Boaz, Tali Weinstein Gift Fuels Fight Against Domestic Violence

(Bloomberg) -- As Boaz Weinstein watched markets roiled by the coronavirus pandemic, Tali Farhadian Weinstein was hearing about the human toll on survivors of domestic violence.

With help from the Ford Foundation’s Darren Walker and others, they connected with providers of hotlines, shelter and counseling in New York City, who told them of men answering their partners’ phones or cutting off cell service. One woman chose to endure sexual assault instead of fleeing, afraid of exposing her children to Covid-19.

The Weinsteins responded by giving $2 million to a dozen or so nonprofits focused on domestic violence and children. The organizations include Sakhi for South Asian Women, Arab-American Family Support Center, Womankind and Violence Intervention Program, which work in the outer boroughs where the pandemic has hit hardest.

“We felt so strongly about what’s happening in New York City, and concerned that giving is being cut back with people’s own difficulties in the financial markets,” Boaz Weinstein said.

The Weinsteins, both in their mid-40s and married for almost a decade, are in a position to help. He runs hedge fund Saba Capital, which was up 70% in the first quarter and 3.8% in April. She’s general counsel of the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office, giving her a legal perspective on the issue. In Brooklyn, 10,000 domestic violence cases are prosecuted annually.

What’s scary, the couple said, is the possibility that survivors aren’t able to reach out for help. Domestic violence arrests in New York City were down 43% from March 29 through April 26 compared with the same period a month earlier, according to the New York Police Department. Safe Horizon, a victims’ assistance group, tracked a 66% drop in weekly reports of child abuse to the Department of Education and 911 since city schools closed.

But counselors are hearing that circumstances at home are worsening.

‘A Surge’

“Survivors are experiencing extreme forms of violence,” said Kavita Mehra, executive director of Sakhi for South Asian Women. “We’re expecting a surge in the number of survivors who want to leave their perpetrators when the city reopens.”

Clients are also hungry. Since the lockdown began, Sakhi has been delivering weekly packages of food in neighborhoods such as Elmhurst, Queens, and Kensington, Brooklyn. Violence Intervention Program is providing emergency cash assistance, said Executive Director Margarita Guzman.

The cause hasn’t received as much attention as other types of pandemic-related giving, like personal protection equipment for health-care workers and cash for restaurant employees.

“There are more subtle problems that are pernicious and that are exacerbated by Covid,” Boaz Weinstein said. “The market rewards scarcity, and if you can come up with a scarce view or idea, something you believe you’re right about, you’re really providing the most value. Putting a light on this, it just clicked.”

Tali Farhadian Weinstein said she was drawn to addressing a public health issue that existed before the pandemic and will endure afterward.

Closed Doors

“This abuse can be invisible, it’s behind closed doors,” she said. “Maybe we are better able now to connect to the idea that being at home can be stressful, and for some people it can be very dangerous.”

Tali’s own experiences as an immigrant from Iran led the couple to become seed funders of the Immigrant Justice Corps and other organizations that support immigrants and refugees. Boaz is a graduate of the city’s public schools, which they also support.

A speech by hedge fund manager Seth Klarman that Boaz heard about 15 years ago helped shape the couple’s commitment to philanthropy. The topic was Warren Buffett delaying his philanthropy in order to compound his money, so he’d have more to give away. That was before Buffett began donating billions of dollars through foundations including one run by Bill and Melinda Gates.

“That was the thing Buffett would say constantly in his defense,” Weinstein said. “Seth Klarman just blew it away with one sentence and I never forgot it: He said what makes Warren Buffett think that the world’s problems are not compounding faster than 8%? What if some of the world’s problems are compounding at 25%? I think it is incumbent on us to do good things in good times and bad. It has nothing to do with performance in a given year and has everything to do with the problems the world is facing.”

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