Testifying before a U.S. Senate committee last November, the historian Jonathan Sarna described how American Jews have reacted to the explosion of hatred directed against them and Israel since October 7, 2023: “We thought all that history was in the past. . . . Nothing prepared us for the anti-Semitic onslaught.” The novelist Ruby Namdar lamented, “We have been forced back into Jewish history, into the bloody raw part of Jewish history.” Even employees of major Jewish organizations that monitor anti-Semitic and anti-Israel activities admitted to me that they “could not have imagined the tidal wave that came upon us.” So great has been their shock over the explosion of anti-Semitism in different sectors of American society that some have begun to speak of themselves as “October 8 Jews,” signifying their transition from slumbering complacency to vigilant activism.

In this regard, October 7 and its aftermath have had a similar effect on American and Israeli Jews. Despite their vastly different experiences since that fateful day, they share something important: they have suffered an entirely unexpected attack that has shaken their sense of security and their understanding of the dangers they face. Of course, there is huge gulf between facing mass slaughter, rocket bombardments, and a war against heavily armed enemies, on the one hand, and facing angry protesters, social exclusion, and even occasional violence on the other. There is nonetheless a common sense of having entered a new, and more threatening reality, or, more precisely, realizing that reality has been more threatening all along.

In Israel, the multi-front attacks have prompted demands for a thorough investigation as to why political authorities indulged Hamas over the years, why military, intelligence, and political leaders were caught napping on October 7, why what was thought to be an impregnable border was overrun so easily, and how effectively the leadership echelon pursued the war Israel has been forced to fight. Commissions of inquiry undoubtedly will ramp up once the war ends; lessons will be learned.

Likewise, it’s not too early to begin a similar reckoning for American Jewry. Why were most American Jews so unprepared for the surge of domestic anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activities? How did rank-and-file Jews and their communal organizations respond to the dual crises in Israel and the U.S.? What were some of the most and least successful responses? And are assumptions guiding communal strategies in need of rethinking? If American Jews are to prepare for unpleasant surprises in the future, they will need answers to these and other pressing questions.

My goal in this essay is to address these questions through the lens of Jewish philanthropy and communal organizations, including everything from local federations and long-established national organizations to grassroots groups that have cropped up over the past year. While some of these topics have been widely discussed, there has so far been little systematic study based on more than anecdotes and impressions; I hope here to begin to correct this deficit. In my research, I discovered that older organizations, seen as moribund by some critics on both the right and the left, have proved their continued worth and unique abilities; I also found evidence of the failures and mistakes made by too many Jewish institutions of all types—among much else.

In writing this essay, I have drawn on news articles, op eds, reports, and blogposts that have appeared since October 7. In addition, I conducted over 55 interviews with professionals at nineteen Jewish philanthropic federations and fifteen national Jewish agencies during the summer of 2024 to learn how their organizations and supporters have responded to new challenges. My thanks to these interviewees who graciously took the time to share information and impressions.

I. American Jewry Under Assault

We begin with a brief overview of what American Jews have faced over the past year. For some, the challenges did not impinge directly on their lives but registered only via news reports. They watched in bafflement as university presidents could not bring themselves to condemn calls for genocide, let alone enforce existing campus policies designed to protect life and property; they viewed with astonishment videos of pro-Hamas demonstrators marching across cities, burning American flags, denouncing Israel as genocidal, and cursing Zionists. To add to the horror, gangs of demonstrators who destroyed property, blocked bridges and highways, and bullied anyone who challenged their beliefs were treated with kid gloves not only by campus authorities, but by police and prosecutors.

For many American Jews, though, unfolding events became highly personal. Institutions they long had regarded as their own proved viciously hostile to Israel and indifferent to the concerns of American Jews. Their beloved New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, and many other media outlets presented Hamas’s claims as factual; and when reports about the intentional Israeli bombing of Gaza hospitals and mass graves of victims turned out to be false, the media, at best, soft-pedaled their corrections and failed again and again to treat claims about Israeli atrocities for what they were—lies.

Their universities and colleges, so highly valued and generously supported by Jews, neglected to protect Jewish students from abusive faculty and pro-Hamas classmates. In large and small locales across the country, city councils, school boards, and politicians spent weeks or months hammering out anti-Israel resolutions while ignoring local needs. By May 2024, 100 city governments had issued such resolutions. In the process, “hateful, divisive, ugly stuff gets said,” noted a Jewish observer who has closely monitored these travesties.

“Jews feel betrayed on every level,” was how one federation professional from a highly progressive area put it to me, adding that “they may feel disillusioned but haven’t stopped fighting.” And they have ample reason to feel this way.

Their former political allies in the battle for racial equality, environmental protection, women’s advancement, and inclusion of all people regardless of sexual orientation kept mum about Hamas’s atrocities; some went so far as to deny incontrovertible evidence that Israelis were raped and sexually mutilated. In their workplaces, some American Jews have been confronted with hostility, if not social ostracism, for not surrendering to mindless talk about Israel’s supposed “war crimes.”

Within their closest social circles, American Jews lost friends, an experience reported by significant numbers of respondents to several surveys. Jews in online discussion groups and other social media have described breakups with intimate partners who disagreed with them about the war; some have decided to swear off dating non-Jews as a result. For many Jews, the defamation of Israel quickly became personal; they found themselves smeared as supporters of genocide. It also became painfully evident that contrary to Dara Horn’s memorable observation, lots of people do not love dead Jews—especially not slaughtered Israeli Jews—any more than they like living ones.

