Three years ago, Global Jewry was launched with the mission of connecting and convening Jewish organizations across denominations, ideologies and borders. Started with a network of zero, today it counts more than 500 partner organizations and 1,000 advisory council members from all over the world — and the momentum is only growing. 

Jewish organizational life has never been richer: thousands of institutions spanning religious practice, education, culture, advocacy, social services and innovation, supported by a philanthropic ecosystem that invests billions of dollars annually. Denominational bodies, regional federations, professional associations and countless networks already do vital work connecting organizations within their spheres. Yet, for all this abundance, no infrastructure exists to link the full breadth of that ecosystem — to help the whole become greater than the sum of its extraordinary parts. 

Yuichiro Chino/Getty Images

We can change that overnight if every major Jewish foundation set aside just 1%  of its annual grantmaking — not for a new program or institution, but specifically to fund the relationships, networks and trust that make every other Jewish investment more effective. For foundations, that allocation would function as a force multiplier: one percent that increases the impact of the other ninety-nine. For the Jewish world, it would mean something larger: the connective infrastructure needed to unlock our full collective potential. 

What follows is the story of why that investment matters, what building that infrastructure looks like in practice and why, at this pivotal moment in Jewish history, the time to act is now.

A network built on memory — and urgency

Global Jewry began with loss. Ilia Salita, president and CEO of Genesis Philanthropy Group, died suddenly in 2020 months before his 53rd birthday, leaving behind a community that had benefitted greatly from his intellectual curiosity, rigor and deep love for the Jewish people. In his memory, the Jewish Funders Network established the Ilia Salita Excellence in Research Award, honoring projects that directly and positively impact contemporary Jewish life. For those who knew him, it was a fitting tribute to a man with a passion for informed, data-driven philanthropy.

Inspired by that tribute and by the values it represented, those closest to Salita began asking how to carry his vision forward in an active and ongoing way — a living expression of the same principles. Ilia had been leading Our Common Destiny, a Jewish peoplehood initiative that sought to articulate a shared set of principles capable of uniting Jews across geographic, political, religious and cultural divides. When the Declaration of Our Common Destiny he helped craft was lauded by then-Israeli President Reuven Rivlin as a “road map for the Jewish future,” it became clear that the vision deserved a permanent home.

Then, in early 2023, the debate surrounding judicial reform in Israel exposed fault lines far deeper than policy disagreement. Jewish communities around the world — many already navigating their own divisions — watched as the acrimony tested relationships rather than challenging ideas. Jews have always argued. Debate is part of the tradition. But this moment felt different: it raised the question of what happens when disagreement begins to erode the bonds that hold communities together.

Global Jewry was created as a response to that question. Launched in June 2023, it began as a modest experiment in connection — bringing together leaders, thinkers and supporters who believed that stronger relationships across the Jewish world were both possible and necessary.

Then came Oct. 7, 2023.

Like Jewish communities everywhere, those involved with Global Jewry experienced shock, grief and disorientation in the wake of the Hamas attacks and the war that followed. The surge in antisemitism and the deepening communal strain that emerged afterward accelerated the sense of urgency across Jewish life. If the judicial reform debates had exposed internal divisions, Oct. 7 underscored something equally important: fractured communities struggle to respond to shared challenges. 

For Global Jewry, the attacks did not change the mission. They clarified it. The solidarity that emerged so quickly and dramatically across the Jewish world made it clear the sense of am echad and mishpacha achat — one people, one family — and a shared destiny was alive and well. It needed only to be nurtured, not created. 

What Global Jewry has built

What began as an experiment has grown into something much larger. As the network expanded, a key insight emerged: Durable connection requires more than individual relationships; it requires institutional pathways. Individuals change roles, but organizations endure. If the goal is scale and sustainability, institutions must be woven into the fabric of the work.

That realization also revealed a striking gap in the Jewish organizational ecosystem. While bodies such as the World Zionist Organization, the World Jewish Congress and the Jewish Agency for Israel serve as effective umbrellas for their respective constituencies — as do global denominational frameworks and regional bodies like the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations — none is designed to engage the full breadth of the Jewish organizational world. There has never been a worldwide, field-building network that links organizations of all sizes, interests and purposes to increase trust, cooperation and collective impact across Jewish life. There has never been a single table where leaders from across the full spectrum of Jewish organizations can come together as peers.

Global Jewry decided to build that table.

We have spent the last three years creating spaces where relationships become action. Our global roundtables bring together leaders around shared interests — education, arts and culture, climate and sports, among others — creating ongoing communities of practice that cross institutional and geographic lines. The Circle, a newer initiative, deepens engagement with individual leaders, activists, creatives and changemakers, expanding Global Jewry’s reach across Europe and beyond. An awards and prizes program elevates impactful work, encourages new thinking and signals that excellence across the Jewish world deserves recognition. And a growing digital presence has helped extend these conversations beyond formal structures, allowing ideas and relationships to travel faster.

