Dear JNF Campaign Leaders:

CAMPAIGN UPDATE

With five weeks to the end of our 2019 campaign, we are six million from reaching our annual goal. There remain hundreds of donors across the country who previously gave $500 or more and have not yet made their commitment this year. At this stage of the campaign we need to reach people by all means necessary...phone calls, e‑mails, text messages and, of course, face‑to‑face. We need your support to help us reach the finish line. Please take a few pledge cards from your local professional and make some calls. It does make a big difference when the call is from a volunteer.

Two weeks ago, I highlighted the success of our Women for Israel campaign. Here is a good article from NonProfit Pro on the Rise of Women in Philanthropy.

LAY LEADER TRAINING SEMINAR

There is one more Lay Leader Training Seminar scheduled for this campaign year. On September 25^th at 12pm EST, there will be a session on JNF Marketing and Social Media.

As we look toward 2020, we are planning for the next round of training seminars and would appreciate your input. Please e‑mail Rick Krosnick at rkrosnick@jnf.org to let us know what subjects you want us to focus on for next year. What do you want to learn that will improve your understanding of Jewish National Fund and what skills would you like to enhance to make you a more effective leader?

SUMMER BLITZ

Our Summer Blitz campaign is well underway, and I am pleased to report that we have lay leaders scheduled to visit 39 different communities by the close of the 2019 Campaign on September 30^th. Summer Blitz is our final quarterly campaign effort and is designed to raise funds by lay leaders soliciting new gifts and closing gifts of donors who have not yet made their donation to this year’s campaign.

Members of our Makor team and national Campaign Cabinet have been assigned to communities for one or two days for 1:1 meetings, parlor meetings and other fundraising opportunities that are organized by our local lay leaders and professional staff.

Local lay leadership support is critical in setting up productive meetings. This is also a wonderful time to follow up with prospects who have attended JNF events or who have recently travelled to Israel or are considering a JNF mission or attending National Conference. Please make introductions to people you know in other regions and introduce to our JNF professionals those whom you might not feel comfortable soliciting. Several communities have already completed their Summer Blitz visits and the feedback has been tremendous, with our lay leaders closing many new major gifts and engaging our donors around the country. Arizona, Atlanta, Denver, Los Angeles, Orange County CA, Orlando, Northern NJ, Pacific Northwest and Philadelphia have completed their visits, with more continuing through the end of September. Lay leaders are having full days of meetings with an average of 5 meetings per day, closing major gifts including a new Circle of Sapphire member in Orlando, a $25,000 donor and new Century Council Member in Arizona, a board development training in Atlanta, mission and National Conference recruitment, a JNFuture Root Society dinner in Denver, and more.

BE INSCRIBED

We are excited to announce the launch of Be Inscribed, the JNF project to write Torah scrolls on Masada. As part of JNF’s product line, everyone has the opportunity to inscribe a letter, word, verse and so on - even the entire Torah.  Click on this link to see a great promotional video and to learn more.  https://beinscribed.org/

Shabbat Shalom,

This week on IsraelCast, tech innovator Ilan Regenbaum joins us to talk about the Israeli innovation scene. During his tenure as the Chief Innovation Officer for the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, Regenbaum founded the Israeli Air Force’s first tech accelerator, participated in hackathons, and helped bring the IDF’s culture of innovation to the next level. Listen to his story and the rest of IsraelCast at jnf.org/israelcast.

Discover Israel’s rich history, heritage, and culture on this meaningful journey exploring the country from north to south. Perfect for first-timers and repeat visitors alike. Learn more here.

Did you know that you can support Jewish National Fund while you shop? Amazon Smile will donate a portion of your purchase price to us when you shop through smile.amazon.com. 

Traveling to another city and want to see what JNF events are taking place there? Just visit jnf.org/inyourarea for a quick look at how to stay engaged while on the road.

Campus is busy preparing for next week's arrival of our Fall Semester and Barrack students. Our madrichim have also arrived on campus and are engaging in a week-long orientation which covers topics ranging from physical safety to planning and running informal educational activities. Our madrichim are very excited to meet the fall students!

Mia is a dog-loving 10-year-old and the daughter of Jewish National Fund Century Council and President’s Society member Gina Raphael. Mia sold candy bags and raised $1800 for Special in Uniform's dog training program, which trains soldiers to properly work with dogs in the IDF, border patrol, and police canine units. This week Mia arrived in Israel with her Mom to celebrate the graduating class of the program.

Last week, Israelis across the country celebrated Tu B’Av, the Jewish holiday of love. Jewish National Fund affiliate, Society for Preservation of Israel Heritage Sites, partnered with the city of Tel Aviv- Jaffa and several of the city’s heritage sites to hold various events celebrating the holiday. Ben Gurion House in Tel Aviv, Joseph Bau House, and the Lehi Museum were some of the sites participating in this exciting event. The Yitzhak Rabin Center held a special lecture about love in Israeli cinema in addition to its regular summer activities, including a special “Israeli Code Challenge” for children and families. It was a fun way for all to celebrate love as well as Israel’s heritage.

Jewish National Fund began in 1901 as a dream and vision to reestablish a homeland in Israel for Jewish people everywhere and gives all generations of Jews a unique voice in building a prosperous future for the land of Israel and its people.

If you look in this week's Torah portion, Eikev, we can see when it all began for the first time. This week, Moses continues his last speech to the People of Israel. He speaks about the Land of Israel, which the Jews are about to enter and that is happening in year 1273 B.C.

“For the L-rd your G-d is bringing you to a good land, a land with brooks of water, fountains and depths, that emerge in valleys and mountains, a land of wheat and barley, vines and figs and pomegranates, a land of oil producing olives and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, you will lack nothing in it, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose mountains you will hew copper. And you will eat and be sated, and you shall bless the L-rd, your G-d, for the good land He has given you. Beware that you do not forget the L-rd, your G-d…” (8:7-11)

In these verses, the word "land" is repeated seven times, emphasizing the bounty of the land and the natural resources with which it is blessed. His words are painting a wonderful picture with abundant sources of water, with streams flowing from the valleys and mountains, as well as the fertility of the green verdant land, its golden grains, and the metallic resources embedded in the ground. Israel, a "land of mountains and valleys," is fed by the rain, unlike the land of Egypt where water came from the Nile.

Our Sages teach that every Jew possesses a portion of Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel. The reverse is also true. The land possesses a portion of every Jew. The Torah states, “The land cannot be permanently sold, for the land is Mine” (Lev. 25:23). The special bond between the land of Israel and the Jewish people is enforced by a Divine right that may never be annulled. No form of acquisition, whether by purchase or conquest, can cancel a Jew’s rights to his portion in the Land. And certainly nothing has the power to revoke the rights of the entire Jewish people to their holy inheritance.

For this is “a land which G-d… seeks out; the eyes of G-d are always upon it, from the beginning of the year until the end of the year.” And just as G-d seeks out the land, so do we. JNF works diligently each and every day to ensure that the land of Israel is that wonderful painting that Moses described. JNF is the caretaker of the land of Israel, on behalf of its owners—Jewish people everywhere.

Shabbat Shalom,

Yossi