Surveys conducted over the past year vividly illustrate these personal attacks. When teens belonging to BBYO, the largest Jewish youth organization, were asked about their lives since October 7, over 70 percent reported having experienced anti-Semitic harassment or discrimination. A survey of Jewish students on college campuses found that 61 percent said they had witnessed anti-Semitic, threatening, or derogatory language directed toward Jewish people during protests at their school. One-quarter reported anti-Israel comments by their professors, while 57 percent “lost friends or [had] been cut off by people due to disagreements over the fighting in the Middle East.” Based on surveys he conducted with Jewish and non-Jewish students on American campuses—from 2022!—the social scientist Eitan Hersh concluded: “A Jewish student who affirms that a Jewish state should exist faces social penalties on campus.”

Surveys of Jewish adults found considerably lower percentages (between 15 and 20 percent) personally encountered anti-Semitism, though over three-quarters were exposed to anti-Semitic content online. With over two-thirds of adult respondents to a national survey admitting they do not publicly share their views about the Israel-Hamas war for fear “of being targeted by anti-Semitism,” it is evident that many American Jews came to feel unmoored over the past year. The security they had long felt in America has been replaced with anxiety—and anger. Many American Jews would resonate with the words of Andres Spokoiny, CEO of the Jewish Funders Network, when he noted how events since October 7 profoundly altered “our sense of belonging and existential safety.”

Tens of thousands of parents and grandparents became deeply anxious for the safety of children and grandchildren in lower, middle, and high schools where anti-Israel propaganda was force-fed to students, and even more explicitly on university campuses, where “Zionists”—Jews—were expelled from clubs, blocked from entering classes, intimidated, spat on, and harassed. (The pressing question of how children and college students have fared over the past year deserves separate treatment.) For family members of these students, protecting their offspring from new kinds of threats impelled them to act.

II. Philanthropy

Fortunately, many American Jews have mobilized, and a large part of that mobilization was eleemosynary. Where has that money been going, and to what extent does it represent a shift from normal patterns of Jewish philanthropy? The most immediate response to the horrors of October 7 was an influx of cash to help Israel. Already on that day—both a Shabbat and a Jewish holiday—Jewish philanthropies launched Israel emergency campaigns. Within weeks, over $300 million dollars were raised, a figure that eventually rose to $833 million collected by the federation system alone in the half-year since October 7. (A portion of these dollars were allocated by federations from their own annual campaigns and endowments.)

With this money, the federation system funded over 500 Israeli institutions. This was possible because of the additional funds many American Jews donated above and beyond their normal support for annual campaigns. Giving to the special Israel emergency fund equaled 30-40 percent of annual campaign dollars in some communities; other federations saw their total grants double, as donors gave equal amounts for Israeli relief and the annual campaign. In Boston and MetroWest New Jersey, Israel emergency giving exceeded annual campaign dollars by 30 percent, in Miami by 12 percent, and New York by 10 percent. Even in smaller communities such as Greenwich, Connecticut, contributions to the Israel emergency fund were over 60-percent higher than annual campaign giving.

Additional donations channeled directly to “friends of” Israeli organizations brought the total to at least $1.4 billion within the first five months after the outbreak of the Gaza war. Administrators of Jewish community foundations, which hold billions of dollars in donor-advised funds, have reported sharp increases in sums donated to Israeli organizations, such as the Friends of the IDF, Magen David Adom, the Jewish National Fund and United Hatzalah of Israel. In addition, Israel Bonds sold in record amounts, totaling three billion dollars roughly during the same period (about $1.3 billion of that sum was purchased by state and local governments throughout the United States). Bonds, of course, are not philanthropic instruments but are nonetheless a means for supporting the Jewish state.

Funding for Israeli relief organizations is only part of the story. Many domestic Jewish organizations have seen significant increases in donations. Even as they collected large sums for Israel, most federations saw increases in dollars for their annual campaigns. The national defense organizations experienced spikes in giving, and big donors are lining up to support a variety of new initiatives, such as Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, or the Combat Antisemitism Movement. “The eyes of funders are now open in new ways,” contends an observer of the philanthropic scene; “anti-Zionism is well-funded and pervasive in certain sectors. For the first time, funders realize how much those ideas have captured institutions.”

Some organizations, in fact, struggled to manage the rapid flow of contributions. At the New York UJA-Federation, a special team was hired just to process the torrent of dollars, while at many institutions the existing personnel were hard-pressed to keep up. “People offered money faster than I could talk to them,” marveled the CEO of a Midwestern federation. To maximize giving, some organizations reverted to “old-fashioned” fundraising methods, including bringing big donors to a ballroom or country club where they could encourage one another to join in the giving. Other communities hosted dozens of small “parlor meetings” in the homes of supporters. A group of young professionals in Washington, DC raised a million dollars one evening through “card calling,” an old-school, high-pressure process, which has largely fallen out of style, in which donors are uncomfortably put on the spot to announce the size of their gift publicly.

Across the country, large numbers of donors seemingly came out of the woodwork to contribute. Some federations received checks from hundreds of new or lapsed donors; and in the larger communities those numbers rose into the thousands. The UJA-Federation of Greater New York and its counterparts in Washington, DC and San Diego saw their donor rolls nearly double. In San Francisco one-third of donors to the Israel emergency campaign had never given before. And then there was the spike in sums donated. It was not unusual for donors who previously gave $10,000 to increase their gifts to $100,000 or for a $35,000 donor to write a check for one-million dollars. Givers of smaller sums also increased their gifts five- or ten-fold. The same story was replicated all around the country, in large Jewish population centers and smaller ones.

