Activist and Hollywood insider Noa Tishby promised. So did the comedian Modi Rosenfeld, Rabbi David Wolpe, pro-Israel social media star Lizzy Savetzky and Bernie Marcus, co-founder of The Home Depot.

They are just a few of the nearly 50,000 famous and not-so famous people who have signed the Jewish Future Promise (JFP). Previously known as the Jewish Future Pledge, the campaign encourages Jews to promise that at least half of what they bequeath to charity will be earmarked to build a Jewish future. Signers either stipulate in their wills which Jewish causes to support or leave it to their heirs to choose.

None of the funds go to JFP but instead flow to the organizations directly, anything from groups that fight antisemitism, support Israel or create a sense of community, like Jewish women’s organizations, summer camps or educational programs.

“It’s about not making a promise to a single organization, but to the Jewish people,” said Mike Leven, a philanthropist and hotel and casino executive who co-founded JFP in 2020 with Amy Holtz, a strategist and longtime Jewish nonprofit executive. 

Leven and Holtz were inspired in part by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet’s The Giving Pledge, a campaign that urges the world’s wealthiest to commit a majority of their estate to philanthropy, as well as a 2017 study that showed that only about 11 percent of donations from top Jewish benefactors were invested in Jewish causes. To date, the group has secured over $2.75 billion in commitments through an alliance of individuals, families and philanthropic foundations, according to JFP.

On the occasion of the JFP rebranding earlier this year, prominent lawyer and author Alan Dershowitz said he prioritized his giving to grassroots initiatives like CAMERA, StandWithUs, United Hatzalah and Chabad.

“It’s a show of strength,” the Harvard Law School professor emeritus said. “It’s a chance to use our hard-earned wealth to give back to Israel and the Jewish community. Jewish people have always stood for other people and now is the time to stand also for our people.”

Cathryn J. Prince