Welcoming Intermarried Families
2015 Philanthropic Theme
Laureate: Michael Douglas
Motivated by his lifelong feeling of estrangement from the Jewish community, Michael Douglas asked The Genesis Prize Foundation to direct his $1 million award, as well as an additional $1 million contributed by other donors, to initiatives fostering inclusion of intermarried couples and their children in Jewish life.
In 2015 and 2016, the Jewish Funders Network administered a matching grants program in honor of Michael Douglas to encourage the development of new initiatives and philanthropy in this sector. After receiving 80 grant applications from 14 countries, the Jewish Funders Network, The Genesis Prize Foundation, and Mr. Douglas selected 28 organizations from 7 countries as winners.
The grant recipients included:
- Be’chol Lashon
- Big Tent Judaism
- Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University
- European Janusz Korczak Academy (Germany)
- Friends of Rodeph Sholom School
- Hebrew College
- Hillel at UCLA
- Hillel in Ukraine
- Honeymoon Israel
- IKAR
- InterfaithFamily
- J-ArtEck Youth Education Center (Germany)
- JCC Manhattan
- JCC Warsaw (Poland)
- Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival (Israel)
- Jewbelong
- Jewish Family Service of the Cincinnati Area
- Judaism Your Way
- Kidum Le-Aliyah (Israel)
- Memphis Jewish Federation
- PJ Library
- Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
- Temple Shaaray Tefila
- The Daniel Centers for Progressive Judaism (Israel)
- The United Jewish Congregation of Hong Kong (China)
- Union for Reform Judaism
- United Israel Appeal of Canada (Canada)
- United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
Click here for more detail on the matching grants program.
Hillel International also received an inclusion grant. Funds from the grant were used to train 230 university students from 40 campuses in a peer engagement model.
In 2016, Mr. Douglas and human rights activist Natan Sharansky traveled to U.S. university campuses to speak with students about inclusion, religious pluralism, and pride in Israel. The visits were co-hosted by The Genesis Prize Foundation, Hillel International, the local campus Hillels, and The Jewish Agency for Israel.