166 Daniel Schiff

can pursue their own interests and direct their own legacies entirely as they see fit, without the slightest regard for communal priorities. “There are now in the Jewish community some families of such extraordinary wealth that their own private foundations have become players on the Jewish scene,” observed one expert on contemporary Jewish philanthropy.® This phenomenon has begun to reshape Jewish communal priorities in significant ways. As one editorial writer stated

it bluntly, the Jewish world has become witness to the rise of the mega-donors, that handful of billionaire philanthropists who are becoming a sort of ruling aristocracy in communal life. The megs donors whose gifts become the life’s blood of key institutions, and Ww believe they’ve bought the right to dictate decisions. The mega-donors W

create new institutions to address a pet crisis, ignoring cash-starved agencies

that have been struggling with the problem for years. The mega-donors W insist on micro-managing the work of scholars and activists with years( experience and expertise. The mega-donors who suddenly lose interest

a cause and walk away, leaving the institutions they created to go begging

or simply collapse

Most mega-donors would take exception to their portrayal as robber barons.

These are, after all, voluntary donations of private cash. Other millionaires are buying yachts, while these individuals are supporting Jewish life. The criticism smacks of ingratitude. But that’s the point. In a voluntary community, private donations are the tax base that keeps things going.

Jewish culture survived for centuries through a delicate balancing act, I"

which voluntary donors agreed to act as though they were under obli gation

The community was treated as an entity that was entitled to demand

members’ money and spend it as the community saw fit.”

Allowing donors through the use of their funds— even those who have considerably less than the billionaires— to influence decisions beyond the ability of others to do likewise directly undermines the fabric of community. Indeed, there is increasing evidence that the“fabric of community” is already seriously fraying There has been a noticeable“trickle-down” effect from the wish of the wealthy to establish their own tzedakah priorities: more and more Jewish communities are assisting those who— at all financial levels ­wish to establish family funds that can be targeted as the donor's