Jewish Federations across North America are strengthening our communities’ response to rising antisemitism by adding 100 new professional positions to our frontline advocacy and community relations teams. Focused on local and state advocacy, K-12 and higher education, and interfaith and intergroup partnerships, these professionals join the experienced teams already on the ground, adding the depth and breadth of support needed to push back against the hate that is rearing its head in too many areas of civic life.

 

The 100 new professionals are being hired through the Jewish Federations of North America’s Frontline initiative. With support from over 25 funders, this $35 million initiative is providing targeted grants to 120 local Federations, while also ensuring that Federations’ local efforts are backed by training, shared tools and resources, and expert guidance to address this growing challenge. 

 

Since the October 7th attacks, antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed, with antisemitic physical assaults reaching a record high last year, and Jews targeted in 64% of religiously motivated hate crimes. In the U.S., 65% of Jews say that the country has “a lot” of antisemitism, up from 45% in 2020.

 

These professionals are our community’s first line of defense, building strong relationships to represent our community’s needs and address antisemitism wherever it surfaces, whether in city council meetings, in health care settings, on school boards or education curricula, or in other civic spaces.

 

“Federations have been deeply engaged in the work of community relations and civic engagement for decades. Today, we require new strategies and increased resources to address the dramatic rise of antisemitism that is permeating every facet of civic life. Federations are on the ‘frontlines’ of this work every day,” said Shira Hutt, Executive Vice President of Jewish Federations of North America. “Frontline is a game-changing initiative that will equip Federations with the talent, support, and resources they need to confront the increasingly complex and growing challenges they face, whether in government, in educational institutions, in media, or our other civic spaces.”

 

Strategically strengthening our communal ties is a critical element of fighting antisemitism, but we know there are other areas of work that must be addressed. We need to communicate our message effectively, to mobilize the community across important issues, and to start planting the seeds for the next generation. That's why frontline also includes investments in the following programs to support Federation professionals in these efforts:

 

• Year-round training and learning: Aimed at strengthening the knowledge, skills, and network of these professionals and their Federations.
• The Project Halo messaging hub: Project Halo provides high-level, real-time, data-driven strategic messaging guidance on the key issues and narratives regarding our security and support of Israel.
• Student to Student: A high-school initiative that is now active in 50 communities, which helps engage young members of the Jewish community, build early bridges to non-Jewish teens, and strengthen our ties within school systems. In the last three years, Student to Student engaged over 60,000 non-Jewish teens, nearly half of them in the last year alone.
• One Mitzvah A Day (OMAD): An engagement and mobilization platform that has already reached a daily distribution list of 25,000 people, and is growing.

“In the aftermath of October 7th, our community was very disappointed to see that many people we thought were our allies stayed silent. We learned the hard lesson that our civic engagement efforts must be more focused, more targeted, and more outcomes based, and that is exactly what Frontline is designed to do,” said Julie Platt, Chair of Frontline and Jewish Federations of North America’s immediate past Board Chair. “Only through deep, sustained, and strategic engagement can we ensure that antisemitism is neither tolerated nor normalized, and that our communities remain safe.”

 

Frontline builds on a model Jewish Federations established with LiveSecure, the $130 million initiative to ensure that every Federation community has a professionally run security program. When a shooter attacked our community at Tree of Life in 2018, fewer than 20 communities had professionally-run Community Security Initiatives that met the necessary standards to protect their communities. LiveSecure built out a national security infrastructure, growing that number to over 140 in just four years and making communities measurably safer, more closely coordinated with law enforcement, and better equipped to respond to threats.

 

Frontline similarly works to scale and build out a system-wide infrastructure, community by community, to bolster our strategic civic relationships and equip our communities with the tools they need to fight antisemitism.