When a Jewish federation allocates funds for needs in Israel and internationally, where exactly is my dollar going, and what impact is it having?

This is precisely what countless donors have wondered for decades amid the federation system’s relationship with one of its core historic partners, the Jewish Agency for Israel. Despite the federation system’s deep-rooted ties with the Jewish Agency, even local federations often ask the same question.

Maxim Dinshtein

Danyelle Neuman (front row, right), chief development officer at the Jewish Agency for Israel, with Jewish federation leaders during a visit to Ethiopia in an undated photo.

In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, the deep and immediate impact of a dollar allocated to the Jewish Agency has become clearer than ever.

On Oct. 7, as sirens were sounding in Israel’s south and we began to hear early reports of terrorist attacks, the Jewish Agency’s teams were already at work. Representatives of the Fund for the Victims of Terror were speaking with hospital staff. Our absorption centers were rushing new olim into shelters. Teams from the Youth Futures mentoring program were calling children and their families to see if they were alive and safe. Today, Youth Futures is Israel’s nationally recognized positive-intervention program.

For 16 months since that fateful day, the Jewish Agency has answered the call, whether it was evacuating 2,500 olim from devastated areas in Israel, delivering 31,000 food packages to the Amigour facilities for Holocaust survivors and other senior citizens, distributing grants to 13,000 families whose lives are in upheaval through the Fund for the Victims of Terror, or disbursing emergency loans to 11,000 small businesses who are struggling to make ends meet due to the nation’s beleaguered wartime economy or their absence from the business while defending the country. 

Our impact also extends globally — for example, through 586 emergency security grants to Jewish communities in 62 countries that have faced rising security threats following Oct. 7.

These humanitarian accomplishments did not appear out of thin air. Decades of investment from Jewish federations across North America came to fruition in a highly meaningful way. The Jewish Agency was able to spring into action after Oct. 7 and to help the Jewish people when they needed it the most due to the ironclad foundation that we had in place — a foundation built on support from Jewish federations. For example, the first loan funds for Israeli small businesses were actually created through partnerships with Jewish federations in Pittsburgh and Detroit 25 years ago, allowing the Jewish Agency to develop expertise in this area over time. 

And this pattern of real-time crisis response informed by prior experience was taking hold long before the Swords of Iron War. For decades, this has been your federation dollar at work.

And it is not limited to our work in Israel: Almost overnight, the Jewish Agency created 19 refugee centers in four border countries after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Those centers saved tens of thousands of people who fled Ukraine for their lives, and that was only possible because the federation system’s annual campaign dollars have enabled the Jewish Agency to work in the region for the past 45 years.

Or take Ethiopia: Starting in the early 1950s, the Jewish Agency has assisted more than 95,000 Ethiopians with immigration to Israel, reuniting them with family members who already made aliyah. Upon their arrival in Israel today, 13 Jewish Agency absorption centers provide subsidized housing dedicated to the unique cultural needs of Ethiopian olim and serve thousands of Ethiopian immigrants annually. None of this would be possible without the support of Jewish federations.

Indeed, every dollar that donors to Jewish federations have invested in annual campaigns over the years has been quietly building the programs, personnel and infrastructure that have brought the Jewish Agency to the point where we can respond immediately in every moment of crisis.

As we now turn to the next phase of rebuilding Israel in the post-Oct. 7 climate, we will need our partners in the federation system more than ever. Israel will need to be physically, emotionally and mentally restored. Israelis remain displaced within the country; many do not have a home to return to anymore, and many have lost faith in Israel’s leadership. Most are searching for hope.

In my new role as the Jewish Agency’s chief development officer, I am here to work closely with Jewish federations as we deliver that hope. In fact, this mission cuts to the core of my Jewish roots and identity: Upon their arrival in America as Holocaust survivors from Poland, my grandparents were welcomed with open arms and received indispensable assistance from the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. In that same city, by the time I was 7 years old, I had been at several of the federation’s “Super Sunday” phone-a-thon fundraisers. At age 8, both of my parents had won young leadership awards and led missions to Israel with our federation. When I was 9, I boarded a plane with the Milwaukee Jewish community to march at a rally attended by 250,000 people in Washington, D.C., where we would hear famed refusenik and future Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky (who eventually became my boss) make an impassioned plea for the aliyah of Soviet Jews.

All of this is to say that the life-changing work of Jewish federations and the Jewish Agency was embedded into my DNA long before I was old enough to understand the significance of those organizations.

Today, it is also time for Jewish leaders to openly acknowledge what we can do better to make the world more aware of this inextricable, impactful partnership. This means calling attention not only to the moments filled with fanfare — like the aliyah charter flights rescuing Jews from crisis zones in Ethiopia and Ukraine — but also the seemingly mundane moments when key infrastructure is funded or when staff members are hired. Collectively, we must help donors understand how their overseas dollars affect so many lives. You are seeing it now, post-Oct. 7, and we will continue to see it for decades to come, as the Jewish Agency and Jewish federations continue their essential work of building Israel, strengthening Jewish communities around the world and connecting Jews both to Israel and to one another.

Danyelle Neuman is the chief development officer at the Jewish Agency for Israel.