The Business of Fighting Antisemitism — Why the Organized Jewish Community Must Change

 "solving the problem and sustaining the institution can quietly become competing interests."

"the institution would begin optimizing for the continuation of the problem rather than its elimination."

One of the hardest questions any organization should be willing to ask itself is this: What would happen if we actually solved the problem we were created to address? Most organizations never ask that question because the answer can be uncomfortable.

Imagine a hospital that quietly depended on people staying sick. Imagine a consulting firm that relied on its clients’ problems never being fully resolved. Imagine a fire department that measured success by the number of fires instead of the number prevented (...)

For decades, many legacy Jewish organizations have operated from essentially the same playbook. A crisis occurs. A statement is issued. A task force is formed. An emergency meeting is convened. A fundraising campaign follows. Another incident occurs. Another statement follows. Another fundraising campaign follows. The cycle continues (...)

Instead, too much of the organized Jewish world appears to measure success through inputs rather than outcomes. More dollars raised. More events hosted. More conferences attended. More press releases issued. More committees created. Those are activities — not outcomes.

A non-profit should not be judged by how much money it raises. It should be judged by what changes because that money was raised. Yet increasingly, some organizations seem to confuse fundraising with impact (...)

Rather than embracing these newer organizations, partnering with them, funding them, and learning from them, many legacy institutions appear more interested in protecting territory. Donors, relationships, access, and visibility all become territory. That is not leadership; it is protectionism (...)

The question every organization should be forced to answer is simple: What is different because you exist? Not what events did you host, or how many donors attended a gala, or how many emails were sent.

The questions I’d ask are what changed, what improved, what threat became weaker, and what opportunity became stronger? (...)

The question is not whether the Jewish community has enough resources to meet this moment. It does. The question is whether those resources are being deployed to solve the problem or sustain the system (...)

https://www.algemeiner.com/2026/06/26/business-fighting-antisemitism-why-organized-jewish-community-must-change/

Et aussi:

"Your Jewish institutions are asleep. The community, the federations, the lobbies, all of them are operating at the pace of a previous generation against radicalization that is happening in real time. They were built for a world in which antisemitism was a stigma. In a world in which it is a political identity card, they are useless." https://www.israelhayom.com/2026/06/28/new-york-june-2026-a-travel-warning-for-american-jews/

Creuse : Dun-le-Palestel s'engage contre l'antisémitisme et plante un olivier en hommage à Ilan Halimi

 (...) "Cet arbre sera un lieu de recueillement mais aussi un symbole d'engagement contre toutes les formes de haine, d 'antisémitisme, de racisme et de violence", souligne Laurent Daulny. A côté du maire, un habitant de 83 ans aide à la plantation. C'est Jean Jolly, né en 1943. Il a été très marqué par l'histoire d'Ilan Halimi : "Ca avait été très choquant, c'était un retour de ce qu'on avait vécu pendant la guerre, où on a martyrisé des Juifs. Là, on l'a martyrisé pour le pognon, c'était des imbéciles qui ne savaient pas ce qu'ils faisaient." Les ravisseurs d'Ilan Halimi étaient en effet persuadés que le jeune homme était riche, et ont harcelé sa famille pour obtenir une rançon : "C'était un gamin, un simple vendeur, et ses parents étaient très modestes." Ces préjugés sur les juifs et l'argent sont tenaces, comme le montre ce documentaire  (...)

https://www.ici.fr/nouvelle-aquitaine/creuse-23/dun-le-palestel/creuse-dun-le-palestel-s-engage-contre-l-antisemitisme-et-plante-un-olivier-en-hommage-a-ilan-halimi-4866484

Thread on Reddit - Feeling uncomfortable in Jewish spaces because you grew up poor?

Exactly what it sounds like. I’m in my early 40s, married with a young kid. My wife is a lapsed Catholic, I’m a lapsed Jew but I want my son to have exposure to his Jewish heritage especially in times like these.

