In the shadow of existential threats from Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in spring 1967, Jewish communities worldwide surged to Israel’s aid, forging a lifeline of solidarity.
American Jews, via the United Jewish Appeal, mobilized $123 million in emergency bonds and donations to arm the IDF. Rallies drew 50,000 in New York’s Madison Square Garden, while French and British volunteers shipped medical supplies and joined the front lines. From Sydney synagogues to Johannesburg fundraisers, this global embrace proved pivotal, echoing the unbreakable bond that has connected Diaspora Jewry and the Jewish people in Israel.
On October 11, 2023, Diaspora Jewry’s heads were still collectively spinning from Hamas’s Simchat Torah massacre that had occurred just a few days before, on October 7. Instinctively, expressed from an embedded generosity gene, Diaspora Jews donated to funds, organizations, and the IDF, in an effort to help. As Maimonides famously wrote about the generosity of the Jewish people: “We have never seen nor heard of a Jewish community that does not have a fund for charity. Charity is an identifying mark for a righteous person, a descendant of Abraham, our patriarch.”
Soon after the Hamas attack, some 50 organizations and funds had set up ways to assist. During that time, David Heller, of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), noted that the Hamas attack on southern Israel was his generation’s defining opportunity to rally around the Jewish state, like many Americans did following the 1967 Six Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Heller, the chair of JFNA’s emergency fund committee, reported that in less than two weeks the organization had already reached its $500 million goal.
Over $50 million was donated to the Friends of the Israel Defense Force (FIDF) by philanthropists such as Haim Saban, the late Bernie Marcus, Casey Wasserman, Paul Singer, Larry Ellison, and Jan Koum. These generous donors answered the call to help Israel’s soldiers defending the Jewish people’s land and state.
It wasn’t only billionaires who came to Israel’s aid during the recent seven-front war. North American Jewry alone raised about $1 billion for Israel in the first month of the war, according to a report by researchers at the University of Haifa’s Ruderman Program for American Jewish Studies, published in December 2023.
The figure is an estimation of donations raised in multiple campaigns by communal and private organizations with a Jewish affiliation, including friendship associations supporting Israeli hospitals, universities, and emergency services, according to David Barak-Gorodetsky, the report’s author.
By February 2024, the Jewish People Policy Institute had calculated that between October 7, 2023, and February 2024, Diaspora Jews donated $1.41 billion to Israeli organizations, with half of that coming from JFNA. In addition to that sum, by February, Israel Bonds had raised $1.7 billion.
Diaspora Jewry, which answered the call to help Israel and its people in its time of challenge, will always be able to raise its head high in pride for their understanding of the situation and their proper response to it.
UNFORTUNATELY, NOT all Diaspora Jewry will be able to look back at their response to this period with pride. When the dust settles from the war and the soldiers come home, and all of the deceased hostages are returned, there will be Jews who will be ashamed at their actions and response to the war.
A recent Washington Post survey found many American Jews disapproving of Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war, with 61% saying Israel has committed war crimes, and about four in 10 saying it is guilty of genocide. Almost half, 46%, approved of Israel’s actions during the war, while 48% opposed Israel’s actions.
This poll came on the heels of dozens of Orthodox rabbis issuing “A Call for Moral Clarity, Responsibility, and a Jewish Orthodox Response in the Face of the Gaza Humanitarian Crisis.” Their letter reflected Hamas’s talking points of Israeli extremism, starvation tactics, and distorting basic morality.
Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the US, responded to the letter: “Your statement not only reflects a severe unfamiliarity with the facts, but also relies on the lies of our worst enemies.” He criticized the rabbis “for ignoring the reality that Israel is the one feeding those who are firing on our children.”
Leiter ended with a pointed rebuke: “As Israel fights for survival on seven fronts, faces international pressure, and leads historic changes in the Middle East for security and stability, this is the time to support Israel’s elected government and the people of Israel, not to conduct political criticism rooted in blatant ignorance of the facts. You should apologize.”
In spite of the unfortunate response of some Diaspora Jews to Israel during the war, the Zionist bond, forged over 150 years ago, endures. Diaspora Jewry’s outpouring, from 1967’s bonds to today’s $1.4 billion surge, celebrates our eternal kinship with Israel. This resilient solidarity, a beacon of Jewish unity, promises shared triumph, healing, and unbreakable pride for generations ahead.
The writer is a Zionist educator at institutions around the world, and the author of Zionism Today.