The following open letter was shared on January 21, 2025, addressing the start of the Trump administration and outlining our approach to pursuing Jewish safety and values.

Yesterday, President Donald Trump was sworn into office at a deeply tumultuous moment for our Bay Area Jewish community, California, the entire country, and the State of Israel. We anticipate that this transition will usher in a new, more challenging environment for our community, and for many of our Bay Area neighbors.

Today, we are sharing JCRC’s approach to the new administration, an approach rooted in our pursuit of Jewish safety and values. We also seek to build transparency around our decision-making on topical issues, and share our concerns about possible tensions developing in the months and years ahead within the Jewish community and between the Jewish community and our civic partners.

The State of the Community Entering 2025

The Bay Area Jewish community is in a very different position today than when Trump first entered office in 2017. In addition to the violent threats posed to our community and others by white nationalism and the far right, antisemitism has become endemic across local institutions, from schools and universities to certain quarters of the progressive left. The trauma of October 7, the subsequent war in Gaza, and instability in the region surrounding Israel have caused lasting change to our community. Bay Area Jews are feeling more vulnerable, less confident about our inclusion in civic life, and more skeptical of the communities around us. And yet, turning inward would isolate us and undermine our influence in the broader community.

Strengthening Coalition Building Work

While coalition building has been in JCRC’s DNA for 78 years, our community has been focused on addressing the enormous surge of antisemitism since October 7, 2023. It is our utmost priority to ensure the Bay Area remains a safe place for Jews to express their full identities. This rapid response work will continue unabated.

However, JCRC’s longer term effectiveness in responding to antisemitism relies upon the hundreds of relationships and coalitions it has developed with our neighbors. Over decades, JCRC built credibility and trust with civic leaders on issues such as safeguarding same-sex marriage and protecting law-abiding undocumented residents from mass deportation. While a fraction of these relationships have disappeared since October 7, many more have been critical over the past 15 months for JCRC’s antisemitism response in schools, city halls, and beyond. For the sake of our Jewish values, our concern for vulnerable populations (which also exist within our community), and in the interest of Jewish safety, we must reinvigorate our civic partnerships once more.

Shaping Organizational and Communal Priorities

We expect that there will be many more local, national, and international challenges than JCRC and the Bay Area Jewish community can effectively address. These issues will likely range from immigration to reproductive freedoms, antisemitic incidents to Israeli politics, as well as controversial moments in the headlines and on social media that stir up our passions. You can expect JCRC to engage the Jewish community with issues of importance where we can have a measurable impact, advance our shared interests and values, and keep our community united.

To determine JCRC’s appropriate role, the organization will ask itself the following questions:

  • Does this issue have consensus within our Jewish community, or will our involvement fan internal divisions?
  • Will our involvement tangibly make a difference in shaping outcomes for those in need?
  • Are we the best Jewish organization positioned to respond, and, if so, should we act alone, or in coalition with other Jewish and/or civic organizations?
  • Do we, as a regional organization, have influence on this issue, and, if not, can we identify national partners to become more effective?
  • Have our civic partners called upon us to show up, and, if not, do they need to hear from us as allies?

Anticipating Tensions

We recognize that there may be times when JCRC and other Jewish organizations will need to engage with the Trump administration, as we have with past administrations regardless of their political affiliation. We may find alignment with the administration on specific policy issues, such as tackling antisemitism in education or strengthening Israel’s ties with neighboring Arab states. These moments may be challenging to navigate within our community and delicate for our working relationships with at-risk communities.

There may also be times when JCRC participates in coalitions and finds that some leaders and groups are directly opposed to our views and values on Israel. As we have always believed, standing our ground in these spaces and demonstrating our allyship is far wiser than disappearing from them, which only cedes ground to our detractors and alienates us from community partners.

JCRC: Prepared for this Moment

We have spent the last year strategically growing our organization to meet these challenges. In recent months, JCRC has deployed several new dedicated community relations experts, strengthening our work with K-12 schools, local government, Jewish community organizations and grassroots groups, and civic partners. Last summer JCRC launched Bay Area Jewish Action (BAJA), our sister 501c4 organization, to strengthen our community’s political advocacy. Our intercommunal work, such as our API-Jewish roundtable and participation in interfaith councils remains strong, as do our relationships with many elected and civic leaders. When the environment allows, we will resume our annual Israel Seminar to bring civic and elected leaders to discover the Jewish state.

We are incredibly grateful to our community of supporters and partners like you who make this work possible. The years ahead may be tumultuous, but JCRC is ready.