The Hebrew word tzedakah is usually translated as “charity.” WAYS OF PEACE calls it “just-giving:” just give, and give justly.

The beauty of just-giving is that — regardless of income or affluence level — each of us holds the daily power to vote with our own resources for the kind of world we seek. The diverse giving opportunities below (please scroll through at your own pace) respond to vital local, national, and international needs that may or may not be making current headlines.

Please contact WAYS OF PEACE for further just-giving guidance.

Israel/Palestine

Through years of anguish and arguments over terminologies and ideologies, WAYS OF PEACE maintains humanitarian vigilance beyond words. No matter how heartbreaking the situation, there are always real, practical options for sharing our time and money, for bringing people together across differences to affirm our shared humanity.

The Israel-Palestine Crisis Relief Fund of GlobalGiving centers organizations that are deeply rooted in local communities to provide long-term support, including Rebuilding Alliance, IsraAID, and more.

Please also consider our WAYS OF PEACE Solidarity Campaign, which supports vital grassroots organizations like the ones below.

For 20 years, bereaved Israelis and Palestinians have met and grieved together in powerful joint ceremonies that have grown from 180 in-person participants in 2006 to nearly 15,000 in 2023. Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide have participated in live broadcasts since the pandemic years.

Please consider supporting the joint ceremony organizers, who remain at the forefront of nonviolent solidarity initiatives throughout the year. Combatants for Peace are ex-combatant Israelis and Palestinians, men and women, who have laid down their weapons and rejected all means of violence. Parents Circle - Families Forum (PCFF) is a joint Israeli-Palestinian organization of over 800 families, all of whom have lost an immediate family member to the ongoing conflict.

Road to Recovery began in 2006 when a Palestinian PCFF member, whose brother needed transport to and from a border crossing for cancer treatment, reached out to an Israeli PCFF member for assistance. Leonard Cohen donated $10K in 2010 to support the hundreds of volunteers, patients and families who have come together in a journey of healing and hope since that time. Even though seven volunteers were killed through the October 7th attacks, Road to Recovery has continued to transport Palestinian patients to and from West Bank checkpoints since October 8th.

Please also consider supporting Standing Together, a grassroots movement mobilizing Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel in pursuit of peace, equality, and social and climate justice; Physicians for Human Rights Israel, providing and advocating for humanitarian medical aid on both sides of the Gaza border; and Neve Shalom / Wahat al Salaam (Oasis of Peace), a vil­lage of Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel ded­icated to building justice, peace and equality in the country and the region since 1970.

Immigrant Solidarity

Relentless violence and war have deepened the worst global refugee crisis since World War II, with more than 117 million people forcibly displaced from their homes. Please consider support for the following organizations:

• Aguilas del Desierto / Eagles of the Desert, a volunteer search and rescue organization begun by an immigrant laborer whose brother and cousin died in the southern border desert. “Since Aguilas began in 2012, we have rescued 92 people and recovered the remains of 92 people. We long for the day when all lives are saved.”

• Sanctuary Coalitions nationwide — local faith-based solidarity networks working on multiple fronts to expand access to safe spaces for all — working in coordination with local immigrant bond funds.

• Afri-kana supports Harlem and the Bronx’s newest and oldest neighbors, both long-standing residents and recent migrant arrivals. Established by a Black Muslim woman who personally navigated the U.S. immigration system, Afri-kana specifically focuses on Black and Muslim migrants who face significant barriers to accessing services, including legal, workforce, and benefit assistance.

• Proyecto Faro / Project Lighthouse is an immigrant-led organizing effort allied with immigrant and non-immigrant religious and secular communities and organizations to galvanize support for and action among those in Rockland County who feel insecure due to their immigration status. Proyecto Faro works to create solidarity across boundaries of legal status, country of origin, and religious affiliation.

• Annunciation House, RAICES, and other long-term immigrant support organizations on the U.S. / Mexico border

• Hotline for Refugees and Migrants in Israel, which defends the rights of migrants and refugees, works to eradicate human trafficking, and provides crucial leadership in the ongoing Israeli crisis threatening African asylum seekers

• Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP), which has developed a high-impact model of legal advocacy on behalf of refugees to the U.S. including best practices for providing aid remotely — and has helped to bring wrongly-deported parents back to the U.S. to reunite with their children.

• Other nonsectarian organizations such as Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), and Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees.

Indigenous Solidarity

Native American tribes have been among those most vulnerable to the ravages of our global pandemic and beyond. Please consider donations to the Indigenous Environmental Network, to Yee Ha’ólníi Doo / Navajo & Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund, and to other Indigenous mutual aid funds.

