The National Endowment for the Humanities announced Monday that it was awarding its largest-ever grant to the Tikvah Fund, a Jewish and pro-Israel educational nonprofit, for work to fight antisemitism.

The grant totals $10.4 million over three years and will support Tikvah’s Jewish Civilization Project, to “examine Jewish history, culture, and identity in the broader context of Western history” with the goal of fighting antisemitism “through greater understanding of the enduring moral, religious, and intellectual contributions of the Jewish people to the country and the Western world,” according to an NEH release.

The effort will create a new Jewish civilization curriculum for middle and high school students; a high school program featuring seminars on Jewish civilization; Jewish humanities courses at various universities; scholarly books on the “meaning of Jewish resilience in the history of the United States and the Western world”; and a program for young journalists writing about antisemitism and Jewish history and culture.

“While it is essential to combat the rise of anti-Semitism in the political and legal arenas, the humanities also have a vital role to play in this fight,” Michael McDonald, the acting NEH chairman said in a statement, “And Tikvah is well positioned to bring a comprehensive approach, grounded in the best of humanities scholarship, to educating future leaders and the broader public on the ways in which the sinister and hate-filled attacks on Jewish people that we have been witnessing on American campuses and streets are, at a deeper level, also attacks on the very foundations that have made the United States the exceptional nation that it is.” 

The program will focus on traditional Jewish texts including the Torah and Talmud as well as modern Jewish works, the “influence of Hebraic ideas on Western and American civilization, the history and meaning of Zionism, and contemporary challenges facing the Jewish people.”

“At this unique moment for the Jewish people and the Western world, Tikvah’s purpose is clear: educating future leaders, advancing Jewish learning, working with partner schools and universities across the nation, and cultivating a new generation of teachers committed to the best of Jewish and American culture,” Tikvah CEO Eric Cohen said in a message to supporters. “The NEH’s investment in Tikvah’s work is both emboldening and humbling.”

Cohen said that the grant “affirms” the place of Jewish culture and texts in the “grand tradition of humanistic learning,” the “central role of Hebraic thought in shaping American civilization,” the role of Jewish study as an antidote to antisemitism and the “importance of investing in the education of young people and supporting the remarkable teachers who devote their lives to the noble calling of passing down Hebraic wisdom from generation to generation.”