A Reckoning On American Jewry’s Responses To October 7

Fundraising has been remarkable but inter-group relations failed, observes a leading scholar of American Jewish history. And young Jews need to be taught that charity begins at home.

A ‘surge’ in Jewish activism: One survey found that ‘a whopping 40 percent” of formerly less engaged Jews “are now showing up in larger numbers in Jewish life.”

In the midst of a devastating 14-month war, it is still too early to measure and fully understand the impact of October 7 on American Jewry.

But Jack Wertheimer, a widely respected professor of American Jewish history at the Jewish Theological Seminary, has written a deeply reported and thoughtful essay that asks the right questions about the American Jewish community’s response to the war, like why were we so unprepared for the torrent of anti-Semitism, how have we responded in terms of charity and inter-group relations, and “what assumptions guiding communal strategies are in need of rethinking?”

In his lengthy piece,“What American Jews Gave After October 7: An Accounting,” posted in Mosaic magazine, Wertheimer focuses primarily on the world of Jewish philanthropy and Jewish communal organizations, looking for the most – and least – successful responses.

He explained to me in a recent interview that he saw the war as “an inflection point” and wanted to “connect the dots,” learning how Jewish professionals are dealing with this new reality as well as what inspired Jews “who came out of the woodwork” to show their support for Israel, and why, too, so many young Jews these days have so little empathy for the Jewish state.

Starting this summer, Wertheimer spent four months reading news reports, analyses, and blogs, listening to podcasts, and conducting 55 interviews with professionals at 19 Jewish federations and 15 national Jewish agencies.

Among his trenchant observations are that the much-maligned federation system, viewed by many as past its noble prime, was able to mobilize remarkably quickly and efficiently in raising more than $800 million for hundreds of Israeli non-profits within the first six months of the war. (The challenge, he notes, will be to maintain support from new donors as the war wanes.)

In addition, countless grassroots groups have formed to raise funds for IDF soldiers’ needs, from barbecues and snacks to warm gloves to night goggles to drones. Within the first five months of the war, donations sent directly to “friends of Israel” groups brought the total giving amount to at least $1.4 billion, Wertheimer reports.

But he also found evidence of “the failures and mistakes made by too many Jewish institutions of all types,” most notably Jewish community relations councils whose job it is to foster alliances with other American groups. It was “an eye-opener,” Wertheimer said, to hear these Jewish professionals speak candidly of how naive they were in thinking their relationships with other groups were solid when it came to Israel. “We deluded ourselves,” one professional said, thinking that “a trip to Israel made them friends for life. We were wrong.”

These professionals felt betrayed by those in social justice groups and religious and ethnic communities whose causes Jewish leadership have long supported. Not only did the others not come to the defense of Israel, but some openly expressed support for its enemies and accused Jerusalem of alleged genocidal crimes.

Many of these alliances are now broken and need repair, Wertheimer believes, noting that renewed efforts will require tougher conversations with former allies and new attention to “previously ignored” groups, like “non-Muslim populations from Southeast Asia and church-going African Americans.”

He describes a similar sense of betrayal expressed by large numbers of American Jews about how mainstream media organizations – the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, etc. – have covered the war, focusing heavily on images of destruction and suffering in Gaza without stressing the demonic Hamas strategy to ensure the deaths of innocents.

And of course American Jews had a hard time acknowledging that administrators and professors at Ivy League and other elite universities were unwilling or unable to protect Jews on campus. Some students who insisted on “trigger warnings” before a class discussion on racism in a novel were hurling racist, anti-Semitic slurs and threats at Jewish students.

How will this strain of open anti-Semitism figure into parents’ decisions on where to send their daughters and sons for four years of a college experience that used to be about training young people to listen and have civilized discussions with those with whom they disagree?

Will administrative changes be effective in calming campuses? Is it better to include Jews as minorities in D.E.I. sessions or abandon the programs altogether?

Such new questions underscore what Wertheimer describes as the result of American Jews, many of whom are political liberals, being “blinded” to “the festering of hostility festered among their ideological fellow travelers.” Long focused on dangers from right-wing anti-Semites, Jewish organizations until this year gave “so-called progressives… a pass out of the naive belief that Jews have no enemies on the left,” Wertheimer asserts. “Many American Jews slept while the world around them changed for the worse,” he writes, adding that “nothing will change” until American Jews apply the “same tough-minded scrutiny” to progressive groups as they do “right-wing extremists.”

On the brighter side, he cites a Jewish Federations of North America survey from February and March of this year that found “an explosion in Jewish belonging and communal participation that is nothing short of historic.” Besides donations, this translated into people attending Jewish community programs, public school parents looking into Jewish day school education, and a brief upturn in synagogue attendance.

A key issue for Jewish professionals is to sustain interest and create new forms of outreach.

A Misdirection In Jewish Education

One of the most disturbing aspects of American Jewish responses to the Mideast war is that a growing number of young Jews have been highly and vocally critical of Israel’s actions. One survey found that 10-15 percent of Jewish college students don’t believe there should be a Jewish state, and almost 25 percent were not sure “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,” Wertheimer notes. He speculates that many Jewish college students “may not know what Zionism means,” pointing to a lack of meaningful education about modern Israel in our community. While he observes that “no single conclusion” can explain the trend of young people turning sour on Israel, he cites as a contributing factor “how Jews are educated and socialized by the American Jewish community” – largely by downplaying religious tenets, observance and rituals and prioritizing universalism.

Writing with an elevated degree of passion, he observes: “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.” Since the 1980s, he writes, tikkun olam (Hebrew for “repairing the world”) has become a mantra of sorts, applied increasingly to non-Jewish causes rather than its foundational meaning of observing Jewish commandments.

Wertheimer reports that far more Jewish philanthropic funds go to no-sectarian causes than Jewish ones and that “Jewish observance fell by the wayside as many Jews convinced themselves that helping out soup kitchens or volunteering for political causes was primarily what Judaism demanded of them … and that participation in Jewish life was unnecessary if they supported the correct left-wing causes.”

He quotes a Reform rabbi, Daniel Kane, who said, “in many ways we failed our young people” by not teaching them to blend their commitment to social justice with “a particular pride in and obligation toward Jewish peoplehood.”

Another Reform rabbi, Ammiel Hirsch, is cited, observing that in calling on young people to take up social causes, “we did not expect the Jewish spirit to dribble away while we thought we were passing it on.”

By contrast, young people in Israel learn early in life, Wertheimer writes, “to value service to their people” through the military and in other ways, giving them a common bond and sense of meaning and resilience, while also addressing the need of helping others around the world.

Perhaps the gap in outlook between American and Israeli Jews may be bridged to some degree in the aftermath of October 7 as both societies grapple with harsh new realities that have shaken their sense of security. With all the trauma today, there is also a growing recognition – and appreciation – one for the other. Americans are deeply impressed with the remarkable resilience and spirit of Israelis, on the front and at home. Israelis are profoundly moved and deeply grateful for the solidarity and support of diaspora Jewry, most notably in the U.S.

Wertheimer closes his essay with the hope that at this time of unprecedented challenges, “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.”

His message is well taken, but it will require a deep degree of cheshbon ha-nefesh, soulful reflection, as well as educational and ideological commitment on a large communal scale, to shift the tide from universalism to self-preservation – toward transforming good deeds into mitzvot.