One of the Native American mutual aid funds received a significant boost from donors in Ireland, mindful of the 1847 generosity of the Choctaw tribe during the “Great Hunger” of the Irish potato famine.

The pandemic has also seen increasing awareness and accountability for North American policies which brutally removed Native children from their families to boarding schools in which their indigenous cultures were forcibly erased, and in which other forms of mistreatment were rampant. Please support the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, a membership organization comprised of over 80 Native and Non-Native members and organizations committed to boarding school healing.

Please also support ongoing Indigenous solidarity funding projects such as the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust / Shuumi Land Tax in Oakland, CA (Lisjan / Ohlone land), Real Rent Duwamish in Seattle, WA (the city named for the Duwamish chief), and American Indian Community House (AICH) in NYC (Lenapehoking). If you live on other native lands, you can consult this Resource Guide for Indigenous Solidarity Funding Projects.

Haiti and Its Diasporas

As the long-impoverished and generally-neglected nation of Haiti suffers through its most recent violence and persecution of refugees, the grassroots Haiti Response Coalition (HRC) offers the following crucial guidance:

“We promote Haitian self-determination and leadership, desiring collaborative efforts based on partnership and mutual respect, but never seeking to do what Haitians can do for themselves.... In concrete practice, this also means that despite the international nature of the HRC, we are committed to making our work Haitian-centered, and more specifically, centering marginalized Haitian populations so that our engagement and action are in response to Haitian need and aimed toward Haitian benefit.”

Please consider supporting Fonkoze, Hope for Haiti, the Lambi Fund of Haiti, and other HRC member organizations, as well as the GlobalGiving Haiti Crisis Relief Fund. GlobalGiving also offers a helpful infographic on How to Help After A Disaster, clarifying how cash donations can best support local economies.

Racial Justice in the U.S.

Continued killings of unarmed Black civilians across the U.S. have exposed deadly, long-term injustices at the foundations of our society. Through advocacy, education, and commemoration, the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery, Alabama is changing the narrative about race in America. EJI includes a Legacy Museum, a Memorial for Peace and Justice, and a Community Remembrance Project which partners with community coalitions to memorialize documented victims of racial violence and to foster meaningful dialogue about race and justice today.

The Fund for Reparations NOW! was created as a white allies group to pilot what reparations could look like once granted by the federal government, following the 10-Point Plan of the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC). The first rounds of funding have gone toward Point 9 of the 10-Point Plan: Preserving Black Sacred Sites and Monuments, beginning with commemoration of the Elaine, AK Massacre of 1919.

Please support efforts locally as well as nationally. In NYC, the Justice Committee centers mutual support for families bereaved by police violence. The work of the Center for Court Innovation (CCI) spans community-based gun violence prevention, healing trauma, and legal reform. Locally-based CCI programs like Save Our Streets and Restorative Justice prevent violence and resolve conflicts on the streets and in schools.

The student leaders who emerged from the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida have recognized and used their privilege to focus on the more vulnerable survivors of institutional violence whose voices are often ignored. They partnered with the Community Justice Action Fund to support frontline organizations that continue working on the ground to prevent gun violence in communities nationwide — including BYP 100 (Chicago, IL), Circle of Brotherhood (Miami, FL), Homies Unidos (Los Angeles, CA), LIFE Camp (Jamaica, NY), Mothers Against Police Brutality (Dallas, TX), and ROCA (Baltimore, MD).

Food Worker Justice

Some of the most vulnerable immigrants as well as native-born Americans in the U.S. today are the front-line “essential workers” who plant, harvest, process, pack, transport, prepare, serve, and sell our food.

Immokalee, Florida is the source of nearly all winter tomatoes grown in the U.S. The Coalition of Imokalee Workers (CIW) is a worker-based human rights organization internationally recognized for its achievements in the fields of social responsibility, human trafficking, and gender-based violence at work. The CIW is also a driving force behind the Alliance for Fair Food, a national partnership network for farmworker justice.

The Worker Justice Center of NY, like the CIW, is among food worker member organizations across the country that have joined forces to improve wages and working conditions for all workers along the food chain. Farmworker Justice also works with farmworker organizations throughout the U.S. Please support efforts locally as well as nationally.

Bail and Bond Funds

The immigrant bond fund crisis highlights the longstanding health risks, devastation and injustice of our cash bail system. Envision Freedom Fund (formerly Brooklyn Community Bail Fund) reports that over 60 percent of people in jail in the United States are being detained while they await trial. The inability to afford bail forces people to plead guilty just to get out of jail, even when they are innocent. If they don’t, they may spend months behind bars awaiting trial. And while pleading guilty lets them go home, they carry a criminal record for life.

