How Mandana Dayani, Jonah Platt, and Marc Rowan's philanthropic giving has changed since October 7

Good afternoon everyone. My name is Lisa Eisen and I lead the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies. It is so wonderful—thank you. It is so meaningful to be in community together and I'm thrilled to be here with all of you. And we are all here because we know, we feel it in our bones, the stakes of this moment. The Jewish world's tectonic plates shifted on October 7th and they have not stopped moving. The pace of change is fast, the forces against us are numerous and their ferocity is really chilling. But if Jewish history has taught us anything, it's that we are not powerless. That no matter the challenge, we have power, we have agency. We are uniquely capable of dreaming about a bigger and better future and using our will and our grit, as our panelists have, to change the course of history. I've had to give myself this pep talk many times since October 7th. As a professional Jew and lifelong Zionist, like probably most of you in this room, these have been very painful and disheartening years. But we also know that with all of the challenge is opportunity, is possibility, is the crucible for change. And everyone in this room works with incredible grantees who persevere through chaos and through challenge and we owe it to them and we owe it to ourselves to consider what we're being called to do. This is our chance to do things differently, to reimagine how we approach our philanthropy and our activism. What is the highest and yet best use of our time and resources? How can we be the best leaders and partners in this moment? And that's what we're going to dig in today with our amazing panelists.

What is the role that each of us can play as funders and leaders in shaping the course of Jewish history and Israel? It's not easy to know where to stay the course, where to pivot, and where to lean into the complexity of this moment. But one thing is certain, we will need to be bold, as Zoya said before us. Now is the time for what I would call conviction capital. We all deploy philanthropic capital, we use our social capital, but now is the time to stand up and demonstrate the courage of our convictions, to broadcast our values and our commitments, and to advocate for who we are and what is right. And if there's anyone who can speak to that, it's the three amazing leaders on this panel. We have with us Marc Rowan, Mondana Dayani, and Jonah Platt. So, let's give them all a hand. Combined, their expertise in entertainment, entrepreneurship, storytelling, communication, policy, and business is incredible. I have no doubt that this panel could put together a joint venture in this hour. But instead, we're going to talk about their leadership and their philanthropy. They were all already leaders before October 7th, but since that day, they have propelled their leadership forward. They have lifted their voices. They have cut through the noise. And they have reached many people. Jonah has become a trusted public voice on modern Jewish identity, culture, and current events. He hosts the award-winning podcast Being Jewish with Jonah Platt, featuring conversations with big names about everything from Hanukkah to heartbreak, as he puts it. And you must listen to it. It's amazing. Mondana is a brand expert, attorney, and political strategist who believes the same tools used to launch great brands—excitement, cultural momentum, and a sense of belonging—can also build powerful movements. Born in Iran, her work is deeply personal, and she has worked on some of the most urgent issues of our time, from anti-Semitism to civic engagement. And last, and definitely not least, is Marc, who was already raising the alarm about anti-Semitism even before October 7th, on UPenn's campus and beyond. And since then, he has emerged as one of the leading advocates for ensuring America's educational institutions remain safe places for Jews and for rigorous study. They're all leading in different ways, but the three of them are demonstrating what is possible when you combine conviction and innovation. This era calls us all to a new kind of philanthropy, and we need look no further than this stage for shining examples. So, let us dive in. So, for all of you, your activism did not start on October 7th, but that day seems to have been a turning point for each of you. What changed for you, and what central ideas and values are driving your activism? And Mondana, I met you right after October 7th at the UN when you were speaking on sexual violence. It was very powerful, so let's start with you.

Yeah, thank you. And thank you for having us and for that introduction. I mean, I'd worked as an advocate for so long and woke up October 7th to one of the most horrific acts imaginable, and in that devastation, went online and saw that people were trying to pivot what happened into some deranged, delusional protest, and I couldn't understand what was happening. Like, it made no sense in my brain. And I know how important storytelling is and first-person narrative. I was raised in Iran. I was born there. I grew up under the regime that funds Hamas. I understand their insanity and their violence. So I picked up my phone. I made a video. And I opened with that I started every day at school chanting death to America, death to Israel. And that video was seen—I don't know—50 million times. I really wish I'd brushed my hair before I made the video. But it really showed the importance of sharing these stories because there really was no context for what was happening from some of the more, I guess, left-leaning voices at the time. And I flew to Israel three weeks later and immediately stopped everything else I was doing and started building the Calnet Foundation and all of our different projects, really focused on using all the principles I had gained throughout my career and figuring out how in this moment do we isolate problems and use our resources and skills to sort of address them, which I'm guessing we will talk about thoroughly. But yeah, that changed my life.

Jonah, how about you? What changed for you on October 7th?

Yeah, on October 7th I was starring in a play at the Geffen Theater in Los Angeles and I had been doing Jewish advocacy work for several years prior to that using my online platform that I had built mostly through my acting work. And on October 7th is when basically the ratio of my time, energy, budget went from 90% my career, 10% advocacy to flip-flopping. And it wasn't at first even a conscious decision. It was just what I wanted to be doing. It was where I wanted to be spending all of my time and energy. And after a couple of months of really just responding to that moment and trying to put out fires in real life and online, I said, 'Okay, I want to get back to what my original advocacy sort of was before October 7th, which has always been sort of a two-pronged thing. One being education and trying to articulate what American Jews are thinking and feeling because I feel so well connected to American Jews and listen and speak to hundreds of them every day. And also celebrating Jewish identity and trying to help model and then empower folks to lean into their own Jewish identity in so many different ways and in as inclusive a way as possible.' And that was sort of how I came to the notion of starting my show, which has led me down the path that I'm now on, which is, you know, 100% Jewish advocacy—there's a little bit of entertainment left. But mostly just the advocacy. But it really is about, you know, you asked about the driving values and mission. It really is about helping people switch that mindset that I think a lot of Jews have from—I guess really sort of a temporary nature to a permanent nature, from a fear-based point of view to a confidence-based point of view, from an apologetic point of view to a confident, you know, here we are point of view. And I happen to think that not only by flipping that switch is everybody going to be much happier and more authentic and have more meaning in their lives, but I also think a byproduct of that is the number one antidote to the anti-Jew hate that we see today is a loud, proud Jewish community taking up space with a permanent mindset of we're here, we're not going anywhere. We've been through worse and we'll get through this.

