HOD Completes Successful Birthright Fundraiser

A fundraising campaign led by two leaders of the Hebrew Order of David in Atlanta has netted Birthright Israel enough money to add an extra 80 participants to this year’s program. The campaign, which was led by David Joss and Jeff Kaiwerisky in Atlanta and Paul Wainstein of the Order’s chapter in Houston, allowed the program to add the equivalent of two full busloads of young Jewish adults to Israel for the 10-day, expense paid trip.

And it was all created and carried out, according to Joss, at almost no expense to the Order’s organization. National Birthright helps build an online fundraising page and created a payment system, and Joss said his team did the leg work.

“We have a huge network of about 600 brothers in the United States and in North America, and with 10 lodges. Our plan was simply to motivate each of them to reach out to their friends and their family. Birthright made it possible to easily click on a link and donate by credit card or from their charitable foundation so that this thing [could] really get up some steam and grew.”

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Hebrew Order of David donations made it possible for an additional 80 participants to join this year’s program.

To motivate the Order’s members, they persuaded Atlanta philanthropist Mike Leven to donate $100,000, and then received another $60,000 through a matching grant. Almost half of the membership donated a total of $130,000.

The vice-chair of the national Birthright Foundation’s Board of Directors, Doug Ross, who lives in Atlanta, helped the Order of David to benefit from a Birthright program that offered to match any donation three to one. In a two-month online drive, including the matching funds, the Order raised a total of $390,000.

A traditional fundraising campaign, with event planning and speakers in various cities, might have spent just two months planning the campaign; but for Joss and his committee, the lesson is that times are changing.

“It taught us that social media is incredibly powerful. I mean, people put this on their Facebook pages, their Instagrams, and every person has a network. Everybody has a network of fans and players, and each one of them you can reach out and get your message through. And if it’s something that is near and dear to Jewish people, like Birthright, they respond.”

Rising costs and cutbacks in funding has meant that Birthright has had to bump 20,000 young people from its trips.

This summer the Birthright program in Israel has had to cut back. Each young person who makes the trip gets, in effect, a gift of $4,500, and for the first time the organization has had to say “no” to a large number of them. One of the organization’s founders and its most generous supporter was Sheldon Adelson. His casinos in Las Vegas and Macau in Asia generated billions of dollars in profits prior to the pandemic. But after his death in January 2021, and with the pandemic taking its toll on his gambling empire, his widow made a deep cut in the family’s contribution to the Birthright program.

It was time, she pointed out, for others to take up the challenge. The funding shortfall resulted in 20,000 young people being bumped from the program this summer and placed on waiting lists.

Over the years, Birthright has brought more than 800,000 young people from 68 countries for educational experience. Another 10,000 have received internships, and support for academic study programs in Israel. About 1,000 have been a part of the Birthright Excel fellowship that is aimed at training a new generation of international supporters of the organization.

But as successful as the social media campaign has been, the Hebrew Order of David also has many programs where there has been no substitute for individual participation.

As part of their community-based programs, they have placed headstones on all the unmarked Jewish graves at Greenwood Cemetery in Southwest Atlanta. On July 31, the final eight grave markers were set in place on graves that date back as much as 85 years.

For the past 10 years, The Hebrew Order of David, along with the Atlanta Jewish Times, has raised thousands of dollars with the popular Atlanta Kosher BBQ Festival. This year’s annual edition will take place at Brook Run Park on Oct. 23.

Joss, who helped start the organization in Atlanta in 1999, is currently serving as Deputy Grand President of the organization. In 2025, in Atlanta when the International Order holds its next annual convention, he is expected to become the Grand President of the Order. It is likely to continue its financial support of Birthright.

“Now, more than ever,” Joss commented, “young Jewish adults need to see Israel for themselves and find their own personal connections to the country and take pride in their Judaism. There is no better way to do that than Birthright Israel.”