A growing national network of community bail funds is leveraging donations to free and support these people as part of a broader movement for criminal justice and immigration reform. Please support a community bail fund near you.

Domestic Workers

Domestic workers are always on the frontlines, caring for those most vulnerable. During the pandemic, the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) provided emergency assistance for home care workers, nannies and house cleaners to support them in staying safe and staying home to slow the spread of the virus and to care for themselves and their families. NWDA continues to empower and organize domestic workers through education, political action, and “transforming care work as the foundation of our economy.”

Muslim/Jewish Alliances Against Hatred

Relentless hate violence continues to send shock waves of trauma throughout our nation and our world. It’s vital to look beyond divisive media debates toward continuous just-giving across conventional lines of conflict — the healing, practical actions that disappear most quickly from the headlines.

In the fall of 2018, Muslim-American community organizations raised $50,000 for the shooting victims in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, as well as more than $230,000 for the wounded and murdered shooting victims in Pittsburgh. The surviving Pittsburgh Jewish community responded in the spring of 2019 with a call for donations to support the Christchurch, NZ Muslim community.

Two-thirds of the funds raised by nearly 6,000 donors to the Pittsburgh campaign were disbursed by local Muslim partners to meet the immediate, short-term needs of injured victims and grieving families. The remaining funds were designated for projects that help to foster Muslim-Jewish collaboration, dialogue, and solidarity.

A similar Muslim-American effort on behalf of vandalized Jewish cemeteries in 2017 drew more than $160,000 from nearly 5,000 donors. Funds have been disbursed to restore Jewish cemeteries in St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Denver. Most recently, the funding scope was extended to Jewish centers beyond cemeteries, as $10,000 was disbursed to help restore the Tree of Life synagogue devastated by the Pittsburgh shooting.

Giving Through Personal Crises

Rabbi Louis Allan Rieser z”l (of blessed memory) died in January 2020 after a brave and generous journey of 4.5 years through brain cancer. Following initial surgery, Louis and his wife Connie Rieser decided to reach beyond their own crisis and give tzedakah for each subsequent week of treatment: “Tzedakah is on behalf of healing, for ourselves and for our doctors, and for all of our helpers.” Their weekly beneficiaries are listed here:

• Treatment Support for Sawyer Shore

• Talia Agler Girls Shelter

• Jayme’s Fund for Social Justice

• Alliance for Fair Food - Coalition of Immokalee Workers (SEE ABOVE)

• Hope Sunshine Club in Memory of Bailey Leal

• Local Holocaust Survivors Assistance

As Connie wrote the day Louis z”l died, “We lost a shining light today, but I know he will continue to shine upon us.” At this time when loss and grief are at the forefront for so many, the Riesers’ shining example reminds us that generous justice is always available to light our ways through the darkness.

Please contact WAYS OF PEACE for further just-giving guidance.

“It’s rare to find a space where social justice and money management converge so masterfully. The workshop is supportive, insightful and inspirational, and it’s empowering to have the tools to move ‘just giving’ forward. I couldn’t recommend it more highly.”

“I felt a direct impact on my life. I found myself being able to have conversations around money or speak of financial situations with others close to me in a very different way...and at the same time, taking steps and making new and specific choices.”

“This humanistic, spiritual and interactive workshop on budgeting for reparations provides tools for an anti-racist journey, living your values and meeting your reparationist goals.”

“Money meets ‘just giving’ in this expertly and lovingly conceived and led course.”

“Highly recommended for consistent practice of integrity and intention about money, privilege and making repair.”

This six-week online course is designed for those who accept the basic ethical imperatives of saving lives and repairing harm — and who seek best practices for connecting these ethical imperatives to our own economic privileges.

The solidarity economics of “How To Move Our Money” are equally applicable to crises of wartime violence and displacement, racial justice and reparations, homelessness, reproductive freedom, gun violence, mental illness, immigrant solidarity and more — *regardless* of personal income or affluence levels.

Through interactive presentations, supportive discussions, action / reflection and singing, participants will:

• Discover the abolitionist legacy of “vigilance committees” as well as principles of locally-oriented, land-based Indigenous solidarity

• Develop emotional literacy in working with our own family stories around money

• Explore multifaith spiritual disciplines of release and accountability

• Separate questions of “How much can I / we share?” (Phase One) from questions of specific solidarity funding possibilities (Phase Two)

• Inspire and support each other in making “just-giving” a way of life!

Sliding scale of $108 to $216 for six online sessions (1.25 hours per week)

We can arrange a special cohort for your group at any mutually convenient times. Write to reginasandlerphillips@substack.com to discuss scheduling and/or alternative arrangements.

