They described it as a reflection of “the very best of Israel — and of us.”
No. It is the very worst of us.
Because while UJA writes a seven-figure check to a population that overwhelmingly supports Hamas — the very same Hamas that, at this very moment, is holding Israeli hostages in underground tunnels, starving them, torturing them, using them as bargaining chips in their war of annihilation — the organization has not given a single dollar to those on the frontlines of Israel’s cognitive war for survival: the Jewish press in America.
They have stopped funding their own newspaper, The Jewish Week. They have not provided even one thin dime to sustain the weekly Jewish publications in the United States that fight, every day, to counter the relentless anti-Israel propaganda machine operating on college campuses, in mainstream media, and on social platforms worldwide.
In the long war for Israel’s existence, not all battles are fought with tanks and rifles. Some are fought with headlines, with fact-checks, with carefully documented rebuttals to lies that are broadcast in real time to millions of people.
Across America, weekly Jewish newspapers — operating on shoestring budgets, with small teams of reporters and editors — are documenting the truth that Israel is not starving the people of Gaza. They are publishing verifiable reports that Israel has organized massive humanitarian aid deliveries into Gaza, only for Hamas to seize those shipments, hoard the supplies, and weaponize hunger to inflame the world against the Jewish state.
These papers are the ones doing the painstaking work of countering false narratives, calling out media distortions, and reminding the public that it is Hamas — not Israel — that uses civilians as human shields, hides weapons in hospitals, and builds terror tunnels beneath schools.
And yet, to the UJA’s leadership, they are not worth funding.
UJA has no trouble raising money from its donors in the name of defending Israel, but instead of fortifying the Jewish media’s ability to wage this crucial information war, they choose to send a $1 million humanitarian lifeline into the very territory from which the October 7 massacre was launched — territory where cheering crowds handed out candy as they learned that Jews had been raped, murdered, and dragged from their homes.
For decades, media outlets have documented that UJA refused to fund any projects “beyond the 1967 borders.” They would not build a playground in Judea or Samaria for Jewish children. They would not contribute to cultural or educational initiatives in the communities most targeted by Palestinian terror.
But suddenly, for the first time, UJA crosses the Green Line — not to aid Jews in their historic homeland, not to support Israeli resilience in the face of terror, but to feed and supply the very population that overwhelmingly supports the terror organization sworn to Israel’s destruction.
It is a moral obscenity.
This is not an accident. It is the predictable outcome of years of ideological drift at the top of UJA’s leadership structure. A progressive, “woke” wing has captured key positions within the organization, pushing an agenda that mirrors the talking points of far-left elected officials and local political leaders who are openly hostile to Israel.
These are the same circles that romanticize “Palestinian resistance” and downplay — or outright excuse — the atrocities of October 7. These are the same figures who demand endless “humanitarian concessions” to Gaza without demanding the release of even one hostage in return.
Within this mindset, funding Jewish media in America — which they often dismiss as “parochial,” “tribal,” or “too Zionist” — is not just a low priority; it is ideologically suspect. But transferring $1 million into Gaza to “win hearts and minds” of a population indoctrinated by Hamas? That, apparently, is a virtue.
Vladimir Lenin had a term for those who work against their own people’s best interests in service to their enemies: “useful idiots.” The UJA’s current leadership has taken this concept to its nadir, acting as if Jewish survival depends on feeding the enemy while allowing the frontlines of our own narrative defense to wither.
These UJA leaders, who see themselves as global humanitarians first and Jews second — or perhaps not at all — have mastered the art of moral inversion. They seem to believe that Jewish survival will be purchased through acts of generosity toward those who chant for our destruction.
For UJA’s leadership, the perversion of Judaism into a nebulous, borderless “social justice” mission has replaced the hard truth that the first obligation of Jewish institutions is the protection and flourishing of the Jewish people.
Without a strong Israel, without a vibrant Jewish media, without a confident Jewish community willing to defend its own narrative, there will be no Jewish “light unto the nations” — because there will be no Jewish nation left to shine it.
The war in Gaza is not only fought in the streets of Khan Younis or the alleys of Gaza City; it is fought in the headlines of The New York Times, in the chyron of CNN, in the viral videos that fill TikTok feeds around the globe.
In this cognitive battlefield, Hamas and its global network of supporters operate with speed, discipline, and an endless stream of images — real or fabricated — designed to portray Israel as a moral monster.
The Jewish press in America is one of the few organized forces capable of pushing back, of offering documented truth in a sea of slander. Yet, instead of strengthening this crucial line of defense, UJA has left it to wither from lack of funding.
If the UJA truly believed in defending Israel, it would be endowing investigative reporting grants, bolstering the circulation of Jewish weeklies, funding special correspondents to counter anti-Israel narratives in mainstream and social media, and training the next generation of Jewish journalists to carry the fight forward.
Instead, it sends $1 million to Gaza — freeing Hamas from the burden of providing these resources themselves, and allowing them to divert funds toward rockets, tunnel expansion, and the continued imprisonment of hostages.
Right now, twenty known living Israeli hostages — and possibly more — languish in Hamas’ tunnels, deliberately starved and deprived of basic human needs. Their captors are not short on food; Hamas leaders dine in comfort while their prisoners are emaciated. Every calorie UJA sends into Gaza, every bag of flour or medical shipment, risks being redirected into Hamas’ war effort.
By contrast, the Jewish press in America is starving in a different way — starved of funding, starved of institutional support, starved of recognition for its role in the struggle.
This is not a coincidence. The same UJA leadership that refuses to fund a playground in Judea and Samaria sees no reason to keep Jewish weeklies alive. They do not believe in unapologetic Zionism. They believe in universalist gestures that play well at Manhattan galas and earn approving nods from progressive power brokers.
The Talmud reminds us: “Israel are the sons and daughters of kings.” We are the descendants of Abraham and Sarah — not a people born to beg for legitimacy from our enemies, not a nation whose survival depends on currying favor with those who seek our destruction.
Zeev Jabotinsky put it plainly: “We were not created in order to teach morals and manners to our enemies.” Yet UJA seems determined to do just that, to the point of neglecting the most basic duty of any Jewish communal body — to defend Jewish lives, Jewish sovereignty, and Jewish truth.
The donors who built UJA’s financial empire did so under the assumption that their contributions would strengthen Jewish life and defend Israel. They did not write checks so that $1 million could be sent into the hands of Gaza’s infrastructure, enabling the same population that celebrated the slaughter of Jews on October 7.
If the UJA wishes to reclaim its credibility, it must immediately end funding to Gaza until every last hostage is returned, restore and expand funding to Jewish media — including The Jewish Week and other weeklies — to strengthen our presence on the cognitive battlefield, and prioritize Jewish resilience projects in Israel and the diaspora over virtue-signaling to hostile audiences.
Diversify leadership to include voices from the Orthodox and Sephardic communities, who have long been excluded from decision-making despite bearing the brunt of antisemitic hostility.
Until then, donors and community members must ask themselves: is this the kind of Jewish leadership we want — one that feeds our enemies while starving our defenders?
Because in the long run, the million dollars UJA sends into Gaza will not be remembered for the bread it bought or the water it filtered. It will be remembered for the truth it silenced.
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