None of this represents an endpoint. It provides evidence of both an appetite and a need for stronger connective tissue across Jewish life.

The challenge beneath many of our challenges

Technology has erased geographic boundaries. Communities that once operated largely within local frameworks can now communicate across continents instantly. And yet, the institutions that shape Jewish communal life remain siloed by geography, denomination, language, ideology and sector.

The result is a paradox that defines one of the central challenges of global Jewish life today: while Jewish communities increasingly confront shared opportunities and shared threats, they often continue to work in isolation. Organizations solving similar problems remain unaware of one another. Efforts are duplicated. Opportunities for partnership are lost simply because the right people have never met. Jewish professionals frequently know people within their own circles but have limited relationships beyond them. Leaders reinvent solutions that already exist elsewhere.

The issue is not a lack of talent, passion or resources. It is a lack of connective infrastructure.

Yet within this fragmentation lies genuine opportunity. The Jewish organizational ecosystem is extraordinarily diverse — distinct cultures, methodologies, worldviews and areas of expertise. Properly connected, that diversity becomes a strategic advantage. Educational innovators in one country could share proven practices with organizations halfway across the globe. Philanthropic leaders could discover high-impact initiatives outside their existing networks. Organizations could find trusted partners faster, collaborate more easily and learn from one another across sectors.

The opportunity is not to create more organizations. It is to create better connections between the ones that already exist.

The 1% Solution: A call to Jewish philanthropy

Every healthy ecosystem depends on infrastructure. Businesses rely on transportation networks. Universities rely on professional associations and scholarly conferences. Nations invest in roads and bridges because those systems enable everything else to function. The Jewish organizational ecosystem — with its extraordinary scale and complexity — deserves similar infrastructure.

Yet while Jewish philanthropy invests billions of dollars annually in programs and institutions, it invests comparatively little in the relationships that allow those institutions to work together. We fund what organizations do. Rarely do we fund the connections between them.

That is where the 1% Solution comes in.

What if every major Jewish foundation dedicated just 1% of its annual giving to strengthening the relationships, networks and trust that make all other Jewish investments more effective? Not another capital campaign. Not another program silo. Not another institution competing for resources. Just 1% dedicated to connecting Jews with one another, increasing understanding across a diverse community and fostering the cooperation needed to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

The logic is straightforward. Trust creates cooperation. Cooperation creates collaboration. Collaboration creates impact. A single introduction can lead to a partnership. A partnership can lead to a breakthrough initiative. An initiative can transform a community. When relationships deepen, opportunities multiply. When organizations collaborate, philanthropic dollars go further.

Every foundation seeks to maximize impact. One of the most effective ways to increase the impact of every grant may be to strengthen the network in which those grants operate.

Fortunately, the Jewish community does not need to build this infrastructure from scratch. Global Jewry already exists with this mission at its core. Its purpose is not to advance a particular ideology, denomination, political agenda or institutional interest. Its mission is to strengthen the relationships that enable the broader Jewish world to thrive: convening important conversations with synergistic partners on topics that matter across the Jewish world, making introductions, encouraging ongoing relationships, increasing the flow of information and ideas, catalyzing joint ventures and experiences and sustaining engagement. What distinguishes Global Jewry from other network-oriented organizations is not size or reach, but this singular focus: strengthening connection itself as the mission, not as a byproduct of some other agenda.

And there is a governance model to match the ambition. Global Jewry could be governed by the Jewish organizations that partner with it. Representatives of those organizations could serve on a rotating board, elect officers from among themselves and provide ongoing oversight — ensuring that the initiative remains broadly representative, accountable and self-governing rather than controlled by any single institution or constituency.

The moment demands it

The challenges facing the Jewish people are too large for any institution to solve alone. They span borders, generations, denominations and ideologies. They demand faster knowledge-sharing, stronger relationships and a capacity for collective action that currently does not exist at scale.

What Global Jewry has learned in three years is that when people are given genuine opportunities to connect across traditional boundaries, they do. The hunger is real. The need is urgent. And the infrastructure — still nascent, still growing — is beginning to take shape.

The next great advance in Jewish philanthropy will not come from funding something new. It will come from investing in relationships that make everything else possible. 

As our sages teach, “Do not separate yourself from the community.” The Jewish future will be built not by going alone, but by going together. 

Sandy Cardin is the founder of Global Jewry, an initiative devoted to strengthening the bonds that connect and unite Jews all over the world.