How are we to explain this outpouring of philanthropy? When I posed that question to professionals who solicit for a range of federations and other Jewish organizations, they observed that many American Jews “realized they care more about Israel than they knew,” as one federation executive put it. October 7 reminded American Jews of how vulnerable Israelis are. Many donors expressed feeling helpless when confronted with news from Israel, and saw giving as the one thing they could do. Their generosity also expressed their trust in the federations to use the funds efficiently and responsibly. As one federation CEO put it, these were the only institutions that “could turn on a dime to start funding within 24 hours and maintain connections to key organizations in Israel.”

A second spur to increased giving was anxiety over what October 7 might mean for Jews in the United States, a worry that only intensified as anti-Semitic incidents proliferated. “The hatred on social media jolted many Jews out of their comfortably disconnected lives,” contended a professional at one Jewish institution. In the view of a federation CEO, “People are investing in Jewish life because they feel threatened. They are coming from a place of fear and anxiety, especially the very wealthy and successful who have felt in control of their lives. The events of the past year forced them to reassess just how much control they have; they used their wealth to assert some modicum of influence over events.” Federations, in turn, reprioritized by increasing allocations for Israeli needs, hardening the security of local Jewish facilities and combating local anti-Semitism. At the time of the Pittsburgh shooting in 2018, fewer than twenty locales supported professionally run Jewish community security initiatives. Now there are over 125. Donors resonated with the new agenda and have given accordingly. (Security also has been enhanced through government funding.)

In general, organizations capable of linking their work either to Israeli needs or to combatting anti-Semitism have fared best financially. Immediately after October 7, several leaders in the field of philanthropy appealed to donors not to cut back on their support of domestic organizations but to engage in “plus giving”—that is, to continue funding the myriad of local institutions while simultaneously supporting emergency efforts. Institutions offering Jewish social and learning opportunities, particularly programs directed toward engaging younger people, tended to attract generous funding. Donors gave as an act of identification and defiance; they wanted to support Jewish life in the face of grievous hostility.

That said, the unfolding story of American Jewish philanthropy in this period has not been without complications. Despite the surge in contributions sketched above, the donor base to Jewish causes over the past year has been far smaller than during comparable emergencies in the second half of the 20th century—even though, demographers claim, there are millions more American Jews today. According to the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), its Israel Emergency Campaign had received between 175,000 and 200,00 individual gifts by the spring of 2024. At the time of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the same organization (then called the Council of Jewish Federations) claimed that its constituent agencies had received one million separate donations.

It’s impossible to know at present how many donors gave to Jewish causes outside of the federation system, but even with the emergence of new or lapsed donors, it is doubtful that anywhere near that number participated. The decline in the total number of donors addressing Jewish needs has been underway for decades; it was highlighted in the most recent Pew study of Jewish Americans (2020), which found that for the first time since national surveys of Jews were conducted, fewer than half of respondents (48 percent) of American Jewish adults claimed to have given to any Jewish cause. We don’t yet know whether that percentage has increased since October 7. Fortunately, those who are giving to Jewish causes do so more generously than ever, a pattern we have also seen over the past year. The question keeping professionals in the field up at night is how much of Jewish communal life can be sustained if the donor base continues to shrink.

More than any other sector of the Jewish community, Jewish human-services agencies, such as food pantries, family counseling centers, and support for the aged, were most adversely affected by the shift in donor priorities. These agencies all benefit from government support and therefore are legally required to serve all comers, not only Jews; moreover, in the past, many Jewish supporters wanted agencies connected to the Jewish community to offer their services in a non-sectarian manner. In a trend reflective of a broader American Jewish response since October 7, some funders have questioned this policy. Why, they ask, should Jewish funds support services such as the resettlement of immigrants or other aid to non-Jews who harbor anti-Semitic views? Others argue that the agencies should continue serving non-sectarian causes, but the urgency of the moment demands that dollars be directed primarily to Jewish needs.

That is the general picture of the larger, older establishment Jewish organizations (outside of haredi communities), often associated with Jewish federations. The condition of the so-called startup philanthropies—smaller institutions that have emerged since the beginning of the century, are led by and cater to a younger population, and tend to define themselves in opposition to the legacy organizations—has been much more mixed.

Generally operating on the local rather than national level, start-ups tend to serve subgroups within the Jewish population. They have faced challenges of their own, for instance: self-styled “queer Jews” have found it difficult to navigate their Jewish identities in non-sectarian LGBTQ organizations, many of which threw their support behind pro-Hamas demonstrators; organizations serving LGBTQ Jews were thus increasingly in demand. Jewish progressives also have felt “isolated” among their erstwhile allies and have “sought a Progressive Zionist place to feel comfortable and take actions,” as one such startup reported.

Among the more financially hard-hit startups were those working to build bridges between American Jews and Muslim or African American communities. Some of their usual funders withdrew support because of the strong anti-Israel tilt in those communities. Under the emotional stress brought on by the war and rising anti-Semitism, some foundations and other grantmakers pressured startups to issue public statements in support of Israel, a demand that some startups resisted either because they felt it necessary to remain politically neutral or because such statements would prove divisive among the populations they served. Thus, while some Jewish startups have received substantial support, others have found it trying to operate in the post-October 7 environment.

