Yos Tarshish Consulting

New publication in ejewishphilanthropy

Yos's latest opinion piece, The ‘Are we there yet?’ mentality, examines why Jewish organisations so often struggle to sustain the long-term work required to build communal and political power.

Advocacy infrastructure cannot be assembled overnight. It depends upon years of investment in leadership, volunteer networks, institutional knowledge, relationships and habits of participation.

Yet these forms of work are frequently interrupted by funding cycles, leadership transitions and pressure to demonstrate immediate visible results.

The article proposes a more useful measure of progress: not simply whether a community has achieved a major victory, but whether it is becoming increasingly capable of organising, responding and exercising influence.

This is Yos’s first article published by eJewishPhilanthropy.

Read it here:
https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/the-are-we-there-yet-mentality/

The ‘Are we there yet?’ mentality Nobody expects an oak tree to grow in a year. Farmers do not dig up crops every fortnight to check whether the roots are growing.  We understand instinctively that some things take time. They require patient investment and consistent care, sometimes for years before anyone notices the results.  Ma...

Part III of my Jewish Priorities series is now live.

This essay explores Jewish power, sovereignty, democracy, diaspora, Zionism, and history through five essays by Einat Wilf, Shaul Magid, Dahlia Scheindlin, Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, and Laura Shaw Frank.

The central question:
What responsibilities accompany Jewish power?

For Jewish educators, communal leaders, and institutions, this is not only an Israel question.

It is a leadership question.

Read here:

Part III: Five Essays from Jewish Priorities That Changed How I Think About Jewish Power Israel, democracy, diaspora, Zionism, and the responsibilities of sovereignty.

This is one of the best articles on Jewish philanthropy that I've read in quite some time.

Jonah Halper asks a deceptively simple question:

Why do so many of the largest gifts made by Jewish philanthropists go to universities, hospitals, and cultural institutions rather than Jewish communal organisations?

His answer isn't that Jewish causes are less compelling.

It's that many Jewish organisations are using fundraising systems that were designed to sustain annual giving rather than inspire transformational gifts.

Even if you're not involved in fundraising, the article raises bigger questions about organisational strategy, institutional vision, and how we invite people to invest in something larger than themselves.

I'd highly recommend giving it a read.

I'd also be curious to hear whether you agree with his diagnosis - or whether you think there are other factors at play.

Jewish donors are giving billions. Why don’t more of those gifts reach Jewish institutions? A Jewish family from Mexico, the Jusidmans, recently committed 200 million shekels toward what will become the largest rehabilitation hospital in Israel, a roughly $390 million project rising near Tel Aviv to restore the lives and dignity of those who defended the country and paid a heavy price for....

Today I officially launched my Queen's University Jewish History Walking Tour.

Thank you to Ben and Rebecca for joining the first tour.

From the earliest Jewish students to Hillel, philanthropy, student life and moments of challenge, this walk explores over 100 years of Jewish history on campus and reveals stories that even many Queen's graduates have never heard.

📅 The next public tour is 9 August.

Private group tours are also available for community organisations, alumni groups, schools and visitors.

I'd love to share these stories with you.

🇨🇦 Living as a Jew in Canada means living inside a civic story that is not entirely ours, but still shapes us.

That is true for every diaspora community.
Jewish life does not unfold in abstraction.

It grows inside particular countries, cities, laws, cultures, friendships, tensions, opportunities, and constraints.

That is why I find local Jewish history so important.
It reminds us that diaspora is not just “not Israel.”

Diaspora is a set of civic relationships.

Sometimes generous.
Sometimes fragile.
Sometimes dangerous.

Often all three.

A Jewish community has to ask:
🏛️ What institutions protect our ability to flourish here?
🤝 What relationships make Jewish life possible here?
⚠️ What pressures threaten our confidence here?
🧭 What responsibility do we have to the wider society around us?

Good diaspora life isn't passive. It's something we build.

And it requires Jews to understand themselves not only as a minority to be protected, but as citizens, neighbours, builders, and contributors.

A belated Happy Canada Day to all of our Canadian friends!!

As educators, community leaders, and organisers, we spend a lot of time talking about inclusion.

We spend less time asking what inclusion actually feels like for people navigating multiple identities at once.

Earlier this year I wrote The Cost of Conditional Belonging, exploring why many LGBTQ Jewish students increasingly feel forced to choose between communities that should never require such a choice.

As Pride Month continues, I'm resurfacing the essay because the questions it raises remain relevant for anyone interested in leadership, community-building, and belonging.

The Cost of Conditional Belonging On identity, exclusion, and the growing cost of being openly Jewish in LGBTQ campus spaces

New essay: The Formation Crisis

Jewish communal life often measures success through engagement: attendance, participation, registrations, reach, and satisfaction.

But engagement is not the same as responsibility.

This essay asks what Jewish institutions are actually forming people into.

Are we cultivating participants, or stewards?

Consumers, or builders?

Audiences, or communities?

For professionals and lay leaders working in Jewish education, philanthropy, leadership development, synagogues, federations, schools, camps, and campus life, this is a question worth taking seriously.

The future of Jewish life will not be secured by participation alone. It will depend on whether Jews understand that Jewish life is something they inherit, sustain, and pass forward.

https://open.substack.com/pub/ytarshish/p/the-formation-crisis

Jewish institutions often describe themselves as communities.

But many are structured more like audiences: people gather around content, experiences, services, or programs, rather than shared responsibility.

This essay asks what Jewish organisations might be missing when engagement becomes the dominant measure of success.

It is Part One of a two-part series on ownership, stewardship, and the future of Jewish communal life.

Part Two, The Formation Crisis, will follow later this week.

We Built Audiences Why engagement became the dominant metric of Jewish success - and what it has cost us

What is the purpose of Jewish institutions?

To provide services?

To create experiences?

To engage participants?

Or to cultivate responsibility?

Rabbi Amitai Fraiman’s essay “Islands of Sovereignty” argues that many contemporary Jewish institutions have unintentionally trained Jews to become consumers of Jewish life rather than builders of it.

Whether you agree with the diagnosis or not, it’s an important contribution to ongoing conversations about Jewish leadership, education, community development, and peoplehood.

Strongly recommended reading.

https://open.substack.com/pub/jewishpriorities/p/islands-of-sovereignty

Z3 Project

Islands of Sovereignty Jewish sovereignty has transformed history—but Jewish consciousness has not caught up. Amitai Fraiman offers a new paradigm for Jewish life.