“Generous Justice is a resource for learning about Jewish philosophy as well as personal finance. It’s a guide to social action and philanthropy, and a tool for spiritual growth—a breath mint and a candy mint....Because the format consists of short readings and discussion questions, I can see it working as a lively tool for book clubs and investment clubs, synagogues, families, seders with friends.” (Marjorie Ingall, Tablet Magazine, 12/20/16)

Now approaching its 10-year publication anniversary, this innovative sourcebook offers inspiration and spiritual support for social justice through personal finance. With readings from classical and contemporary pathfinders, accompanied by guided study questions, readers join a dialogue across millennia of prophets, sages, activists and artists.

Bringing together concern for the poor and vulnerable with concern for the planet, Generous Justice is a one-stop guide for more effective giving throughout the year: simple, regular, and fair. 84 pages, 2016 / 2019

CLICK HERE for in-person pickup in NYC (no sales tax or shipping charges)

CLICK HERE for shipping and delivery outside NYC

Contact us about sponsoring a Generous Justice book program in-person or by videoconference! We may be able to donate a percentage of the proceeds for each book sold to your synagogue or other non-profit organization.

As inscribed on the iconic bell in Philadelphia, “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land” is a biblical declaration (Leviticus 25:10) that heralds the time of jubilee: freed slaves, cancelled debts, redistributed land ownership. Far less proclaimed are the connections between this jubilee and the financial activities of daily life.

According to the Bible, the jubilee completed seven sabbatical cycles of release. The release of debts in each sabbatical year followed six years of tithing. Today, a tithe (one-tenth) is a voluntary giving rate — one possible percentage of what we earn. But tithing began as the original income tax.

Through years of ever-present economic uncertainty, what are we really declaring when we declare our income and deductions at tax time? Aggregated data continue to highlight our American generosity paradox: regardless of the state of the economy, lower-income people tend to donate higher percentages of what they earn — while more affluent earners tend to give in lower percentages.

This silent status quo is like the crack in the Liberty Bell that prevents it from letting freedom truly ring. Let’s turn our focus to the people across diverse communities whose smaller household budgets support broader social impacts. If we stretch beyond our usual ideological assumptions and divisions, we can share in the power of DIY (Do-It-Yourself) tax justice.

Tax justice really begins with how we approach our money beyond taxes. How are we literally spending our lives? It’s not yet part of our common vocabulary, but solidarity economics — financial practices based on fairness, cooperation, and sharing — can inform and transform our personal choices. A solidarity orientation highlights practical ways of moving our money toward greater equality.

Globally, the secular “effective altruism” movement has directed attention to the power of percentage giving for a range of vital causes. As of this writing, 10,759 people worldwide have taken the Giving What We Can pledge to support whichever organizations they believe are most effective in improving the lives of others:

“We give 10% (or more) because so many in the developed world give nothing or very little….We chose 10% because it strikes a good balance. It is a significant proportion of one’s income, in recognition of the importance of the problem and the need to take real action. But it is also within reach of most people in the developed world. There is also a strong historical connection to the idea of tithing….”

Giving What We Can offers a handy motivational calculator for anyone ready to stretch toward greater solidarity in financial decision-making. (And you don't need to identify with “effective altruism” to benefit from the global number-crunching!)

Now more than ever, our American tax code privileges the more affluent at the expense of lower-income people. No progress on that front is likely in the near future. We can still support progressive tax reform initiatives and protest budget cuts, but we will miss our greatest opportunities if we limit ourselves to verbal conjecture and debate (characterized in modern Hebrew as “lip tax”). As demonstrated by the longstanding generosity of lower-income donors, core money choices are never legislated out of our control.

The Hebrew word tzedakah is conventionally translated as “charity,” but is derived from the root word for justice. WAYS OF PEACE calls this just-giving: just give, AND give justly. It’s an ongoing process of solidarity through personal finance. DIY tax justice can leverage deductions to channel more private money toward public needs — and even a half-tithe would exceed the new standard deduction for most affluent earners.

But just-giving is much more than a tax deduction. Just-giving is a voluntary, ethical tax that can power spare change into social change.

We face these challenges as we move through another seven-year sabbatical / release cycle — in which two three-year mini-cycles each culminate in a Year of the Tithe. Traditionally, Jews are called to account with the Tithing Declaration:

“I have set aside the consecrated [tithe] from the household; and I have given it to the [landless] and to the resident-alien, to the orphan and to the widow….”

Will we be ready to make that declaration when the time comes?