Could not agree more. And we're glad we have you 100%. And we need you.

Mark, how about you? What ideas are driving your activism since October 7th?

Well, all three of you have done that beautifully. Let's stick with you because you've obviously deployed an effective strategy. We're still at the early phases, but as I said earlier, with all the challenges comes opportunity. So, are there new opportunities that have emerged because of what we've been going through the last three years? And how do you capitalize on this?

I think that's right. That's right. How about you, Mondana?

Yeah, I think a lot about—in a weird way, you can't really address a problem you don't see. And I don't know how aware I was of how bad the issues were. So, sometimes it feels like we shook the refrigerator and the cockroaches came out, but at least we know where they are, and now we can address them. And so, I mean, again, I always sort of apply the way that I work, which is I've spent my whole career and life building consumer celebrity brands. And I try to, as an entrepreneur, figure out: okay, what's a tangible issue or problem that I can address and build a solution? And I think my response to trauma is to build. My healing is the doing, because I just don't know how to be idle.

And when we talked a lot about sort of opportunity, I think for me, immediately after October 7th, the greatest opportunity I saw were the young students on campuses. Like watching these kids, this generation, boldly, proudly be who they are, testify before Congress, change definitions at their school campuses, go up against these completely deranged people in their faces all day long—the way that they were organizing was amazing. And I was traveling and touring a lot of the schools. I was speaking at them. I was meeting with administration leaders. And prior to all this, I had built an organization called I Am a Voter, which has become one of the largest civic engagement organizations in our country. And similarly to how we did that, I was thinking about: okay, what are the tools that these kids need? Where are the gaps for them? I flew twelve of the student leaders to LA. I convened them for a few days at CAA, which is a talent agency. And basically gave them a whiteboard and said, 'What do you need? If you guys get to build the future of what you need.' And so, we sat there. All of them were sort of throwing at the board all the things that they felt they needed. And over the summer, we had hundreds of students spend hours doing peer-to-peer reviews. They were writing their own manuals. They were training each other. And we did so much just to help them with what was happening on campuses and making sure they had the sufficient resources. And again, even through doing all that together, I remember we ended up meeting a huge set of students who felt like they were being pushed out of their student newspapers. And they were not allowed to write about Zionist values. They were not allowed to write about who they were. They were fired. They were pushed out. And I was like, 'This is so dumb.' Because also, every time you've tried to push Jews out, we just built something bigger and better. And I was like, 'I don't want you to be part of this stupid newspaper anyways.' I created a digital newspaper that we sold to Bustle, where we aggregated some of the best editors that I've worked with. We have access to the greatest creative directors. We brought everyone together. And we're like, 'Okay, great. Here you go. We're going to go on Substack. You guys are going to have your own newsletter. Any Jewish student who wants can publish here. Non-Jewish students can publish here.' Seventy students wrote for our first publication that had all been denied the ability to publish their newspapers. And they now control this. They're interviewing all these people. They're traveling to schools. They're hosting their own conferences. And you just realize there is so much that we can do and we don't have to beg for permission sometimes to be part of these old and stupid institutions.

Amen. Jonah, you've had a chance to talk to so many different people over these last years. What kind of opportunities are you seeing for our people and for us as funders in this room?

Yeah, we're in a moment of immense opportunity. Really an exciting time of opportunity. I'm very much aligned with sort of the approach that Marc was outlining. We have so many people who are engaged as never before, who want to be expressing their Jewish identity. Jewish professionals who want to be using their skill sets. It's really just a matter of people standing up to do this stuff now. But the desire is there and now we can see—we have the hindsight to see, okay, this wasn't working, this wasn't working, this wasn't working. How do we fix sort of these core mistakes that we've been making over the past however many decades? And again, I think so much of it comes down to a mindset place where perhaps certain priorities were not there in that mindset and we need to shift those priorities and lean into them. And it's really just a matter of not being afraid by the task before us, which, you know, it all matters, right? There's so much work to be done on so many different levels and not allowing the scope of what we have to do overwhelm us and make it feel like a hopeless situation. It's quite the opposite. There is so much to do and all of it is helpful. We just have to really not blow this opportunity. I mean, it's a sliding doors moment, right? It can go one way or the other. Either we goof this opportunity, we don't capitalize on all the people who are engaged in this moment, and really lean into that mindset shift, or we do, and we start to create new institutions or reprioritize our current ones in the way that they're operating, and bring in all these other people who have not been engaged who now want to be, and don't necessarily know how or what to do, but want to do it. So, I mean, it's up to a lot of the people in this room, I think, to grab these folks when they see them, and help lift up the people who are already doing the work, who need support, or want to do the work and are well placed to do it, but have never done this before and aren't sure what to do, and just need some support. So, I think we have really truly the beginning of what I hope will be a movement in an incredible new direction for us.

That's great. And Mark, I know you want to respond, and as you respond, can you tell us about some of the new work that you're doing? There are all these new opportunities, and I know you're doing work here, but you're also doing new work in Israel, and would love to hear about that too.