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Three NYC synagogues raise more than one-third of UJA-Federation of New York’s $105M Israel Emergency Fund
(New York Jewish Week) — When Tracey Weiner’s rabbi, Elliot Cosgrove, took the unusual step of asking her to pull out her phone during services last Friday night, at the beginning of the first Shabbat after a massacre of more than 1,300 Israelis, she listened.
Weiner hadn’t necessarily planned to donate to an Israel Emergency Fund opened by New York City’s Jewish federation, but sitting in the sanctuary of Park Avenue synagogue, she scanned a QR code and gave.
“When you hear your rabbi asking for something for a crisis you just can’t not help,” said Weiner, a mom of three on the Upper East Side.
In making the donation, Weiner joined thousands of other New Yorkers in contributing to an aid effort that is widely considered unparalleled in recent times.
Her behavior also reflected the degree to which a handful of institutions have played an outsized role in the city’s fundraising efforts. Park Avenue is on its way to bringing in $18 million to an Israel Emergency Fund at the UJA-Federation of New York, while an Orthodox synagogue a few blocks away has raised $7 million, and a Reform synagogue two miles south announced it has raised $15 million.
Together, the three synagogues contributed nearly half of the $90 million the UJA fund brought in by early this week. As of Friday, that number had increased to $105 million, according to UJA-Federation’s public relations director, Emily Kutner.
“We’re seeing unprecedented generosity beyond anyone’s wildest expectations,” said Mark Medin, UJA-Federation’s executive vice president. (UJA-Federation is a funder of 70 Faces Media, New York Jewish Week’s parent company.) He said the number of donations are “fully understandable given the gravity of the situation in Israel and the desire of New Yorkers to want to help.”
The spike in giving follows a pattern set out by American Jews in 1967 and 1973, the last two times Israel faced invasions from neighboring territories. But the amount flowing to UJA, which as the city’s federation collects and distributes philanthropy according to local needs and priorities, is actually less than in those years.
The $20 million that UJA raised in one week in 1967 would be more than $184 million today. The $27.5 million raised in 1973 would be $190 million today.
One change is that, compared to half a century ago, U.S. Jews can now donate with relative ease directly to Israeli charities and to research a wide array of possible destinations for their financial support. That means the fundraising totals reported by UJA and other federations are likely to reflect a smaller proportion of the total transfer of resources from the United States toward Israel since Oct. 7.
Synagogues are also less powerful forces than they were half a century ago. In 1970, just under half of American Jews said they belonged to a synagogue. According to the most recent Pew survey of U.S. Jews, in 2020 the proportion was about one third.
Still, traditional fundraising venues, including synagogues, have proved during the current crisis to still be effective at generating donations. “People are looking for guidance during this time. Rabbi Cosgrove is so amazing at providing that, so when he speaks and when he asks, people respond,” said Meredith Sotoloff, another Upper East Side mom who donated to UJA at Park Avenue’s behest as well as donating to other Israel causes on her own.
Within New York City, synagogues have taken a wide range of approaches to helping members give to Israel.
Some are pushing their members to give directly to UJA’s Israel Emergency Fund, even setting up dedicated links so their congregants’ giving can be tracked.
As the news emerged about the attack on the morning of Oct. 7, which was both Shabbat and the first of a two-day holiday in the Diaspora, Kehilath Jeshurun, a Modern Orthodox synagogue on the Upper East Side, started to lay the groundwork for giving right away — even though collecting money would violate traditional Jewish law.
“That morning, we had donors raise their hands during services and pledge to give,” said Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz. After continuing the campaign over email throughout the week, Steinmetz said KJ members had donated more than $7 million to the UJA Israel Emergency Fund.
Members at the Reform Central Synagogue have contributed over $15 million directly to UJA’s Israel Emergency Fund, Senior Rabbi Angela Buchdahl told the New York Jewish Week. She added that the congregation has its own, separate Israel Emergency Fund, which has raised over $400,000 and will be distributed to organizations in Israel to help the victims of the terror attack.
Many synagogues are offering their congregants a wide array of options, or collecting funds themselves to distribute directly to needy recipients in Israel without necessarily going through the middleman of UJA.
At Lincoln Square Synagogue, an Orthodox congregation on the Upper West Side, for example, an emergency relief fund for Israel has raised “tens of thousands” of dollars, the entirety of which are going to verified causes to support Israel, according to executive director Tamar Fix.
Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, a Reform congregation, has established its own humanitarian relief fund that has raised nearly $100,000 to support relief efforts in Israel.
And Temple Emanu-El on the Upper East Side, for example, has raised $300,000 that it is distributing to different aid organizations, according to a spokesperson. It also purchased an ambulance for the American Friends of Magen David Adom, Israel’s version of the Red Cross, and is donating funds to repair the children’s medical center at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, which was bombed early in the war.
“As American Jews whose lives have planted us outside of Israel, we may not be able physically to stand beside our brothers and sisters there, but we are not without responsibilities,” said Senior Rabbi Joshua Davidson. “One is to make certain Israel has everything it needs right now to care for and protect its people. And the second is to speak clearly in defense of Israel’s right to protect its people.”
Many synagogues are working to ensure that their members know how to donate their time and energy in addition to their money.
Temple Emanu-El has mobilized congregants to purchase and pack medical and first-aid supplies that are needed in Israel. A synagogue press release offered a long list of specialized supplies that were dropped off in the building’s lobby.
B’nai Jeshurun, a nondenominational synagogue on the Upper West Side, is conducting letter-writing initiatives to Israeli soldiers and children and collecting donations of toiletries, toys and clothes for Israeli families who have been displaced from their homes in the south. It has also curated a list of vetted charities, including but not limited to UJA’s emergency fund.
The congregation’s senior rabbi, José Rolando Matalon, told the New York Jewish Week via email that the wide array of giving options was intentional.
“Rather than duplicating the many fundraising efforts already in place,” he wrote, “we have aggregated specific funds and initiatives that align with our community’s values to help amplify those opportunities to our members looking to give.”
At UJA, Medin told the New York Jewish Week that, of the millions raised, more than $29 million has already gone out in grants to 74 different organizations on the ground in Israel.
He added that historically, the UJA has primarily raised its funds from the New York Jewish community exclusively. But as companies like Fox and Paramount publicize UJA as a place to donate, contributions have been coming in from across the country and the globe.
“We have dozens of partners on the ground in Israel that are doing the work of social services, trauma relief, relocation of people affected by the terror, direct cash assistance to victims of terror,” Medin said. “It’s extraordinarily rewarding to see the incredible generosity of the Jewish community at this critical time.”
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The post Three NYC synagogues raise more than one-third of UJA-Federation of New York’s $105M Israel Emergency Fund appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.