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Synagogues are joining the ‘effective altruism’ movement. Will the Sam Bankman-Fried scandal stop them?
(JTA) — A few years ago, Adam Azari was frustrated over how little he could do to alleviate suffering in the world with his modest income as a writer and caretaker for people with disabilities.
He kept thinking about a set of statistics and ideas he had encountered during his graduate studies in philosophy. For example, he remembered reading that for the price of training a guide dog for the blind in the United States, one could prevent hundreds of cases of blindness in the developing world.
This hyper-rational way of thinking about doing good was called effective altruism, and it was growing into a movement, known as E.A. for short. Some proponents were even opting to pursue lucrative careers in finance and tech that they otherwise might not have chosen so they would have more money to give away.
Azari, meanwhile, had become a believer who was stuck on the sidelines. Then, one day, he had what he calls a “personal eureka moment.” Azari would return to his roots as the son of a Reform rabbi in Tel Aviv and spread the word of E.A. across the Jewish denomination and among its millions of followers.
“It suddenly hit me that the Reform movement has this crazy untapped potential to save thousands and thousands of lives by simply informing Jews about effective giving,” he recalled.
He badgered his father, Rabbi Meir Azari, and, for a moment, thought of becoming a rabbi himself. But he abandoned the idea and focused on pitching E.A. to the Reform movement’s international arm, the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Azari found an ally in WUPJ’s president, Rabbi Sergio Bergman, and the organization soon decided to sponsor his efforts, paying him a salary for his work.
Over the past year, Azari’s Jewish Effective Giving Initiative has presented to about 100 rabbis and secured pledges from 37 Reform congregations to donate at least $3,000 to charities rated as the most impactful by E.A. advocates and which aid poor people in the developing world. Per E.A. calculations, it costs $3,000 to $5,000 to save a single life.
“Progressive Judaism inspires us to carry out tikkun olam, our concrete action to make the world better and repair its injustices,” Bergman said. “With this call we not only do what the heart dictates in values, but also do it effectively to be efficient and responsible for saving a life.”
This charitable philosophy appears to be gaining traction in the Jewish world just as one of the figures most associated with it, who happens to be Jewish, has become engulfed in scandal.
Sam Bankman-Fried built a cryptocurrency empire worth billions, amassing a fortune he pledged to give away to causes such as artificial intelligence, combatting biohazards and climate change, all selected on criteria developed by the proponents of effective altruism.
A few weeks ago, Bankman-Fried’s fortune evaporated amid suspicions of financial misconduct and revelations of improper oversight at his company, FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange that was worth as much as $32 billion before a run of withdrawals ultimately left it illiquid. The situation has drawn comparisons to the implosion of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and authorities investigating the situation have said Bankman-Fried could face criminal penalties over his role.
In the wake of FTX’s collapse, Bankman-Fried has suggested that his embrace of E.A. was insincere, a tactic to bolster his reputation.
But Azari and the organizer of another initiative, a growing reading and discussion group called Effective Altruism for Jews, are undaunted and don’t believe the scandal should taint the underlying principles of the movement.
“Whether you call it E.A. or just directly donating to global health and development, it doesn’t matter,” Azari said. “The basic idea is to support these wonderful charities, and I don’t think the FTX scandal changes any of that. Malaria nets, vitamin A supplements and vaccine distribution are still super cost-effective, evidence-based ways of helping others.”
Azari added that he has had several meetings with rabbis since the news about Bankman-Fried broke and that no one has asked him about it.
“I don’t think people are making the connection,” he said. “And to me, there is no connection between us and FTX.”
When talking to rabbis about why E.A. would make a good fit with their congregation’s charitable mission, Azari cites the Jewish value of tikkun olam, a mandate to “repair the world” often used to implore people to care for others. He explains that donating to charities with a proven track record is a concrete way to fulfill a Jewish responsibility.
That kind of thinking proved attractive to Steven Pinker, the prominent Harvard psychologist, who has endorsed Azari’s initiative. In a recorded discussion with Azari and others last year, Pinker recalled his Reform upbringing, which included Hebrew school, summer camp and synagogue services.
