Going into 2026, Jewish community groups say their advocacy priorities for Congress and the federal government remain largely consistent, with a focus across many of the major advocacy organizations on bolstering community security through the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and tackling antisemitism online.

While Congress has increased its attention to Jewish communal issues in the years since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, including a string of high-profile hearings on antisemitism and several bills passed to support Israel and combat Iran, many key legislative priorities for the Jewish community — including bills on antisemitism and substantial increases to annual security funding for nonprofits — have remained stubbornly intractable.

Highlighting the expansion of congressional scrutiny of unions, academic associations and tech platforms for their fostering of antisemitism, top Anti-Defamation League officials said that advocating for such oversight work will remain a priority in the coming year, particularly in an environment in which it is difficult to pass any legislation, regardless of the subject.

“We’ll continue focusing on tough oversight, on bipartisan legislation and targeted appropriations,” Lauren Wolman, the ADL’s senior director of government relations and strategy, told Jewish Insider. “The big buckets are that we’ll be pushing Congress to confront antisemitism wherever it appears, including within one’s own party; protecting houses of worship with increased security funding; demanding real transparency and accountability from tech platforms; advancing comprehensive federal legislation to counter antisemitism and taking action to ensure that Jewish students are safe on campus.”

Asked about how the organization plans to ensure progress on legislation that has been difficult to achieve in past years, Wolman emphasized that there had been “historic momentum” this year for increased security funding, and said that ADL would “focus on levers that move policy, so oversight, legislation, appropriations” and leverage “the value of transparency, bipartisanship and coalitions.”

Max Sevillia, the ADL’s senior vice president of national affairs, said that the organization will focus on must-pass legislation such as appropriations and the National Defense Authorization Act, and emphasized that “legislating on any issue, including fighting antisemitism, oftentimes, is not a one-session effort. So we don’t give up on our priorities.”

He said that, even if major legislation did not pass this session, the group is “better positioned” to advance key priorities with the additional attention they’ve received since Oct. 7.

Sevillia said that the HEAL Act, examining Holocaust education; the Protecting Students on Campus Act, which aims to facilitate Title VI discrimination complaints; and the Pray Safe Act, which would create a central database of security resources for institutions, will remain priority bills in the new year. 

ADL is also supporting the Platform Accountability and Transparency Act (PATA), a bipartisan Senate bill that would require social media companies to share additional data with the public and with researchers, including regarding hate incidents and policies, and how platforms are responding to them.

“Congress really needs to require platforms to provide meaningful transparency into content moderation practices, algorithmic amplification and enforcement of their hate speech policies,” Wolman said.

Wolman said the ADL also continues to pursue a “comprehensive … whole-of-government” package of legislation on antisemitism, a prospect that has remained elusive. The Countering Antisemitism Act, a package along those lines, received bipartisan support in the previous Congress, but ultimately proved unwieldy — facing opposition on both sides of the aisle in both chambers.

Wolman said that ADL will be pressing Congress to focus on college campuses, K-12 education, academic professional associations, health care and technology platforms, including Wikipedia and artificial intelligence, in its oversight capacity and for potential hearings next year.

Sitting down with JI on Capitol Hill earlier this month, American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch said that his organization’s priorities for the remainder of 2025 included urging lawmakers to stand with the Jewish community and attend menorah lightings in the wake of the Sydney, Australia, shooting targeting a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach.

Going into 2026, the group is also focused on pressing lawmakers to tackle antisemitism online, particularly ensuring social media companies are addressing the foreign actors driving much of that content, as well as the antisemitism that has proliferated in AI-generated posts.

The new X policy disclosing users’ locations “confirm[ed] what we all know, which is there is this ongoing effort by malign actors around the world to influence what happens here, to stoke antisemitism, to polarize our community,” Deutch said.

Deutch said that AJC also looks forward to working with Ambassador Yehuda Kaploun, who was confirmed this month as the Trump administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism. Additionally, the group is pressing the Department of Justice to take action to address protests that block access to religious institutions. He said AJC is open to supporting new legislation on the subject, if necessary.

In his interview with JI, Deutch also urged Jewish communal organizations to come together around a common agenda, arguing that the current security environment demands a unified message and a coordinated push.

