This article was originally published on September 23, 2026.
Ever since Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and the Israeli government launched a war on Gaza in response, the ensuing debate has been bitter and prolonged. One consequence of all the turmoil and grief is that anti-Zionism and antisemitism have been on the rise, impacting Israelis and Jewish people around the world, even those who do not feel connected to Israel and/or have advocated against the current Israeli administration.
Jewish organizations have documented a sharp increase in harassment and discrimination of Israelis and Jewish people globally, often in conjunction with anti-Israel protests and encampments on universities, via cancellations of Jewish and Israeli artists, and murders across the Jewish diaspora, including in the U.S., England and Australia. On college campuses, Hillel reported an uptick in discrimination against Jewish students: As Hillel International President and CEO Adam Lehman told me in early 2025, the campus-based nonprofit had tracked more than 2,000 incidents of Jewish students facing harassment and discrimination during the previous academic year.
Jewish philanthropy and major Jewish donors have responded in a variety of ways. Hillel, for example, raised more than $200 million by early 2025 to support campus security, legal work, university-relations work, Jewish programming, and crisis response. Several billionaire alumni of Harvard, both Jewish and non-Jewish, including Leslie Wexner, Ken Griffin and Bill Ackman, meanwhile, announced an end to their support of the university due to what they saw as inadequate confrontation of antisemitism. At the University of Pennsylvania, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan led a donor boycott over the university’s handling of antisemitism.
Jewish Funders Network, the top funder affinity group for philanthropists who give within the Jewish world or through a Jewish lens, reported a surge in giving among its members one year after the attack. Back in October 2024, 86% of members surveyed said they’d upped their philanthropy since the attack.
So where do things stand with Jewish giving today? I reached out to Andrés Spokoiny, president and CEO of JFN, to find out. Spokoiny spoke in a very “gloves-off” way about anti-Zionism, antisemitism, what it means for Jewish philanthropy — and what a lack of ideological diversity in philanthropy means for society as a whole.
Let’s just jump in and talk about Israel. When I spoke to your colleague Rabbi Rebecca Sirbu, the executive vice president of JFN in 2024, she said that while a lot of people in Israel have questions about this current government and its actions, they clearly support the Israeli population traumatized by what happened. In our recent piece on next-gen Jewish donors, we also reported that more young donors are supporting Israel than are stepping away. What are you seeing in relation to Israel among Jewish funders more generally?
What Rebecca said is true; you won’t find many supporters of the current Israeli government among American Jews, either, particularly the young, but people are good at decoupling the current government from the country. For some people, opposition to the government drives them to get more involved, such as with coalitions for change and to support democracy in Israel. Avenues for philanthropic engagement with Israel are growing.
The general narrative is, “Oh, look. Young Jews are disengaging from Israel.” Even if that were as universal as it’s presented, which it isn’t, there is a counter-trend — younger people not disengaging but engaging stronger.
The double standard applied to Israel is so blunt, it is causing the opposite effect of its intended aim. People say, “I might disagree with how the government is conducting the war, but the antisemitism and double standard are so severe, that drives me to be more defensive of Israel in general.” Due to the increase in antisemitism and outright betrayal that many Jews feel from their historical allies, such as in the progressive and liberal communities, there is the feeling that Israel, for good or for bad, is our only homeland and our ultimate refuge. So we need to get more involved in helping shape the country how we want it to be; it’s the ultimate guarantee of Jewish safety.
Does Jewish Funders Network have new data on support for Israel and Jewish causes generally?
We will release a new survey of our members in October. But there is a point at which anecdotal evidence becomes data. We live in the community. We see the community. The flow of money to Israel hasn’t stopped. Every outrageous statement by anti-Zionists is immediately followed by people who want to help and get involved.
So American Jews are giving more to Israel in response to the anti-Israel and anti-Zionist movement. But some American Jews are quite involved in anti-Zionist organizations, which they distinguish from antisemitism.
We have actual data of how many American Jews describe themselves as anti-Zionists; that’s between 6% and 7%. What’s generally portrayed as a division within the Jewish community is a very uneven division. That supposed division is being instrumentalized by anti-Zionists and antisemites to say “even Jews agree with us.” But what they neglect to say is that only 7% of Jews agree with them.
There is a theoretical opportunity to be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic, for example, if someone is against any national state — Jewish, Palestinian, American. But to be only against one national movement, the Jewish one, that is antisemitism.
What also happens is that the anti-Zionist activism pulls the rug out from under progressive and liberal Jews like myself. For example, I was personally advocating very strongly against extremist settler violence in the West Bank. But then, when I see the hyperbole, double standard and demonization of Israel, using settler violence as a justification, that gives me pause. So then I say, “I would like to advocate against settler violence, but I see that my advocacy is being used by people who would want to destroy me.” A lot of Jews are caught in that dilemma.
So you see the Jewish community and Jewish funding community as far more cohesive than how it’s portrayed. How is the turmoil shaping Jewish philanthropy generally?
