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Miriam Adelson slashed her philanthropy as casinos closed due to Covid. Now, her business empire is recuperating

(JTA) – The casino company controlled by Jewish megadonor Miriam Adelson is paying its shareholders dividends again, potentially paving the way to a rebound for the family’s foundation.
The Adelson Family Foundation — founded by Adelson and her late husband, Sheldon Adelson — has been a prolific giver to Jewish organizations, including Birthright Israel. The couple was also active in politics, supporting Republican campaigns. But after the casino industry flat-lined early in the pandemic, Adelson donations to charitable and political causes declined.
Assets held in the family’s charitable trust dropped from more than $200 million before the pandemic to $37 million in 2021 as it distributed money to the foundation and other causes without being replenished, according to records filed with the IRS.
The foundation’s grantmaking dropped to $80 million in 2021 from $100 million the year before and $117 million in 2019, according to IRS records. The foundation had only about $6 million in reserves at the end of 2021. More recent numbers are not yet available.
The dip in giving has had a significant impact. The Birthright program, for example, saw its funding from the Adelson Family Foundation cut by half in each of the past two years, with a corresponding drop in free trips for young Jews to Israel.
Now, Adelson’s business prospects appear to be improving. Her Las Vegas Sands Corp. announced that it would pay dividends to shareholders for the first time in more than three years as the company begins to recover from the pandemic-related downturn in global travel and hospitality. Adelson’s own personal payout is expected to be about $87 million for the quarter, a substantial sum but still a fraction of what she and her husband were regularly collecting before the pandemic.
It’s unknown whether or when the cash infusion will spell a restoration of funding for the various organizations that have seen a drop in support from Adelson over a period of several years, which has included Sheldon Adelson’s death at 87 more than two years ago. Adelson’s representatives said she is not giving interviews at the moment; Michael Bohnen, president of the Adelson Family Foundation, declined to comment.
The list of organizations that have been buoyed by Adelson’s support is long and varied. It includes right-wing advocacy groups like the Maccabee Task Force Foundation, which operates on college campuses; the Israeli-American Council and Zionist Organization of America; U.S. fundraising groups benefiting the Israeli military; the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum and memorial in Jerusalem; and the Adelson Family Campus, a large Jewish day school in Las Vegas, where Adelson lives.
Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, said he is confident in the Adelson family’s commitment to the charities it has supported. “The Adelson family has played a pivotal role in Birthright Israel and in the organization of the large community of Israelis in the U.S. through IAC,” he said. “They have also contributed to countless other Jewish philanthropic endeavors, including Jewish day schools and the Jewish community of Las Vegas. I have no doubt that the family will continue its tradition of philanthropic generosity.”
Andrés Spokoiny, president and CEO of the Jewish Funders Network, said the Jewish philanthropic world doesn’t rise or fall because of any one donor, even a philanthropist as prolific as Adelson. “The funding landscape is diverse and there is no sense of dependence on a single donor,” he said.
The Adelson name is also big in Republican politics: The couple broke a record for the most donations in an election cycle in 2020, with almost $173 million in campaign contributions. But the 2022 midterm election saw the newly widowed Adelson give only a fraction of that, with no contribution at all to the Republican Jewish Coalition, whose top patron became WhatsApp founder Jan Koum, who gave a $1.35 million donation to RJC’s Super PAC.
The reinstatement of dividends was made possible by increased visitation to Sands casinos in Macao and Singapore in recent months, which generated revenues of $2.5 billion for the second quarter, double what they were a year ago. Executives at the company said business still hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels, suggesting room for further growth.
“In Macao, we were pleased to see the ongoing recovery now underway in all gaming and nongaming segments progress during the quarter,” Sands Chairman and CEO Rob Goldstein said during a conference call on July 19 with investors. “We remain deeply enthusiastic about the opportunity to continue our investments to enhance Macao’s tourism appeal to travelers from throughout the region, including to foreign visitors to Macao.”
As a result of Sands’ profitability, the company is paying shareholders a dividend of 20 cents per share. Adelson’s roughly 57% stake is valued at more than $35 billion, placing her among the 40 richest people in the world according to Forbes.
Under Miriam Adelson, Sands has been lobbying to legalize gambling in Texas and is pursuing a bid for one of three licenses to operate a casino in New York.
Sheldon Adelson, who founded Las Vegas Sands and served as its CEO as it grew into an international gambling and resort empire, died in January 2021, living long enough to see Sands revenues plummet because of Covid-related lockdowns. The following year, the company, now controlled solely by Miriam, sold its marquee Las Vegas properties, The Venetian and the Sands Expo and Convention Center, for $6.5 billion in a bet on its Asian casinos and resorts.
