Who Will Stand With Us?

As we all know, the horrific events of October 7, 2023 and the ensuing war unleashed an unprecedented wave of anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric and behavior around the world. Unfortunately, this phenomenon proved to be more widespread and have deeper roots than anyone could have anticipated. The Jewish Federations of North America wasted no time in responding – accelerating the development and implementation of LiveTogether, a new community relations strategy aimed at coping with this new reality. It is the natural companion to Federations' security initiative, LiveSecure.

"The Tree of Life massacre was a moment that required the Jewish community to pay more attention to ensuring that we have physical security, and soon after that we began building LiveSecure. In the same way, October 7 was the trigger for making sure that we're meaningfully and significantly advancing our community relations field and approaching that work in a way that's appropriate for the time that we're in," says Shira Hutt, Executive Vice President of Jewish Federations of North America.

LiveSecure and LiveTogether are complementary strategies. "They are like the two wings of a plane: you need both a strong physical security program and a strong community relations program. Through LiveTogether, we want to move from being reactive to being proactive," Hutt stresses.

Filling a void

After October 7, Evan Bernstein, Vice President for Community Relations at Jewish Federations, quickly understood that it was time to for a new strategy – and the sooner the better. "For decades, we favored a macro 'big tent' approach, thinking that we were doing our jobs and building relationships. Post-October 7, we realized that that approach failed in too many cases. It turns out that those relationships weren't as strong as we expected. We weren't going deep enough with our partners and weren't helping them understand our shared values on these critical issues," he reveals.

One year later, Bernstein attests that Jewish Federations' Community Relations team is using this moment of crisis to transform the North American Jewish community for the better. Newly aware of the strategic importance of building more meaningful partnerships with a variety of religious and ethnic groups in each community, Bernstein is helping local Federations create alliances that will better enable them to confront hostility and forge stronger relationships that will benefit all stakeholders – in the Jewish community and beyond.

"We're helping Federations frame their work," he explains. "They all have different needs but share core issues: interfaith and intergroup relations; legislative activity on a local level; building relationships with the business community; and working with the local education system, especially combatting antisemitic content in public schools and colleges."

Bernstein believes that, ideally, there should be at least one dedicated professional in every Federation whose job is to foster community relations. In the meantime, Jewish Federations' Community Relations team is filling the void. "Many Federations are overwhelmed and are turning to us for support. Our team is there for them 24/6, providing strategic guidance on what to prioritize, and giving them materials they can use to take proactive action. We want to be the biggest support system for them."

Broadening our horizons

Rabbi Josh Stanton, Associate VP of Interfaith and Intergroup Relations at Jewish Federations of North America, agrees that this year has been a "painful awakening." In the past, local Jewish communities primarily sought to build relationships with mainstream Protestant groups through occasional 'feel good' events that had plenty of photo ops but lacked deep conversations. "Some people we thought were our friends are actually the opposite. Now, we need to work with those who are able to understand our narrative," he notes.

Stanton believes that Federations should focus on groups with growing populations that are natural allies, such as Hindu Americans, Hispanic Evangelicals and Catholics. "The Hindu American community is aligned naturally with American Jews. They are a fellow ethno-religious community with a homeland and a diaspora, a love of education, and a hope for the future," he says. Moreover, the Hindu American community, which is growing by around 100,000 a year, has population centers in many of the same areas as the Jewish American community.

In the last few months, Stanton has been working with national Hindu American leaders. "We have an opportunity to build coalitions because the Hindu American community is facing discrimination from the same detractors as we are. We're making long-term efforts to ensure that Hindu and Jewish students, professionals and religious leaders can stand together against bigotry, anti-Hindu prejudice and antisemitism."

Hispanic Evangelicals are another rapidly growing group with which Stanton believes it's possible to find common ground. Josh Sayles, Director of Jewish Community Relations for the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, has been successfully forming partnerships with the large Latine population in Florida, and is convinced that there is a sizable potential to expand such alliances throughout the United States.

Another religious group that shouldn't be overlooked is the large Catholic community, which numbers around 70 million people from different ethnic backgrounds. Indeed, all these large religious and ethnic groups are hardly monolithic, and Stanton stresses that it is important to focus more on the diversity within each of these communities.

Building deep, meaningful relationships

Jewish Federations' Community Relations team is changing the way local Federations are working. "We are laying the groundwork for the American Jewish community to have deep, robust relationships with other religious communities. We're finding points of lights and building them for the long term," says Rabbi Stanton. "We need them to stand with us right now during this upswing in antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Likewise, we want to know what's going on in their community and how we can help. Relationships have to be mutual. We're going to be really good friends with key communities that care about us and understand our needs," he asserts, adding optimistically that, "While this is born in crisis, it is filled with hope."

The new LiveTogether approach encourages local Jewish leaders to proactively develop deep, enduring, and mutually beneficial friendships. Evan Bernstein insists that there must be deep, mutual connection in order for these partnerships to be successful. As a start, Bernstein's team is paving the way, developing strategic initiatives and providing local communities with action guides and resources to carry them out, and urging local Federations to identify key leaders in their community with whom they might be able to form alliances. They can be a Catholic bishop, an Evangelical pastor, and a Latine or Asian-American leader, for example.

"We're strategizing nationally and implementing locally. We have to shift from a programmatic model to one that focuses on deepening relationships," Bernstein stresses.

"We want to make sure we're providing every community with training, support and resources. We want to help them partner with other organizations and funders to scale major initiatives, and we hope to be able to deploy resources to help communities do the kind of work we're talking about," concludes Shira Hutt, adding that the current General Assembly is a great opportunity for Jewish leaders to discuss these vital issues.

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Partnered with Jewish Federations of North America