In calmer times, it will be necessary to revisit these developments in the philanthropic sphere. It will take years to learn just how many additional dollars were donated to Jewish causes and how much money was reallocated by Jewish donors from non-sectarian to specifically Jewish and Israeli needs. There have been sporadic and widely reported accounts about a few Jewish donors of significant means who have paused their giving to universities and non-sectarian social-justice agencies which issued anti-Israel resolutions. In some cases, these donors increased their giving to Israeli universities seeking to attract American Jewish college students. There also has been anecdotal evidence of some donors shifting their priorities to support Jewish or Israeli causes at the expense of non-sectarian giving. While these accounts are suggestive, they cannot serve as a substitute for quantitative evidence. To gather systematic data on what has transpired, we rely heavily on required reports which not-for-profits and foundations file with the Internal Revenue Service. But the IRS only releases those documents for public scrutiny between two and three years after they were filed. We therefore will lack definitive data for several more years.

It also will take time to assess how effectively the money raised was spent. It’s one thing to document the impact of funds directed to Israeli and American Jewish organizations providing concrete services, and how, in turn, they used those dollars. It’s an entirely different challenge to assess the impact of funding designed to combat hatred of Jews and Israel. The former can be quantified; the latter is about changing opinions and deep-seated prejudices, hardly an enterprise that can be assessed easily.

To take one example, how can we know whether television commercials and billboard ads persuade bigots, influence those with undecided views, or mobilize allies? The Anti-Defamation League, an organization with more than a century of experience combatting anti-Semitism, has built a robust research arm to learn what might influence anti-Semitism. Among its findings to date: there is a vast difference between mere prejudice or stereotyped thinking and conspiratorial hate-mongering. The former can be ameliorated through exposure to real Jews; the latter, which tends to be found especially among some immigrant groups, is not reduced through persuasion or contact with Jews. Even more troubling, the most predictive demographic factors are age and social networks: the younger the adult, the more likely he will harbor anti-Israel and anti-Semitic views, especially when family and friends reinforce those prejudices. These realities underscore just how difficult it is to develop strategies to counteract the hatred that has erupted in public over the past year, let alone evaluate their effectiveness.

As for fundraising in general, many Jewish organizations are exulting in the support they have received and are conceiving strategies to sustain a relationship with new donors while persuading existing ones to continue giving at the same high post-October 7 levels. But some generous donors already have made clear that they regarded the needs of the time as “a once in a lifetime moment to step up,” as one in South Florida put it. Today’s communal professionals have heard from their predecessors about the magnanimous giving at the time of the Six-Day and the Yom Kippur Wars. They also know that giving levels declined once those emergencies passed, and so they are working to build relationships with funders to ensure their ongoing generous support. That may prove an elusive goal.

III. The Reengagement

A significant uptick in giving to Jewish causes was not the only response to the events of October 7 and the ensuing anti-Israel agitation. There also has been a groundswell of activism and participation in Jewish life. Based on a survey it conducted in February and March 2024, the Jewish Federations of North America reported “an explosion in Jewish belonging and communal participation that is nothing short of historic. Jews are feeling more invested in their identity and community and looking for ways to connect, creating an opportunity for a sector-wide focus on driving engagement and membership.” This “surge,” as it was named, was especially noticeable among the previously least engaged segments of the American Jewish population. “Of the 83 percent of Jews who were ‘only somewhat,’ ‘not very,’ or ‘not at all engaged’ prior to October 7, a whopping 40 percent are now showing up in larger numbers in Jewish life,” the report continued. “This group [is] equal to 30 percent of all Jewish adults and nearly double the proportion of Jews who identify as ‘deeply engaged.’” It’s particularly noteworthy that Jews between the ages of 18 and 34 and between 55 and 74 years old—meaning adults least likely to get involved primarily for the sake of their children—were the most eager to increase their participation.

Though we currently lack systematic evidence, a range of Jewish institutions have reported increased interest in their programs. Parents surveyed during the first months of 2024 were more inclined than before to enroll their children in synagogue Hebrew Schools and Jewish summer camps. Residential summer camps with Jewish programming, in fact, saw the highest enrollment numbers since before the coronavirus epidemic. Parents of children in private schools expressed new interest in transferring them to Jewish day schools, though as of this writing data on enrollments for the current school year are unavailable. NCSY, the teen arm of the Orthodox Union received requests to open clubs in 170 public schools.

As for campus life, according to the CEO of Hillel International, its on-campus centers were on track in 2024 to attract the highest number of students in the organization’s 100-year history. Simultaneously, Chabad campus houses reported a 40-percent increase in their attendees. An observer explained the popularity of Chabad for college students and those in their 20s and 30s: “it provides a setting for letting [one’s] hair down, being angry, sad, and afraid. . . . No one will correct you if you are not p.c.”

For those already out of school, participation in Moishe Houses and Base Hillel programs (gathering places for post-college Jews) around the country soared, as has attendance at Jewish educational programs sponsored by other organizations. OneTable, the organization supporting Shabbat dinners for younger Jewish adults, has seen its weekly attendance rise to 270,000 over the past year, including nearly 18,000 individuals who had not participated before. Younger Jews in particular are seeking Jewish social outlets where their support for Israel would not come under attack. Many also wanted to educate themselves about Israeli history and current events, the rudiments of Judaism, and opportunities for engagement with the Jewish community.

