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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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The post Synagogues are joining the ‘effective altruism’ movement. Will the Sam Bankman-Fried scandal stop them? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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A Historic Moment, and the Covenant Ahead
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Over the last few weeks, something truly historic happened in Israel, and many may have missed it.
It had nothing to do with Iran or coalition politics. Instead, it touched the heart of the most sacred contract the Jewish state makes with its citizens: how it treats the families of those who gave their lives for its existence.
The Knesset has passed a series of long overdue legislative amendments that together mark the most significant expansion of support for bereaved IDF families in decades.
One of these reforms ends a painful injustice toward IDF widows and widowers. Survivor pensions will no longer be revoked upon remarriage or reduced through arbitrary caps and exclusions that punished bereaved spouses for trying to rebuild their lives.
The financial impact will be significant, and for many families, life changing. But the moral statement is even greater. Israel has affirmed that love, partnership, and hope should never come at the cost of security for those left behind.
To grasp the weight of this moment, we must look back more than fifty years, to the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War. Thousands of young widows navigated loss in a traumatized nation.
The widow of a fallen soldier was treated with reverence. The actual widow was not.
Many were discouraged, implicitly and explicitly, from remarrying or moving forward. Too often, widows were forced to choose between emotional healing and economic survival.
That injustice helped give rise to the IDF Widows and Orphans Organization, created to ensure that bereaved families would not be forgotten once war faded from public view.
Today, Israel faces such a moment again. Since October 7, more than 900 service members have been killed, leaving over 350 new widows and nearly 900 children, 250 of them under the age of five.
This new legislative package represents a break from the past. It signals that Israel will not ask this generation to carry grief quietly, or to sacrifice a second time in order to survive.
As if this were not historic enough, a second legislative reform passed alongside it is even more financially significant than the remarriage provision alone. This legislation expands not only moral recognition, but the actual material support that bereaved families will receive for decades. Adult orphans are formally recognized for the first time well into adulthood, unlocking monthly payments across age brackets that were previously invisible in law. Widows receive compensation reflecting real loss of earning capacity rather than symbolic recognition. Housing grants are expanded and decoupled from outdated marital conditions. Education, rehabilitation, fertility treatment, childcare, and emotional support are addressed as integrated needs rather than fragmented entitlements.
This is not incremental policy tinkering. It is a billion-shekel commitment that will translate into far more direct aid, far more stability, and far more dignity for thousands of families whose lives were irreversibly altered in service of the country. It corrects injustices that accumulated quietly over generations, often borne by adult orphans who were expected to stand on their own simply because time had passed.
And yet, even as we recognize the significance of this moment, we must acknowledge what remains unfinished. Significant groups, including adult orphans from earlier wars, still stand outside formal frameworks of support. Their loss did not change. Only the calendar did.
History is not only made on battlefields or in war rooms. Sometimes it is made quietly, in committee hearings and plenary votes, when a nation decides what it owes to those who paid the highest price.
Last week, Israel made history, not only by passing laws, but by reaffirming its covenant with the families of the fallen. Now it must complete that covenant, until no widow, no widower, and no orphan is ever left behind.
The author is the Executive Director of IDF Widows and Orphans USA.
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UpScrolled: The New Social Media App for Haters and Antisemites
Henri Philipe Pétain meeting Nazi Germany Chancellor in Montoire, just months after signing an armistice agreement that surrendered more than half of France’s territory to the Nazis. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
There’s a new app on the market that’s promising users a social media experience like none other: a user experience that doesn’t include shadow bans, censorship, or deceptive algorithms. A social media app where you can feel free to say what you want without fear on a litany of topics.
So, naturally, it has become a cesspool of antisemitism, anti-Zionism, racism, and conspiracy theories.
This new app is called “UpScrolled” and became one of the top downloaded apps in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia in the last week of January 2026.
Let’s take an in-depth look at the origins of UpScrolled, what it claims to do, and its development since becoming one of the fastest-growing social media platforms of 2026.
What is UpScrolled?
UpScrolled is the brainchild of Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian developer Issam Hijazi, who has a background in working for top tech companies.
According to Hijazi, he had the idea to develop a new social media app after allegedly noticing that certain pro-Palestinian posts were being shadow-banned and censored on social media.