The Jewish Federations of North America will be focused on the six-point security plan laid out by many major Jewish groups following the Capital Jewish Museum shooting earlier this year, which includes massive increases to security grant funding and efforts to address antisemitism online, as well as antisemitism in K-12 and higher education and mental and physical health care spaces; the Holocaust Survivor Assistance Program and social safety net programs such as SNAP and Medicaid.

“I think security and combating antisemitism are top of mind across our community, and that’s clearly reflected in our aggressive work to increase nonprofit security funds, tackle hate on social media, and advance our six-point security plan,” JFNA CEO Eric Fingerhut told JI. 

“But we aren’t forgetting other critical issues that we care about, including legislation supporting Holocaust survivors and protect[ing] the most vulnerable in our communities,” Fingerhut continued. “With our new flagship public affairs office up and running, we are also expanding our investment to ensure local Federations come to Washington regularly to strengthen our relationships on the Hill.” 

Nathan Diament, the executive director of public policy for the Orthodox Union, said that OU’s priorities will include additional NSGP funding, allocating resources from the Department of Justice for Jewish community security, implementing the Educational Choice for Children Act — legislation passed in this year’s reconciliation bill creating tax credits for educational scholarships — and, like AJC, urging the Department of Justice to “aggressively prosecut[e] those who mount ‘protests’ at Shuls.”

In the pro-Israel space, a source familiar with AIPAC’s plans told JI that the group’s general priorities next year will include expanding U.S.-Israel collaboration in security, technology and economic spaces; supporting U.S. aid to Israel; highlighting the ongoing security threats to Israel, including Iran’s efforts to rebuild its missile arsenal and nuclear program and its support for proxies; and working to achieve Hamas and Hezbollah’s disarmament.

The source said AIPAC will release a more comprehensive agenda early next year.

As the federal government continues its battles with dozens of colleges over campus antisemitism, the field of Middle East studies has been particularly scrutinized for advancing a one-sided, anti-Israel curriculum contributing to a rise of hostility towards the Jewish state in the classroom and beyond. 

Aiming to address that bias, Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy will launch a new Middle East Policy Studies master’s program this fall. The tuition-free, fully accredited, two-year master’s program on Pepperdine’s D.C. campus is a partnership with The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. It will be funded solely by American citizens — unlike many similar university programs that take foreign funds. 

The program comes as critics of the field have long alleged that it imparts to students a one-sided history of the Middle East in which Israel is a perpetual villain, particularly since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks. “We wouldn’t be in these conversations had it not been revealed what’s been happening on college campuses since Oct. 7,” Pete Peterson, dean of Pepperdine’s public policy school, told Jewish Insider. 

“It’s evident that there is next to no viewpoint diversity” in the field, Peterson said. “That was revealed publicly in the days following Oct. 7. A lot of the organizing, staffing and in some cases even the funding of [anti-Israel] campus protests came out of centers and institutions in departments of Middle East studies. It wasn’t the engineering department that was going through the barricades.” 

For example, a 2024 report from the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance took aim at the school’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies for broadcasting the view that “the Palestinian people are innocent victims of Jewish (white) oppression and that known terrorist groups are simply ‘political movements.’” (Two heads of department were let go from their roles in March after the center came under intense scrutiny from the federal government). 

“We hope to not just bring people away from other schools where they know they will have to endure, in some cases, years of difficult experiences, but also attract new people into the field because they understand they’re not going to get that ideological — and in some cases antisemitic —  approach,” Peterson said. 

Robert Satloff, executive director of The Washington Institute and co-creator of the graduate program, told JI that the program intends to “train the next generation of policy makers, analysts and experts,” adding that it was “born out of Oct. 7, although it was percolating in my mind even before that.” The institute has been following critiques of Middle Eastern studies for at least two decades, according to Satloff. 

“At many of our elite universities, it’s quite clear that what students are getting as academic fare was not preparing them for the sort of public service we’re going to need in Middle Eastern studies,” Satloff said. “Instead of complaining about the sad state, I decided, let’s create an alternative.” 