Historically, Jews have been the second-most generous community in the United States, to both Jewish and secular causes. The first are the Mormons. That hasn’t changed. If anything, it’s been growing. What is changing is where people are giving.
There was a surge in emergency grants after October 7 and there is a surge of interest in giving to Jewish organizations more generally, driven by the explosion of antisemitism in universities, museums and cultural institutions that benefitted from Jewish donors in the past. It is a growing phenomenon.
The feeling is: You are not going to give to a university that allows abusive, violent, antisemitic protests, even if they call it anti-Zionist. It’s known that those protests don’t impact the realities of the Middle East whatsoever. The goal of those protests is to make the life of American Jews who support Israel unbearable. Donors are saying, “I don’t have to give my money to organizations that dismiss Jewish concerns of safety and inclusiveness.” There is a revival of interest in Jewish organizations due to that, and a drive to support Jewish educational organizations.
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Do you see the old-guard, established Jewish organizations in the U.S. benefitting from donors turning toward more toward the Jewish community? Or is the phenomenon of younger donors being more interested in innovation hurting the legacy ones?
A decline in funding for legacy organizations is not supported by the evidence. There is a problem in society in general for legacy organizations because the patterns of funding are changing, not just among Jewish donors. Our society today looks with a little suspicion at legacy organizations — legacy political parties, media, churches, everything. So there may be a growth of giving to other types of organizations to the detriment of legacy organizations.
That said, during the crisis, some legacy organizations made a comeback, like UJA New York, which is the most legacy you can be. They proved their value during the last three years. Because they were old, legacy and big, they could respond quickly. They could invest a lot in security, for example. Funders are still in love with new startup organizations, but because of the crisis, they are recognizing the value of these legacy organizations that they might have formerly looked at as outdated or out of touch. It turns out they’re not. We still need them. They can deliver a lot of help very fast.
I’ve been reading about new Jewish arts and cultural organizations arising, like a publisher for Jewish authors. What do you see as driving that investment?
The arts is a biggie. We at JFN have been conducting conversations and discussions about antisemitism in the arts for the last three years, and every year with a different focus: publishing, music, Hollywood, etc. That program is probably one of the most popular programs we have, with lots of funders who have never funded in the arts now being fully committed to funding in the Jewish arts. The last conference we held had 150 people. In the past, it was maybe 30.
Never since the end of World War II has there been so much discrimination against Jews in the arts. The situation can’t be overstated. I was always in the camp of, “Oh, people exaggerate antisemitism.” Now, you cannot exaggerate it enough.
It’s shameful, for example, that a writers’ festival blacklists Jewish or Zionist authors. What they do is say, “If you’re a Jew, you can’t come if you’re a Zionist.” That is already a double standard, but then you’re expected to denounce Zionism. It’s not applied to anyone else. If you’re a Muslim, you’re not asked to denounce Al Queda, for example. That hasn’t happened since World War II.
It could be understandable — I wouldn’t agree — but it could be understandable that you don’t want to have someone associated with the Israeli government. But it works in concentric circles, [expanding] to excluding anyone who believes that Israel has a right to exist. If you said, “I’m not going to invite anyone who is pro-Trump,” that’s one thing. But then, if it becomes, “I’m not going to invite anyone who thinks the United States has a right to exist,” that’s another. This is like that.
What bothers me the most is that a literary festival will blacklist a Jewish writer who isn’t anti-Zionist, and other writers still go. I wouldn’t go to a festival that blacklists any minority. But writers go. Either they agree with the blacklist or don’t care enough to protest it.
In terms of funding, we’re going back to what happened in the early 20th century. Simon & Schuster was created as a publishing house because Jews were being censored and discriminated against in publishing. We’re seeing a lot of investment in an alternative circuit of culture — Jewish publishing, Jewish art, creating alternative ecosystems, both for Jews and for others. There also is a lot of divestment from cultural institutions that tolerate antisemitic or anti-Zionist narratives or apply double standards to Jews.
What does the lack of leadership pushing back against antisemitism say about the state of the field of philanthropy more broadly?
The fact that everyone is so unanimous about a conflict that is, whatever you think about it, very complex — that speaks to a lack of viewpoint diversity and an ideological dogmatism that is extremely worrisome for the field of philanthropy. The system is an echo chamber. Jews have been pushed out of some secular philanthropic spaces, particularly the nonprofits and regrantors — not the large foundations — due to antisemitism and anti-Zionism in the philanthropic sector, especially after October 7. It has calmed down a little bit, but only because it is now a given, and many Jews have already disengaged. The Jews who support Israel — not the government of Israel, just the country — they leave.
This is a symptom of how serious the lack of viewpoint diversity is. What happens to Jews is always a symptom of something bigger. The lack of viewpoint diversity in the philanthropic and nonprofit community in general reflects the polarization and ideological sorting that we see in society as a whole.