“The thing I remember most is how much of my so-called religious education was like a university course in moral philosophy,” Pinker said. “We chewed over moral dilemmas.”
As an adult, Pinker returned to Jewish teachings on charity and, in particular, those of the medieval philosopher Maimonides, examining these ideas through the lens of E.A. He began to wonder about the implications of Maimonides’ focus on evaluating charity based on the motives of the donor. That focus, he concluded, doesn’t always lead to the best outcomes for the beneficiary.
“What ultimately ought to count in tzedakah, in charity, is, are you making people better off?” he said.
Also on the panel with Azari and Pinker was the man credited with authoring the foundational texts upon which E.A. is built. Peter Singer, who is also Jewish and whose grandfather died in the Holocaust, teaches bioethics at Princeton. Starting in the 1970s, Singer wrote a series of books in which he argues for a utilitarian approach to ethics, namely, that we should forgo luxuries and spend our money to save lives. The extremes to which he has taken his thinking include suggesting that parents of newborn babies with severe disabilities be permitted to kill them.
From Bankman-Fried to Singer, the list of Jews who have either promoted E.A. or lead its institutions is long. With their estimated fortune of $11.3 billion, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna have eclipsed Bankman-Fried as the wealthiest Jews in the field. There’s also popular philosopher Sam Harris and New York Times columnist Ezra Klein, who have each dedicated episodes of their podcast to the topic.
The website LessWrong, which defines itself as “a community blog devoted to refining the art of rationality,” is seen as an important early influence; it was founded by Eliezer Yudkowsky, an artificial intelligence researcher who grew up in a Modern Orthodox household but does not identify religiously as a Jew anymore. Two other Jews, Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld, left the hedge fund world to establish GiveWell, a group whose research is considered the premier authority on which charities are deserving of E.A. donations.
The prevalence of Jews in the movement caught the attention of E.A. enthusiast Ben Schifman, an environmental lawyer for the federal government in Washington, D.C. About two years ago, Schifman proposed creating a group for like-minded individuals in hope of helping grow the movement. In an online post, he laid out the history of Jewish involvement and wrote a brief introduction to the topic of Judaism and charity.
Today, Schifmam runs a group called Effective Altruism for Jews, whose main program is an eight-week fellowship involving a reading and discussion group with designated facilitators. Schifman said about 70 people spread across 10 cohorts are currently participating. There’s also a Shabbat dinner program to bring people together for informal meetings with funding available for hosts.
Participants discuss how ideas that are popular in E.A. might relate to Jewish traditions and concepts, and also brainstorm ways to popularize the movement in the wider Jewish community, according to Schifman.
“There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit with regards to the Jewish community and sharing some of the ideas of Effective Altruism, like through giving circles at synagogues or, during the holidays, offering charities that are effective,” Schifman said in an interview that took place before the Bankman-Fried scandal broke.
Asked to discuss the mood in the community following the collapse of Bankman-Fried’s company and an affiliated charity, FTX Future Fund, Schifman provided a brief statement expressing continued confidence in his project.
He said, “While we’re shocked by the news and our hearts go out to all those affected, as an organization EA for Jews isn’t funded by FTX Future Fund or otherwise connected to FTX. We don’t expect our work will be impacted.”
Even if Schifman and Azari are right that their movement is robust enough to withstand the downfall of a leading evangelist, a debate remains about what impact E.A. can or should have on philanthropy itself.
Andres Spokoiny, president and CEO of the Jewish Funders Network, wrote about the question with skepticism in an article published more than two years ago. He argued against “uncritically importing the values and assumptions” of effective altruists, whose emphasis on the “cold light of reason” struck him as detached from human nature.
In a recent interview, Spokoiny echoed similar concerns, noting that applying pure rationality to all charitable giving would mean the end of cherished programs such as PJ Library, which supplies children’s books for free to Jewish families, that may not directly save lives but do contribute to a community’s culture and sense of identity.
He also worries that too strong a focus on evidence of impact would steer money away from new ideas.
