he published The Israeli Black Panthers Haggadah and A Flag of No Nation. He also consults on both legacy and emerging media projects, is a veteran digital organizer and strategist, and enjoys teaching and coaching, most recently with a brilliant cohort at the Disability Justice Culture Lab. You can try to follow him @bloomekatz, but you're more likely to find him fishing.

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Jews, Money, and 2025: JLF’s Annual Political Education Series
Dec
1
to Dec 22

Jews, Money, and 2025: JLF’s Annual Political Education Series

This year's theme is "surviving and building after the crash." Across three sessions this December, we'll take you on a journey to understand the forces at play in this moment of crisis, grieve what we've lost, move towards hope for a better future, and hear from leaders who are building the institutions our movement needs.

The Series:

Throughout this series, we'll analyze the role that American Jewish philanthropy plays in each of these topics: how it's shaped where we are, and how it can help us build where we need to go.

Featured Speakers

Session 1: Understanding Brokenness | December 1, 7pm ET

Dania Rajendra is an organizer and writer, examining the lessons from the US labor movement for Jews organizing desperately-needed new religious and cultural institutions. Her recent essays have appeared in Spectre Journal, Truthout, Dilettante Army, and In These Times, and her poetry in Killing the Buddha.

Lila Corwin Berman is the Paul & Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History at New York University, where she directs the Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History. Her most recent book, The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex: The History of a Multibillion-Dollar Institution, was awarded the 2021 Ellis W. Hawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians. In addition to her scholarly articles, Berman has also written guest columns for the Washington Post, the Chronicle of Higher Education, MSNBC, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Her new book, Who Is American? Belonging and the Question of Jewish Citizenship (Princeton University Press), will be published next spring.

Dove Kent (Moderator) has over two decades of experience in grassroots organizing, political education, and movement building. She currently serves as the Acting Director of Diaspora Alliance, an international project that fights antisemitism and its political misuse.

Session 2: From Grief; Towards Possibility | December 8, 3pm ET

emet ezell (b. 1995, Texas) is an artist living and working in Berlin. Trained in the studio of Polish typographer Robert Sawa, ezell engages the letter as a visceral unit of composition. In addition to prints, they make paper by hand, preserving forgotten techniques through practice. Their work spans themes of devotion, dispossession, ruin, and return. ezell has received support from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, European Commission for Culture and Creativity, and the Berlin Senate, among others. Recent work appears in The American Poetry Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Best New Poets. Their first solo exhibition, "Destruction Is and Is Not Forever," debuted at the Sabile Arts and Culture Center in Latvia. They are a 2025-26 New Jewish Culture Fellow.

Rabbi Sandra Lawson is the Executive Director of Carolina Jews for Justice, a statewide grassroots organization mobilizing Jewish communities across North Carolina to build a more just and compassionate world. She lives in North Carolina with her wife Susan and three dogs Bridget, Simon and Stella.

Keren Soffer-Roth (she/her) is the director of Rise Up Initiative. She brings over a decade of leadership experience in the Jewish social justice sector and nearly two decades in the government and nonprofit sectors. Before joining Rise Up, Keren was a senior organizer at Jews For Racial & Economic Justice, where she founded the first ever Mizrahi/Sephardi Caucus in the country; built the largest education and organizing program in JFREJ's then-30 year history; and co-authored the groundbreaking resource, Understanding Antisemitism: An Offering To Our Movement.

Rebecca Katz is an artist and educator born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. Through community art projects, workshops, and cultural organizing, she creates spaces where people can access their creativity and explore their connection to community, identity, and place. She's currently working on a graphic novel about circumcision and was a 2023 LABA Fellow. Her comics have been published in Lilith magazine, “Jewish Women in Comics: Bodies and Borders” (Syracuse University Press, April 15, 2023), and her organizing and art has been featured in Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Kveller, Canvas Compendium. With Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and the artist Rachel Schragis, Rebecca cofacilitated the creation of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice's “Unraveling Antisemitism,” a cultural organizing project and map for discussion, organizing, and struggle to win a world free from antisemitism.

Session 3: Putting the World Back Together | December 22, 7pm ET

Joanna Ware (she/her) is the Executive Director of the Jewish Liberation Fund. She is an organizer, facilitator, and educator. She has spent over a decade working with organizations – inside and outside of the Jewish world - to bring forth a more just, whole, and liberatory world. Joanna has worked as a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) consultant, Adaptive Leadership teacher and practitioner, community organizer, and popular educator at the intersections of identity, power, leadership, and social justice.

Arielle Angel is the editor-in-chief of Jewish Currents and a frequent host of the magazine's podcast, On the Nose.

Rabbi Alissa Wise is a community organizer, educator, organizational consultant, and ritual leader with over two decades of movement-building experience. She is the Founding Director of Rabbis for Ceasefire. She is co-author of Solidarity is the Political Version of Love: Lessons from Jewish Anti-Zionist Organizing (Haymarket, 2024).

Sarah Anne Minkin (Moderator), PhD, works at the intersection of human and civil rights advocacy, philanthropy, and education, with a special focus on Israel/Palestine. She currently serves as the Director of Programs and Partnerships at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. She is an affiliated faculty member at University of California, Berkeley's Center for Right-Wing Studies and was a lecturer at San Francisco University and UC Berkeley. She earned her PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley for research focusing on the sociology of emotion, nationalism, and Jewish Americans' relationships with Israel/Palestine. She is a trained community mediator, a chaplain-in-training, and a Board member at Jewish Currents.

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Illuminating the Movement: Stories of Hope
Dec
19
8:00 PM20:00

Illuminating the Movement: Stories of Hope

The story of Chanukah teaches us that in the darkest time, we must remain committed to our belief that a better world is possible. Just as the oil lasted for eight days, so too can our hope for, commitment to, and vision of the world to come sustain us in times of despair.

The last two months of war in Israel / Palestine have been a time of despair for many on the Jewish left. It is also a time in which we must find the fuel that will sustain our movement and allow us to continue showing up for the work of collective liberation.

Jewish Liberation Fund fuels and sustains the progressive Jewish movement for justice and liberation in the United States by funding this work. At this gathering, leaders from across our movement will share stories about the hope that sustains them in these difficult times, and we will come together with them to raise money for JLF, creating fuel for our movement to build the power to create a liberatory future, for Jews, for Palestinians, and for us all.

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