Q&A

UJA-Federation of New York’s Israel office reflects on what’s been done and what’s to come a year after Oct. 7 attacks

Israel office's director-general, Itzik Shmuli, and director of planning and strategy, Yael Israel-Cohen, tell eJP that the charity is focusing on Israel's north as war against Hezbollah heats up and rebuilding the south

As one of the largest Jewish philanthropic institutions in North America, UJA-Federation of New York has played a key role in American Jewry’s support for Israelis since the Oct. 7 terror attacks last year, contributing more than a quarter of the total sum donated to the Jewish Federations of North America’s Israel Emergency Fund — roughly $215 million out of some $855 million.

This has gone to support for mental health initiatives, civil defense efforts, employment programs and — in some cases in the early days of the war — effectively providing blank checks to displaced communities to help them get situated in new locations as government support lagged.

As the war against Hamas in Gaza grinds on and a ground war against Hezbollah in Lebanon ramps up, eJewishPhilanthropy spoke recently with Itzik Shmuli, the director general of UJA-Federation of New York’s Israel office, and Yael Israel-Cohen, director of planning and strategy of the charity’s Israel office, about their continued efforts: how the organization is continuing and expanding its collaboration with local nonprofits and municipalities, the role that it plays in filling the gaps left by the government, as well as a recent mission from New York on the one-year anniversary of the attack earlier this month. 

The interview has been edited for clarity.

Judith Sudilovsky: How is UJA-Fed NY responding to the current sociopolitical climate in Israel when planning its fundraising and grant-making initiatives?

Itzik Shmueli: In such times, it is easy to lose hope, but we don’t. First of all, let’s talk about Israelis and then about UJA. Israelis are really stepping up in order to meet the moment and going out of their way to support each other and cover many unmet needs, emergency needs that were neglected by the government. Obviously this is happening also thanks to unprecedented philanthropic support. UJA-Federation of New York is, I think, the biggest philanthropic player on the ground. We are partnering with more than 350 organizations all over Israel from Eilat to Kiryat Shemona, including municipalities, and rescue and emergency organizations. Thanks to the generosity of so many in our community, we have been able to support Israeli society in these hard times in an unprecedented way and help so many in their need. And let’s remember that this is happening while this community as well as other communities is fighting another front as antisemitism is skyrocketing in America.

The UJA has raised $215 million — all told — in Israel emergency funds, approximately $160 million [for the] “regular” [fund] and approximately $55 million for the “Day After Fund.”

But it is not only the money, it’s also the work UJA has done so far in assuring the issue of the return of the hostages remains in the news, and so many delegations keep coming to Israel. This gives you a sense of how people are involved and how they see this moment. This is obviously a defining moment for Israel, but we see it as a defining moment for the entire Jewish people and this is why our community is so involved.

JS: Are there any specific projects or initiatives that UJA-Fed NY will prioritize for funding this coming year?

IS: While UJA has supported northern communities, organizations and municipalities since the beginning of the war, and has recently approved two emergency packages for the area, the north needs to get more attention from the philanthropic community. In our meetings with residents from Manara, the mayor of Majdal Shams, and during our security briefings, it became evident that the north requires more resources in the short and long term.

In the north, we are probably the biggest player on the ground. We have been active in three main areas: Emergency preparedness, community resilience, and education and trauma support. According to official data, more than 70,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in the North and if we were to include evacuees by choice, this number would jump by at least 30%. They live in temporary housing, including hotels and all of them are missing the normal structures of work, school, community. We give direct support to communities that are located up to 3.5 kilometers [2.2 miles] from the border and were evacuated. Financially and sometimes structurally, they don’t have the resources and the capacities to support the emergency needs. At the same time, we help strengthen shelter cities like Tiberias, Nahariya or Eilat in the south, that have absorbed dozens of thousands of evacuees, but lack the infrastructure and capacities to cover the immense scope of the need.