“Risky, creative ideas don’t tend to emerge from rational needs assessments,” he said. “It requires a transformative vision that goes beyond that.”
But Spokoiny also sounded more open to E.A. and said that as long as it does not try to replace traditional modes of philanthropy, it could be a useful tool of analysis for donors.
“If donors want to apply some of E.A. principles to their work, I’d say that is a good idea,” he said. “I am still waiting to see if this will be a fad or buzzword or something that will be incorporated into the practice of philanthropy.”
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Arab-American Rights Group’s New Legal Director Says Jews Fake Hate Crimes, Control America — Then Deletes Posts
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) legal director Jenin Younes. Photo: Screenshot
The new legal director of one of the largest and most influential Arab-American rights advocacy groups in the US recently promoted classic antisemitic tropes on social media, claiming that American society is under “Zionist control” and that Jews routinely “fake” hate crimes against them.
Jenin Younes, who in September was hired by the American‑Arab Anti‑Discrimination Committee (ADC) to be its national legal director, made the explosive claims on X last week.
“There may be inadequate evidence to be certain in this specific instance, but the fact is it is a very common occurrence that Jewish people fake these hate crimes,” Younes said, responding to someone else’s post.
In another post, Younes replied to a tweet which claimed that Jews control the media, education system, entertainment indsutry, and government.
The ADC’s legal director responded, “100 percent. It’s dawning on me recently how insane it is I just accept that I’m subservient to them.”
Both social media posts have since been deleted. The ADC did not respond to a request for comment for this story on why the posts were erased and whether the organization agrees with and stands by her comments.
Younes’s posts came a few days after her organization filed a federal lawsuit targeting a California law which aims to combat antisemitism in K-12 schools.
Earlier this month, she led a lawsuit challenging the state over a civil rights bill which requires government officials to establish a new Office for Civil Rights for monitoring antisemitism in public schools, establish an Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator, set parameters within which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be equitably discussed, and potentially bar antisemitic materials from reaching the classroom.
State lawmakers introduced the measure, also known as Assembly Bill (AB) 715, in the California legislature followed year-on-year increases in incidents of K-12 antisemitism, including vandalism and assault, which surged 135 percent in 2023, fueled by Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Among the ensuing spike in incidents, a Jewish girl was beaten with a stick and teased with jokes about Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
In a statement announcing its lawsuit, the ADC argued that Arabs are victims of discrimination and that fighting antisemitic harassment in accordance with the new law undermines First Amendment protections of speech unfettered by governmental interference. Furthermore, the ADC argued that the law amounts to a hijacking of American policy by Israel, an argument advanced by neo-Nazis, including Nicholas Fuentes, and commentators who promote their views such as Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens — both of whom claim that proliferating antisemitism is an exercise of free speech.
“AB 715’s intent and effect is classroom censorship. It — probably intentionally — does not feign the conduct it targets, then points schools to federal guidance that blurs legitimate criticism of a foreign state with bigotry,” Younes said in a press release announcing the action. “That combination guarantees arbitrary punishment of educators, chills valuable classroom instruction and discussion, and deprives students of the vigorous debate the Constitution protects.”
Since joining the ADC, Younes has garnered media coverage from prominent legacy media outlets such as The Washington Post, which described her in a lengthy feature published in September as always in search of “new allies” due to her traveling across the political spectrum to promote vaccine skepticism and anti-Zionism.
Just months ago, she compared Bari Weiss, founder of The Free Press and the newly minted editor in chief of CBS News, to Nazi party official and propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Younes stood by her comparison after receiving significant backlash.
Others, including Asaf Romirowsky, executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), told The Algemeiner that Younes is one among many figures pantomiming intellectual seriousness as they degrade public debate with demagoguery, conspiracy mongering, and hate regarding Israel and the prevalence of antisemitism.
