Maimonides Fund is proud to announce the 2026-27 cohorts of the Jewish Writers Institute’s Screenwriters Lab and Digital Storytellers Lab, two year-long fellowship programs supporting exceptional creatives whose work explores Jewish history, identity, culture, values, and contemporary life. The Institute selected 36 fellows this year from more than 550 applications received across the two programs. 

Dr. Mijal Bitton, Dean of Maimonides Jewish Leadership Institute and a sociologist specializing in Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewish communities, writes in the leadup to Israel’s October 27 elections: “American coverage of Israel’s election frames its politics around Gaza, Iran, the conflict with the Palestinians, the fate of liberal democracy and Benjamin Netanyahu, whose coalition is widely seen as the most right-wing in the country’s history. All true.
But Israel’s electorate is a crowded ecosystem—a dozen or so parties with a realistic chance of winning seats, divided by religion and origin, each with its own constituencies and demands.

One group runs through nearly all of them: Mizrahim. They will play a significant role in deciding what has become one of Israel’s most consequential elections.”

“Audience members were unswayed by either argument: Polled before and after the debate, 39% still agreed that Israel would be better off without American aid, while 61% disagreed. The discussion, part of the 92nd Street Y’s SAPIR Debates series, was moderated by Bret Stephens, editor-in-chief of SAPIR and a New York Times columnist.”

Bret Stephens introduces the new issue of SAPIR: “Power is the capacity to control resources or compel behavior. Influence is the ability to persuade people and shape public opinion. Power does not require assent. Influence does. Influence can be a means to power, and influence can flow from power. But it is not power itself and, as often as not, can be at odds with it.
For Jews, the paradox of our time is this: In many ways, we are as powerful as we’ve ever been. Yet we are also at one of the lowest ebbs of our influence.”

“‘The Jewish community needs to figure out how to use AI — not just to be more efficient, but to more effectively engage our people in Jewish life and Jewish learning,’ Mark Charendoff, president of Maimonides Fund, told eJP. ‘Project Yochai is taking a bold step to try to deepen Jewish engagement with text and Torah. It’s a part of a growing AI portfolio that we are excited about expanding.’”

“Shofar, So Good,” a podcast originally developed by host Kate Mishkin in Maimonides Fund’s Jewish Writers Institute, launches Season 2 in partnership with My Jewish Learning. The second season explores Jewish rituals and practices — where they came from, how they evolved, and why they endured.

Maimonides Fund today announced a significant expansion of its North American work, including the formal launch and first dedicated hires of the Maimonides Jewish Leadership Institute (MJLI); the creation of a new Director of Emerging Technologies position; a new Leadership & Gatherings Department; and the addition of two program officers to MF’s grantmaking team. 

“Walk into Atlanta’s Dupree Center and, as community leader Michelle Simon puts it, ‘It’s like “Cheers”; everyone knows your name.’

In his 2023 SAPIR essay ‘Three Falsehoods About Antisemitism—and One Truth,’ Bret Stephens drew a distinction between “thriving Jews” who succeed as individuals and the collective flourishing that he referred to as ‘Jewish thriving.’ At Atlanta’s new Jewish education hub, The Dupree — as the locals call it — that idea is coming to life.”

“The debate — sponsored by SAPIR and held at the Israel on Campus Coalition’s National Leadership Summit in Washington — featured Noah Pollak, a senior advisor at the Education Department, who argued that the controversial crackdown is good for the country, and Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and contributing writer for The Atlantic, who made the counterargument.”

“Israel’s national chemistry team won two gold and two silver medals at the 58th International Chemistry Olympiad in Uzbekistan, placing the country among the world’s top-performing delegations….

The team is jointly operated by Israel’s Ministry of Education and the Future Scientists Center of the Maimonides Fund.”