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Jewish America’s Future Depends on All Its Communities — Not Just the Coasts
Jewish Americans and supporters of Israel gather at the National Mall in Washington, DC on Nov. 14, 2023 for the “March for Israel” rally. Photo: Dion J. Pierre/The Algemeiner
American Jewish life has long been anchored in a small number of powerful metropolitan centers. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, and a handful of others remain indispensable. They house national institutions, sustain Jewish education at scale, train professionals, and shape the public face of American Jewry. Any serious strategy for Jewish continuity must acknowledge their central role.
But it must also acknowledge something equally important: a people that concentrates too much of its institutional life, talent, and imagination in a narrow geographic band risks fragility rather than strength.
That insight animates a recent essay by Joe Roberts, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa, published in eJewishPhilanthropy under the pointed title, “American Jewry’s Future Lies Not on the Coasts, but in Its Heartland.” Roberts’ argument is not anti-coastal. It is pro-resilience and deserves careful attention from communal leaders and donors alike.
Every system weakens when too much weight rests on too few pillars. Conservatives have long made this case about government, markets, and civil society. Jewish communal life is no different. America’s largest Jewish communities remain strong, but they are under strain; rising costs, professional burnout, institutional consolidation, and an increasingly hostile cultural climate. These pressures do not diminish their importance, but they expose the danger of assuming a small number of metros can carry Jewish America indefinitely.
Roberts names the risk plainly: when smaller and mid-sized Jewish communities quietly thin out or disappear, American Jewry loses more than numbers. It loses geographic confidence, national presence, and the connective tissue that makes Jewish life feel broadly American rather than narrowly coastal.
Too often, Jewish communities outside the major hubs are described exclusively in terms of vulnerability. Sometimes those concerns are real. But they are not the whole story. In smaller communities, impact is magnified. Five young families can stabilize a synagogue. One capable professional can reverse a decade of attrition. One serious donor can change the future of an entire community. The evidence is already visible: Nashville’s Jewish population has grown substantially over the past decade; Birmingham has maintained institutional stability through deliberate investment in day school affordability and professional retention. These are not anomalies. They are proof of concept.
This aligns with what broader research tells us about community life beyond large cities. A growing body of work, including my own research from the American Enterprise Institute, has pushed back against elite assumptions about rural and small-town America. Many residents of smaller communities report stronger social ties, greater trust in neighbors, and higher satisfaction with their quality of life than those in dense urban centers. Those conditions – trust, stability, mutual responsibility – are precisely the soil in which Jewish life has historically taken root.
There is also a hard-headed argument here. From a stewardship perspective, smaller Jewish communities often offer greater marginal returns. In major metros, new funding may sustain existing infrastructure. In heartland communities, the same resources can create it: leadership pipelines, educational access, intergenerational continuity. A diversified communal portfolio is more durable than one concentrated in a handful of prestigious markets, no matter how successful those markets appear today.
Demographic reality reinforces this logic. Younger Americans, including younger Jews, are increasingly mobile and increasingly priced out of coastal cities. Many are choosing mid-sized metros for affordability, family life, and rootedness. Jewish life will either follow them intentionally or lose them quietly.
Much of the growth in heartland Jewish communities is Orthodox or traditionally observant: young families drawn by housing costs, community cohesion, and the opportunity to build institutions from the ground up. If the future of American Jewish demography is increasingly traditional, then ignoring where traditional families are actually settling is not merely a strategic error. It is communal denial.
But there is another migration pattern that deserves attention. Remote work has enabled a different kind of Jew to leave coastal cities: younger, less affiliated, professionally mobile, often disconnected from legacy institutions. These are Jews who might drift away entirely without intentional outreach or who might, given the right invitation, become the next generation of engaged leaders. Heartland communities have an opportunity that coastal institutions often lack: the chance to form relationships before habits calcify, to offer belonging before indifference sets in.