Older adult populations also have been showing up in much higher numbers since October 7. Community gatherings sponsored by federations, JCCs, and synagogues are attracting larger crowds in person and online. Some, though certainly not all, synagogues saw increased numbers of attendees at religious services in the months after October 7, though attendance seems subsequently to have leveled off. Contrary to those who have dismissed synagogues as unappealing to all but the most committed, congregations have attracted new members looking for social connection with other Jews. When Jews who felt isolated and embattled sought a place to be with other Jews coping with the same feelings, they gravitated to synagogues, institutions they knew from their childhoods.

At the same time, there are other institutions that have found ways to appeal to those Jews newly motivated to connect with their religious and intellectual traditions, to push back against anti-Semitism and hostility to Israel, and to ensure serious educational opportunities for their children. These include some of the Jewish-defense organizations mentioned above, a host of podcasts with their own communities of listeners, and educational institutions like Tikvah, which publishes Mosaic.

There even is evidence of a substantial increase in the numbers of non-Jews, many in relationships with Jews, who have been motivated by the resurgence of anti-Semitism to throw in their lot with Jews by converting to Judaism.

Since October 7, many Jews working for large corporations have organized what are technically called Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). Employers tend to encourage the formation of such affinity groups in hopes they’ll improve employee relations and morale, thereby serving as a useful recruiting tool. Prior to October 7, many firms opposed the formation of Jewish ERGs because they were reluctant to have religious groups operating under their auspices, perhaps seeing them as potentially divisive. But since October 7, Jews have lobbied hard, often with the backing of federations and pro-bono lawyers, for the right to organize in this way.

Those efforts have largely succeeded. In New York City, a number of major firms have reluctantly permitted Jewish ERGs to meet in their offices. Some of these affinity groups get together for Shabbat and holiday meals; others host speakers on developments in the Middle East or Jewish educational topics. One such group concludes its meetings with the singing of Hatikva. Another, named Shmear, offers lunchtime or after-work social gatherings. Many current participants had been quite distant from any prior Jewish involvement before October 7; ERGs are attracting younger Jews between the ages of 35 and 45, many of whom are intermarried. Perhaps for the first time in their adult lives, they wish to connect with other Jews in some kind of collective effort.

IV. The Fighters

An even more widespread development since October 7 has been the stunning increase in WhatsApp chats and other social-media groups for parents concerned about hostility their children encounter in schools. The feeling of being betrayed by these once-trusted institutions, combined with the perceived threat to their children, have given members of these groups a pugnacity not usually found in mainstream Jewish organizations. One such group, Mothers Against Campus Anti-Semitism (MACA), was founded two weeks after the events of October 7 and now boasts over 60,000 members. Members share information about college campuses with a track record of protecting Jewish students or warn of hostile academic settings. Others organize petitions or complaints to school administrators when Jewish students are subjected to harassment or discrimination. Some enlist parents to attend meetings of local school boards or city councils where anti-Israel proclamations are cooked up. Taken together, it amounts to a large-scale grassroots effort to influence state and municipal legislators, school commissioners, and universities.

There is a sense among the organizers that they are playing whack-a-mole, simply because the challenges come from many different quarters. But that has not deterred their members. In fact, the tenacity and confrontational approach of some of these groups has put them at odds with the established organizations engaged in Jewish defense work. From the grassroots perspective, national institutions cannot possibly address issues arising in every school across the country. Many lay organizers are also disenchanted with the more cautious, behind-the-scenes tactics used by longstanding establishments. Their children and grandchildren are at risk, and they insist on aggressive action against administrators and politicians who fail to enforce laws or who coddle anti-Israel agitators.

Professionals in Jewish federations and Jewish community-relations organizations are careful to express sympathy for the frustration of grassroots organizers and acknowledge that it is unfair to generalize about such a wide range of grassroots groups. But they also voice frustrations of their own. “The public name-calling can get in the way; it’s not helpful when trying to negotiate” quietly through private one-on-one conversations, professionals contend. Even worse, in the view of a professional at a major Jewish community-relations organization, some online groups “stir up more fear than is necessary. They spread misinformation. Then parents of college students get worked up. Rumors become truths. And the defense agencies are accused of doing nothing because they failed to address something that never happened.”

From the perspective of professionals, grassroots activists at times are insufficiently aware of how school administrators find themselves in untenable situations because they are caught between warring constituents making demands that cannot be reconciled. During interviews, I heard about numerous instances of efforts of professionals to defeat the most egregious forms of anti-Jewish hostility only to see their work undone by the well-meaning but unrealistic demands of grassroots organizers. In New York, the head of a private school who displayed sensitivity to the concerns of Jews quit his job when it became clear that demands by pro- and anti-Jewish forces had become irreconcilable.

In San Diego, the local Hillel asked members of the Jewish community to stay away from pro-Hamas encampments to avoid further exacerbating tensions. Whether out of prudence or cowardice, half the community complied, and the other half came to demonstrate in force, making matters far worse on campus—at least in the judgment of the Hillel staff. At a Philadelphia hospital, the DEI department saw fit to publish a damning but inaccurate article about an alleged bombing of a Gaza hospital by Israel. While the federation worked behind the scenes to win over allies in the hospital administration, others organized petitions demanding the firing of the personnel responsible, thereby making it impossible to resolve the matter effectively.