“In today’s world of infotainment, facts matter even less,” he said. “In particular, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has turned into a theater for the land of make believe where Palestinians are the evergreen victims and Israelis are the victimizers. This fallacious binary view of the conflict has been amplified by historic antisemitic tropes of Jews controlling media and governments, taking a page out of the antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
He added, “Further, social media has become ripe with such rhetoric as illustrated by the ADC’s legal director Jenin Younes projecting her own biases and falsehoods in an attempt to create a predetermined outcome detached from reality, something we just witnessed at the BBC that manufactured and ignored facts in its reporting.”
Multiple BBC leaders resigned this past weekend after a leaked memo revealed that Britain’s public broadcaster misleadingly edited a speech by US President Donald Trump to make it appear that he had directly called for violence on Jan. 6, 2021, when a crowd of his supporters breached the US Capitol. The internal report also showed that the BBC’s story selection and editing largely omitted pieces criticizing Hamas or highlighting the suffering of Israelis amid the war in Gaza.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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NYC’s yeshivas can offer a well-rounded education. Will Mayor Mamdani help them get there?
In the most intensely covered mayoral election in generations, the wellbeing of Jewish New Yorkers became a major flashpoint. And yet, no candidate took a decisive stance on a crisis affecting tens of thousands of Jewish children: the educational conditions at Hasidic and haredi yeshivas.
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has not said much, and the few comments he has made have raised concern for those of us who believe the schools are characterized by grave educational neglect. At a New York Jewish Agenda forum during the primary, he questioned whether the enforcement of basic education standards in yeshivas was possible. This is troubling, given that New York State recently gutted regulations to provide a sound, basic education.
In the absence of state oversight, new research has revealed just how deep this educational neglect runs. The sociologist Matty Lichtenstein captured the most granular data to date of course material in New York City’s Jewish schools, leveraging community researchers to survey dozens of people with on-the-ground knowledge of curriculum. Ultimately, the researchers gained a comprehensive understanding of what is taught in 171 grades at 85 schools — including haredi yeshivas.
The results were astounding.
In Hasidic all-boys schools, students spent an average of less than two hours per week on all secular subjects combined. At the height of their intellectual development, children’s growth is being stunted.
And STEM education was almost nonexistent for Hasidic high school boys – only 13% of male high school cohorts received any science instruction, and fewer than a quarter received math. The denial of a STEM education essentially slams the door shut on many career paths in today’s tech-forward workforce.
And though English received greater priority for Hasidic high school boys, many Hasidic boys have a limited ability to communicate with the outside world. A separate report that we released earlier this year about economic outcomes in the Hasidic community found that fully 13% of Hasidic male youth speak no English whatsoever, with much larger percentages languishing at subpar proficiency levels.
As an advocate for Hasidic and haredi education equity, I have seen that the impact of this deprivation extends far beyond the classroom. Too often, I hear stories like that of a man who had a bright mind and was a great Torah student — but when he enrolled in college to help build a career, he could not keep up. Without the English fluency to do his coursework, he dropped out within a year.
His story is tragically common, and it is borne out in the data. Approximately 63% of Hasidic individuals live below or near the poverty line, and Hasidic men earn about 30% less than their non-Hasidic counterparts.
Still, we have reasons for cautious optimism. The curriculum report found that some Hasidic boys’ schools — a small but important minority — include six to eight hours of secular studies per week. And Hasidic all-girls schools generally offered at least eight hours per week of secular coursework as well as robust religious coursework. This proves that traditional Torah study and secular instruction are not mutually exclusive within these communities.
I have met many haredi women who received a balanced education, and they credit it for their success. They’ve seen firsthand how access to both religious and secular learning opens doors — and how its absence closes them. Some have even stepped in to fill the gaps themselves, teaching their sons to read and write in English at home.
These women want schools that honor their faith while preparing their children for the world beyond it. And supporting yeshivas in moving toward this balance would fulfill a core Jewish value: helping others achieve dignity and self-sufficiency.
We cannot accept a reality where tens of thousands of Jewish children graduate without the basic skills they need to earn a living and support their families. Stronger education standards must ensure that Hasidic and Haredi students gain the tools to thrive as adults.
