Earlier this year, Yair Lev was trying to organize Jews to speak out against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government and draw attention to its right-wing backers in the Philadelphia region. The Israeli American doctor at Jefferson Health always had an activist streak, but his mission changed on October 7.
He suddenly found himself tapping into his grassroots network to rally the region’s Jewish community behind Israel – to grieve the 1,200 killed in the Hamas attack, to support the war against Hamas, and more recently, to combat the rise of antisemitism that he sees spreading from college campuses to medical institutions.
“The community started bubbling like a kettle of hot water, and we all said, ‘We’re not going to accept this,’” said Lev, 47.
In the first 80 days of war, Lev and his network have continued to promote solidarity behind Israel in the region despite widening international division over the siege in Gaza.
Community leaders have pushed for university leadership changes, met with lawmakers, screened Hamas massacre footage, organized a Shabbat vigil for Israeli hostages, and hosted numerous October 7 survivors and their families, some of whom have ties to the region.
On top of that, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia has raised more than $14 million for Israel, contributing to a stunning show of financial support from Jewish people in the United States that topped $1 billion in the first month of the war.
“The scale is really unprecedented,” said Lila Corwin Berman, a professor of Jewish studies at Temple University who studies Jewish philanthropy. Distinct from the billions in US government aid to Israel each year, the donation boom has been highly personal: “It’s about feeling a sense of emotional connection to that place, and translating that into dollars.”
This pro-Israel advocacy comes amid amplified concerns over antisemitic attacks in a region that is home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the country. Reports of harassment targeting both Jewish and Muslim residents have risen sharply. Bomb threats have targeted Jewish institutions and synagogues – including a threat to the Jewish Federation’s office in Center City during Hanukkah, according to president and CEO Michael Balaban.
“We’ve had to increase security everywhere,” Balaban said. “Even with menorah lightings, we’ve advised our groups to consider whether we can do these things publicly or revert to more private settings to be more secure.”
The pro-Palestinian community has held more than 60 demonstrations in Philadelphia since the war began. While supporters of Israel have rallied against antisemitism both here and in Washington, public protest has never been its primary mode of advocacy, a fact that scholars attribute to the decades-old alliance that the United States has had with the Middle Eastern nation.
THE JEWISH FEDERATION and other pro-Israel organizations have not taken that support for granted. They continue to strengthen ties with elected officials and other leaders at a time when polls show public support waning for Israel’s military campaign. The growing civilian death toll in Gaza – with women and children comprising more than two-thirds of the estimated 21,000 Palestinians killed by Israel, according to the Gaza health ministry – has deepened scrutiny into a military offensive that Israel now plans to expand deeper within the blockaded Palestinian territory.
The pro-Israel faction continues to reject calls for a ceasefire, including from a vocal group within the Jewish community. Disagreements aside, Lev argued that the fight against antisemitism has unified large swathes of the Jewish community across ideological and religious lines.
“It’s a silver lining,” he said. “I see a really powerful community emerging out of this community in terrible times.”Survivors of the October 7 attack, Hila Fakliro, Shani Teshuva, Rony Kissin, and her husband, Ofer Kissin, shared their stories of survival, speaking of the miracles that saved their lives.
For Hila Fakliro, it was the split-second decision to not flee by car from the Supernova music festival where she was bartending on October 7, avoiding an ambush that killed hundreds. Shani Teshuva said a 10-minute delay to her morning bike ride through Kibbutz Zikim spared her from a barrage of rockets. For Ofer and Rony Kissin, it was the bravery of neighbors in Kerem Shalom who fought off Hamas militants and saved their small community from greater devastation.
“I don’t know how many miracles I can count,” Fakliro, 26, said earlier this month in Wynnewood.
The four Israeli nationals came to the Philadelphia region to share their harrowing accounts of survival with a dozen elected officials and faith leaders. The purpose of such visits, organizers said, is to counter distortions about the October 7 attack and reaffirm the need for American backing in the war.
“The US and Israel have to stick together,” Teshuva, 44, told an audience that included US Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, State Sens. Anthony Hardy Williams and Sharif Street, and State Rep. Greg Scott.
Last month, the Jewish Federation hosted the Israel Defense Forces to screen raw footage of the killings at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History.
“The only way to grasp the totality... is to see it with your own eyes,” IDF Col. Amnon Shefler, a military spokesperson, told a crowd of about 100 elected officials, community leaders, and journalists.
The footage was largely taken by Hamas militants and showed the murder of at least 130 Israelis in graphic detail. Attendees gasped throughout the 43-minute screening. Several audibly wept. Others left early.
Misha Galperin, the outgoing director at the Weitzman museum, called it a necessary reminder of the historic atrocities against the Jewish people at a time when he believed that many have downplayed the severity of Hamas’s threat.
“This has happened to us for millennia now,” he said. “We have to be able to explain to people that the narrative in public view has been turned on its head.”
Some leaders have called for more public displays of unity behind Israel – such as the December 10 rally against antisemitism at Congregation Rodeph Shalom. But for others, the sorrow of war continues to be a private affair.
“When one is grieving... it doesn’t necessarily give rise to outward protest marches,” said Marc Zucker, chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association and a board member of the Jewish Federation’s public affairs council. “It gives rise to inward grief.” That grief includes sympathy for Palestinian civilians, he added.
For many of Israel’s supporters in the region, giving has felt like the only way to help
The Jewish Federations of North America have raised more than $711 million for 300 partner organizations providing aid in Israel – 70% more than their next-largest fundraising campaign during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War. But smaller institutions, businesses, and grief-stricken individuals have organized their own fundraisers as well.
South Philly resident Eli Sable, 35, and his brother Jeremy, who lives in Tel Aviv, started a grassroots campaign called “Brotherly Love Fund” to buy noncombat essentials for army reservists and other Israelis displaced by the war, from baby supplies to thermal clothing.
“Putting a face and a name [to the cause] motivates people to donate,” Sable said. “We’re just average people who want to do something.”
But the Jewish community is not a monolith when it comes to Israel. Such groups as Jewish Voice for Peace – which describes itself as the “largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world” – have staged dozens of pro-Palestinian protests nationwide and denounced Israel’s military offensive.
“Our tradition, as Jews and as human beings, teaches us that we must condemn that and that we must stop death, and that is what we are trying to do,” said Dani Noble, 32, a JVP organizer in Philadelphia, hours before activists were arrested for blocking traffic during a ceasefire demonstration on December 14.
Balaban and other pro-Israel leaders dismissed JVP’s members as a small but vocal faction of the Jewish community. They remain focused on other problems: antisemitism on college campuses, boycotts against businesses owned by Israelis, vandalism targeting Jewish institutions, and, crucially, the question of political support in Washington.
The United States was one of just eight nations that rejected a nonbinding United Nations resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, and President Joe Biden has since criticized Israel for putting him in a difficult position.
“There is always concern,” Zucker said. “One always worries that friends may lose interest or, worse yet, misunderstand the facts on the ground.”
(The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS)