If you’d asked me before October 7 about the challenges facing Israeli-diaspora relations, high on the list would have been a lack of meaningful peer-to-peer connections.
While American Jewry has long prioritized trips to Israel and Israel education aimed at instilling a bond with the Jewish homeland, these were often one-way experiences. In contrast, most Israelis had little to no exposure — in person or in the classroom — to the vibrant diversity of North American Jewish life.
They didn’t know us. They didn’t know our communities. How can anyone feel truly connected to people they don’t know?
To help bridge this gap, we’ve focused for many years on bringing Israeli thought leaders to experience our synagogues, schools, JCCs, and other Jewish institutions firsthand, with the hope that they’d take our stories back to Israel.
And then October 7 changed everything — including the understanding of our own Jewish identity and relationship to each other. American Jews experienced the Hamas attack as an attack on all Jews. Israelis recognized the sharp rise in antisemitism in America as a threat to their own well-being. Our interconnectedness and shared destiny have never been clearer.
Out of this terribly dark time, a bright spot has emerged: new opportunities to create transformational Israeli-diaspora connections.
One such opportunity unfolded this week, as we helped Project 24, an Israeli nonprofit born just days after October 7, bring a group of more than 400 Israelis to New York. They come from devastated kibbutzim and moshavim in the south, with many still living in temporary housing or returning to their homes only recently after months of living as evacuees.
UJA was one of the first major funders to recognize Project 24’s potential, and we’ve strategically partnered with them to help scale their impact.
The large group of Israelis currently in New York includes civilians from the kibbutzim and moshavim who were responsible on October 7 for guarding their communities. They were compelled that horrific day to make an unimaginable choice: In answering the call to defend their communities before the IDF arrived — some for as long as 26 hours — they left their own families behind in their safe rooms. Many are still grappling with feelings of guilt from having done so.
Project 24 framed this journey as a “Thanks4Giving,” with the civilian guards traveling here with their families, as well as with widows and orphans of heroes who didn’t make it home.
But the truly transformational part of the trip: The Israelis are staying at the homes of families spanning 30-plus communities across New York City, Westchester, and Long Island. It’s hard to overstate how, over this week, lifelong friendships are being formed.
This past Tuesday, the Israeli families, alongside their New York host families, gathered for a dinner at Rodeph Sholom, a Reform synagogue on the Upper West Side. During the formal program, pew after pew in the shul was jampacked with Israelis and American Jews — adults and children, people of every denomination, with and without kippot — sitting side by side. A beautiful sight to behold.
I spoke with many Israelis who expressed amazement at the size and commitment to Israel of an American Jewish community they hardly knew existed. And they shared, many with tears in their eyes, how much comfort and strength they drew from being here with us in New York.
A man who guarded his kibbutz on October 7 recounted to the audience the horrors he’d experienced that day. Addressing the Americans in the room, he poignantly noted that in protecting his country and his people on October 7, he was also protecting Jews here in America.
We felt the power of his words. United in purpose and energized by the promise of lifelong friendships and connections — all of us rose together in grateful applause.
Shabbat shalom