Jewish Federations CEO privately opposed a Jewish open letter criticizing Trump’s campus arrests

Last week, a coalition of 10 large Jewish groups released an open letter decrying the Trump administration’s approach to antisemitism.

Hours later, Eric Fingerhut, the CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, released his own letter. Writing privately to leaders of local Jewish federations, he said the anti-Trump letter did not adequately “reference the diverse views we hold” in the Jewish community.

The text of Fingerhut’s email was shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. It was first reported by Ron Kampeas, a political reporter who retired in December from JTA and now publishes an independent Substack.

The dispute points to ongoing anxiety within the Jewish world over how, or whether, to respond to Trump’s attempted deportations of foreign student activists in the name of fighting antisemitism.

Signatories to the first letter — spearheaded by the Jewish Council on Public Affairs and including leaders of the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements — join a broad range of Jewish organizations that have critiqued or condemned Trump’s campus crackdown. But JFNA...
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