Jewish Philanthropy: Stepping Up in Hard Times

Jewish Philanthropy, especially at times like this of financial crisis is always plays an important part of any Jewish entity, as it helps raise money for it's own cause or other causes related to it (especially for Tzedakah-acts of loving kindness). All of the websites that I have visited have their respective blogs on the current economic situation of the Jewish communities around the world. As of now, they all have one major thing in common: Bernie Madoff, the man perpetrated the largest Ponzi scheme in the history of finance, sabotaging many Jewish foundations that are considered to be the backbone of the Jewish world. There are major organizations that we as college students have been or are apart of (such as Hillel, or Birthwright Israel trips) that have lost so much money because of this fraud scheme, and the damage to their finances is almost crippling

The site that I found most intriguing to me was the blog of The New Jew, which is an individual Jewish Philanthropy blog. The first, or most recent thing that this person talks about in the blog are the questions that have often been asked at the dinner table concerning the Madoff scheme, the issues of the Ponzi scam as well as the future of Birthwright are brought up, but ultimately the blogger asks questions, essentially opening up a forum for the comment pages. This is great way to help become more interactive with Jewish Philanthropy, because the comments are completely open to public opinion and can hopefully garner more attention to the issue of the economic crisis of the Jewish community.