We are living through a moment when American Jews are being asked to do something impossible: We are asked to feel safe while our children are targeted on campuses. We are asked to be quiet while “Zionist” becomes a slur. We are asked to trust institutions that suddenly can’t recognize antisemitism unless it arrives wearing a swastika and carrying a banner.

We are asked, in other words, to normalize the abnormal.

Jewish life in America is at an inflection point. The pressures facing us from all sides are unparalleled in modern American Jewish history. And yes, philanthropic dollars have surged into the fight, with real accomplishments to show for it. But the national Jewish conversation still has a blind spot so large it hasn’t even entered the conversation.

Here is the truth we have to say out loud: The survival of American Jewish life will not be decided only in the biggest coastal hubs. It will be decided in the places where Jewish life is fragile enough to fail and close enough to revive.

I am grateful for the billions that have poured into Jewish defense, education, campus life and security. National organizations and large communities deserve support. They are visible targets and anchor institutions. Donors understandably give where they live and where their families have deep roots. The gifts are rational. The priorities are understandable.

But the map is incomplete.

If smaller communities in the American heartland thin out, age out or disappear, we will have traded a broad national Jewish presence for a brittle coastal future. We will become a people whose American story narrows to a handful of metropolitan zip codes. That is not merely sad. It is reckless.

Because small and mid-sized communities are where Jewish life is most at an inflection point. These are places where the margin for error is thin, but the upside is enormous.

These communities are not helpless, and they are not waiting to be rescued. Generations of Jews have poured their sweat, their tears, and their philanthropy into making sure there would be something here for their children to inherit. They built buildings and balance sheets, but also habits of showing up for minyan, for committee meetings, for carpool, for shiva. What they need now is not a savior, but partners who understand that their stubborn perseverance is itself one of the great assets of American Jewish life.

These are communities where a single new family can revive a congregation. A single inspired professional can reverse a decade of decline. A single smart investment can take an entire ecosystem from survival to growth.

In these communities, Jewish life does not survive on inertia. It survives on intent.

Here is what that looks like on the ground: A day school that provides excellent education but is financially strained; a JCC trying to keep early childhood strong while juggling rising staffing costs; a synagogue with committed leadership, but the constant anxiety of whether there will be enough young families to sustain the next 20 years; a security bill that lands like a tax on Jewish belonging; a community that wants to build a proud, confident relationship with Israel, but lacks the resources to do it at the scale of the challenges.

Now add the broader national reality. The post-Oct. 7 world did not simply increase antisemitism. It changed its posture. It made hostility to Jews and hostility to Israel fashionable in places that shape culture and status. It gave permission to people who were previously embarrassed by their prejudices. It introduced a new test of Jewish belonging to American life: the expectation that Jews must publicly distance themselves from Israel to be considered morally acceptable.

That expectation is poison.

And smaller communities feel the tremors acutely because they do not have institutional redundancy. In major hubs, if one program falters, another picks up the slack. In the heartland, a single vacancy in leadership or a single lost cohort of young families can trigger a chain reaction that is hard to stop and even harder to reverse.

We are not short on generosity. We are short on alignment.

The return on investment in the heartland is extraordinary. A million dollars in a major city might renovate office space. A million dollars in a small community can change the future. It can endow a senior professional position. It can keep Jewish education affordable for young families. It can stabilize early childhood as a pipeline for long-term engagement. It can fund Israel education that is proud and literate. It can cover security without cannibalizing the programming that actually makes Jewish life worth protecting.

It can buy time.

And time is what small communities need most to turn a fragile moment into a durable revival.

There is also a deeper philosophical point we should not ignore.

A Judaism that can only thrive in a few mega-communities is a Judaism that has quietly surrendered a core part of its identity. The American Jewish story has never been only coastal. It was built across the map by families who refused to accept that meaningful Jewish life was a luxury reserved for big cities. They built synagogues, schools, committees and institutions in places that many Jews have never heard of, let alone been to. They believed Jewish life should be national, not regional.

We should be no less ambitious than they were.

So here is my challenge to national Jewish donors and legacy philanthropists:

Adopt a heartland community.

Not as charity. As strategy. As peoplehood. As an investment in a national Jewish future that actually deserves the name.

Perhaps your grandfather started a schmatta business in Toledo, Ohio, before moving west to Chicago. Maybe your great-grandparents ran the only kosher butcher shop in Tulsa, Okla., before relocating the family to Dallas. Maybe a few generations ago, your family immigrated and found work in the mills of southern Maine before ending up in Boston. Maybe there’s just a community that needs your support and can put your dollars to good work. Whatever the reason, I implore you to pick one.

Fund the bridge years that allow a small community to recruit and retain excellent clergy and professionals. Underwrite the innovation pilots that keep young families rooted and engaged. Strengthen early childhood and accessible Jewish education, still the most reliable engines of continuity. Support Israel education that is confident and literate, not brittle, apologetic or reactive. Invest in security, yes, but do not let security become the only story we tell ourselves about the future. Fear can be a warning system. It cannot be the whole blueprint.

If we are serious about confronting the crisis of Jewish life in America, we must widen our aperture. The map of Jewish resilience cannot be reduced to a few major metros and a nostalgic belief that they will always carry the rest.

The heartland cannot be a footnote to the American Jewish story. It must be a proving ground.

And in this moment, investing in smaller communities is the most realistic way to ensure that American Jewish life in 2050 is not smaller, older and more anxious, but broader, younger and more confident.

If we want a national Jewish future, we must fund a national Jewish present.

Joe Roberts is the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa, Okla.

(Disclosure: eJewishPhilanthropy Managing Editor Judah Ari Gross is an Elson Israel Fellow of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa, Okla.)