Jewish Philanthropy Podcast · Dovid M Cohen

Topic: Columbia University & Anitsemitism Guest: David Schizer

·1 hr 7 min·4 clips

Schizer says JDC's decision-making came down to three questions: problem importance, response effectiveness, and comparative advantage.

David Cohen introduces David Shizer as a veteran of the nonprofit world with deep experience in law, teaching, and Jewish philanthropy. Shizer's background includes serving as the youngest dean in Columbia Law School's history, leading the Joint Distribution Committee, and teaching at major universities around the world. He has also served on the boards of a range of nonprofit and for-profit institutions. The conversation frames philanthropy as a question of how money gets used to affect lives. Shizer speaks from that world with the ease of someone who has worked both inside it and alongside it. The interview spends as much time on leadership as on theory. Shizer explains that even strong organizations can still improve. He says leaders cannot personally make every decision, so the real work is helping others make decisions in the same spirit. To do that, he held a series of individual conversations with the people running the organization’s most significant programs. He asked each of them the same thought experiment: if you could only fund one of two worthwhile things, how would you choose? Those conversations revealed common patterns. Shizer then wrote a memo summarizing what he had learned and asked the group to rewrite it together. The result was a shared set of decision-making criteria. The first question is how important the problem is. The second is how effective the response would be. The third is whether the organization is the right one to do the work. That framework becomes the episode’s clearest practical takeaway. It is simple, but not simplistic. The discussion also keeps circling back to responsibility inside Jewish life. Cohen's style is warm and inquisitive, and Shizer answers in kind, with a focus on service, institutions, and what serious stewardship looks like. The conversation gives the episode its sharper edge, but it never turns into a rant. Instead, it stays with the harder question of how Jewish leaders and institutions respond when campus life becomes tense and contested. Shizer's perspective is shaped by experience rather than slogans. Near the end, the conversation narrows to free speech on campus. Shizer acknowledges that uncomfortable viewpoints are part of life, so long as they are not threatening or dangerous. That closing note gives the episode a sober, grounded finish. It does not pretend the issue is easy. It does insist that principles still matter when the atmosphere is difficult. The result is a conversation that is part institutional memory, part leadership seminar, and part moral reflection. The episode is strongest when it stays close to lived experience and real tradeoffs. It is less interested in spectacle than in judgment. That makes it feel steady, even when the subject matter is fraught.

As heard by us

A serious conversation about Jewish philanthropy that turns into a usable lesson in leadership and judgment.

This episode stays focused on judgment under pressure, and that gives it real shape. David Schizer sounds well placed to talk about Jewish philanthropy and nonprofit leadership, and the conversation works best when it moves from his background into the decisions leaders have to…

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Why you'd press play

If Jewish philanthropy, nonprofit leadership, and decision-making are on your mind, this one stays measured and specific.

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