But elected leaders cannot take action without knowing which schools are denying students an education. And because the state has shirked its role in requiring comprehensive school assessments, existing public data on Jewish school curriculum is sparse. The mayor and the New York City Department of Education can play a key role here by compiling information on what institutions are teaching. Mayor-elect Mamdani should fulfill New York City’s responsibility to track what students are actually learning.
New York State has betrayed Jewish students by gutting education standards and failing to monitor what they are being taught. As the next mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani must stand up for the right to learn – ensuring that every Hasidic and haredi Orthodox Jewish child receives an education that honors both their faith and their future.
The well being of the Jewish community depends on it.
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Toronto City Hall Announces Plan to Fly Palestinian Flag Next Week
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow speaks to reporters in Toronto, March 8, 2025. Photo: Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press via ZUMA Press via Reuters Connect
A Canadian nonprofit organization has succeeded in persuading the city staff of Toronto to fly the Palestinian flag at city hall next week in recognition of the “State of Palestine’s Independence Day” on Saturday.
Braman Thillainathan, press secretary for Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, explained that the city’s protocol office had made the decision requested by the International Center of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) to fly the flag this coming Monday, not the mayor or city council.
“City Council provided city staff the authority to manage the public flagpole booking process based on policy approved by council in 1999,” he said in an emailed statement to Canadian media.
“The use of the city’s courtesy flagpole neither implies nor expresses support for the politics or policies of nations and/or organizations but raises the flag in recognition of those citizens or members that have made the request,” a spokesperson for the city of Toronto told the CBC.
ICJP lawyer Shane Martinez framed the raising of the flag as a move to counter racism.
“Visibility is something that’s particularly important,” Martinez said. “Anti-Palestinian racism is carried out in large part through attempts to erase Palestinian identity, erase Palestinian voices, and ensure that they don’t have a place in society, that they’re stigmatized, that they’re tabooed, that they’re othered and sometimes that their existence is denied altogether.”
Martinez described the activist move as “really a statement as to Palestinian resilience in the face of oppression, in the face of unprecedented oppression by Israel.”
The statement came days after members of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter led a mob that spilled blood and caused the hospitalization of at least one Jewish student after forcibly breaching a venue in which an advocacy group had convened for an event featuring veterans of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Bashar Alshawwa, a Palestinian activist living in Toronto, called the raising of the flag “symbolic,” but said he believed it would “encourage other parties and institutions, individuals inside Canada, to join the journey for human rights and equality and justice regarding the issue of Palestine.”
The decision to raise the flag follows Canada recognizing a Palestinian state in September and Prime Minister Mark Carney saying he would support arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Earlier this month, Jewish groups also began circulating a petition calling for Chow to resign after the mayor chose to use the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s war to defeat the Hamas terrorist group in the Gaza Strip.
“The genocide in Gaza impacts us all,” Chow said on video. “A common bond to shared humanity is tested, and I will speak out when children anywhere are feeling the pain and violence and hunger.”
The Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation pushed back against Chow’s rhetoric, stating that “the only Gaza genocide was the massacre perpetrated by Hamas and its allies against Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023. Somehow, we doubt that’s what the mayor was referencing.”
The Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) called the mayor’s statement “reckless, divisive, and dangerous.” The group added that “the Jewish community expects the mayor to make this right by addressing the harm caused and taking immediate action to restore trust and ensure our safety.”
Toronto and Canada more broadly have seen antisemitism surge over the past two years, following Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities and amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
In May, the J7 Large Communities’ Task Force Against Antisemitism — a coalition of Jewish organizations in Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States — released its first J7 Annual Report on Antisemitism.
CIJA provided the data and analysis on Canada, reporting that the Jewish community “was easily the most targeted religious minority, accounting for some 70 percent of religiously motivated hate crimes (with 900 total hate crimes against Jews recorded). Hate crimes against Jews increased by 71 percent from 2022 to 2023, and 172 percent in total since 2020.”
The report also documented that Toronto police tallied 164 hate crimes against Jews as of October 2024, representing a 74.5 percent jump from the previous year.
“What is at stake is not only the safety and well-being of our community, but the future of a Canada where everyone can live free from fear and discrimination,” CIJA interim resident Noah Shack said in a statement.