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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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Teen slashed in Brooklyn synagogue by fellow congregant
(JTA) — A 14-year-old boy was slashed on Monday evening inside a Brooklyn synagogue by a suspect the police called an “emotionally disturbed person.”
The 22-year-old suspect, Krybus Shimon, is a fellow congregant of Yeshiva Gevoah Toldos, an Orthodox synagogue in Borough Park, the New York Police Department said. He was taken into custody and charged on Monday with assault, reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon.
The boy’s hand was slashed with a “cutting instrument” and he was treated by emergency medical services on the scene, police said.
The incident is not currently being investigated as a hate crime, and it’s not yet clear what led to the slashing.
Borough Park is one of the largest Orthodox enclaves in the United States, home to about 96,000 Jews, according to UJA-Federation of New York.
In January, the neighborhood was hit with a spate of antisemitic vandalism. Over 70 swastikas and the words “Adolf Hitler” were sprayed over two days across Gravesend Park, a playground in Borough Park. Two 15-year-old boys were arrested for the vandalism and charged with aggravated harassment and criminal mischief as a hate crime.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul last week announced a record $70 million in security funding for houses of worship, schools, community centers and other nonprofit organizations that are vulnerable to hate crimes and attacks because of their ideology, beliefs or mission.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Teen slashed in Brooklyn synagogue by fellow congregant appeared first on The Forward.
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Staunch Israel supporter Coons expected to win Delaware Democratic Senate primary handily
(JTA) — Delaware incumbent Sen. Chris Coons, a longtime supporter of Israel, is expected to easily win Delaware’s U.S. Senate primary on Tuesday, despite criticism from party progressives.
Coons, a mainstay of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has repeatedly backed measures to bolster Israel’s capacity for self-defense. He also joined a bipartisan delegation to visit Israel immediately after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.
But the senator has faced pushback in recent months for his refusal to back measures that would cut military aid to Israel.
This past spring, he was one of just seven Democrats to join Republicans in voting against a resolution authored by independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, which sought to stop the sale of military bulldozers to Israel. Coons was among just 11 Democrats who opposed a second Sanders resolution that proposed similar sales bans on massive bombs and other defense equipment.
Coons has served nearly three terms in the Senate. He won a special election in 2010, about a year after Joe Biden resigned to become U.S. vice president, and then went on to secure two full terms in 2014 and 2020.
In Tuesday’s primary, he will face off against artificial intelligence systems builder and historian Jeff Appelhans, naval architect and marine engineer Mary Louve and a former business executive who changed his legal name from Eric Hansen to E. No-Trump Hansen.
While Coons has earned endorsements from establishment Democrats, such as Delaware Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Gov. Matt Meyer, he has drawn criticism from party progressives for both his support of Israel and the financial backing he gets from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying group.
Of Coons’s opponents, the most vocal critic on Israel-related policy has been Appelhans, whose campaign priorities included ending U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Appelhans slammed Coons for voting against the Sanders bills, writing on his campaign site that “the liberal consensus moved to block the sales.”
Appelhans condemned Coons’s voting record on “moving armaments to Israel,” noting in a recent interview that “there’s never been a vote that he’s stopped” on this issue. He was speaking with Delaware Public Media last week as part of a series of candidate interviews.
Regarding the conflict in Iran, Appelhans slammed “Congress’ unwillingness” to challenge the president, noting that “there was very much a sense that Israel would be a staunch ally and they could sort of get this done really easily.”
In the same radio series, another candidate, Louve, expressed uncertainty as to “why we’re still backing Israel,” while acknowledging the country’s history as a U.S. ally.
“Is it worth us continuing to step up for a bully?” she asked. “It’s aggression that is unnecessary that’s continuing to escalate because we’re helping it.”
Hansen did not participate in these conversations, Delaware Public Media stated.
This summer Coons pledged to stop taking donations from the data company Palantir, which has come under scrutiny for its work with the Israel’s Defense Ministry, the U.S. military and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the nonprofit news site Spotlight Delaware.
Despite his more centrist reputation, Coons has had significant criticism for the Trump administration’s strategies in Iran. In his own Delaware Public Media interview, Coons accused the president of selling the conflict “as a cheap, quick war.”
While little polling data was available ahead of Tuesday’s race, the Polymarket predictions site gave Coons a 99.7% chance of winning as of Monday evening. In his last primary in 2020, Coons defeated a progressive opponent, Jessica Scarane, with nearly 73% of voter support.
Regardless of Tuesday’s outcome, the victor is expected to easily defeat the Republican challenger in the November general election, with the Cook Political Report deeming Delaware “solid” Democratic territory.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Staunch Israel supporter Coons expected to win Delaware Democratic Senate primary handily appeared first on The Forward.
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Noah Wyle wins an Emmy for playing one of TV’s most Jewish doctors
(JTA) — Noah Wyle on Monday night won his second consecutive Emmy for playing Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch on “The Pitt.” The win also marked a second victory for one of television’s more fully realized Jewish characters.
The actor won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for the HBO Max medical drama, which also won Outstanding Drama Series for the second year in a row. In his acceptance speech, Wyle recalled growing up in Los Angeles and said, “This is all I’ve ever wanted to do, and this is the only club I’ve ever wanted to join.”
For Jewish viewers, the significance of Wyle’s victory goes beyond the actor’s own Jewish ancestry. In the first season, Robby was seen reciting the Shema at one of his lowest moments, turning what might have been a throwaway piece of character background into an intimate expression of fear and faith.
In the second season, Wyle, who is also a writer and executive producer on the show, pushed that dimension further. An episode he wrote dealt with the trauma of the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, while also exploring Robby’s complicated relationship with his Jewish faith.
Wyle has described Robby’s faith as something he is still “grappling” with — including the question of whether he has faith at all. The Shema scene, he said, functioned almost like a child’s primal plea for help.
Wyle was not the only Jewish winner of the night. Saul Metzstein, the Scottish Jewish director whose father was the prominent modernist architect Isi Metzstein, won Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for “Slow Horses.” Metzstein had been competing against Wyle, who was nominated for directing an episode of “The Pitt.”
Those two wins were among the relatively few Jewish victories at this year’s ceremony. Jewish actors including Jason Segel, Lisa Kudrow, Harrison Ford and Hannah Einbinder were among the nominees but did not win in their categories.
“Nobody Wants This,” the Netflix show about a rabbi’s romance with a non-Jewish podcaster, was nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series but lost to “Widow’s Bay.”
An Emmy was also awarded to a Jewish actor and director whose death in 2025 stunned the industry and a legion of fans. Rob Reiner, who was killed in December with his wife, Michele, won a posthumous Emmy for his guest role as a kind dispenser of business advice on “The Bear.” Reiner’s award was presented at the Creative Arts Emmys earlier this month, rather than Monday’s televised ceremony.
Reiner, before going on to direct Hollywood classics like “This Is Spinal Tap,” “The Princess Bride” and “When Harry Met Sally” won his first two Emmy awards in 1974 and 1978 for playing Mike Stivic, the liberal son-in-law of Archie Bunker on “All in the Family.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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