Roberts rightly emphasizes Israel education as a priority, and the point deserves amplification. In the post-October 7 landscape, confident identification with Israel has become socially costly in many elite coastal environments – on campuses, in progressive professional circles, in cultural institutions that once seemed like natural homes for Jewish participation. Smaller communities are often less saturated by these pressures. They may be better positioned to cultivate the kind of unapologetic, literate Israel connection that coastal institutions increasingly struggle to sustain. Geographic dispersion is not only demographic insurance; it may be ideological shelter.
None of this minimizes the urgency of security. Rising antisemitism is real, and protecting Jewish institutions is essential. But security alone cannot sustain a people. Jewish continuity depends on confidence and the belief that Jewish life is not merely something to defend, but something worth building. Smaller communities often grasp this instinctively because survival depends on meaning, not scale.
Put bluntly: a Judaism that can only thrive where it is fashionable is a Judaism that has already lost something essential.
Roberts writes as a federation executive, and federations remain the most plausible vehicle for the cross-communal investment he envisions. But honesty requires acknowledging the model is under strain: declining campaign totals, aging donor bases, tension between local priorities and national allocations. The question is not only whether federations should redirect resources toward heartland communities, but whether they can and whether donors are willing to support that redirection even when it means less visibility per dollar spent.
What would meaningful investment look like? National foundations could establish heartland fellowships that place talented young professionals in smaller communities with multi-year salary support. Legacy donors could endow positions – executive directors, educators, rabbis – in communities that cannot currently compete for top-tier talent. Federations could create flexible innovation funds that empower local boards to experiment without proving ROI to distant program officers. These are not radical proposals. They are the ordinary work of institution-building, redirected toward communities overlooked for too long.
American Jewry became strong by building institutions wherever Jews settled, not only where it was easiest or most fashionable. That instinct created synagogues, schools, and communities across the map. If we want Jewish life in America to remain confident, resilient, and recognizably American in the decades ahead, we must recover it – deliberately, strategically, and now.
The future of American Jewry will not be decided in one city or one region. It will be decided by whether we have the wisdom to invest in all the communities that make us a people.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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Lula’s reelection puts the brakes on Latin America’s pro-Israel shift
(JTA) — BUENOS AIRES – Brazilians reelected Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva as president, defeating the center-right senator Flavio Bolsonaro, putting the breaks on a regional shift toward closer ties with Israel.
The current president, a left-wing leader of Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers Party), obtained 51.79% of the valid votes, while Bolsonaro received 48.21%.
Bolsonaro, of the Liberal Party, had pledged a close diplomatic partnership with Israel and cultivated ties with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while Lula has become a critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Bolsonaro said he did not accept the election results, although it is not clear how he could challenge them.
In January 2024, Lula’s government endorsed South Africa’s decision to bring a genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice. A month later, Lula compared Palestinian suffering in Gaza to Hitler’s murder of the Jews, triggering a diplomatic crisis between Brazil and Israel. Brazil’s Jewish umbrella organization, CONIB, publicly condemned the comparison as a distortion that offended the memory of Holocaust victims and their descendants.
The remarks were also criticized by the Holocaust Museum of Buenos Aires. Sen. Bolsonaro promised a big shift toward Israel when he spoke on June 28, 2026, in Buenos Aires in a meeting with Jewish leaders. “In 2027, Brazil will not only once again have an ambassador to Israel, but will also take the step of moving its embassy to Israel’s capital, Jerusalem,” he said.
That night he also lauded the 120,000 Jews in Brazil, saying, “They are men and women who rank among the brightest in Brazilian medicine, industry, science, culture and business.”
After Bolsonaro finished ahead of Lula in the first round on Oct. 4, Netanyahu sent a message the following day on X: “Congratulations @FlavioBolsonaro on yesterday’s vote and good luck in the final. I look forward to restoring the extraordinary friendship between Israel and Brazil. Best wishes for your great victory, my friend.”
