Follow the Tax Incentive: Thoughts on Berman’s The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex
History of Jewish philanthropy / New Works in the Field / Philanthropy and the State

Follow the Tax Incentive: Thoughts on Berman’s The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex

Editors’ Note: Lily Geismer continues HistPhil‘s mini-book forum on Lila Corwin Berman‘s The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex. You can read Ben Ratskoff‘s earlier review of the book here. Along with Brent Cebul and Mason Williams, I recently co-edited a volume called Shaped by the State: Toward a New Political History of the Twentieth Century United … Continue reading

The Entanglements of Jewish Philanthropy and Liberal Statecraft: A Review of Berman’s The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex
History of Jewish philanthropy / New Works in the Field

The Entanglements of Jewish Philanthropy and Liberal Statecraft: A Review of Berman’s The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex

Editors’ Note: Over the next few weeks, HistPhil will feature several reviews of Lila Corwin Berman’s recently published The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex (Princeton University Press, 2020). Ben Ratskoff offers the first of these below. Lily Geismer follows with a review here. The climax of Lila Corwin Berman’s new monograph is the infamous fall of … Continue reading

The Private Charity Lacunae: The Tax Reform Act of 1969 and the Rise of Donor-Advised Funds
Tax Reform Act of 1969 forum

The Private Charity Lacunae: The Tax Reform Act of 1969 and the Rise of Donor-Advised Funds

Editors’ Note: Lila Corwin Berman continues HistPhil’s (slightly dilatory) forum marking the 50th anniversary of the Tax Reform Act of 1969 with a contribution explaining how the Act paved the way for the spectacular rise of donor-advised funds. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Congress worried about the unchecked private power that philanthropic entities could hold … Continue reading

Conferences / Philanthropy and Historical Research

Announcing the Jewish Philanthropy Research Initiative

Editors’ Note: The organizers of a new research initiative in Jewish philanthropy announce its inauguration. In a newly published study that draws on the first comprehensive data set of U.S.-based Jewish philanthropic organizations, Hanna Shaul Bar Nissim and Mathew Brookner show that such organizations gave more than $46 billion in grants in the period between … Continue reading

Current Events and Philanthropy / Philanthropy and Historical Research

Donor Advised Funds from an Historian’s Perspective

Editors’ Note: This Friday, in Washington, DC, Boston College Law School’s Forum on Philanthropy and the Public Good will be hosting a conference, “The Rise of Donor-Advised Funds: Should Congress Respond.” Among the scholars and policy-makers convening to discuss DAFs is Lila Corwin Berman, Associate Professor of History at Temple University, who will be presenting on … Continue reading