This is not to say by any means that grassroots groups are merely a hindrance. There have been numerous instances where the efforts of ordinary mothers and fathers who were driven to act have succeeded. Jewish parents have persuaded a private school in New York to drop a curriculum portraying Israel in the worst possible light. Concerned parents of students on particular campuses have used their combined strength via WhatsApp groups to communicate with campus personnel about unacceptable harassment of Jewish students. If nothing else, they serve as a counterweight to those supporting pro-Hamas agitators on campus. Parent groups have been particularly valuable because the major defense efforts of community-relations agencies have by necessity adopted a “triage mode,” as one professional put it. They simply cannot address many, if not most, instances of anti-Jewish hostility popping up in classroom exchanges, yearbook art and commentary, bigoted talk by teachers and the harassment of Jewish students by their peers. Parent groups have pressed administrators of schools to rethink how to protect Jewish students.

Problems arise, though, when concerned Jewish parents—not to mention alumni with deep pockets—are unrealistic about how much influence they actually wield. Families of K-12 students may hold sway if they represent a substantial portion of the parent body, particularly if they win over non-Jewish parents to their cause. But the situation on university campuses is entirely different because administrators, especially college presidents, fear running afoul of faculty who are tenured, radical, and quick to demand their ouster through votes of no-confidence. American institutions of higher learning also are highly dependent on tuition revenues from foreign students who pay full freight, but come from cultures hostile to Israel, if not to Jews in general. Many universities, moreover, are so well-endowed that the loss of Jewish donors is easily made up from other sources, including wealthy Middle Eastern donors.

For these and other reasons, professionals at Jewish federations and defense organizations are working behind the scenes to educate college administrators about the complexities in the Middle East, taking them on trips to Israel to see first-hand how the media have distorted what is happening there, and offering guidance to help them navigate the warring factions on their campuses. The same approach is employed to win over city-council members and education commissioners in local communities.

In the tension between grassroots groups and Jewish communal professionals, we see a replay of a recurring internal conflict American Jews have experienced several times in their history. The key line of division is between advocates of direct confrontation and Jewish community-relations professionals who counsel a more deliberate, behind-the-scenes approach. The grassroots organizations tend to believe that only public demands, if not shaming, of officials at universities, schools, school boards, and corporations will bring change. Professionals at Jewish organizations employ a different playbook: maintaining pressure out of public view, they work to educate and don’t assume hostility on the part of politicians and administrators until the latter demonstrate their ill will incontrovertibly.

The same tactical considerations divided Jewish communities early in the 20th century when the so-called uptown German-Jewish elite favored quiet persuasion in private settings to sway officials, while the downtown immigrant Jews took to the streets in protest and made very public demands. A similar divide occurred during the Holocaust years when activists associated with Revisionist Zionism went public in demanding action by the U.S. government to rescue European Jews; meanwhile, official leaders preferred behind the scenes lobbying of the Roosevelt administration. And the same divisions surfaced yet again during the long campaign to free Soviet Jews.

It’s important, however, not to exaggerate the chasm separating today’s actors in the battle against anti-Israel forces. Many grassroots organizers understand that making unreasonable demands will backfire and therefore are open to negotiations. And there are professionals in the Jewish community-relations field who acknowledge that at a certain point the gloves need to come off. Most notably, both types of organizations are turning to the courts to ensure the enforcement of legal measures to protect Jews, and neither are averse to calling out anti-Jewish hostility.

An additional dimension of surging participation and activism warrants our attention. On the one hand, a new generation of activist Jews committed to the needs of the Jewish people and Israel is making its presence felt. Both on the national and local levels, eloquent individuals are rallying Jews to act with resilience and pride in the face of increased hostility. For those concerned about the future of American Jewish life, these courageous, new voices, many drawn from the millennial and Gen-Z cohorts, are heartening.

On the other hand, it appears that many Jewish organizations are unprepared to seize the opportunity presented by formerly unaffiliated Jews now seeking Jewish connection. In part this may be due to severe staffing shortages. Many Jewish organizations are struggling with an inability to recruit talented people. The problem, though, is not solely one of personnel. Many organizations lack ideas about how to work with formerly uninvolved Jews, what to teach them, and how to retain them. When asked how they are responding to the surge of interest many leaders state that they are studying the situation: they have no immediate plans. This response, though understandable, is sadly inadequate. The American Jewish community has a chance to engage formerly unaffiliated Jews now. It would be a tragedy to squander it.

V. The Failings

If the year since October 7 has offered encouraging evidence of strength and resilience among many American Jews and a need for some rethinking, it also has brought into relief aspects of Jewish life that are broken. Most obviously, the Jewish community-relations sphere is in drastic need of repair. The major national organizations and especially local agencies whose role it is to build alliances between Jews and other American groups have discovered that they had been building on sand. Many of their erstwhile allies not only have not come to the defense of Jews; they have joined the rabble spewing mindless slogans about the alleged “crimes” of Israel—and its supporters.

Some professionals working for Jewish community-relations agencies or other major organizations are blunt about the failings. To cite the observations of a few who were candid: “Our community-relations strategy has not been a strategy. We broke bread together and talked about surface issues, not Israel. We’ve deluded ourselves. It was not a serious Jewish community-relations effort.” Said another, the rapidity with which friends abandoned Jews demonstrates how “naïve we were. . . . A trip to Israel made them friends for life, we thought. We were wrong.” Or as another professional put it, “our old partnerships are not worth a thing in this climate.”

