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Growing number of young Jews turning to service to express their Jewish values
When Jon Cohen was in college a decade ago studying biology and chemistry with plans for medical school, he knew he wanted to make a difference in the world beyond the Florida State University campus in Tallahassee.
So he and some friends decided to launch a community project teaching science to children from low-income households living nearby. Every Friday, they’d conduct experiments with the kids designed to spark excitement and curiosity about the world around them in a way that would leave an impact on them beyond school.
The idea of service was something Cohen had grown up with in his more affluent Miami suburb, and he wanted to take some time off between college and medical school to devote to it. When, as a college senior, Cohen saw an email about a Jewish service fellowship with Repair the World, he applied.
“I was really interested in seeing what justice-minded Judaism was like,” Cohen recalls.
His family didn’t practice Judaism framed through the lens of morals and values, he said, but rather through rituals like Sabbath observances and attending synagogue. He didn’t go to a Jewish day school or summer camp, he didn’t know Hebrew, and when his parents divorced, they stopped observing Shabbat, leaving Cohen with few pathways for Jewish connection.
When Cohen started his fellowship in New York for Repair the World, he realized he had found a different model for Jewish action — one that felt more meaningful. Cohen worked with Digital Girl, an organization that teaches computer coding to kids of all genders in underfunded schools in neighborhoods like Chinatown, Bedford-Stuyvesant and East New York where many people live in poverty.
Cohen is one of over 230 people who have “served” full-time through Repair the World’s fellowship. Another 740 have completed Repair’s service corps, a three-month, part-time Jewish service learning program for young adults. Since 2009, Repair has partnered with approximately 2,880 service organizations, resulting in over 516,000 acts of service and learning. The goal is to reach 1 million by 2026.
This kind of Jewish engagement is indicative of a sea change in the Jewish communal world: Service is now an integral part of American Jewish life and a meaningful form of Jewish expression, especially for younger adults. Service projects increasingly are how American Jews put their faith into practice and find purpose through humanitarian acts.
“Younger generations are deeply passionate about making the world a better place and improving their communities,” said Robb Lippitt, chair of Repair the World’s board of directors. “Connecting this passion to their Jewish values is something that Repair does really well.”
The organization sends Jewish young adults to serve both with Jewish and non-Jewish organizations addressing needs such as food, housing, and other local needs. Repair the World’s activities are structured with an eye toward making them meaningful Jewish experiences.
“Everything we do is done through both a Jewish and a social impact lens,” said Cindy Greenberg, Repair’s president and CEO. “In addition to hands-on service, we look at the issue area at hand and ask: Why is my service needed? What are the underlying societal challenges impacting this issue and how might it be healed? And what does Jewish wisdom have to say about these challenges and our obligation to repair the world?”
Janu Mendel, the Southeast regional director of Repair the World, tends to vegetation at a local community farm in Miami. (Courtesy of Repair the World)
Greenberg said expanding the Jewish service movement will lead to a flourishing Jewish community and strengthen society generally.
Repair the World was founded 13 years ago to make service a defining element of Jewish life. Since then, studies have shown that Jewish young adults increasingly express their Jewish identity by caring for the vulnerable.
“Over 13 years, Repair the World has been the driving force of the Jewish service movement, ensuring that these experiences are grounded in serious Jewish learning,” said Barry Finestone, president and CEO of the Jim Joseph Foundation, one of Repair’s funders. “Repairs organizational partnerships, fellowship programs, and proven best practices define the movement today — and enable so many to find purpose in Jewish life while creating change.”
While most of those who serve with Repair — about three quarters — are Jewish, much of the impact is in non-Jewish communities. About eight years ago, for example, the organization began partnering with St. John’s Bread and Life, a faith-based emergency food provider in Brooklyn that operates a food pantry, serves hot meals and hosts a mobile kitchen.
St. John’s serves approximately 1,000 hot meals a day, according to Sister Marie Sorenson, the chaplain there. The current Repair the World fellow serving with St. John’s has continued volunteer outreach, ensuring that unhoused and food-insecure individuals and families in the neighborhood have their nutritional needs met with compassion and respect. Repair also has organized volunteers to give thousands of toiletries, personal hygiene kits, baby wipes, diapers and baby formula to clients of St. John’s.
“Because we are both faith-based service organizations, we have really connected well with each other,” Sorenson said.