Two of UpScrolled’s key partners are Tech For Palestine and Watermelon Pictures, organizations that are at the forefront of crafting the pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel narrative online.
Tech For Palestine was one of the groups associated with the mass editing of Israel-related entries on Wikipedia, spreading misinformation and passing it off as established fact. Watermelon Pictures is a film production and distribution company that focuses on spreading Palestinian-related content online and in theaters. It has been involved in such films as The Voice of Hind Rajab, All That’s Left of You, and Palestine 36.
Oscar-nominated The Voice of Hind Rajab uses real audio from a child’s final pleas — raw, devastating truth.
But it dramatizes the rest, blurring fact and fiction, and leaving out context. Viewers stop watching a story, and believe they’re seeing the truth. Moral judgments are… pic.twitter.com/udzCbxy6vA
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) January 25, 2026
UpScrolled was launched in June 2025 but only really took off in January 2026, largely thanks to the acquisition of a majority stake in the TikTok video app by an American venture.
Some users became annoyed with TikTok due to lags and other issues that developed soon after the ownership change, while others alleged that the word “Epstein” was being erased from direct messages, alleging a possible censorship issue with the app’s new owners.
Anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian activists noted that one of TikTok’s new major stakeholders was Larry Ellison, a pro-Israel businessman, and claimed that he would clamp down on pro-Palestinian speech on the app.
The combination of technical issues, claims about censorship, and baseless allegations of TikTok silencing pro-Palestinian voices led to the rise of social media users downloading UpScrolled. Its rapid growth was a result of the pro-Palestinian nature of the app’s development as well as the attractiveness of what it claims to stand for: No censorship and no outside interests influencing what users see on the app.
All of the worst people you know are flocking to the new anti-American propaganda platform UpScrolled.
Odds it turns into a psychosis-inducing echo chamber for terror-supporting lunatics seem pretty high. https://t.co/xVfpTL2Nhb pic.twitter.com/B3XWQoTLnF
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) January 26, 2026
What Issam Hijazi and fans of the new app claim sets UpScrolled apart from other social media platforms is no censorship, no shadow banning (users don’t see what you post), no billionaires dictating what you see, and no deceptive algorithms.
Sounds like a libertarian’s dream, where you can say the craziest things you want with no consequences on the platform.
Of course, there’s more than meets the eye. Behind the claim of “no censorship” lies a list of items that are not allowed on the app. This includes such no-brainers as child exploitation, violence, sexual content, and self-harm.
Even a “free speech” app needs some parameters in order not to turn into a den of darkness and illegality.
But here’s where things get interesting.
UpScrolled was created as a pro-Palestinian alternative to traditional social media platforms. Many of its most vocal supporters are pro-Palestinian activists who see the app as a means of airing their anti-Israel views, some of which are downright supportive of terror groups and anti-Israel violence.
What happens when the “free speech” app being touted by the anti-Israel online community as a grand marketplace for like-minded individuals has to face its own rules and regulations?
It’s one thing to claim that there are certain regulations on the site. It’s another thing to actually enforce them.
— UpScrolled (@realUpScrolled) January 29, 2026
UpScrolled’s Platforming of Hate
Given the app’s selling points, it is no wonder that in the one week that it has topped the charts for app downloads, UpScrolled has become a veritable free-for-all of anti-Israel and antisemitic posts.
Some of these posts celebrate Hamas and its slaughter of October 7, 2023, a direct contravention of the regulation that forbids support for violent and terrorist groups.
Other posts compare Israel to the Nazis, claim that Israel controls the United States government, and justify violence against Israelis.
It’s not only UpScrolled’s users that are anti-Israel and deny the Jewish State’s right to exist — the app, itself, refuses to let you identify your geographic location as Israel, only giving you the option of “Occupied territories of Palestine.”
Alongside the usual anti-Israel rhetoric that you can (unfortunately) find on most social media apps, UpScrolled has seen a deluge of antisemitic, racist, and neo-Nazi posts.
These include vile caricatures of Jewish people, posts celebrating Adolf Hitler, Holocaust denial, and posts blaming Jews and African-Americans for the ills of society.
