During the war with Hamas, North American Jews raised about $1 billion for Israel, according to the authors of a new report on the subject, cited by the Times of Israel.

Jewish federations in North America raised more than $600 million for Israel in the one month since the war between Hamas and Israel began, according to a report released yesterday titled “Standing Together – American Jews and Israel in the First Month of War.” and was compiled by researchers from the Ruderman Program in American Jewish Studies at the University of Haifa.

The remaining $400 million is estimated donations raised in several campaigns by other public and private organizations with a Jewish connection, including friendship associations that support Israeli hospitals, universities and emergency services, said David Barak-Horodetsky, director of the Ruderman Program , for the Times of Israel.

The $602 million raised by the Jewish Federations of North America and its member organizations exceeds the $500 million goal they announced at the start of their fundraising campaign at the very beginning of the war on October 7, when 3,000 Hamas terrorists killed an estimated 1,200 Israelis in a brutal raid across the border and took 240 hostages.

The figures represent an “unprecedented contribution”, the 71-page report said. The $602 million raised by the feds in October 2023 represents a 70% increase over the feds’ second largest pro-Israel campaign in recent years, which took place during the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

The war is changing the internal dynamics of North American Jewry, the report added. “Just as the war united Israeli society – or at least reduced conflicting debates within it – so too has the American Jewish public come together around a common cause, according to the many conversations we’ve had,” the authors write.

They cite the proliferation of interfaith prayer events and the marginalization of criticism of Israel on both sides of the conservative-liberal ideological divide.