After Oct. 7, Israelis and Diaspora Fund Their Own Resilience

More than 250,000 Israeli and Diaspora donors will give roughly NIS 500 million through the JGive platform this year—more than four times its pre-war volume. Ori Ben-Shlomo, JGive’s founder and CEO, shared the figure on The Deep Dive, describing a surge in charitable giving that began after October 7 and hasn’t faded.

“It changed society,” Ben-Shlomo said. Israelis, he argued, now see civil society organizations as a “must-have” rather than a nice extra. That’s a telling shift for a country that absorbed a mass-casualty terror attack and then fought a long war against enemies who openly seek its destruction.

Built on a Battlefield Lesson

Ben-Shlomo knows the problem firsthand. A lawyer who served as general counsel at a major Israeli media group, he founded JGive after serving in Gaza as a reservist during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Twelve years ago, he said, he saw how poor coordination caused donated goodwill to go to waste. Generosity existed. The machinery to direct it didn’t.

On October 7, that gap mattered immediately. Calls came in from New York, Los Angeles and London, and JGive helped thousands of charities raise emergency funds. It also established a national emergency fund led by, among others, a former Israel Air Force commander and a former Supreme Court justice. The fund first covered basic needs—food, clothing and medication—for evacuees from the kibbutzim, including Holocaust survivors. Then it expanded into education and rehabilitation.

A Changing Donor Base

Ben-Shlomo said Diaspora giving itself has changed. The grandparents’ generation wrote checks to large institutions. Younger donors want to give “without the middleman” to specific causes they’ve researched, increasingly alongside Israelis rather than simply to them. “Israel is not a young state,” he said. “We’re close to 80.”

Young people now rank among JGive’s top donors. Major charities had previously told him they couldn’t reach that group.

With Israeli elections two weeks away, Ben-Shlomo spoke to Diaspora Jews who feel connected to Israel’s future but can’t vote. He called giving “the best way” for them to have a say and said it does more to shape the country than politics. “Politics divides people, and giving connects people,” he said.

Pressure on Communities Abroad

The conversation also turned to rising antisemitism and the strain on Jewish communities abroad. They’re being pushed to fund their own security while continuing to support Israel. Ben-Shlomo said those donors have shifted the balance toward their own communities without ending their support for Israel. He argued that Israel’s government and donors should now help Diaspora communities in return.

Reform and the “Fourth Power”

Ben-Shlomo said he worked with Israel’s Tax Authority to introduce donor-advised funds, familiar in the United States, and allow donations of stocks and other assets, which he called “a game changer.” He said further reform is needed, including ceilings on tax benefits for major donors.

He described the larger goal as building Israel’s “fourth power.” After defense, the economy and technology, he said, the country needs a society “that makes sure no one is left behind,” built from the ground up like the start-up nation. Asked whether he was optimistic about the next generation, he told the story of a reserve officer badly wounded in Lebanon who organized a campaign for another patient while still in rehabilitation.

Why This Matters: Israel’s military strength and technological base get most of the attention. But a country under sustained attack also needs a society that can absorb shocks and care for displaced people, the wounded and the elderly. The surge in giving described here suggests civil society is filling roles exposed by wartime strain. Reliance on Diaspora donors brings its own pressure: those communities face rising antisemitism and the cost of securing themselves. Tax reform and donor coordination may determine whether wartime generosity becomes durable infrastructure or fades when the emergency recedes. That’s a perspective on the stakes, not a forecast.