After the United States and Israel launched a joint strike on Iranian military infrastructure and leaders on Saturday morning, international Jewish organizations called for increased vigilance in Diaspora communities over fear of Iranian attacks on Jewish communities abroad and hailed the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, noting his decades of support for terrorist organizations around the world.

Jewish groups also expressed solidarity with the Israeli people as Tehran began launching retaliatory missile barrages. As of Sunday, at least 10 people has been killed and dozens have been injured in Iranian missile attacks, including one in the central city of Beit Shemesh on Sunday afternoon and an earlier one that struck Tel Aviv late Saturday night.

Several international Jewish groups with operations in Israel, such as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Jewish Agency, launched crisis response efforts.

“As people gather in bomb shelters, JDC’s mental health specialists are working in hundreds of municipalities around the country,” JDC said. “[If] needed, JDC will expand its comprehensive housing program to aid those who lost homes in attacks.”

The Jewish Agency said that it had launched a “24/7 task force” on Saturday. “We are in close coordination with security authorities and partners in Israel and worldwide, ready to act wherever support is needed,” the organization said. “In Israel, we are mobilizing operational responses and assisting affected communities, while staying closely connected with Jewish communities around the globe.”

The World Jewish Congress and American Jewish Committee called for support for the Iranian people, following the death of Khamenei.

“For more than four decades, Tehran armed and directed terror proxies, fueled regional instability, threatened Israel, targeted American interests, expanded its ballistic missile program, pursued nuclear capability and oppressed its own people,” William Daroff and Betsy Berns Korn, the CEO and board chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said in a statement. 

“Ayatollah Ali Khamenei presided over this campaign of terror, overseeing the arming of proxy networks, the advancement of nuclear and missile threats, and the repression of the Iranian people. His death closes a chapter defined by sustained hostility and regional destabilization.”

A small number of progressive Jewish groups, such as J Street and T’ruah, condemned the military campaign — known in Israel as Operation Roaring Lion and in the U.S. as Operation Epic Fury — describing it as “reckless.” Other left-leaning groups, such as New Jewish Narrative, noted the dissonance between the stated reasons for the renewed military strikes — the threats posed by Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs — with the American and Israeli statements following the Israel-Iran war in June, in which both countries claimed to have destroyed, or at least significantly set back, those threats.

While the Jewish Democratic Council of America expressed support for the strikes against the Iranian regime, the group raised concerns about the lack of congressional approval for the war and the lack of clearly articulated objectives for the campaign.

In a Saturday morning post on X, Secure Community Network (SCN) released updated community guidelines for event security during Shabbat and in the days leading up to Purim in light of the war, and encouraged diaspora Jewish communities to coordinate with local security professionals and report any suspicious activity.

In light of Iran’s extensive use of proxies and efforts to launch attacks on Jewish institutions around the world, a coalition of Jewish security groups — the Secure Community Network, Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Federations of North America, Community Security Initiative of New York and Community Security Service — issued a set of recommendations to mitigate potential threats. The groups emphasized that while heightened awareness is necessary, there is currently no “credible, active threat” against Jewish targets in the United States. 

“All security protocols in North America should be fully observed,” said JFNA President and CEO Eric Fingerhut. “May this moment bring a renewed understanding of our shared responsibility for the future of the Jewish people and the free world.”  

Some religious groups noted the proximity of the strikes to the upcoming Purim holiday, which celebrates the Jews of Persia rising up against an enemy — Haman — who sought to destroy them. “Today, in coordination with Prime Minister Netanyahu and the IDF, President Trump and the U.S. Armed Forces took decisive action to silence a modern threat from the same ancestral land of Haman,” the Orthodox Union wrote in a statement on Saturday night. “Iran’s insatiable aspirations to become a nuclear power cannot be tolerated, and today’s action in eliminating the ayatollah is an important step in ensuring it doesn’t happen.”