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark says he learned principles of "treat people like you want to be treated" and "know when enough is enough" from his 1950s Sunday School teachers, Holocaust survivors Rafael and Rachel Levin. Regarding the second principle, Newmark added: "After you have enough, per your own personal values, maybe it's time to share." Newmark left the Forbes billionaires list in 2020, publicly committed to giving away most of his wealth. LEARN MORE

Over more than two decades following the post-9/11 disaster relief, I met weekly with a diverse and wonderful group of seniors on the Lower East Side. Through their abundant life wisdom, my elderly students invariably became my teachers.

The only members of their family to survive the Holocaust, Polish-born sisters Dora Benjamin and Hana Citron z”l were loyal group regulars during the final years of their lives. Both mostly listened, often smiling slightly as others talked. Yet when Dora did speak she became very animated, more than once affirming the core commitments of her survival — as well as her loving generosity and gratitude:

“I was young. I was strong. I wanted to live. I wanted others to live. One potato, six pieces.” —Holocaust survivor Dora Benjamin z”l

Dora died a week before Passover in 2015, some years after Hana z”l. And five years later, Dora’s example highlighted my own choices during the global pandemic crisis.

Every six months I donate the equivalent of 10 percent of my personal food expenses to one or more food justice organizations. Before Passover 2020 I sat considering my cash flow in the shadow of COVID-19. How much could I allocate this time to local urban youth farmers, upstate agricultural workers, and others on the front lines — many of whom barely earn enough to feed themselves and their families in the best of times?

I checked my bank account and discovered that I’d received my 2020 economic stimulus payment. Now I had the power to share even more with the most vulnerable, near and far — many of whom who remained ineligible for the payment I’d just received, even though they needed it far more.

Dora’s legacy of "One potato, six pieces" remains among my primary ongoing inspirations for "just-giving": just give, and give justly.

For many of us, money is even more daunting than mortality. At a gathering of Jewish burial fellowship leaders and friends some years back, I was invited to talk about GENEROUS JUSTICE and how important it is to reclaim our family money stories. “We never discussed these things in my family,” ventured one of my listeners — whereupon another one responded, “Oh, we had a budget box growing up!”

I was excited to learn about this artifact of family frugality from the decades before I was born. More sophisticated than a piggy bank or a pushke (tzedakah box), the budget bank was invented to fund multiple priorities. It was popular from the beginning of the Great Depression through the 1950s, when spending — especially on credit — began to replace saving as the dominant cultural value.

Our cultural values around money are starkly reflected in our music. Almost all of our money-related songs are anthems to scarcity, greed, sarcasm, finger-pointing, relationships betrayed and broken. Occasional exceptions like “Side by Side,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” and “Precious Friend” try to counter all that—but they don’t address our specific financial challenges.

When I told the group that one of the cultural goals of GENEROUS JUSTICE is to promote songs that reflect healthy approaches to money, a third listener began spontaneously singing from childhood memory:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters / Hear the merry chink, chink, chink!
How it makes us oh so happy / When we stop to think, think, think
Of all the joy that we can bring / To the lives of other children
With our weekly offering!

In a world where finances have become computerized abstractions, the old-fashioned budget bank offers tangible inspiration for more mindful saving, spending, and sharing. And, while nobody has yet invented a budget-bank-music-box, that Hebrew School song seems as good a soundtrack as any.

Now, how can we help our "adult" songs — and finances — catch up with the kids?

“This is primarily a book for people who direct the flow of money. The more money you direct, the more this book is for you.”

With this invitation, Edgar Villanueva introduces Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance, first published in 2018 and now in its second (2021) edition. Decolonizing Wealth explores how our institutions of philanthropy and finance are built upon the oppression of Indigenous and other enslaved / exploited peoples in the United States — and how those institutions continue to perpetuate that oppression in subtle and not-so-subtle forms.

In an engaging conversational style, Edgar (he apparently prefers to be referenced by first name) covers a range of vital and often painful issues. These include the ways in which the devastations of colonialism have become benignly invisible (“You know there’s a style of architecture called ‘colonial,’ right?”); the pervasive dynamics of “divide, control, exploit” that are sometimes justified in the very name of diversity, equity, and inclusion; the power of personal storytelling, grieving and healing; and the transformational potentials of “money as medicine.”

Edgar offers a colonial plantation metaphor of house slaves, field hands, and overseers to describe financial relationships. Yet the real-life stories he shares reflect far more complicated dynamics of internalized oppression. His Lumbee Tribe in North Carolina was the first to be colonized in the United States, its Indigenous spirituality long suppressed by Christianity. (The Doctrine of Discovery that provided the Christian justification for expropriating Native lands is briefly noted.) Edgar was a thirty-something professional before he was given a Native name by an Ojibwe medicine man at a conference in Denver.

