Mark Donig
Jewish Activist
A) What qualities make the nominee deserving of the Z3 Bridge Builder Award?
As a descendant, student, and fierce admirer of the Biblical prophets, my most cherished opportunity as a 21st century American Jew is to recognize, and elevate, the Jewish prophets in our midst today. Since October 7, that task has taken on renewed urgency as a new, and often unwitting, set of Jewish prophets have brought opportunities for unity in a world seeking to tear us apart. In the past year, I have had the good fortune to encounter such prophets, and to find my small ways to give them a platform.
Doing this work to help unify a broken post-October 7 Jewish world requires relentlessness, diplomacy, empathy, and humility. I have done my best to personify these values in the name of helping repair our shattered worlds.
Relentlessness. Building bridges within the Jewish community, and maintaining relations across Jewish divides, has seldom required greater relentlessness. Perhaps no advocacy effort has required more relentlessness than the hostage advocacy efforts I have been a part of, as a strategic advisor to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum and as a listening ear, and empathic shoulder, to the hostage families themselves.
Shortly after the Forum’s creation, I helped organize and lead an advocacy trip for Kibbutz Nir Oz resident, Noam Peri, the daughter of then-hostage Haim Peri (who has since been confirmed as murdered). Shortly thereafter, I was asked by its US leadership to play an active role in developing and implementing the Forum’s strategy vis a vis the United States, given my relationships in the region and near-decade experience with hostage and dissident cases. While we all hoped that the hostage crisis would be resolved in days if not weeks, we realized quickly that our task would be a marathon.
As the task ahead began to settle in, our team – led by the extraordinary US Forum leads, Matan Sivek and Bar Ben Yaakov, supported by AJC, hostage negotiator Mickey Bergman, Berlin Rosen and many others – worked tirelessly to chart a long-term path ahead. My role has been to help develop interfaith strategy, assist on legal work, and help lead delegations of hostage families as they advocate to Jewish (and other) leaders to help do their part to bring their loved ones home. Implementing these strategies has required coordination, persistence, and to date, endless heartache. Inspired by the prophetic call of the hostage families, our team has no choice but to continue.
Diplomacy and Facilitation. Bridging divides among our Jewish community has required immense diplomatic efforts as cracks in our unity have begun to re-emerge. Prior to October 7, I was fortunate enough to be uniquely positioned across a variety of organizations and relationships to be able to leverage relationships towards greater goods in a variety of arenas.
In the days after October 7, I was approached by two renowned Israeli-American chefs who were seeking to fundraise for Israelis impacted by the Hamas terror attack. Fortunately, as President for one of United Hatzalah’s regional boards (Northern California), I immediately helped put into action two significant United Hatzalah fundraisers - one in Manhattan, and another in Philadelphia. The efforts raised hundreds of thousands of dollars that went towards essential life-saving equipment.
Additionally, through my work on behalf of the Hostages Families, I must constantly navigate between my role as a facilitator and bridge-builder, while also listening to the needs of the organization, and most importantly of the families themselves. When well-meaning Jewish organizations have criticized the Forum or have proposed policies that, in effect, leave the hostages behind, I have volunteered to set up meetings with leadership at those organizations to explain the Forum’s position, and to help persuade them that the Jewish people must speak with one voice in calling for the return of the hostages.
As a Global Ambassador to the ADIR Challenge, a nonprofit startup that provides grants to tech companies that combat Antisemitism, my primary role has been to elevate ADIR’s platform and help its leadership navigate the complex relationship between west coast technology and east coast Jewish geography. In doing so, I have helped ADIR forge stronger relationships among Jewish (often secular) tech leaders and the established Jewish community with which it so rarely interacts.
Humility. Ultimately, impact relies not only on action, but on the humility that belies an understanding when one is not the center of the story. In understanding my role as platforming the voices of modern-day Jewish prophets, I must first understand my own role; that is to say, it is one thing to be a prophet, and quite another to be the prophet’s trusted lawyer and advisor.
Over the past year, I have advised numerous Jewish “influencers” behind the scenes on how to magnify their impact, make their voices heard, and build bridges. Among other individuals, I have been fortunate enough to advise an Black Israeli-American professional basketball player as he has built a nonprofit in his native Philadelphia focused on combating anti-Black racism and Antisemitism; provide legal help to hostage family members who were incarcerated and removed from Congress during PM Netanyahu’s speech, helping ensure that their charges were dropped and that they were able to return to Israel; help guide a South Sudanese Israeli who was deported from Israel, and escaped to the United States, to build a life for himself and find sustenance and support, all while advocating for the Israeli cause and while he himself embarks on a conversion to Judaism.
My role in elevating these disparate voices for justice lies first and foremost in understanding that I am in service of a greater story. In each case, my role has been not only to advise, but to weave these prophets into my network, to take them from the mountaintop into to institutional world. It is my privilege to be a tie that binds these disparate stories together, and to help elevate the voices that call out for a more just and united Jewish world.
B) In what ways has the nominee demonstrated exceptional leadership and commitment to their work in bridging divides?
In each new leadership position I take on, I ask myself two fundamental questions: firstly, does this leadership position speak to my values and principles? And second, will the position help forge Jewish unity and bridge divides? Only if I can answer in the affirmative to both will I accept the position. Over the past several years, I have leveraged my leadership positions across a plethora of Jewish institutions to bridge divides and build new ties.