I grew up in a family in the NYC suburbs in a place where the US-born Jewish community was very, very upper middle class. The only Jewish people I knew growing up who had problems making ends meet were Israeli or Soviet immigrants. My parents struggled with addiction and mental health stuff and we were definitely out of place in the larger community. It unfortunately left a really bad taste in my mouth around religion the way my family couldn’t afford synagogue membership and had to beg (literally beg) for a free membership each year and be humiliated by having to show strangers their taxes in order to belong to the congregation.

After my parents divorced my mom started becoming more Orthodox and started getting involved with all these kiruv organizations who would help us with bills and food but would then literally check up on us to see if we were being shomer shabbos and keeping kosher— even as a teenager it was really clear to me their help was coming with strings attached.

I’m financially better off now and able to give my family a much better life, but my experiences growing up left a bad taste in my mouth around paying for a synagogue membership and being in these spaces where it was taken for granted everyone grew up middle class or better.

Does anyone else feel like they’re in the same boat?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Jewish/comments/17ot58d/feeling_uncomfortable_in_jewish_spaces_because/" Many people in my synagogue have no idea what their neighbors are struggling with""For SURE feeling what you're feeling. I'm not involved in my local Jewish community because even if I could afford to be I don't agree with the costs involved. It's ridiculous. There's a fee to be a member, outrageous fees for special activities (including religious holidays), fees for speakers, a fricken gift shop . . . I'm just over it. To me, a community is a place that wants you there and a place you want to be, no strings attached. I've never found that where I live. So my "community" is online. And just to add a little snark, every woman at the local synagogue goes to the same surgeon and has the exact same nose job. Ugh."" They say if I'm more active in the community, they'll help us. The thing is that I can't afford to be more active for financial reasons. It's crazy to me.""There were a few classmates whose parents even refused to let them come to my house because it wasn’t in the “right neighborhood” and they would have to…take the subway. I still feel a bit of impostor syndrome from the more secular community here, because so many of my Jewish friends are doctors, lawyers, working in finance…they don’t judge me for it but I can’t help but feel like I don’t quite fit in.""When I tell them I actually grew up in a low-income household, I receive blank stares. They don't like being too close to someone who has experienced it. They like to bourgeoisesplain class to me.""I was bullied in regular school by kids who threw quarters at me. They thought it was hilarious that I'd pick up their loose change and I was horrendously mocked when I said I normally never had sneakers that cost more than $20.

I came from a family that never went on vacation, shopped based on coupons, didn't own a computer/ modern tech, never let us buy school lunch, and has to say No to any invitations we had that required us to pay for something. Single income household.

Never felt discriminated against by our synagogue but there absolutely were people there who viewed us differently. Having money was important in my local community, so it wasn't a Jewish thing but a classist thing."

"there is an obsession with/glorification of education in a lot of jewish circles so there’s that too"

" They also tended to talk about poor people or people on government assistance in the abstract. When I mentioned that I grew up on section 8 housing, they were shocked"

" I dropped out of high school and started working full time at 17 and totally remember going to some Jewish community event when I was 21 and getting stared at like I had three heads when I told people I wasn't in college and was working full-time... Or when I finally went to college later in my twenties, going to Hillel at my big public university and having all the conversations be about where people were going for summer break when I was planning on working 60 hour weeks between semesters to save $$ up.

" The otherness I get from well meaning Jewish peers is unreal. I distinctly remember one time going to a Jewish outing and mentioning being close to finishing college — one asked me if it was my masters or PhD. When I said my bachelor’s, they actually scoffed and said Youre 28 — you don’t already have that?. No, some of us worked at 16 and didn’t get to go to college"

Jewish Poverty Is Real — And Our Silence About It Is Making Things Worse

There is a stereotype so pervasive, so deeply embedded in the global consciousness, that even many Jewish people have internalized it without question: that Jews have money. Always. Without exception.

It is a myth. And our collective failure to challenge it is causing real harm. One in five Jewish people lives in poverty. Let that sink in. For example, in the U.S, these are elderly Holocaust survivors who outlived their entire families and now struggle to survive on their own. They are Soviet Jewish immigrants who arrived in America with nothing after the fall of the USSR. They are families, just like millions of other American families, who never fully recovered from the 2008 financial crisis. They are poor. And almost no one is talking about them.

That silence is not accidental. Poverty has become a taboo within the Jewish community itself — an inconvenient truth that disrupts a carefully maintained image of collective success. I’ve spent five years trying to secure funding for my documentary Jews Got Money — a film specifically designed to expose this hidden reality — my idea was met with reluctance and closed doors at nearly every turn. Not because the subject was unimportant, but because too many people preferred it stayed buried.

That preference comes at a price.

The stereotype of Jewish wealth is not merely an awkward social misconception — it is a driver of antisemitism. It was the assumption that Ilan Halimi, a young Jewish man in France, must have money that led to his kidnapping, torture, and murder. It is the same assumption that has fueled conspiracy theories, scapegoating, and violence for centuries. Every time we allow this myth to go unchallenged, we are handing ammunition to those who wish Jewish people harm.

And yet, the Jewish community’s response has too often been to look away — to quietly sustain the image of prosperity while organizations like the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty and the Hebrew Free Burial Association do the unglamorous, underfunded work of picking up the pieces. The Hebrew Free Burial Association has been burying indigent Jews since the 1880s. Over 60,000 people. That is not a footnote — that is a century and a half of poverty that history has chosen not to photograph.

The concept of tzedakah — charity as a moral and religious obligation, not a generous impulse — is one of the most powerful ideas in Jewish tradition. But tzedakah requires honesty. You cannot give to a need you refuse to acknowledge exists.

It is time to acknowledge it. Jewish poverty is not a contradiction in terms. It is not an embarrassment to be managed or a secret to be kept. It is a reality that deserves the same visibility, the same urgency, and the same communal response as any other. Pretending otherwise doesn’t protect the Jewish community’s reputation — it weakens it, from the inside out.

I saw this more clearly than many within the community did. I made the documentary anyway, on a shoestring budget, after years of rejection. Sadly, after all those years, not 1 US Jewish media mentioned it. Same in Germany, Austria, Hungary or Poland…

I believe that, in an honest and strong fight against antisemitism, silence has a cost.

Steven Pinker was kind enough during all those years, to share many times on his X account about our work, he tried to open some doors. Unfortunately, it never worked.

Make no mistake, this is an uphill battle.

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/jewish-poverty-is-real-and-our-silence-about-it-is-making-things-worse/

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Com

(...)

The poor Jew is made almost inadmissible, because his existence disturbs both the antisemitic fantasy and the communal image of success.

That is why tzedakah requires more than generosity. It requires the courage to see. A community cannot respond to a wound it has trained itself not to notice.

(...) silence about Jewish poverty weakens the community from within. These are not separate problems. They meet at the same point: the refusal to let real Jewish lives appear in their full complexity.

Jewish dignity cannot be defended by preserving a polished image.

(....) Poverty is not a shame. The shame lies in making it unspeakable.

Jerusalem Post

Watch the bold 2012 documentary film Jews Got Money by Sasha Andreas. While many Jewish people consider themselves rich in culture and tradition, with some pointing to the success enjoyed by members of the community – such as the famed wealth of the Rothschild dynasty – few wish to consider poverty and how it impacts Jewish lives.

Andreas brings to the screen those who meet Jewish people too poor to bury their dead, or pay bills, and offers a much braver, and wider, definition of real Jewish life beyond the lyrics of the song “If I Were a Rich Man.”

“The myth that Jews have money didn’t change a bit after Oct. 7,” Andreas told In Jerusalem. “One-fifth of the Jewish people live in poverty. They deserve better.” 

Free. Online via youtube.com/@JewsGotTube.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/culture/article-893975

Ungrateful...

 

Ungrateful...this is how I call the attitude of Israelis towards a lot of people that actually supports them#timetostandupforisrael
Read More here:
👇👇https://t.co/haRYRO1Cce

— Time To Stand Up For Israel🎗️ (@TTSUFISRAEL) March 3, 2026

"Vous évoquez aussi un autre sujet : le départ des Juifs d’Europe occidentale"

 (...)

