Blue Avocado, 3 June ,2025. Nonprofits were eager and early adopters of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. They’re now having to reckon with the backlash against DEI.
Ross Douthat’s “Believe” Unsettled Me
Aish, 23 February, 2025. In Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat makes a powerful case for religious practice and belief — a case which, despite (or perhaps because of) its correctness, contains an internal tension rising almost to the level of self-contradiction[…] Douthat’s first two chapters masterfully show that…
Hamlet’s Chimera
My Substack, Hamlet’s Chimera, explores paradoxes around religion, philosophy, and culture. Some favorite posts:
The Worst Headline Just Hit The New York Times. Now What? (Nonprofits Are Messy podcast)
Joan Garry, “Nonprofits Are Messy” podcast, 9 November 2024. I was honored to join nonprofit guru Joan Garry for an episode of her excellent podcast, “Nonprofits Are Messy.” Listen on Joan’s website or below: From Joan’s website intro: When is the best time to prepare for war? In a time of peace. Every nonprofit organization…
Seth Chalmer on Daniel Schulman’s “The Money Kings: The Epic Story of the Jewish Immigrants Who Transformed Wall Street and Shaped Modern America”
Society for U.S. Intellectual History, 1 September 2024. Ah, Jew-spotting!—a pastime beloved equally to antisemites and Jews. If you see someone constantly updating their social media feed with lists of famous or influential people that you might not have known are Jewish, then that someone could be the late and infamous Holocaust denier David Irving,…
Can Your Group Stay Neutral on Controversial Topics? 5 Things to Know
The Chronicle of Philanthropy. June 26, 2024. Harvard recently adopted a policy of “institutional neutrality,” saying it would no longer take a position on divisive issues. This follows controversies over Harvard’s handling of student protests, leading to the resignation of President Claudine Gay. Many organizations “stay neutral” about controversies in this time of polarization, workplace divisions about…
Should We Put Out a Statement?
Thinking strategically about how nonprofits should respond to potentially polarizing world events. Stanford Social Innovation Review, March 27, 2024. For nonprofit communications professionals (and nonprofit executives), the very worst time to talk about public advocacy around divisive issues is when you most urgently need to talk about them. This is especially true when there are…
A Moonshot for American Judaism: Help Revitalize American Christianity
eJewish Philanthropy, December 29, 2020. You know what the biggest problem is with Jewish engagement efforts? The problem is that we only focus on Jews. I’m not kidding. In this country, if we want to get more Jews to shul, we need to get more Christians to church. To revitalize American Judaism, we need to…
Towards Shared Identities
Originally published in Quillette. November 12, 2020. Excerpts: When Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812, many Jews in the Russian Empire hoped for a French victory. Napoleon had eliminated barriers to Jewish integration and advancement in France; the Russian regime and its policies, by contrast, were thoroughly infused with anti-Jewish discrimination and hostility. But one prominent…
Just Jew It: Against Giving Reasons for Living a Jewish Life
eJewish Philanthropy. July 23, 2019. It’s not uncommon, in Jewish communal circles, to hear it claimed that the central question for our profession today is, “Why be Jewish?” In an age of free choice and self-constructed identities, this argument goes, the Jewish community can no longer count on individuals to affiliate themselves and participate, so…
Religious ‘neutrality’ is a myth.
LA Times. December 23 (online) / December 25 (print), 2016 In 2003, at age 21, I wrote an op-ed for my hometown paper arguing that the Montpelier, Vt., City Hall should remove its Christmas tree. I argued that Christmas decorations symbolically told Jews like me, and other non-Christians, that city government stood more for the…
The Tension of Faith: Why I Appreciate Christians Who Believe I’m Going to Hell
On Being. Apr 10, 2016. He didn’t want this conversation, and he hadn’t started it. Neil and I had been friends and college classmates for about a year. He was a religious Christian, and I a secular Jew, but he never preached to me. Out of nowhere, I asked him whether he thought I was going…
Seth Chalmer 