JNF-USA and KKL-JNF sign $50 million joint venture to rebuild southern Israeli communities, looking for more partners, funding

Nearly a year since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, efforts to rebuild the Gaza border communities destroyed remain underway, with experts estimating that reconstruction could take at least half a decade. A recently signed $50 million joint venture of the Jewish National Fund-USA and Keren Kayemet Le’Israel-Jewish National Fund will aid in rehabilitation on a “project-by-project basis” of the southern Israel communities devastated by Hamas’ attacks, the groups announced on Wednesday.

The partnership, called “Building Together,” was first unveiled in December at JNF-USA’s annual conference in Denver. A nonbinding memorandum of understanding was signed at the conference and was then sent to each organization’s boards for consideration and ratification. At the time, a JNF spokesperson told eJewishPhilanthropy that he anticipated the $50 million fund ($25 million from each organization) would grow as other Jewish organizations contribute funding, noting that “conversations are already underway.” However, the five-year agreement is, for now at least, solely between KKL-JNF and JNF-USA. 

Sol Lizerbram, president of JNF-USA, called for additional support. “We need Zionist organizations everywhere to coordinate efforts to address these unprecedented challenges,” Lizerbram said in a statement on Wednesday.

According to JNF-USA, the money will be used to identify projects that both groups can philanthropically invest in and is considered more of a joint venture rather than a fund.

The collaboration also indicates a deepening cooperative relationship between the two organizations after almost two decades of separation. The groups have maintained strained ties with one another over the years over a variety of disputes, some ideological and some over management practices. Ifat Ovadia-Luski, KKL-JNF chairwoman, told eJP that she made repairing the rift one of her top priorities when stepping into the role in 2022. “This situation could not continue and we must work together,” she said, recalling that multiple in-person meetings, both in Jerusalem and New York, took place before the groups agreed to join forces.

The $50 million comes on top of major fundraising — more than $100 million each —- separately raised by both groups since Oct. 7.

Lizerbram pointed to several initiatives to rebuild the Eshkol region, a 284 square-mile swath of land southeast of the Gaza Strip, including JNF’s 34,000-square-foot community center, the largest in the region; a new synagogue; planning of more than a dozen emergency response centers; seven parks; and the region’s largest resilience center under contract. JNF-USA has also brought some 3,700 American volunteers to plant, paint and farm on war-torn kibbutzim.

Additionally, a new Adam V’Adama high school for 100 children from all across Israel is slated to open in September, Lizerbram said. “All this, and more, is going on since Oct. 7 and we are just getting started. We are helping the residents move back and breathe again,” he told eJP.

KKL-JNF, meanwhile, funded several emergency response initiatives, including the initial evacuation of residents and purchase of security equipment at the start of the war; the purchase of defensive equipment for first responders and the relocation of residents from severely war-hit Kibbutz Kfar Aza to Kibbutz Ruhama.