Maryland school gets record gift
washington (jta) | A Jewish community day school in Maryland has received a $15 million gift. It is believed to be one of the largest gifts to an individual Jewish school in the United States.
The Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School received $10 million to enhance its educational programs and a $5 million matching endowment for scholarships from Robert and Clarice Smith and Robert and Arlene Kogod through the Charles E. Smith Family Foundation.
The head of the school, Jonathan Cannon, said that the $10 million, given over a 10-year period, will allow the school to better integrate subjects like arts and sciences; develop experiential, informal educational programs; and offer professional development programs to teachers.
N.Y. attorney general clears WJC of wrongdoing
new york (jta) | New York state’s attorney general turned up no criminal wrongdoing in his investigation into allegations of financial improprieties at the World Jewish Congress.
But Eliot Spitzer’s report also uncovered a series of “inappropriate disbursements” to top WJC employees.
It said that the organization had lacked “appropriate financial controls to safeguard charitable assets and failed to keep adequate records regarding their fund-raising activities,” the attorney general’s office said on its Web site.
As a result of the investigation, Rabbi Israel Singer, WJC’s most public face, agreed to no longer take part in the group’s fund-raising and financial management.
Singer had previously stepped down as chairman of the WJC’s governing board.
Jews remember Coretta Scott King
new york (jta) | Jewish leaders mourned the death of Coretta Scott King, who died Tuesday, Jan. 31 at age 78.
King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr., “continued her husband’s legacy of strengthening black-Jewish relations,” said Rabbi Marc Schneier, president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.
She “fought for the civil rights of Jews, and she supported issues and concerns of the Jewish community,” he said.
Schneier said Leah Rabin, widow of the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, told him that the most comforting letter she got after her husband’s assassination was from King.
Chabad to run Super Bowl shul
west bloomfield, mich. | A Chabad synagogue has rented a storefront near Ford Field, the epicenter for this year’s Super Bowl activities.
The Shul of West Bloomfield will serve food for visitors during the NFL championship Sunday, Feb. 5.
“We’ll be asking people to put on tefillin, giving out Shabbat candlesticks, brochures — all the regular Chabad stuff,” said Rabbi Yudi Mann.
“In addition, we’ll be selling sizzling kosher food and snacks: subs, burgers, hot dogs, etc., and there will be a Judaic gift shop.”