To be sure, other voices have sought to qualify these harsh judgements. Jewish community-relations work, they point out, had been massively underfunded because the wider community was convinced that anti-Semitism was a minor problem in 21st-century America. Some have also questioned whether complacency led to a downgrading of the field to such an extent that the best and brightest no longer wished to do such work. In their defense, another professional in the field contends that no one pays attention to “the bad things that did not happen” due to the diligence of her staff. And still others have described the pressure on non-sectarian organizations, particularly in the so-called social-justice sphere, which makes it impossible for them to break with the prevailing anti-Israel hysteria without losing massive support. The best Jewish community-relations organizations can hope for, in this view, is for their former allies to eschew the more outrageous claims about alleged Israeli misdeeds and to issue statements denouncing anti-Semitism, even as they join one-sided calls criticizing Israel.

Clear-minded professionals at agencies working in the field have come to recognize how much work needs to be done to build new alliances with previously ignored ethnic and religious groups, such as non-Muslim populations from Southeast Asia and church-going African Americans, and to develop a more tough-minded approach to former partners who have abandoned them. On a more practical level, they acknowledge a systemic failure on the part of Jewish communities to ensure the presence of Jews on city councils, school boards, curriculum commissions, and other settings where local anti-Israel activists play a dominant role because they show up and Jews are non-participants.

Though not publicly discussed, within the privacy of Jewish communal leadership the betrayal of former allies and failure of the Jewish community-relations field is high on the agenda of what must be fixed. The federation movement, both on the national level and in local communities, is investing in new arms and strategies to build alliances with previously overlooked groups. A major new undertaking of the JFNA in collaboration with big funders and major Jewish defense organizations will serve as a hub to exchange information and ideas. Federation CEOs are taking it upon themselves to find allies in their own communities. The defense agencies and other groups are investing in new educational programs to help Jewish students make the case for Israel and against anti-Semitism in high schools and on campuses.

Fortunately, most Americans claim to support Israel when they are polled. Retreat into insulation in the belief that all sectors of American society have become hostile to Israel and more than tolerant of anti-Semitism is not a realistic or winning option. To the contrary, if Jews are not at the table when policies are formulated, others with anti-Jewish intentions will certainly carry the day. The Jewish community-relations field needs to be smarter in seeking new allies, tougher in response to former partners who have betrayed it, clear-eyed about potential new friends who share common interests, and more strategically sophisticated in how it makes the case for Israel and the protection of American Jews.

The betrayal of Jews by their erstwhile friends highlights yet a second area of Jewish life in need of repair. Political considerations have blinded many American Jews to the festering of hostility among their ideological fellow travelers. Based on their history, Jews have maintained a watchful eye to monitor right-wing organizations—and for good reason given the involvement of the far right in sometimes deadly attacks on Jews. White supremacist groups have harnessed the new media to spread their poisonous anti-Semitism. But the corresponding hatred, violence, anti-Israel activism, and penetration of institutions coming out of the so-called Red/Green alliance—the convergence of left-wing and Islamist groups—received far less attention from major Jewish organizations until the events of this past year. Worse, those voices warning of the dangers, some of whom have been doing so for years, were marginalized or ridiculed as political shills. Put directly, for many American Jews and their professional defenders, so-called progressives have gotten a pass out of the naïve belief that Jews have no enemies on the left.

Even during the past year, some outspoken progressive Jews have continued to wave away evidence of hatred on the left as inconsequential. Take for example this analysis offered by a columnist in the Forward, a national Jewish online newspaper: “Our moral panic . . . has caused Jews to become even more terrified and tribalistic. It has undermined our solidarity with other vulnerable groups at precisely the time at which we are threatened by the nationalist right. And it has fed the illiberal campaigns of right-wing culture warriors, who have preyed on American Jewish fears to further their own agendas. We are being fed a diet of hyperbole and misinformation, and we are reacting out of fear.” This author and other apologists for left-wing anti-Israel lies and anti-Semitic behavior are stoutly impervious to massive evidence showing how greatly Jews have been betrayed by their fellow progressives and how blatantly anti-Semitic some of those “vulnerable groups” have been for years.

It is precisely because of these political considerations that so many American Jews have been taken by surprise since October 7. Blinding themselves to the discriminatory goals of DEI administrators on campuses and in the corporate world, the hate-mongering and distortions of faculty at American academic institutions, and the anti-Semitism of left-wing organizations, many American Jews slept while the world around them changed for the worse. Too many American Jews prioritized their political allegiance over self-interest. It’s hard to know whether this can be fixed in the current political environment, but nothing will change until American Jews treat progressive organizations and ideologies with the same tough-minded scrutiny as those of right-wing extremists.

Among the disheartening developments since October 7, one of the more painful has been the very public activities of Jews who join forces with haters of Israel. This is not the place to trace the long, sordid history of Jewish anti-Zionism, a history going back to the very beginnings of the Zionist enterprise at the end of the 19th century. What sets current anti-Zionists apart is their unbridled activism during a military campaign defined by Israel as an existential war against Iranian proxies attempting to assault Israelis from multiple directions. Demonstrating in public and often joining pro-Hamas encampments and marchers, anti-Israel Jews proudly claim they are acting in accordance with the highest values of Judaism. Organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now, and assorted other groups proudly denounce Israel. Their adherents malign Israel “as Jews.”