This commitment to food justice is connected to Repair’s service impact nationwide. Repair has mobilized volunteers to donate 200,000 pounds of food and prepared or served more than 100,000 meals to people in need throughout the country.
In the partnership with St. John’s, the Christian participants tend to be locals who have extra time or are retirees, whereas the Repair volunteers are “young people who value service, who value giving back to the community,” Sorenson noted.
Repair is funded by a wide array of supporters, including Jewish federations across the country, the Jim Joseph Foundation, and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies. Repair’s expansive pandemic response, Serve the Moment, drew funding from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott and the Jewish Communal Response and Impact Fund, known as JCRIF.
Repair has also invested significantly in partnerships with other Jewish organizations to maximize reach and impact.
“The power of Repair’s model is the opportunity it provides for young adult volunteers to learn from and work in deep partnership with the communities they are serving — while engaging in Jewish life and learning,” said Lisa Eisen, Repair’s founding board chair and co-president of Schusterman Family Philanthropies. “We saw this so clearly through the pandemic, when Repair mobilized tens of thousands of young Jews to support people in need while also providing an avenue for them to stay connected to each other and Jewish community.”
Eric Fingerhut, the president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, described service programs as a gateway to greater Jewish involvement. “We believe service is a powerful tool for expanding engagement in Jewish life across the system,” Fingerhut said.
Volunteers paint and restore a community space during MLK Weekend of service in New York. (Shulamit Photo + Video)
Lippitt, Repair’s board chair, noted that Repair’s service work is especially important given the divisions in the country right now.
“It’s a vitally important bridge-building experience with our neighbors in these divided times,” he said. “The benefits that come at this moment in American history of getting out in the community and serving alongside people who may not see the world as you do are just immense for the community and for society.”
Many of the young Jews who work with Repair the World come from cohorts that traditional Jewish organizations have struggled to reach. In the most recent data collected by the organization, Repair found that between 19 and 25% of participants identify as having a disability; 25% of participants and 44% of corps members identify as non-white; and 75% of fellows, 42% of corps members, and 22% of participants identify as LGBTQ.
After Jon Cohen finished his yearlong fellowship with Repair, he went to medical school as planned, but he soon realized it wasn’t the path he wanted. When an opportunity came up to join Repair’s staff in Miami, he jumped at the opportunity, staying for three years. He now is the director of community mobilization at Keshet, the Jewish LGBTQ+ rights organization, and serves on Repair’s board of directors.
“Service has always been something that was important to me but never existed through Judaism until I did the fellowship,” Cohen said of his experience. “It was groundbreaking for me to learn about tikkun olam and all of my Jewish values. It was such an educational experience, and now I feel so proudly and passionately Jewish because of the foundation Repair the World gave me.”
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Texas Cemetery Unveils First North American Permanent Memorial Dedicated to Oct. 7 Hamas Attack
Hundreds attended the unveiling ceremony of the first monument in North America commemorating the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack at the Shalom Baruch cemetery in Humble, Texas. Photo: Shalom Baruch Cemetery
A Jewish cemetery in Texas recently unveiled the first permanent memorial in North America commemorating the deadly Hamas-led terrorist attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The 12-foot tall Star of David sculpture at Shalom Baruch – located in the Houston-area city of Humble – honors the victims, survivors, and hostages of the Oct. 7 massacre. It was conceptualized and designed by an art committee that included Anat Ronen, Kirsten Coco, and Jonathan Dror.
“The Star of David emerging from the ground stands as a symbol of resilience, identity, and collective memory,” said Coco. “It honors those we lost, affirms the strength of Israel and reflects a commitment to rise above hate, together.”
A companion ribbon-shaped sculpture nearby, created by Israeli artist Yaron Bob, was made out of shrapnel recovered from missiles that were fired at Israel from Iran and intercepted by the Jewish state’s Iron Dome system.
The sculpture symbolizes transformation and hope, according to a description on the cemetery’s website. Bob is well known for creating a similar piece that US President Donald Trump gifted to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this summer and a menorah for President Barack Obama in 2014.