We also are supporting “trapped communities,” those communities that are located outside the 3.5 kilometers cut-off, meaning outside the evacuation zone, and therefore not receiving government support… but these residents are living in a war zone with lives that have been completely disrupted. Places like Safed, Katzrin, Rosh Pina, Hurfeish and many others have become the new front line, and they are receiving almost no support from the government. They were left behind and don’t get the resources they need to maintain the emergency situation and support the residents. Because it’s so hard, maybe impossible, to handle so much alone, this is where philanthropy comes into play and provides support. We are currently directly supporting 70 communities or so in the North. We get detailed plans from the municipality, from the mayor, and the local leadership, and then they choose the professional providers, usually NGO’s, who can help cover some of the needs.

Rebuilding the south is today the most urgent Zionist project, our investments through Project Horizon speak to the urgency and importance of the rebuilding of the area — this is a historical moment, and this is our historic mission.

In addition we are supporting the Nova party survivors and their families, and providing economic support for some of the hostage families, many of whom quit their jobs to be focused on the campaign to get their loved ones back and struggle economically, so 75% of the families get support from the fund that we created about seven or eight months ago in cooperation with the Hostage and Missing Families Forum. We are also supporting a few designated funds that were established to support orphans, as well as children and young adults who have returned from Hamas captivity and need help in rebuilding their lives.

Yael Israel-Cohen: Also in the north we’ve significantly supported hospitals and community emergency preparedness squads which have held a lot of the burden of protecting their homes and their communities around the fires [which have broken out in the north from the missiles and rockets launched into Israel by Hezbollah.] With this very significant emergency initiative that we have undertaken within the past month or so we have provided over $2 million in firefighting equipment within a week to these squads in partnership through the Brothers and Sisters for Israel civil aid organization, providing all of the necessary PPE and hand-held firefighting equipment in order to help the communities put out the fires themselves when firefighters can’t reach them fast enough. This was done in coordination with the firefighters themselves. We’ve heard even in the past week how much that has saved lives and property in many of the communities that the fire department cannot get to because they are so overwhelmed.

JS: Are you also providing support to the non-Jewish communities in the north?

Shmueli: It’s important to note that approximately 40% of the residents in the north are Arab and Druze, and we are committed to responses that are culturally appropriate and serve their unique needs and sensibilities. This is a significant pillar in our portfolio. When it comes to preparedness and trauma care or community resiliency, we are there providing support in each and every Arab village or Druze village in the area such as Beit Jann, Hufreish, Majdal Shams. The municipal leaders provide us with information about what are the needs they want to prioritize such as preparedness, and acquisition of equipment they don’t have in order to handle the situation or activities they want to do to support the residents, whether it be for the elderly or the youth.

JS: Could you talk about your work in the south?

YIC: We realized very early on after the war broke out that we need to connect directly to the needs of the communities themselves. We were in the south a lot, and we spoke to a lot of organizations and a lot of communities, and they felt there was a lot of funding being raised, but it was going over their heads so we decided we need to connect directly to the communities to understand their needs and empower them in order to rebuild themselves. So Project Horizon started just about a month or two after the war.  We connected with the Business Alliance, which is a group of 150 companies in Israel that also were in the South and connected to the community, and together we created Project Horizon which is direct support to the kibbutzim and moshavim that were the hardest hit. So we provided a similar framework like in the north of informal education, trauma care, community resilience activities, employment needs and also supporting positions within the kibbutzim and moshavim that didn’t exist prior, because, for example, if you had a community leader who basically had to work on just making sure the community had a few events a year, now they were dealing with a massacre, and how you rebuild the community from a massacre. That is a different capacity that they needed to build, and so Project Horizon is helping support those needs from putting more people in place to deal with the community, to things like bringing the communities together from three or four different evacuation hotels or spots so that they can recover together. Now we are in 20 communities and will likely add 20 to 30 more in the coming months. We have committed $11.5 million ($8 million allocated so far and an additional $3.5 million for current expansion to more communities). The Boston Jewish federation has also allocated $3 million and is considering additional funding for expansion and the Washington D.C. Jewish federation has contributed $1 million.

The government does not provide so much in the form of group therapy in the area of trauma. They do a lot of one-on-one therapy through the Resilience Centers, but not group therapy and horseback riding and things that youth might actually participate in, whereas they might not go to one-on-one therapy. So we’ve provided a lot of support in that area.