The program will offer all accepted students this fall full tuition scholarships, which is “our way of saying that merit alone is the sole criterion for admission,” Satloff said, noting the the program’s goal is to be tuition-free in the long term — a decision that will be made after inauguration of the first cohort of students. 

“And it’s our way of offering a bit of incentive for those students who may have other options at other universities.”  

Satloff reached out to “dozens” of universities across the country in search of a partner. He said that Pepperdine, a private Christian research university with its main campus in Los Angeles, was “eager and had the right approach, which was commitment to viewpoint diversity, where students are not going to be indoctrinated.” 

Pepperdine has advertised itself in several fields as a counter to the antisemitism that has increased at universities nationwide since Oct. 7 —  and Jewish students are taking note, despite the school’s Christian affiliation.  

Jewish students comprise nearly 20% of the 1L class of Pepperdine’s Caruso School of Law. 

While Jewish students make up 2% of Pepperdine’s undergraduate population, Jim Gash, the school’s president, wrote in the Jewish Journal last year, “We are a place that is honored by the presence of our Jewish students and faculty — where every year, we have a Sukkah constructed on campus so our observant students can have a place to eat and fellowship on Sukkot; where a Menorah is lit to celebrate the holiday of Hanukkah; and where Jewish students gather together over lunch to discuss the weekly Torah portion.”

The policy school has run a longstanding scholarship for Jewish and Muslim students. “We very much have been committed to being a safe space for people of all faiths,” Peterson said. “Middle East studies in particular have become very secularized and in that secularization you see growing antisemitism.” 

Applications for the master’s program are being accepted on a rolling basis until July 25. In the two weeks since the application portal has opened, Satloff said interest in the program is “overwhelming.” 

He believes that reception has been sparked by increasing awareness that the “Middle East is likely to remain a key focus of American foreign policy.”

“There was a dip of interest in these issues, but certainly over the last couple of years, young people have been reminded that America is deeply committed in this region and there are important policy interests that we have in this region,” Satloff said, adding that the recent U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities “confirm that this region will continue to have a tug on American interests far into the future.”  

President Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate far-right commentator Paul Ingrassia to head the agency tasked with rooting out corruption and protecting whistleblowers in the federal government. 

Ingrassia, 29, currently serves as the White House liaison for the Department of Homeland Security. He briefly served as the White House liaison to the Department of Justice early in Trump’s second term, but was reassigned after clashing with the DOJ’s chief of staff after urging the president to hire only individuals who exhibited what Ingrassia called “exceptional loyalty,” according to ABC News. 

In Trump’s post on Truth Social announcing Ingrassia’s nomination to head the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal agency tasked with investigating and prosecuting office government and political corruption, the president called him a “highly respected attorney, writer, and Constitutional scholar.”

Ingrassia has trafficked in a number of conspiracy theories, as have several other controversial administration appointees, including Department of Defense Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson and acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Darren Beattie. 

On Oct. 7, 2023, as the Hamas attacks were still underway, Ingrassia posted on X calling illegal immigration to the U.S. “comparable to the attack on Israel,” writing, “The amount of energy everyone has put into condemning Hamas (and prior to that, the Ukraine conflict) over the past 24 hours should be the same amount of energy we put into condemning our wide open border, which is a war comparable to the attack on Israel in terms of bloodshed — but made worse by the fact that it’s occurring in our very own backyard. We shouldn’t be beating the war drum, however tragic the events may be overseas, until we resolve our domestic problems first.” 

He wrote three days later that the U.S. “should not be committing any foreign aid (as well as military presence) whatsoever to any country – Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, NATO, etc. – until we secure our borders and get a sensible handle over our border crisis. Practically speaking, this will take several years (at least) to get under control. In the meantime: no immigration, no foreign aid, troops, equipment, or anything, period.” 

On Oct. 12, 2023, responding to a post alleging to uncover DNA sequences of “Canaanites, Israelites [and] Judahites,” Ingrassia wrote, “This is further evidence that Israel/Palestine is a deeply complex region of the world with a complicated history, that most Americans don’t adequately understand, nor could be expected to understand.” 

In that post, he bashed former National Security Advisor John Bolton, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), former Vice President Mike Pence and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, calling them “Warmongering Troglodytes” and saying the alleged DNA evidence was “further reason to dismiss the dangerous and reckless calls” made by these officials to strike Gaza. 