Yaron Bob’s sculpture made from shrapnel. Photo: Chuck Thompson
Shalom Baruch was founded in 2023 by Israeli-American Varda Fields in honor of her father. Guests who attended the memorial’s unveiling ceremony were encouraged to leave notes in the cemetery’s Western Wall replica and promised that their notes would be delivered to the real wall in Jerusalem when Fields travels to Israel next. Memorial stones, made by adult artists living with intellectual and developmental disabilities through Alexander Jewish Family Services’ Celebration Company program, were given to attendees to place at the memorial’s base, in line with the Jewish tradition of placing stones on the grave of a loved one.
The Oct. 7 memorial sculpture is available for viewing to the general public during the cemetery’s regular hours, Monday through Friday. It was unveiled earlier in November during an event attended by several local, state, and national elected officials, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and more than 200 community members, civic leaders, and faith representatives.
“Jewish Houstonians and our many allies showed up for us today,” said Fields. “I can only hope that they continue to speak up against antisemitism, support the Jewish people, and even encourage others around the country and the world to build their own memorials so that we never forget what happened on Oct. 7 and every day thereafter.”
“This monument … serves as a powerful symbol of resilience, identity, and the unbreakable spirit of the Jewish people,” US Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), who attended the unveiling ceremony, said in a statement on social media. “It stands as a reminder that even in the face of unimaginable hate and terror, we rise, together with strength, faith, and a commitment to ensure the world never forgets. May this memorial inspire unity, remembrance, and a continued stand against antisemitism, here at home and across the globe.”
Speakers at the unveiling ceremony, co-sponsored by the Holocaust Museum Houston, included former Hamas hostage Omer Shem Tov, who was abducted from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, by Hamas-led terrorists and held captive in the Gaza Strip for 505 days. Shem Tov was released from captivity on Feb. 22 as part of a ceasefire deal. He spoke at the ceremony about the hostages and the soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces who were killed protecting Israel since the Oct. 7 attack. The Shalom Baruch cemetery honored him with its inaugural “The Lone Star of Israel Award,” which it will present annually.
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UK University Researcher Banned From Campus After Uttering Medieval Antisemitic Tropes at SJP Lecture
Illustrative” Parliament Square, in London, Britain, Sept. 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Jasso
University College London (UCL) on Thursday condemned an on-campus incident in which its former researcher uttered “vile” antisemitic statements during an event organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a global anti-Israel network linked to jihadist groups.
As seen in footage shared by StandWithUs UK, the researcher, Samar Maqusi, delivered a pseudo-academic lecture at the UCL Student Union which argued that Napoleon Bonaparte recruited Jewish financiers to join him in a conspiracy to end the Ottoman Empire’s occupation of the Holy Land, saying the French emperor sought the fictional partnership because “Jews pretty much controlled the financialization [sic] structure.”
Additionally, she charged that Jews harvest the blood of gentiles to use it as the key ingredient of “special pancakes,” a classic antisemitic trope pulled from the medieval age and used to justify pogroms and many other forms of legalized anti-Jewish discrimination and persecution.
“I am utterly appalled by these heinous antisemitic comments. Antisemitism has absolutely no place in our university, and I want to express my unequivocal apology to all Jewish students, staff, alumni, and the wider community that these words were uttered at UCL,” university president and provost Michael Spence said in a statement. “The individual responsible is a former fixed-term researcher at UCL, but not a current member of UCL staff. We have reported this incident to the police and have banned her from campus.”
He added, “We have launched a full investigation into how this happened and have banned the student group which hosted it from holding any further events on campus pending the outcome of this.”
UCL’s Student Union also condemned the incident while announcing disciplinary sanctions for SJP which halts its operating on campus indefinitely.
“The antisemitic tropes used throughout the lecture are reprehensible, and we condemn this language in the strongest possible terms. Every person in our community has a duty to call out and challenge hate speech on our campus,” it said. “We have suspended the two organizing societies, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jews for Palestinian Justice, with immediate effect. A full investigation through our disciplinary procedures will now take place.”
UCL is not the only university in the United Kingdom to see recent antisemitic acts.
At City St. George’s, University of London Israeli professor Michael Ben-Gad has been unrelentingly pursued by a pro-Hamas organization which calls itself City Action for Palestine. It has subjected him to several forms of persecution, including social media agitprop, spontaneous, unlawful assembly at his place of work, and even a petition of their own.
City Action for Palestine is one of London’s most notorious anti-Zionist groups, convulsing higher education campuses across the city with pro-Hamas demonstrations which demonize pro-Israel Jews, attack policies enacted to combat antisemitism, and amplify the propaganda of jihadist terror organizations. Ben-Gad is not its only victim, as the group has targeted Members of Parliament, the Union of Jewish Students, and City University London president Anthony Finkelstein, who is Jewish and the child of a Holocaust survivor.
