Repair the World didn’t experience a “Surge” in participation post-Oct. 7 — it was a flood. Its attendance numbers have more than doubled, and they’re still rising.

“Repair was built to be a meaningful entry point to Jewish life for young people who are looking for a way to live their Jewish values outside of traditional institutional Judaism, so it made sense that when there was a ‘Surge,’ that the ‘Surge’ was really felt with us,” Cindy Greenberg, president and CEO of Repair the World, told eJewishPhilanthropy.

To meet the increased demand, the organization is expanding its programming, supported by a more than $13 million investment by a collaborative of seven Jewish philanthropic foundations.

“It was really moving to see how many people felt a calling to return to Jewish life and immediately turned to Repair,” Lindsey Spindle, president of the Samueli Family Philanthropies, a member of the collaborative, told eJP.

The Oct. 7 attacks and skyrocketing global antisemitism that followed them provided a wake-up call to philanthropists, she said. To target antisemitism and cultivate Jewish community, they couldn’t do it alone.

“There’s a practical element here that if we want to scale some proven organizations, it takes capital beyond what we have as one organization,” Spindle said. Other foundations supporting the expansion include the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, Crimson Lion/Lavine Family Foundation, Einhorn Collaborative, The Marcus Foundation, Anthony Pritzker Family Foundation and The Tepper Foundation. 

Partnerships also allow foundations to share ideas and what programs are doing the best work in the Jewish world, Spindle said. “Any Jewish organization, any philanthropy, anyone right now who thinks that they can go it alone in this world, I wish them well, but that’s not us.”

Repair the World provides “the winning recipe right now in terms of strengthening Jewish identity, strengthening connection across differences and combating antisemitism,” Spindle said. “There [are] certain things in Jewish life that are formative, but not particularly memorable or joyful, like I think about my Sunday school experience growing up: formative in my Jewish life, not particularly memorable and definitely not joyful. Repair the World has managed to stitch together the triple threat of being formative, memorable and joyful for everyone who goes through the program.”

Founded in 2009, Repair the World provides programming and education around food insecurity, environmental justice, racial inequality and strengthening the education and housing systems.

With the new funding, Repair the World will hire a senior director of bridge-building to create curriculum, train facilitators and facilitate partnerships with non-Jewish organizations as a way to build understanding and unite with others towards the common mission of helping others.

“At a time when the Jewish community has felt, in many spheres, really frustrated by alliances with non-Jewish partners falling apart, what we saw post-Oct. 7 is that all of our partnerships, more than 300 relationships that we have with non-Jewish service partners, all of those have held strong,” Greenberg said. “The bridge-building work that’s done through service is creating strong and durable relationships and partnerships with non-Jews at a time where Jews really need friends.”

Repair the World will also expand its partner-hub model, which embeds staff within larger Jewish organizations in the community, intertwining Repair the World’s mission into the existing structures. The program launched last year in Baltimore and Pittsburgh and will expand to 10 additional communities, one within the next year, with others in the five years to come.

To decide which communities to partner in, “we’re looking at questions like, ‘Where are the largest populations of Jewish young adults?’” Greenberg said. “Where is there serious social service need? Where are there partners who are excited to work with us?”

Repair the World also plans to expand its programming and offer microgrants to the over 50 organizations in its Jewish Service Alliance, which includes OneTable, Mem Global and Hillel International.

With Hillel, Repair the World already offers an internship to nearly 200 students who run programming on campuses. This spring, it will add five to seven service corps made up of a mix of Jewish students and non-Jewish students to bond together to meet society’s most pressing needs, from targeting food insecurity to helping the unhoused.

“This partnership with Repair the World reflects our strategic plan’s commitment to belonging, bridge-building and improving campus climate,” Rabbi Benjamin Berger, Hillel’s senior vice president of Jewish education, community and culture, told eJP. “By expanding service and dialogue opportunities, we are helping Jewish students not only feel at home in Hillel, but also become leaders in shaping more inclusive and connected campus communities.”

Since Oct. 7, 2023, “we’ve seen firsthand how service and dialogue can generate real understanding and connection, even across divides that might feel insurmountable,” Berger said.

Service is a great way to empower Jews, especially “when people feel terrified and hopeless,” Spindle said. “They look for different outlets for sense-making of the world, and one of the best ways to make sense of the world is to be in connection and service with others. [They may feel] I can’t solve Middle East peace, but I can volunteer at my local food bank.”

Right now, young Jews feel “unmoored,” Spindle said. They are trying to find their way in the world post-Oct. 7.

“Oftentimes they don’t belong to a congregation because it’s either too expensive or too intimidating to go alone, and so Repair the World is a perfect place for them to park and root their Jewish identity in action,” Spindle said. “They don’t want to sit and stew. They want to think and act and connect.” 

In 2020, Repair the World set a goal to reach 1 million acts of service by 2030. They are projected to meet that goal by 2026. The new grant will allow the organization to set a new goal to facilitate 1.8 million additional acts of service and learning within the next five years. 

“There’s no shortage of service work to be done in our communities, especially in this moment in America right now, where many of our neighbors are feeling the social safety net pulled out from under them,” Greenberg said. “We’re in a moment where it’s really overwhelming to look at the brokenness of the world. Everywhere you look, there’s something in need of repair, and I really believe that each act of service is an act of hope.”