It’s not the first time the Adelson empire has faced and recovered from economic headwinds. Adelson had begun expanding in Asia ahead of the 2008 financial crisis, borrowing heavily to finance the construction of new casinos and hotels. The company had lost billions as a result of the timing and the Adelsons paused much of their giving for a few years.
Whether Miriam Adelson desires to shift philanthropic priorities following the death of her husband remains unknown. The 77-year-old, an immigrant to the United States from Israel and a naturalized American citizen, earlier this year criticized the judicial reform being pursued by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which was notable because of the Adelsons’ long-standing support for Netanyahu.
Compared to her husband, Miriam has kept out of the public spotlight, with a significant exception in 2018, when Donald Trump awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s top civilian honor. A profile of her in the Guardian shortly afterward suggested that she had been far more influential in the couple’s activities than many realized.
“Everybody says it’s Sheldon, but it’s Miriam,” Michael Cherry, a board member of the Las Vegas addiction recovery clinic that the Adelsons founded, was quoted as saying.
Together with her husband, Miriam was the largest donor to Trump’s 2016 presidential bid. But she has not yet announced support for Trump this time around as he seeks to win the Republican nomination and get reelected in 2024. Earlier this year, Trump’s rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, was reportedly courting Adelson and other Jewish conservative donors. DeSantis and Adelson were seen seated together at a dinner in Jerusalem. But Adelson has reportedly said that she does not plan to make an endorsement in the primary.
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The post Miriam Adelson slashed her philanthropy as casinos closed due to Covid. Now, her business empire is recuperating appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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New York City Jews Targeted for Most Hate Crimes in March, NYPD Stats Show

Orthodox Jewish man waiting for the train in the New York City subway. Photo: Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect.
Jews in New York City were victims of more hate crimes in March than any other group even as crime across the Five Boroughs fell to “historic” lows, according to statistics issued by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) on Thursday.
39 hate crimes targeted Jews last month, the Algemeiner reviewed data shows, outstripping the combined total of all other groups combined — 28 — and constituting 58 percent of all hate crimes reported to authorities. So far, there have born 85 antisemitic hate crimes in New York City through the first three months of 2025, with the month of February seeing a 100 percent increase in them over the previous year and March seeing no improvement at all.
The data continues a trend that has persisted for several years and concurred with a rise in antisemitic incidents across the US.
Jews represented a disproportionate share of hate crimes perpetrated in New York City in 2024 as well. Of the 641 total hate crimes tallied by the NYPD that year, Jews were victims of 345, which, in addition to being a 7 percent increase over the previous year, amounted to 54 percent of all hate crimes in the city.
As The Algemeiner has previously reported, antisemitic hate crimes have posed a major threat to the quality of life of New York City’s Orthodox Jewish community, which was the target in many of the incidents. In just eight days between the end of October and the beginning of November, three Hasidim, including children, were brutally assaulted in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. In one instance, an Orthodox man was accosted by two assailants, one masked, who “chased and beat him” after he refused to surrender his cellphone in compliance with what appeared to have been an attempted robbery.
In another incident, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily Jewish neighborhood. Less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face as he was walking in Brooklyn. Days after the week-long antisemitic hate crime spree, three men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the Crown Heights neighborhood.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post New York City Jews Targeted for Most Hate Crimes in March, NYPD Stats Show first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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NYC ‘Dyke March’ Bans Zionists From Participating in Annual Demonstration

(Source: Reuters)
NYC Dyke March, a public demonstration held by members of the lesbian community in New York City, has banned self-proclaimed “Zionists” from its annual event, citing a desire to stand against the so-called “genocide” occuring in Gaza.
The group revealed in a statement that their decision to ban Israel supporters from their ranks came after multiple members dropped out of the organization due to differences in “political beliefs and values.” After engaging in discussions with frustrated members, the NYC Dyke March committee agreed to adopt “an explicitly anti-Zionist position.” The organization claims that it will “strengthen our commitment” to fighting against Israel and advocating on behalf of Palestinians.
Last year, the NYC Dyke March previously came under scrutiny after organizers settled on “genocide” as the theme of its 2024 event. In a statement, decrying “ethnic cleansing, violence, and dehumanization,” the organization compared the ongoing war in Gaza, to the mass slaughters occurring in Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Sudan.
The organization plans on recycling the same theme for this year’s march, titling it “Dykes Against Genocide.” The group released a statement clarifying that Jews are allowed to attend and condemned the Oct. 7 slaughters as a “senseless loss of life.” After an apparent uproar from its members, the organization deleted the post and wrote that the group “unapologetically stands in support of Palestinian liberation.” In addition, the group affirmed that “anti-Zionism is not antisemitism and any language we put out which is not clearly opposed to a Zionist, imperialist agenda is harmful to us all.”
