Michael Steinhardt first visited Israel in 1962, when he was 22. It was a watershed event in his life, as he witnessed up close what he calls the Jewish miracle of the 20th century.
“It was a place where you felt you were important, where each person meant something,” says Steinhardt, co-founder of New York–based hedge fund Steinhardt Partners, which he ran for 28 years before retiring in 1995. These days Steinhardt travels three or four times a year to the Holy Land, not because he’s religious (he’s an atheist) but because he feels a cultural connection. “I really enjoy going to Israel,” he says. “I feel so much of their background and life circumstance.”
Steinhardt, however, is worried about the waning relationship between the diaspora and Israel, as younger generations of Jews have grown increasingly disengaged from their cultural and religious roots.
“In the diaspora — and America makes up the bulk of the diaspora — Jewish identity, Jewish intensity, Jewish involvement is declining,” frets Steinhardt. His concern set him on a mission to promote and strengthen Jewish identity and culture among young Jews who live outside Israel.
To that end, Steinhardt co-founded Taglit-Birthright Israel in 2000 with Charles Bronfman, the Canadian businessman and philanthropist known for his deep involvement with Jewish causes. The two men got the ball rolling with almost $9 million of their own money, which was put to immediate use.
Birthright offers fully paid ten-day trips to Israel for young Jews, ages 18 to 26, from the U.S. and Canada. The organization has established itself as the go-to group for young Jews who want to explore their culture: This winter Birthright will send its 200,000th participant to Israel.
Steinhardt has rallied other leaders in the hedge fund industry, including Daniel Och of Och-Ziff Capital Management Group (recently named chairman of the Birthright Israel Foundation) and David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital, who both support Birthright financially and in other ways.
Steinhardt has taken things a step further by funding a Birthright Israel alumni program to address his question: “How can we take those ten days and build on them so that [participants are] likely to lead a Jewish life?” In 2002, Steinhardt founded Birthright Israel NEXT, which offers Hebrew classes, services for high holidays, follow-up trips to Israel, reunions and an eight-week bar or bat mitzvah course for those who have never had one.
Inspired by Steinhardt’s passion for that project, Ari Bergmann, CEO of Cedarhurst, New York–based Penso Capital Markets, an investment adviser and fund of funds, has taken a leading role. Bergmann, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in religion at Columbia University, heads workshops at NEXT on the relevance of Jewish tenets to business and daily life. “Birthright has provided people with a unique experience,” he says. “NEXT provides a framework for people to deepen and strengthen those ties — in understanding, in learning and in involvement.”
Now Steinhardt is focused on sponsoring weekly alumni-hosted Shabbat dinners — “to capture a sense of community and family on a Friday night.” His goal is to see 2,000 such celebrations every week.
Steinhardt’s greatest hope is that he has created a self-sustaining legacy that will instill core values among young Jews. “This is something important in life,” he says. “It’s an act of the spirit.”
For more information, see www.birthrightisrael.com .