“The more money you direct, the more this book is for you.” More than 200 pages later, we seem to reach a different conclusion: “As it turns out, looking back, the first actual philanthropist I ever knew was my mother, not that she would have ever used that word…and I’d be willing to bet that she couldn’t spell it.” Edgar describes his mother Sheila as a devoted church woman, engaged in active ministry with neglected and abused children in their community while raising him as a single parent and three-shift service worker.

“She has spent her life caring for others, sharing resources, raising money for others, giving up her time….Sixteen years in the field have shown me that the actual philanthropists — those like my mother, engaged in acts of love for humanity — are much more prevalent among the regular population and are only rarely found within the field’s formal institutions, the foundations.” (pages 208-209)

As a committed participant-observer outside the formal institutions of philanthropy for nearly three decades, I am not surprised by this insight. But I am saddened that Decolonizing Wealth does not address the deeper implications of such a core realization.

Like Edgar’s mother Sheila, we are ALL “people who direct the flow of money.” Whether we call it decolonization, solidarity or charity, the practice of money as medicine begins — and ultimately ends — at home, not in the colonial-styled halls of philanthropy and finance.

Of course, those moneyed halls do offer the enticements of greater affluence to struggling idealists, as Edgar acknowledges. “After one year [at a family foundation], I bought a beautiful brand-new house, because I’d listened to Oprah growing up, and she had driven home the message that home ownership was the anchor of wealth. I had subscribed to the American Dream.” Only later did he discover the divide-and-conquer dynamics that too often pit tokenized minorities against each other — and fear for his mortgage payments as his work environment became increasingly toxic.

Although Edgar does not discuss his personal financial giving, upward mobility reflects a paradox of our American Dream. It’s a taboo subject, downplayed and deflected — but nevertheless documented — by philanthropy research. And it’s a truth that any program aimed at decolonizing wealth needs to face: as household affluence increases, the share of income donated tends to shrink.

This implicit hoarding occurs along a gradual continuum, beyond our dualistic notions of rich and poor. And when we look at how inequality manifests across the global economy that colonization did so much to create, the challenges are literally brought home.

How are we “spending” our lives? As Edgar rightly observes, our experiences and stories as well as our money, possessions, and land are all part of the abundance that can be used as medicine. His Seven Steps to Healing certainly offer medicine — as do the Nine Steps of Your Money or Your Life and the Twelve Steps of recovery in our money-addicted society.

Decolonizing Wealth is upbeat, not marked by overt bitterness or guilt. Yet I had the sense that many of the collected anecdotes (Amazon.com executives as radical vanguard?) and sweeping recommendations for philanthropic overhaul needed to settle and dry out further — like the buffalo chips that Indigenous peoples originally taught European settlers to use for fuel. After all, what Edgar calls the “colonizer virus” carries inherent blind spots — as highlighted by Céline Semaan and Yasmin Ahram in their nuanced discussion of promotional “Decolonizer” merchandise.

I was reminded of the proverbial person who has lost keys in a dark alley, but continues to search for them under a bright street lamp because “the light is better here.” Like a network of bright street lamps, institutions and critics of philanthropy and finance have issued many calls over many decades for accountability, transparency, imagination, narrative change and paradigm shift. But in the bottom-line focus on bigger donors and bigger budgets (“The more money you direct, the more this book is for you”), lower-income philanthropists like Edgar’s mother Sheila are invariably left behind in the shadows.

Even philanthropy researchers who documented the greater generosity of lower-income givers in 2014 decided, three years later, to limit their study of “How America Gives” to those with annual earnings of $50K or higher — sidestepping the question of how those with so much less can afford to give so much more. And the overall average giving rate of 2 percent over the past 50 years — regardless of economic boom or downturn — remains, in the words of philanthropy historian Benjamin Soskis, “the stubborn constraint on the index of American generosity.”

The ultimate challenge of decolonizing wealth is to leave the bright street lamps and venture into those dark alleys of no easy answers, where the “keys” can truly be found. With mutual support and accountability, we can claim the power to direct the flow of our OWN money through continued practice, reflection, storytelling, learning, feeling, healing, and more practice.

Let the buffalo chips fall where they may! There is firepower and fertilizer in this lifelong process. May it enrich all of us with greater justice.

2022 / 2025

Rabbi Regina Sandler-Phillips is the founding executive director of WAYS OF PEACE Community Resources, a social microenterprise that donates at least 10 percent of net staff compensation forward to other organizations that renew justice and kindness across lines of diversity and throughout the life cycle. She authored the sourcebook Generous Justice: Jewish Wisdom for Just-Giving, and teaches “How to Move Our Money” workshops on solidarity economics.