It’s hard to know what proportion of the American Jewish population identifies as anti-Zionist, but some surveys offer preliminary figures. The political scientist Eitan Hersh has been surveying college students in recent years and concluded in 2022: “the percentage of Jewish students who believe there should not be a Jewish state in Israel-Palestine [is] fairly constant, at around 10-15 percent.” A survey he conducted after October 7 showed no change in those numbers, though some of the undecided students had become more supportive of Israel. Significantly, nearly 25 percent of Jewish students were uncertain “whether Israel as a Jewish state should continue to exist.” This means that roughly one-third of Jewish college students cannot bring themselves to say they support the only state Jews have. As for the adult population, a survey conducted by JFNA found that 90 percent supported Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, while 17 percent identified as non-Zionists, 5 percent as anti-Zionists, and 36 percent claimed they did not know.

What are we to make of the large gap between Jewish college students and the adult population? And why do so many Jews fail to identify as Zionists, that is, as supporters of the right of Jews to sovereignty in their own state? It’s possible that many of the latter may not know what Zionism means. The same JFNA survey found high percentages of Jews eager to learn more about Zionism and Israel because they had never been educated about either. Some have attributed the gap between college students and older adults to their different stages of life, claiming that as the former mature, they will come around to valuing the Jewish state.

No single explanation can capture why some Jews have turned on Israel. Surely how Jews are educated and socialized by the American Jewish community is a contributing factor. For decades, educators, rabbis and communal leaders have provided a dumbed-down version of Judaism as fundamentally about being a good person. They were delivering a message many Jews were eager to hear. In their classic mid-20th century sociological analysis Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier, Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum noted the shift from what they call sacramentalism to moralism. Rather than attend to the rituals and observances of Judaism, most American Jews, they found, defined the purpose of being Jewish as being moral humans. By the 1980s two words further catered to this simple-minded mentality—tikkun olam (repairing the world), a nebulous aspiration that can be—and has been—applied to any well-meaning cause or activity. Where most human beings understand their first responsibility as attending to the needs of their own—immediate family members, kin, and fellow citizens—American Jews were told how virtuous it is to give equal weight to all who are in need. Or worse: forget about Jewish needs and focus your giving and volunteering solely on causes aiding other groups.

As long as life was good for American Jews, the priority given to non-sectarian over parochial Jewish needs could be justified, even if it required a willed blindness to the costs it exacted: for decades now, much larger sums of Jewish philanthropic dollars have gone to support non-sectarian, rather than Jewish causes; Jewish observances fell by the wayside as many Jews convinced themselves that helping out in soup kitchens or volunteering for political causes was primarily what Judaism demanded of them; and younger Jews imbibed the notion that to be a good Jew they first should be concerned about non-Jews in need. Not surprisingly, many learned their lessons well and realized that participation in Jewish life was unnecessary if they supported the correct left-wing causes.

After October 7, American Jews can no longer afford the skewed priorities of the past decades. Daniel Kane, a Reform rabbi, bluntly assessed what is broken in American Jewish life that now must be fixed: “In many ways, we failed our young people in teaching them too much about the conscience of the prophets and too little about the passion of the priesthood. We rooted the majority of their Jewish identities in the universal call of social justice and put less emphasis on balancing it with a particular pride in and obligation toward Jewish peoplehood.”

One might add too that Jewish education in many sectors of the community failed to teach about the commandments of Judaism that are specific to the Jewish people or to impart that observance of mitzvot guides Jews to moral behavior, spiritual connection to God, and a love for the Jewish people. Instead, as Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, the leading advocate for Israel and the needs of the Jewish people in the Reform movement, has put it: “We thought we were sensitizing young Jews to the Jewish obligation of social repair. We thought we were conveying the principles of Jewish universalism. We thought we were teaching g’milut hasadim—acts of lovingkindness. . . . We did not expect the Jewish spirit to dribble away while we thought we were passing it on.”

Compare the American Jewish mantra of tikkun olam to what Israeli society imparts to its youths. From a young age, Israeli Jews are socialized to value service to their people. When they join the military, men and some women risk (and tragically too often lose) life and limb while protecting their people, their state, their Jewish way of life. It’s not that Israelis care only about fellow Jews: Israel too has a strong environmental movement, sends volunteers with alacrity to far-flung lands when catastrophe strikes, and has a vibrant movement to build bridges with Arab communities in Israel and the West Bank. It is taken for granted that the Israeli healthcare system will treat terrorists wounded while they tried to murder Israeli citizens. Israeli Jews combine their primary commitment to their own people with secondary efforts to help others around the world in need. Many younger American Jews, by contrast, rarely if ever learn about their special responsibility to care for their own—and what that might mean in practice.

That failing has many deleterious consequences for the lives of American Jews. Jewish youth especially pay a price in that they are deprived of a greater purpose. As Dan Senor and Saul Singer write in their recent book The Genius of Israel, “the act of bringing people together, . . . defending the county against a common threat gives a feeling of being needed and creates resilience.” Put differently, Israelis find meaning in their lives by furthering a great Jewish cause, the building of a sovereign Jewish state. In the absence of a compelling Jewish cause, recent generations of younger Jews in the United States have played at being “social-justice warriors.”

Now that American Jewish life is challenged more severely than at any time since the Second World War, multiple Jewish needs beg for their attention. Perhaps after this year of travail, American Jews of all ages will focus more energy on rebuilding domestic Jewish life by attending to Jewish human-service needs, Jewish victims of anti-Semitism, and Jews who lack a proper Jewish education, along with their efforts on behalf of Israel. If that shift in priorities occurs, October 7, indeed, will have been an inflection point of great significance for American Jewish life.