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Mary Ann Stein, philanthropist who supported social justice in US and Israel, dies at 80
(JTA) — Mary Ann Stein of Bethesda, Maryland, who as the founding president of The Moriah Fund supported human and civil rights in the U.S. and Israel and causes that included women’s rights and reproductive health and economic justice, died Sept. 6. She was 80.
Stein served, starting in 1985, for more than 30 years at the helm of The Moriah Fund, a private foundation established by her father and uncle, Robert and Clarence Efroymson. During her tenure the fund established the Israel Center for Educational Innovation, which seeks to improve literacy among Israel’s Ethiopian immigrants. Family members said she was “profoundly committed to the successful integration of the Ethiopian immigrant community in Israel.”
Stein also served as president and long-time board member of the New Israel Fund, which promotes Israel’s civil society and democratic institutions. A supporter of Palestinian as well as Israeli Jewish rights, she served as co-president of Americans for Peace Now and in 1997 supported then-President Bill Clinton’s public criticism of Israeli settlement policies.
“For decades, Mary Ann was deeply engaged in the work of democracy and peace building in Israel and Palestine,” Americans for Peace Now said in a statement. “Her leadership and philanthropy blazed new paths for the institutions in the region and in the US that are dedicated to building a better future for Israelis and Palestinians.”
Stein was also the co-founder and founding chair of the Fund for Global Human Rights, which since 2002, has made more than $125 million in grants to more than 900 organizations in 60 countries around the world.
Her son, Gideon Stein, said she passed down an ethic of philanthropy that was “trust-based” and focused on finding solutions without preconceived notions about what the problem or challenges are.
One example, he said, was her leadership of the Global Campaign for Microbicides, which championed the development of HIV prevention options and access for women. When she approached the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support her efforts to stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, an expert there told her that women in developing countries would be too embarrassed to use the applicators used to deliver the microbicides.
Undaunted, Stein tracked down Melinda Gates at a conference, and convinced the then wife of the Microsoft head to provide the initial $8 million for clinical trials in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. In 2003, the Gates Foundation made a $60 million grant to accelerate the use of topical microbicides to prevent HIV transmission.
“She had a core belief in talking to people on the ground,” said her son.
Gideon Stein said his mother “deeply identified as Jewish” and felt most comfortable in Israel, where she would travel three times a year for extended periods. She would also lend her apartment to others, including the novelist Colum McCann, who worked there on his 2020 novel “Apeirogon.”
The granddaughter of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, Mary Ann Efroymson was raised in Indiana, where her father ran the Real Silk Company hosiery business and later the investment company Real Silk, Inc.
After graduating from Wellesley College in Massachusetts at the height of the civil rights movement, the 22-year-old Stein moved to Calhoun County, South Carolina for Freedom Summer events organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. There she registered Black voters and met one of her mentors, Hope Williams, the grandson of slaves and founder of the NAACP’s Calhoun County Branch. Decades later, after the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others, Stein provided early funding for the Black Voices for Black Justice Fund, a pooled philanthropic fund.
“My father taught me the basic principles of civic and human rights,” she told Inside Philanthropy in 2020. “He made it very clear to me, and I’ve tried to make it clear to others, that we have an obligation to serve others. We have a responsibility to give our gifts, including our wealth and our access to benefit others. And that has been the rule of my life.”
After getting her law degree from George Washington University, she worked with the Department of Human Services in the District of Columbia, and served on the D.C. Judicial Nominations Commission. In the mid-1980s, her father and uncle decided to create a family foundation, and she convinced them to let her run it.
In addition to its work in Israel, The Moriah Fund supported progressive community organizing groups like Community Change; the D.C. Alliance of Youth Advocates; Funders for Reproductive Equity; Human Rights First, and National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. The $90 million Efroymson Fund was established at the Central Indiana Community Foundation.
Her marriage in 1970 to the liberal philanthropic advisor Robert Stein, who founded Democracy Alliance, ended in divorce. They became good friends in later years, said her son; Robert Stein died in 2022.
Stein is survived by her children, Gideon Stein of New York City, Dorothy Stein and Noah Stein of Washington, DC, as well as five grandchildren.
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
The post Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
The post Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.