Stomach This Idea
Steve Lipman, The Jewish Week, 01/30/2004
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/n...php3?artid=9009
Want to hear the latest fund-raising gimmick? Just weight!
Philanthropist Michael Steinhardt and Israeli educator Avraham Infeld, interim director of Hillel, announced last week a bet that will cost both of them several pounds and one of them a big chunk of change.
The bet: whoever loses the least weight in the three months following their weigh-in on Jan. 15, pays. Steinhardt, $250,000; Infeld, $5,000. The money will be split between Hillel, the Steinhardt Foundation in Israel that supports deprived children in Israel, and the Melitz educational organization founded in Israel by Infeld 35 years ago.
“I think it’s a novel and healthy approach to fund raising,” says Infeld, a South African native who is spending a year with Hillel in the United States. He was speaking recently in Florida with Daniel Abraham, founder of SlimFast, the weight-loss corporation. Abraham pledged some money to Hillel. Then he told Infeld, “I’d better lose 35 pounds” before coming again for a donation.
A good idea, Infeld thought. “It was done purely out of a concern for my health.”
He suggested the bet to Steinhardt, an old friend, who serves as co-chair of the Hillel Board of Governors. Both in their early 60s, they often joke about “who’s bigger than the other,” Infeld says. He wondered if his friend would have, umm … the guts to do it. Steinhardt bit.
“I wanted him to commit the same proportion of his wealth as $5,000 is to my wealth,” Infeld says. Steinhardt, with far greater financial resources, demurred.
They certified each one’s starting figure on Steinhardt’s scale in Manhattan; the wager’s in pounds, not kilos, “because he’s an American,” Infeld says.
Then they publicized the bet on-line — “Hillel Heavyweights Go Belly-to-Belly for Charity” — and encouraged supporters to join, making pledges on the winner or conduct their own competition. (Anyone interested can contact Karen Walker at [202] 449-6530; kwalker~hillel.org.)
What are Steinhardt and Infeld’s scale-down goals? “We both decided we’re going to announce how much we lost but not how much remains,” Infeld says.
So far he’s lost four pounds on the Atkins Diet, he’s exercising each day and he’s about to take another step to make sure he beats Steinhardt. “I’m going to send him cakes and cookies — kosher cakes and cookies, of course — once a week to fatten him up.”
Steinhardt has not weighed in yet with his battle plan.
The significance of the bet ending on April 15, Income Tax Day — their common girthday — is not lost on Infeld. “This,” he says, “is a taxing undertaking.”
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