C’est une question simple et raisonnable : pourquoi des Juifs quittent-ils certains pays ou certaines villes ? Si l’on constatait que des Noirs fuient partout parce qu’ils sont discriminés, tout le monde y verrait un problème. Pourquoi cela ne serait-il pas le cas ici ? On peut voir cela comme un signal d’alerte, un « canari dans une mine de charbon ». Cela dit quelque chose de l’état d’une société, de ses tensions, de ses dénis. Pourquoi pensez-vous que les Juifs partent ? C’est une question parfaitement légitime. Et si quelqu’un se dit offensé par cette question, alors il fait partie du problème. Parce que tout le monde connaît la raison.

En France, une partie de la gauche a du mal à aborder ces questions, car elle considère les musulmans comme un groupe opprimé que l’on ne peut pas viser…

C’est ce qui s’est passé en Iran, n’est-ce pas ? La gauche a soutenu les islamistes. Et leur première mesure a été d’éliminer leurs alliés.

(...)

Parce que beaucoup de gens ne sont pas honnêtes sur la nature du problème. Et, sans honnêteté, on ne résout rien. Le sondeur François Kraus a publié une étude très détaillée de l’Ifop montrant une réislamisation des jeunes générations issues de l’immigration. Il a été menacé pour avoir simplement fait un constat. C’est très préoccupant. Il est difficile d’aborder certains sujets publiquement. Lors de la préparation d’entretiens avec des personnes censées travailler sur ces sujets (think-tanks, experts), plusieurs ont accepté une interview audio, mais ont refusé d’être filmées, par peur. Pour moi, c’est un signal très inquiétant. 

(...)

il me semble qu’il y a en Europe un refus de la vérité, notamment sur les implications démographiques et sociales.

(...)

Selon vous, cela tient surtout à l’immigration islamique ?

À l’immigration en général, et au déni qui empêche d’en parler clairement. C’est particulièrement difficile quand on a des enfants, car cela renvoie à une angoisse d’avenir. Un pays ne peut pas résoudre un problème qu’il refuse de nommer.

On peut faire des exercices de pensée. Imaginons que tous les habitants de l’Ouganda s’installent en Belgique : la Belgique sera-t-elle identique dans cinquante ans ? Non. D’accord. Imaginons maintenant que tous les Suédois, à l’exception de Malmö, partent en Ouganda, et que les Ougandais deviennent minoritaires. À quoi cela ressemblerait-il dans cinquante ans ? Ce sont des questions légitimes. Plus de 1 % de la population française est composée d’immigrés illégaux. Cela représente environ 700 000 personnes. Vous n’avez aucune idée de qui sont ces gens. C’est complètement fou. C’est un suicide culturel. Le professeur d’université Gad Saad appelle cela de « l’empathie suicidaire ». Le déni est immense. 

(...)

https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/peter-boghossian-beaucoup-d-americains-pensent-que-la-france-aura-disparu-d-ici-la-fin-du-siecle-20260201

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Bcp de juifs vont partir,  pas seulement d'Europe, je prédis un retour sur les terres de leurs ancêtres, Pologne, Allemagne, Autriche, Hongrie etc etc

https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20250802-families-fled-nazis-facing-trump-us-jews-making-germany-plan-b-citizenship-anti-semitism

Reportage 2026: L'année dernière, pour la première fois de son histoire, Israël a enregistré un solde migratoire négatif. En 2024, 82 700 Israéliens ont quitté leur pays, un record. En Europe, c'est l'Allemagne qui en profite le plus, en captant 18 % de cette émigration, selon l'OCDE. Une émigration, qui est notamment facilitée par les lois de réparation, qui donnent aux descendants de victimes de la Shoah un accès facilité à la nationalité allemande. Depuis 2022, les demandes de passeport ont explosé, et ce malgré la montée de l'antisémitisme dans le pays.

France24

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Four in 10 Canadians believe Jewish people in this country would be safer if Canada admitted fewer immigrants, according to a new exclusive Hub survey of 1,500 Canadians. Sixty-seven percent of Canadians said there was too much immigration in Canada.