Since 2023, several Latin American countries have strengthened ties with Israel, in some cases reversing policies adopted by their predecessors, among them:
Argentine President Javier Milei elected in 2023, who makes support for Israel central to his foreign policy and meets with families of hostages Hamas abducted in its deadly Oct. 7, 2023, raid on Israel, which launched the current war;
Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz Pereira, elected in 2025, who restored diplomatic relations with Israel severed by his predecessor;
President Nasry Asfura of Honduras, elected in 2025, who immediately formally recognized Israel’s new ambassador, a process his predecessor left in limbo;
Chilean President José Antonio Kast, elected in 2025, who is rebuilding ties with Israel diminished by his predecessor;
and Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella, elected in May, who restored diplomatic ties with Israel severed by his predecessor, sent his foreign minister to inaugurate an embassy in Jerusalem and pulled out of the ICJ genocide case against Israel.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Lula’s reelection puts the brakes on Latin America’s pro-Israel shift appeared first on The Forward.
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In anti-Muslim speech, Trump says Jews who support El-Sayed should be ‘ashamed’
(JTA) — President Donald Trump disparaged Jewish voters who support Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee, at a rally in Port Huron on Sunday.
“Any Jewish person that supports this guy should be ashamed of themselves,” Trump told some 4,000 supporters in the city north of Detroit, where he stumped for Republican nominee Mike Rogers. “You should never speak to them again.”
Hundreds of Michigan Jews have pledged to vote for El-Sayed, who polls indicate is narrowly leading Rogers in a race key to determining control of the Senate. Another subset of Jews has pressured El-Sayed, a staunch critic of Israel, to defend “Jewish safety — including for Zionist Jews” and “Jewish sovereignty in Israel.” Still others have urged their community members to reject El-Sayed outright and back Rogers.
El-Sayed opposes U.S. military aid to Israel, saying the country has committed genocide in Gaza and is “not an ally.” Those positions divided the Democratic party during his primary campaign against pro-Israel U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, whom he narrowly bested in August. A former public health official, El-Sayed has also emphasized affordability in healthcare, housing and education. He has made a concentrated push to reach undecided Jewish voters in the homestretch before the Nov. 3 midterm election, hiring a Jewish outreach director last week.
Trump has in the past accused Jews who vote for Democrats of being “disloyal to Jewish people” and “disloyal to Israel.”
He said at the Port Huron rally that he is “polling at 99% in Israel,” which will hold national elections on Tuesday.
Trump did not cite evidence for the claim, which is unsupported by publicly available surveys. While he has historically scored high popularity among Israelis, a poll by the Jewish People Policy Institute in June found the Israeli public’s trust in him was declining. The poll said that 12% of Israelis reported having a great deal of trust in Trump, down from 21% in May, while the share of Israelis with complete distrust in him rose from 32% to 37%.
Trump joined his comments about Jews and Israel to anti-Muslim rhetoric about El-Sayed, who would become the first Muslim in the Senate if he is elected.
Trump baselessly called El-Sayed a “jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member” who was “on the side of the terrorists,” adding that he would “have to go through a metal detector before he’s allowed to go into the Senate.”
He threatened that “if Abdul and the Democrats win, they will open the floodgates and invite hordes of jihadists to our shores, creating a nightmare of violence and terror until you cannot even have a Christmas.”
Trump claimed that El-Sayed’s half sister, Eman Abdelhadi, celebrated the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. On the first anniversary of the attack, Abdelhadi posted a video that said, “no matter how great the brutality, the oppression, the intensity of what we’re going through, the horizon of justice is just around the corner,” according to The New York Times. She did not directly mention or celebrate the violence.
Trump also said that El-Sayed’s mother had “worked for an organization that gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.” A Times investigation reported that El-Sayed’s mother worked as a nurse in Missouri for a Muslim aid group that was later designated by the U.S. government as a supporter of terrorist groups. She was never accused of wrongdoing.
El-Sayed’s campaign has said that he “disagrees” with his sister on “a number of political positions and the rhetoric she’s chosen to use, including on foreign policy.” He was raised by his father and stepmother and has said that he had little relationship with his biological mother while growing up.
Former President Barack Obama campaigned with El-Sayed in Detroit on Saturday, saying the candidate was “fighting for change, real change, that will get money out of politics and put money in your pocket.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post In anti-Muslim speech, Trump says Jews who support El-Sayed should be ‘ashamed’ appeared first on The Forward.