On Oct. 15, just days after the attacks, Ingrassia wrote, “I think we could all admit at this stage that Israel/Palestine, much like Ukraine before it, and BLM before that, and covid/vaccine before that, was yet another psyop.”

A year later, on Oct. 3, 2024, he posted that there were no funds for hurricane relief because “we’re too busy stuffing the pockets of Zelenskyy and Netanyahu. What a disgrace our government is! Truly the enemy of the people.”

Ingrassia has further associated himself with white nationalists and antisemites, including Nick Fuentes and Kanye West, now known as Ye, posting a Substack in April 2023 titled “Free Nick Fuentes.” 

In the post, he applauded the social media platform X for restoring certain accounts including that of far-right provocateur Laura Loomer and alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate, but argued that it should go further to restore Fuentes’ and Ye’s then-banned accounts: “Notably, the accounts of once banned high-profile users such as Donald Trump, Andrew Tate, Roger Stone, and Laura Loomer have been reinstated with apparent impunity to use the platform as they please. But for every Trump and Tate, there remains the still banned Fuentes and Ye.”

The attorney has defended Tate and his brother — whom British authorities charged on Wednesday with rape, human trafficking and assault — saying in 2023 that the two “have become public enemies number one and two in the eyes of the Matrix, the deep state, and the satanic elite that attempt to systematically program and oppress all men from womb-to-tomb.”

Prior to joining the administration, Ingrassia was a regular contributor to the Gateway Pundit, a website known for publishing falsehoods and conspiracy theories. He wrote articles on the site falsely alleging Haley was ineligible to run for president in 2024 because she did not qualify as a U.S. citizen, arguing civil rights laws were never intended to protect LGBTQ persons and calling former President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 “beyond all doubt fraudulent,” among others.

Ingrassia has repeatedly used the term “globalists” to describe Jewish public figures, including Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Michigan Senate candidate Sandy Pensler and hedge fund manager Paul Singer.

Last year, following an appearance on Steve Bannon’s War Room show, Ingrassia wrote on X, “Discussed a very important topic this morning on War Room about how some RINO members — like @RepGallagher — of the House, many with dark money ties to notorious anti Trump billionaire globalist, Paul Singer, are actively working behind the scenes to turnover House control to Democratic hands with early retirements and thus pass legislation to remove President Trump from the ballot on bogus 14th Amendment grounds.”

A coalition of 46 Jewish organizations issued a joint statement on Thursday urging additional action from the federal government to address antisemitism in the United States following the killing of two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, and particularly expanding funding for a variety of programs to protect the Jewish community.

“The rising level of anti-Jewish incitement, which inevitably leads to violent acts like the one in Washington, DC yesterday, requires governmental action commensurate with the level of danger,” the letter reads.

The demands include a call to massively expand funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to $1 billion, from its current level of $274.5 million, in addition to $200 million in supplemental funding also expected to be released soon. The new request is double the $500 million request from Jewish groups in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and the request recently submitted by a bipartisan coalition of House members.

The letter further said the NSGP process should be “made more flexible and accessible,” describing it currently as “cumbersome and lack[ing] transparency.”

The groups also called for additional funding for security at Jewish institutions, for the FBI to expand its intelligence operations and counter-domestic terrorism operations and for local law enforcement to be empowered to protect Jewish establishments.

“The demands on local and state law enforcement far outpace their capacity to meet the need, which disproportionately affects targeted communities like the American Jewish community,” the letter says, of the need for additional funding for state and local law enforcement.

The groups also urged the federal government to “aggressively prosecute antisemitic hate crimes and extremist violence in accordance with the law” and to hold online platforms including social media and gaming sites “accountable for amplification of antisemitic hate, glorification of terrorism, extremism, disinformation, and incitement.”

The letter describes the murders as “the direct consequence of rising antisemitic incitement in places such as college campuses, city council meetings, and social media that has normalized hate and emboldened those who wish to do harm.”

Signatories to the letter include major national Jewish organizations including the American Jewish Committee, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Jewish Federations of North America, Anti-Defamation League and AIPAC, as well as groups representing a wide political and religious cross section of the Jewish community.