In 2023, just months before Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel, the National Union of Students (NUS), a body representing thousands of university students in the UK, apologized for discriminating against Jewish students.
The expression of contrition followed years of incidents to which Jewish groups pointed as evidence that antisemitism was prevalent throughout its organizing structure. Jewish students had reported incitement of violence against Israeli civilians, the spreading of conspiracy theories about Mossad’s rumored role in the Union of Jewish Students (UJS), and opposition to a motion proposing observance of Holocaust Memorial Day.
In November 2022, NUS removed president Shaima Dallali after finding her guilty of antisemitism and other misconduct. Dallali’s tenure at NUS brimmed with controversies, including the discovery of tweets in which she called Hamas critics “Dirty Zionists” and quoted the battle cry, “Khaybar, Khaybar o Jews, the army of Muhammad will return,” a reference to the Battle of Khaybar in 628 that resulted in a massacre of Jews.
UK Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson recently called on higher education officials to “tackle this poison of antisemitism,” calling the trend “unacceptable.”
“There can be no place for harassment and intimidation,” she said while appearing on a program by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which has itself been scrutinized for deluging the airwaves with false stories fed by the Hamas terrorist organization. “Universities can and must act on that.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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‘Jewish Whore’ Graffiti Targets Mexican President Sheinbaum During Anti-Government Protests
During anti-government protests, the words “Puta Judía,” which translate to “Jewish whore,” were spray-painted on the gates of Mexico City’s National Palace, apparently targeting Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Photo: Screenshot
Anti-government protests in Mexico City turned openly antisemitic over the weekend, with demonstrators chanting and scrawling graffiti attacking President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Jewish heritage — sparking outrage from Jewish leaders and politicians nationwide.
On Saturday, protesters spray-painted the words “Jewish whore” on the gates of Mexico City’s National Palace, the presidential residence, in an act apparently directed at Sheinbaum, the country’s first female and Jewish president.
According to local media reports, youth groups staged the protest to voice their concerns over escalating violence, crime, and corruption, particularly linked to the country’s drug cartels.
Clashes erupted shortly after local police moved in to contain the demonstrations, leaving dozens reportedly arrested and injured.
During the protest, demonstrators targeted the presidential residence with antisemitic insults, chanting slurs and spray-painting a crossed-out Star of David on its walls.
En México, los mexicanos pintaron con aerosol la frase “puta judía” en las puertas del Palacio Nacional, tras el descontento generalizado con Claudia Sheinbaum, la presidenta del país.
Las protestas se intensificaron especialmente tras el asesinato de un alcalde, Carlos Menzo,… pic.twitter.com/bfqfuHrW5m
— ITON GADOL es Israel y las comunidades judias (@Itongadol) November 16, 2025
The country’s Jewish community has strongly condemned these latest incidents, denouncing the antisemitic attacks and calling for accountability.
“Antisemitism is a form of discrimination according to our constitution and must be rejected clearly and unequivocally,” the statement read.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar also condemned the displays of anti-Jewish bigotry, expressing solidarity with Sheinbaum and warning against such acts of political violence.
“Israel strongly condemns the antisemitic and sexist slurs directed at Mexico’s President [Claudia Sheinbaum],” the top Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.
“There is no place for such attacks in political discourse. All forms of antisemitism, in any context, must be rejected unequivocally,” Saar continued.
Israel strongly condemns the antisemitic and sexist slurs directed at Mexico’s President @Claudiashein. There is no place for such attacks in political discourse.
All forms of antisemitism, in any context, must be rejected unequivocally. pic.twitter.com/HEDKzq34e8— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) November 16, 2025
As in many countries around the world, the Jewish community in Mexico has faced a troubling surge in antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel sentiment since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Jewish leaders have consistently called on authorities to take swift action against the rising wave of targeted attacks and anti-Jewish hate crimes they continue to face.
Earlier this year, Voice of the People — a global initiative launched by Israeli President Isaac Herzog to survey and amplify Jewish voices worldwide — released a study showing that concerns about rising antisemitism now top the list of challenges facing Jewish communities across demographics.
Among Jews in Mexico, 84 percent expressed deep concern about rising antisemitism.