Professor Seymour Fox, one of the most influential figures in modern Jewish education, dean of the School of Education at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1967–1981), where the School of Education was later named in his honor, was the founder of the Melton Centre for Jewish Education, a major center for Jewish educational research and leadership training.
President of the Mandel Foundation, he was also the architect of the Jerusalem Fellows program (launched in the early 1980s), an elite leadership development fellowship for experienced Jewish educators from abroad. Fellows spent extended periods in Jerusalem studying educational philosophy, Jewish thought, leadership, and institutional change, then returned to leadership roles in their Jewish communities.
A visionary, a mover and shaker, a disruptor, a brilliant fundraiser, Seymour co-opted significant leaders and philanthropists to his cause.
I was extremely fortunate to be selected for the Jerusalem Fellows, and being surrounded by the best and the brightest on the program, which took me way out of my ghetto comfort zone on the backwater slopes of Table Mountain in Cape Town, I was able to thrive in an environment which empowered me to exponentially sharpen my knowledge base and practice, develop my leadership skills and levels of confidence, establish a cohort of mentors – and essentially, jet-fueled my career.
I thought about the Jerusalem Fellows program, which still impacts Jewish education, after attending an inspirational lecture by Dr. Tal Becker, a vice president at the Shalom Hartman Institute, international lawyer, Israeli peace negotiator, and one of the leading voices in Jewish thought on Israel and global affairs.
My main takeaway from his presentation was that while in the Middle East, post-October 7, Israel may have “won,” whatever that means, we have unfortunately lost the West.
And yes, we in Israel and in the Jewish world, besides being hopelessly and tragically unprepared for the traumatic, Holocaust-like massacre of October 7, were also disastrously unprepared for October 8 – and for what continues to this day, unabated: the roller coaster, runaway tsunami of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred that had clearly been orchestrated and choreographed way in advance.
It is backed by millions of dollars invested over many years, in an ongoing, vitriolic, anti-Israel campaign, backed by the legacy media, adding fuel to the cause – which has consequently made it unsafe for Jews around the world.
What is especially sad is that we were reaping the fruits of the golden age of global Jewry: post-Holocaust to October 6, reveling in and being liberated by our newly found freedoms of acceptance and admiration, perhaps the pinnacle being the ultimate status symbol of marrying a Jew!
Jewish people internationally thrived, developing sophisticated health, education, and welfare services in our local communities, but also enthusiastically sharing our good fortune, making huge contributions as entrepreneurs and captains of industry, and being incredibly generous to the larger communities in which we lived – in many cases, being significant philanthropists of note, held in awe.
Jewish leadership globally engaged with and was instrumentally involved in helping to build the State of Israel on many levels – from investing huge sums of money via the organized Jewish community – to sending hundreds of thousands of youngsters on Birthright, an established rite of passage, to visiting frequently and to making aliyah, leading by example.
And yet, it seems, notwithstanding the outstanding leadership and dedication of people of exceptional calibre, that we somehow took our eye off the ball, seemingly unaware of the simmering antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment bubbling just below the surface.
We also played down the impact of more than $1.1 billion donated by Qatar to US colleges and universities in 2025, the single largest foreign source of university funding that year, giving Qataris access to political leaders, academics, policy experts, journalists and business elites. Do the math!
We also did not consider the impact of faculty on students at elite universities in the US and globally, in the post 60’s progressive era who focused, in the main, on Israel as an “oppressor and colonialist state.”
Neither did we factor in the impact of NGOs in the “human rights” sphere, with millions of dollars at their disposal, who continue to be preoccupied with, and constantly demonizing and delegitimizing, Israel.
And, of course, the power of social media, driven by the multiplier, viral effect of algorithmic, visual hatred of Jews, has left us entirely flatfooted.
Securing Israel’s future through leadership and education
Consequently, we are constantly in reactive mode, seemingly unable to counter this rolling snowball avalanche of hate, anti-Israel marches around the world, and now, perhaps climaxing with Kristof’s recent hit-piece screed in the New York Times, essentially comparing us with Hamas – and playing down the self-documented brutality of Hamas in their orgy of rape and violence as documented in the Israeli Civil Commission Report: “Silenced No More” (May 2026).
The cumulative effect of this global strategy of destroying Israel has placed us in a precarious situation, with few friends around the world, feeble government responses, and the crumbling of protective guard rails, literally placing Jewish lives in jeopardy.
I would argue that no matter what we do or say, for the foreseeable future, we will be the pariah of the international community.
Returning to Professor Fox and his Jerusalem Fellows model: what is desperately needed is to intensively train the next generation of elite leaders, who are knowledgeable and can be proactive, and respond with facts and figures, who will be influencers and have exceptional writing, social media, and content-producing skills.
Think of Eylon Levy, of people who will have that rare combination of intellectual depth, moral seriousness, public clarity, and persuasive presence to handle any contingency, and who will be able to engage effectively in the intellectual and moral contests of our time as well as take on the establishment. This, after all, is the new battlefield. Think Bari Weiss.
Imagine bringing 20 exceptional people annually from a diversity of fields of expertise from around the world, over a 10-year period, to spend two years living, conversing, and debating together in Jerusalem. They would create a living, intellectual ecosystem and combustion chamber in real time where excellence becomes contagious, where Fellows are feeding off each other, and while sitting at the feet of and being trained by Tal Becker and Tal Becker clones.
They would be exposed to the best scholars, educators, and practitioners from Israel and around the world, in the Rabbi Jonathan Sacks mold, perhaps the greatest scholar and teacher of our generation – all united by a common mission: to be prepared, as part of a strategic network, to take on the mantle of responsible Jewish leadership in a topsy-turvy, unstable world, which has its sights set on destroying Israel.
A fund of at least $100 million is needed to concretely plan for and to set up urgently the equivalent of Rhodes Scholars, in essence, adapting the model of the Jerusalem Fellows into a long-term, elite leadership incubator, to rigorously prepare a new generation for the intellectual, cultural, and media battles ahead. These future leaders will help shape thousands of lives through media, policy, education, scholarship, diplomacy, and institutions.
This initiative should be given the highest priority – if we are to help secure the future of Israel and the Jewish people.
Are we up to this existential challenge?
The writer, former headmaster of Jewish day schools in Cape Town, Toronto, and Vancouver, worked at Yad Vashem and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, has written a novella, A World of Pains: A Redemptive Parable?, and compiled two volumes on donors and fundraisers.