Screenshot
While the app’s developers claim that they are intent on removing content that “clearly violates our guidelines,” it appears that they are in no rush to tackle the whirlwind of Hamas support and antisemitic content that has enveloped UpScrolled.
At the moment, UpScrolled is growing its user base. While it seems that mainstream organizations and personalities have yet to open accounts (aside from a few notable exceptions, such as a number of European sports teams), the usual suspects have fled there.
Currently, the usership of UpScrolled seems to be largely made up of anti-Israel activists, advocates for far-left politics, a smattering of normal social media users (foodies, travelogues, etc), and bots.
If more non-political users join the app, then perhaps the platform’s proliferating hate will be diluted. However, as it currently stands, UpScrolled has become a den of hatred and vulgarity. If it continues this way, it will ultimately have a limited user base, serving as an echo chamber for those who are okay with whitewashing Hamas, Nazi symbols, and blaming all of society’s problems on racial and religious minorities.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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Tucker Carlson to interview Mike Huckabee, U.S. Ambassador to Israel
(JTA) — Right-wing pundit Tucker Carlson and Mike Huckabee, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, said they will conduct an interview after Carlson published a video from the Middle East that included harsh criticism of Huckabee.
The planned sit-down, hashed out over social media, comes as Carlson has troubled the Jewish world and fractured the conservative movement by using his influential podcast to increasingly entertain antisemites and conspiracy theories about Israel. He has reserved his particular ire for “Christian Zionists,” of which Huckabee, a Baptist minister who aligns himself with the pro-Israel hard right, is a leading figurehead.
“Instead of talking ABOUT me, why don’t you come talk TO me?” the ambassador, and Carlson’s former Fox News colleague, wrote on X early Thursday in response to a Carlson video filmed in Israel and Jordan that purports to reveal how Israel treats Christians and declares that “Huckabee fails Jerusalem’s Christians.”
Huckabee added, “You seem to be generating a lot of heat about the Middle East. Why be afraid of the light?”
When Carlson agreed to an interview an hour later (“I’d love to”), Huckabee responded, “Look forward to the conversation[.]”
Huckabee, a key evangelical Trump ally and stalwart Israel backer, is reaching out to Carlson at a notable moment. Carlson has recently emerged both as the right’s harshest Israel critic and as the source of its larger divide over antisemitism, particularly since his friendly interview last fall with avowed white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.
Many conservative leaders, including Sen. Ted Cruz (who’s faced harsh grilling from Carlson over his own support for Israel) and Orthodox Jewish pundit Ben Shapiro, have called on the GOP to distance itself from Carlson. Yet he maintains good relationships with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, and has sway over right-wing powerbrokers such as the Heritage Foundation and Turning Point USA. He has also forged close ties with Qatar.
Carlson’s latest video, framed around the treatment of Christians in Israel, calls for American Christians — long a key pro-Israel constituency — to stop supporting Israel. He also accuses Huckabee of ignoring such concerns.
“Why not go ahead and talk to Christians and find out their side of the story?” Carlson muses. “Why aren’t American Christian leaders like Mike Huckabee or Ted Cruz, people who invoke the Christian Bible to justify what they’re doing, why haven’t they done this?”
Huckabee has in fact spoken out against what he says is persecution of Christians in Israel since his appointment.
Carlson then interviews the Anglican archbishop of Jerusalem, who suggests that Christian Zionism is “a trap” for Jews “because they’re all supposed to convert to Christianity or die.” Much of Carlson’s report focuses on the treatment of Palestinian Christians by Israelis, including settlers who have raided Christian villages in the occupied West Bank. He also mentions Israeli military strikes on Christian holy sites and a Christian hospital in Gaza. (Palestinian Christians remain a minority in the heavily Muslim territories, and the brunt of Israeli attacks have fallen on Muslim residents and sites.)
“It’s a story of Christians being oppressed in Jerusalem by a government that American Christians pay for,” Carlson says. His report is heavily sympathetic to Jordan, where he claims Christians live more freely than in Israel.
If the interview goes through, Huckabee would be the first sitting member of the Trump administration to appear on Carlson’s show since the controversy over his Fuentes interview. He has visited the White House multiple times so far this year.
The post Tucker Carlson to interview Mike Huckabee, U.S. Ambassador to Israel appeared first on The Forward.