Session One

How did food become money? How can money become food justice? In Part One of this program, we’ll trace the original mini-cycles of food sharing within the biblical rhythms of sabbatical / release. We’ll consider principles of fairness and sustainability that ancient prophets and sages developed from these rhythms, as we field-test emerging practices of solidarity to help each other face—and digest—our own Jewish choices with love and courage.

Session Two

In Session Two of this program (open to all, regardless of previous participation), we’ll apply the principles and practices identified in Session One to a core challenge articulated by Hazon: empowering “those whose disadvantage is invisibly connected to our own food choices.” Through storytelling and discussion, we’ll center the personal experiences of front-line food workers and others as we deepen our understanding of food insecurity. Approaching food justice as an ongoing action / reflection process, we’ll highlight current best practices as we continue to help each other face—and digest—our own Jewish choices with love and courage.

LEARN MORE

The corner bar on my street is taking a tithe. Its sidewalk chalkboard announces that 10% of all weekend income in December will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union.

The bar is on to something. Amid all the uncertainty of this new political era, one thing is certain: Whatever our social values may be, our financial support is needed to realize them. Tzedakah is a financial variant of the Hebrew word for “justice,” and can be understood as “just-giving”: We should just give, and we should give justly. We may go to the polls once or twice a year, but we vote with our money choices every day — and those money votes add up to determine the state of our communities, our nation and our world. (….)

We have the opportunity to come together across generations, income levels, personal temperaments, spiritual orientations and, yes, even political ideologies, to support each other in realizing and channeling our full financial power. As we face the particular challenges of this new era, perhaps the time has finally come for a brit heshbon — an accessible covenant of accountability to guide all Jewish funding of the people, by the people, and for the people. READ MORE

This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.

To number our days—teach us, and we will bring a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)

My father lived a life of accounting and accountability. In Hebrew, this is called heshbon (a word my father would have known only from my grandparents’ Yiddish, if at all). A carefully handwritten expense log of a family road trip to Maine and Nova Scotia in 1968 shows daily entries for mileage, destinations, meals, lodging, venue admissions, and the like, with running totals weaving back and forth between USD and CAD currencies. Dad “numbered our days” to keep us all on track financially.

Characteristic of their generation, my parents wanted to shield their children from the hardships they experienced during the Great Depression and World War II. It wasn’t easy for him to talk about it, but I think my father wanted to build a shield of money around us to protect us from the vicissitudes of life. He believed charity began at home—and, for the most part, he thought it should stay there.

With the greater economic security that many Jews of my generation took for granted, I was mostly oblivious to heshbon until my mid-30s. I volunteered or took lower-paying work for a range of worthy causes, giving away much of my time but very little of my modest income. I didn’t save for the future, and I didn’t understand my father’s financial preoccupations.

It wasn’t until I experienced a painfully rocky resettlement back in New York City after five years in Israel that I realized I needed to develop a different relationship with money. I discovered why “balance” is a central accounting concept—and how the money stories we carry with us from our families, consciously or unconsciously, always affect our bottom line.

According to a revealing Gallup poll, less than one-third of American adults track their income and expenditures on a regular itemized basis, as my father did. Yet heshbon represents a discipline practiced across cultures, regardless of the general economy or particular circumstances. Beyond family budgeting, it’s an essential tool for guiding decisions about how much we give to others.

We are moving through the Omer period, when Jews “number our days” through seven weeks from liberation (Passover) to revelation (Shavuot). There are traditional Omer contingencies for how to get back on track if we lose count. Now—not in December, with its last minute-charitable disbursements—is a perfect time to focus on heshbon, and especially on how the spiritual and the financial come together in tzedakah: giving toward justice, or “just-giving.”

There’s a wealth of Torah in those tax returns we put away after April 15.1 “How America Gives,” a study conducted by The Chronicle of Philanthropy in 2014, offered an aggregated approximation by state, county, major city, and ZIP code of the percentage of income donated annually. That percentage is called a giving ratio, and a giving ratio of 10 percent is traditionally known as a tithe. Ancient rabbis derived 10 percent to 20 percent as tithing standards from biblical imperatives set forth in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and upheld in the book of Malachi.

In Malachi’s vision (3:8-10), which also informs Christian advocates of tithing, those who do not adequately share their abundance are robbing God. God offers a stirring challenge in response: “Bring the entire tithe into the storehouse, that there be food in My house, and so test me in this—says the Eternal One of all forces—if I will not open the gates of heaven and pour upon you blessing without limit.”