We tried a funding model in which each of the kibbutzim and moshavim, some received about $1 million, some further out, received $500,000 and those who are even further out are receiving about $300,000. We told them this was their funding framework. They came to us once they had a strategy in place of how they needed support. We helped empower them to make decisions by letting them come to us when they are prepared.

It’s between a year to 18 months of support. I think this is strengthening how philanthropy works in the field to meet the need at that time, and to say we are building a relationship with the communities.

Another area that we focus on significantly in the south is creating a trauma-informed education system. You have all of the south basically going back to school but how do schools deal with the level of trauma the children are dealing with and the emotional needs of the students. A pillar of our work there is making sure that the schools have additional hands that can be there to make sure that students who need additional support have it, that people are well trained. It’s not only that kids can face depression and PTSD, but also the level of aggression goes up. These kinds of spillovers from trauma are extremely important to keep an eye on. So we’ve supported several initiatives together with municipalities to look at a trauma informed education system.

And in addition to the Nova survivors and hostage families another special population that we’ve built the capacities in the field with is in the area of support for reservists and their families. It’s an area that really didn’t exist in Israel prior; other than mental health or PTSD treatment for soldiers there was no ecosystem for support for reservists and their families. I think UJA-Federation of New York, because it’s such a big player, is often able to develop an entire field such as this.

These are some of the areas we are able to invest in significantly and will continue to do so, continuing to develop: community support, support for reservists and their families, trauma informed education system. So in the year forward, we will be continuing to work with the communities in the north and the south directly. We are continuing to support the needs of those who are the hardest hit and damaged so that also includes Nova survivors and hostage families. Unfortunately, the war is not behind us. We’re in the midst of it. So all of our strategies are continuing in place.

JS: Where is the Israeli government in all this?

IS: I just want to mention that although we have invested a lot in general, but in the north specifically, we are still demanding the government to take more responsibility, recognizing that philanthropy should work alongside the government and not replace it. So together with Joint Elka [an arm of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which works to maximize the ability of public systems in Israel to provide social services to the residents of the State of Israel in an efficient and effective manner], UJA will launch an initiative to promote a government decision for investing in support programs for those affected by Oct. 7 and its ramifications We don’t tell the government how it should distribute its resources, but there are needs, and we are telling them these are the needs, and these needs cost about NIS 20-30 billion [$5.3-$8 billion].

JS: What were the primary objectives of the recent UJA mission to Israel?

IS: The emergency is not over. More than a year after Oct. 7, the country is still in a state of emergency, with the background of the war in the north, the ongoing fighting in Gaza and the Iranian threat, this is something which is unlikely to change in the near future. This is something that Israel and Jewish philanthropy have never faced before and that can be described as a “state of chronic emergency.”

In order to respond to this crisis, it is essential to get more people in the Jewish community aware of the state of chronic emergency, where multiple emergencies and new needs continue to arise, while we continue to support organizations and communities dealing with the consequences of Oct. 7.

This mission provided our leadership and the supreme donors the opportunity to engage and be connected to what is happening in Israel.

It took place on the week of Oct. 7, a week of national, community and individual mourning — our CEO [Eric Goldstein] spoke at the Nova commemoration event on the 6th, and during the ceremony at Re’im on the 7th at 6:29am. We attended several family mourning events, visited Kibbutz Kisuffim and Moshav Netiv HaAsara. In the words of one of the participants: ‘When we visited Israel a few weeks after Oct. 7 we saw the face of evil. The destruction that Hamas left behind. This time we got to know the face of bereavement, of mourning.’

In addition, since UJA-Federation of New York is a lay-led organization this was a good opportunity for us as the Israel office to get their insights and thoughts about the current role, the current strategy, what are the areas and the challenges they think we should double down on. I think it’s crucial to make sure that we are aligned with our leadership and our supporters’ expectations in general.

YIC: I think an additional goal for having them come was for them to see the impact that their dollars are making. Ultimately, this is all made possible because they provided the funds needed in order for UJA to make a difference. So making sure they see the impact of their dollars in the field is extremely important.

One Nova survivor came up to them at the memorial ceremony and told them: “If it had not been for your help [for support therapy] I would not have been able to be here today.” Hearing directly about the impact their donations made was very emotional. The entire mission was very emotional. You can’t come to Israel at this time and not be impacted.