Renewing Jewish Peoplehood Through Elevating the Prophetic Cry of the Hostages’ Families: Since the first days following the October 7 attacks, I began working with my first set of Jewish prophets: the family members of the Israeli hostages. My years of experience working on hostage and dissident cases, coupled with my relationships across various Jewish organizations, positioned me to add unique value in this holy task of advocating on behalf of the hostages families. As a volunteer lawyer with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, I assisted a team of lawyers on a complaint alleging Hamas’ gross violations of human rights, interviewing hostage family members and documenting their horrifying stories.
Furthermore, in my capacity as strategic advisor for the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, I have supported the Forum’s efforts to ensure that the Jewish people remain united in rallying for the release of the hostages held by Hamas. I have also provided legal and strategic support to the Forum and the families, helping them navigate the complex legal landscape inherent in advocating in the US for the release of their loved ones held overseas.
Uniting the Jewish People through Elevating United Hatzalah, the Exemplifier of Prophetic Jewish Values: Four-plus years ago, I eagerly accepted UH International Chair Mark Gerson’s invitation for me to open up the Northern California branch of United Hatzalah and to serve as its inaugural regional President. Serving as the NorCal President of the Board has allowed Silicon Valley to forge a new stake in the future of Jewish peoplehood, and a sense of pride in an extraordinary life-saving Israeli organization. By building an Regional Board team from the ground up, forging relationships and partnerships with the likes of Congregation Beth Jacob in Redwood City, Z3 in Palo Alto, and VCs across Silicon Valley, United Hatzalah has found its footing in the Bay Area and continues to grow and thrive. But no matter how much money we have raised and how much awareness we continue to spread, the greatest joy of this position has been to see photos of Bay Area donors visiting headquarters in Jerusalem, where they meet, for the first time, the volunteers – Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike – who benefit from their generosity.
Leveraging Other Positions to Forge Jewish Unity: Through my other leadership positions, I have sought to forge dialogue both across the organizations with which I am involved, as well as build new avenues for cross-ideological and cross-organizational dialogue through the broader Jewish world. For example:
James Foley Foundation, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, and the law firm world: through my service as a Board Member on the James Foley Foundation, America’s leading hostage advocacy organization, I have built ties between Foley, my prior and current law firms (Covington & Burling, LLP and Grossman Young, LLC, respectively), and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, aimed at enhancing each other’s legal and advocacy strategies for Jewish Americans currently being held hostage;
National Library of Israel Board: Through my Board membership on the National Library of Israel’s US entity, I have arranged for tours of American “influencers” to tour the new NLI headquarters in Jerusalem. Their posts on social media have garnered millions of views, providing a powerful message to American and diaspora Jewish populations of the cultural repositories of their history that reside in Jerusalem’s newest architectural and cultural jewel. The Board itself, which consists of Democrats and Republicans alike, serves as one of the rare organizations in which Jewish Americans of all ideological stripes can take pride in pulling in the same direction, for the sake of Jewish pride and peoplehood.
Advising the Biden campaign/administration on Jewish issues: since co-authoring the Biden Administration’s policy position paper on Israel and the American Jewish community, I have had the good fortune of being able to advise this White House on issues of importance to the American Jewish community. Through building on relationships with Administration officials, public officials, and key nonprofit stakeholders, I have had the honor of helping this White House build new ties, strategies, and initiatives with a variety of values-aligned organizations with which I have been involved, including those mentioned above.
C) How has the nominee's work impacted the Jewish community and beyond?
It can seem facile, and almost unfair, to discuss the impact of hostage activism this past year when so many hostages still remain in Gaza. As long as they languish there, our impact is ultimately never enough.
Still, seen through the prism of a post-October 7 world, no other effort has had a greater impact on Jewish unity than the efforts to return the Hamas-held Israeli hostages. The US branch of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum team’s work with the Hostages and Missing Families Forum has changed the face of hostage advocacy in America. We have made the return of the hostages a frontline issue on both sides of the political aisle during an election season in which, it seems, no other issues are bipartisan. We have elevated the prophetic Jewish cry for justice and compassion emanating from the families of those who have been left behind.
Ultimately, the Jewish community is comprised of individual Jewish souls, and each Jewish soul comprises a universe. My hostage work, both through the Forum and through other organizations, has efforted to ensure that amidst the sea of broken Jewish souls, we stand behind and beside them, consoling them, protecting them, and defending them - all while rallying the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds to their side. In so doing, we provide the families themselves, let alone the American Jewish diaspora, the opportunity to remind one another that when Israel hurts, the Jewish world cries out in pain.
Additionally, through the Forum’s interfaith efforts, we have forged bonds with brothers and sisters from other faiths, including not only Christian adherents, but also those from the Muslim world, including faith leaders based in the Middle East itself. By providing them with the opportunity to see the human faces that personify Israeli pain, we add nuance and humanity to prevailing narratives. I am privileged to have played a small part in these efforts.
This coming week, I will be leading yet another hostage delegation, this time in DC, as they meet with Democrat and Republican thought and policy leaders, Jewish influencers, and interfaith leaders.
The work is yet unfinished. The world is still asleep. And yet, a still, small voice from the heavens pierces the night. May the Jewish people hear it, and recognize it as our own.