Proportions—not absolute numbers—are the primary ethical challenges of just-giving. Percentage increments add up. As noted in the Talmud (Bava Batra 9b), “Just as each small metal scale joins into a great armor-plate, so with tzedakah each and every coin joins into a great heshbon.” The secret of this “great heshbon” is the ability to see all our expenditures in proportion, day by day.

The impact of Malachi’s challenge is reflected in the data (which, sadly, is now hidden under a paywall). On the state level, the most generous giving ratios belong to Utah, with its Mormon majority, and to the southeastern Bible Belt. In more liberal areas, tithing is often dismissed for its associations with fundamentalism, conservative political agendas, and oligarchies of wealth.

Yet one of the most revelatory aspects of “How America Gives” holds true across the nation: the lower the income, the higher the giving ratio. Even in Utah, donors with incomes up to $25,000 are twice as generous—on a percentage basis—as those with six-figure incomes. (In my New York City ZIP code, donors with incomes up to $25,000 are four times as generous as those who earn six figures.)

A few insular Orthodox neighborhoods buck the national trend, with higher giving ratios that increase as incomes rise. Yet most Jewish discussions of philanthropy still focus on absolute numbers rather than on the “great heshbon” of percentages. Limited internal studies indicate that, on the whole, American Jewish giving ratios are comparable to those of similarly affluent and liberal non-Jews.

In order to identify the most equitable personal giving ratio, we need awareness of our discretionary spending. “What America Buys,” a recent NPR analysis of spending habits, shows a blurring of needs and wants—with no mention of charitable giving. When we can identify both essential and optional expenditures with greater clarity, we are in a better position to determine how much we can really afford to share with those who have less.

After I regained some stability back in the United States from Israel, I began to prowl the personal-finance sections of my favorite second-hand bookstores. Eventually I started to keep regular accounts of my income and expenses and taught myself how to create computer spreadsheets. I started saving for retirement, and I gradually retired my debts. For 25 years I have maintained customized monthly records that show me at a glance how I “number my days.”

As I clarified my spending priorities, I began experimenting with more generous financial support for organizations that work to repair the world as I envision it. My regular practice of heshbon soon became a commitment to tithe according to traditional Jewish standards. My income varies and rarely exceeds the U.S. median, but I have maintained 10 percent as my giving minimum since the beginning of the millennium.

I’ve found that the mention of tithing usually brings otherwise voluble conversations about income inequality to an awkward halt. Thinking in terms of giving ratios seems to make people uncomfortable. In fact, the average American rate of giving has hovered steadily around 2 percent for more than four decades, through bull and bear markets. Yet whatever our social values may be, our financial support is needed to realize them. We may go to the election polls once or twice a year, but we vote with our purchasing power every day—and those votes are what determine the “great heshbon.”2

Along with his call for tithing, the prophet Malachi highlights the need “to return the heart of parents to children, and the heart of children to their parents” (4:6). I discovered a common financial language with my father toward the end of his life, and now I seek out the money dialogue within and between generations. By sharing our stories, we can move toward more conscious sharing of the money itself.

It’s crucial to separate questions of how much to give from questions of where to give. Would-be givers are too often paralyzed by charitable-information overload. Yet we contribute to college savings and retirement plans without knowing in advance where the funds will be spent. In the same way, just-giving—simple and fair, with thoughtful adjustments as appropriate—becomes possible when we commit to a regular percentage of income. We can manage tzedakah to put more of our money where our mouths, minds, and hearts are.

Recent decades have given rise to various philanthropic initiatives that promote more equitable percentage giving, with recommended rates of 1 percent, 10 percent, or upwards of 20 percent. All of them recruit by telling stories. But even though proportional giving first entered modern civilization through the Israelite tithe, there has been no organized Jewish presence among these initiatives.

That is slowly changing, with rabbinic and lay leader calls to action. Across North America, a dialogue has begun to connect Jewish elders, boomers, Gen-Xers, millennials, and beyond. Generous Justice was originally launched as a program in partnership with the National Havurah Committee, aimed at empowering participants to develop circles for just-giving in their home communities. (Full disclosure: My organization spearheads this program. Any compensation I receive beyond labors of love is tithed.)

Meanwhile, the season of counting the Omer remains a pivotal time to reach through the silences that usually deflect these concerns. Inspired by so many who earn less and give more, we can face the value choices that confront us every time we open our wallets. We can move together through the money-wilderness of experiences, emotions, beliefs, and behaviors toward the revelation of “a heart of wisdom.”

If we lose count temporarily, we can always get back on track from wherever we are, with whatever we have—and keep matters in proportion.