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CAIR Connecticut urges Greenwich schools to stop using Eisner Camp over Israel ties
(JTA) — GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. – Greenwich Public Schools in Connecticut said it would proceed with a planned fall trip for sixth graders at a Jewish camp in Massachusetts as planned this week, despite pressure from a Muslim advocacy organization over the camp’s Israeli symbols and Israel-related programming.
CAIR Connecticut, the state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, objected to the trip, saying that programming at Eisner Camp in Great Barrington “incorporates connections to Israel,” the chapter’s board chair Farhan Memon wrote in a letter to Greenwich Superintendent of Schools Toni Jones dated Oct. 13.
The four-day Greenwich Schools field trip was organized by the Outdoor Classroom project, which works with seven locations in New England, including Eisner. Four of the camps are affiliated with Christian organizations, and two have no religious affiliation. With its clients, Outdoor Classroom coordinates nature-related learning programs for kids.
Memon wrote that some parents in Greenwich had viewed a video and photos of previous school events at Eisner and “identified Israeli flags and yellow ribbons prominently displayed in spaces used during school visits.”
“At the very least, spaces used by Greenwich students on any school trip should be free of national and political displays,” Memon wrote.
Eisner director Paul Isserles said in a statement shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “We welcome Outdoor Classroom to use our camp facilities. Throughout the year many outside organizations rent our facilities for various programs. URJ Eisner Camp is proud to have an Israeli flag displayed for our camp programs.”
When it comes to visiting groups, “Frankly, we are not regularly asked to do anything to remove those symbols or to cover them,” said Union for Reform Judaism president Rabbi Rick Jacobs in a telephone interview with JTA. “Because to be honest, we wouldn’t.”
Answering Memon’s letter on Oct. 14, Jones wrote in an email that her school district “acknowledges that individuals and families have vastly different views regarding global events” and that it intends to “provide an inclusive and safe educational environment for all Greenwich Public School students, including when they are on field trips under our care.”
She added that she had “made it clear to a few families that we will not take a political or religious stand.” JTA has seen both the CAIR letter and the email response.
CAIR Connecticut did not respond to JTA’s query.
CAIR’s national website says the organization promotes interfaith dialogue and “condemns all acts of violence against civilians by any individual, group or state.”
The Reform movement founded the 600-acre camp in 1958 as the Joseph Eisner Camp Institute for Living Judaism. It is located in the Berkshire Hills south of the town center of Great Barrington.
It is one of more than a dozen of the movement’s overnight camps in the North America. Many of those camps are rented throughout the year by groups that have nothing to do with Judaism, URJ’s Rabbi Jacobs said. “If a group rents the camp, they come up with their own agenda,” he said.
He added, “There are flags and other symbols of Judaism and of Israel in our camps, and we’re proud of that.”
Some parents had raised concerns about the venue as early as March. CAIR urged the district to stop using the camp in the Oct. 14 letter.
Removing decorations from the camp would not be enough, he said, noting that parents were upset after seeing promotional material about Eisner bringing Jewish campers to visit Israeli army bases under the Gadna, an Israeli military youth program.
A July 2019 post on Eisner Camp’s website says a group of participants in its Israel trip chose Gadna, stayed at an army base, practiced drills and learned to shoot at a target.
“URJ Eisner Camp participants who go to Israel have not participated in Gadna since 2023,” camp director Isserles said in a statement provided to JTA. “Our Israel programming at camp and in Israel is focused on Jewish identity, community, education, and connection to Israel.”
What CAIR is saying is that “A Jewish institution can be an unfit place for public-school children because it is visibly Jewish and identifies openly with Israel,” wrote blogger and Eisner alumnus Rabbi Jeff Salkin in his “Unfiltered” Substack on Oct. 19.
“A Jewish institution should not have to hide its Jewish identity to count as a fit place for other people’s children. You would not ask a church camp to remove a cross, or a Muslim camp to take down a crescent. A standard that demands such hiding makes Jewish identity itself the problem,” Salkin wrote.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post CAIR Connecticut urges Greenwich schools to stop using Eisner Camp over Israel ties appeared first on The Forward.