In the 17 months following the Hamas-led massacre of roughly 1200 people throughout Israel, the NYC Dyke March has produced numerous statements lambasting Israel and declaring “solidarity” with Palestinians amid their so-called “ongoing genocide.” The organization also accused Israel of engaging in supposed “pinkwashing” and “manipulative use of Jewish and queer identities,” with the aim of justifying its war efforts in Gaza.
Israel offers an expansive set of rights for members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transngender (LGBT) community, including recognition of same-sex marriages. Every year in June, Tel Aviv holds one of the largest LGBT Pride celebrations in the world. Meanwhile, members of the LGBT community are routinely imprisoned or murdered in other parts of the Middle East, including the Palestinian territories.
The NYC Dyke March’s announcement was met with widespread condemnation.
“You cannot exclude the majority of Jews and call yourself inclusive,” said the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in a post on X/Twitter, adding that the group “essentially equates Zionism with racism” in their announcement.
The post NYC ‘Dyke March’ Bans Zionists From Participating in Annual Demonstration first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Administration Planning $510 Million Cut to Brown University Budget, Report Says

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with journalists onboard Air Force One en route to Miami, Florida, U.S., April 3, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
The Trump administration reportedly plans to terminate $510 million worth of federal contracts and grants awarded to Brown University, according to media reports.
Brown University’s failure to mount a satisfactory response to the campus antisemitism crisis, as well as its embrace of the diversity, equity, and, inclusion (DEI) movement — perceived by many across the political spectrum as an assault on merit-based upward mobility and causing incidents of anti-White and anti-Asian discrimination — prompted the alleged pending action by the federal government, according to the right-leaning outlet The Daily Caller.
The announcement comes as Brown scrambles to cover a $46 million budget shortfall and other universities across the country have faced similar funding cuts.
Brown University officials, however, denied that the university had received any directives from the Trump Administration.
“We have no information to substantiate these rumors,” Brown University provost Francis Doyle issued a statement. “We are closely monitoring notifications related to grants, but have nothing more we can share as of now.”
Meanwhile, Brown’s Jewish community rushed to the university’s defense, issuing a joint statement with the Brown Corporation which said that the campus is “peaceful and supportive campus for its Jewish community.”
The letter, signed by members of the local Hillel International chapter and Chabad on College Hill, continued: “Brown University is a place where Jewish life not only exists but thrives. While there is more work to be done, Brown, through the dedicated efforts of its administration, leadership, and resilient spirit of its Jewish community, continues to uphold the principles of inclusion, tolerance, and intellectual freedom that have been central to its identity since 1764.”
Brown Divest Coalition — an anti-Zionist group which recently saw its campaign for the university to adopt the boycott, divest, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel defeated by the Brown Corporation — weighed in too, denouncing the reported cut as “a means of suppressing all forms of popular dissent to the renewed violence of the US war machine abroad.” US Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) also criticized the move, accusing the administration “of a broader pattern of behavior…that will negatively impact communities across the country and lead to layoffs, restrict research, and more.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the Trump administration is following through on its threats to inflict potentially catastrophic financial injuries on colleges and universities deemed as soft on antisemitism or excessively “woke.” The past six weeks has seen the policy imposed on elite universities including Harvard and Columbia, rattling a higher education establishment that has for better and worse operated for decades with little interference from the federal government even as it polarized the public and contributed to a growing sense that elites are contemptuous of Americans who live outside of their cultural enclaves.
In March, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced the cancellation of $400 million in federal contracts and grants for Columbia University, a measure that secured the school’s acceding to a slew of demands the administration put forth as preconditions for restoring the money. Later, the Trump administration disclosed its reviewing $9 billion worth of federal grants and contracts awarded to Harvard University, jeopardizing a substantial source of the school’s income over its alleged failure to quell antisemitic and pro-Hamas activity on campus following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. Princeton University saw $210 million of its federal grants and funding suspended too, prompting its president, Christopher Eisgruber to say the institution is “committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination.”
Additionally, 60 universities are being investigated by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights over their handling of campus antisemitism, a project that will serve as an early test of the administration’s ability to perform the essential functions of the agency after downsizing its workforce to increase its efficiency.
One of those universities, Northwestern University, on Monday touted its progress in addressing campus antisemitism, noting that it has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, a reference tool which aids officials in determining what constitutes antisemitism, and begun holding “mandatory antisemitism training” sessions which “all students, faculty, and staff” must attend.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Trump Administration Planning $510 Million Cut to Brown University Budget, Report Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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