“Connection Across Difference”: Introducing the 2026 Ralph I. Goldman (RIG) Fellow

Hillel Debow, the 2026 JDC Entwine Ralph I. Goldman (RIG) Fellow, is a rising Jewish leader dedicated to building bridges between Jews of all backgrounds. At Gesher, an organization where he serves as group facilitator, Debow promotes respectful, effective dialogue between people from every sector of Israeli society. 

In this reflection, Debow opens up about his Jewish upbringing, what led him to apply for JDC’s premier leadership opportunity, and why looking to Ralph Goldman’s legacy can help us solve the most urgent challenges confronting the Jewish world. 

What makes Jews a people?

We want to be closer together — by choice, not necessity — but in these difficult times, that often feels like it’s becoming more difficult. There are many reasons for this: rising antisemitism, toxicity on social media, and the painful war in Israel. It sometimes seems like the classic story of who we are has lost some of its coherence. 

The fabric of our shared Jewish identity is stretching and straining and, in places, dangerously close to becoming threadbare. Agreeing on how to be “Jewish” is as hard as it’s ever been. People all over the world are asking themselves, “Where do I fit into the Jewish people?” 

I believe that finding a way to answer that question will assist in this pivotal moment for global Jewish identity. We must ask, “Where do we all fit into this beautiful, complex, ancient, and vibrant Jewish nation?” We want to enlarge our tent. But we need to find more threads to thicken its weave. 

Grappling with this urgent question led me to apply for the JDC Entwine Ralph I. Goldman (RIG) Fellowship. I see RIG as an unparalleled opportunity not only to broaden who I am as a person, but directly experience Jewish communities through the lens of JDC. I think it is only by engaging with the rich diversity of Jewish perspectives that we can strengthen the ties that bind us.  

This wasn’t always apparent to me. I grew up in a home where Jewish life wasn’t a question — it was a given. My parents are educators, and our home was always filled with learning, conversation, and a deep sense of responsibility. In Israel, where I live, that identity often feels ubiquitous — it’s in the language, national calendar, and public space. Jewish identity wasn’t something I had to discover; it was something I lived. 

Over time, I began to understand that what felt obvious to me, an American-Israeli, modern Orthodox Jew, was just one of many possible Jewish identities.  

Through experiences abroad — like guiding teens in the United States at summer camps, traveling and being hosted in different communities, and working at Gesher, an Israeli NGO — I encountered Jewish life that looks very different from my own.  At first, I felt like I was out of my comfort zone. Later, I began to see the varied faces of global Jewish life as something beautiful.  

Encountering these diverse perspectives is the substance of my work. At Gesher, I facilitate conversations between people from across Israeli society. These are spaces in which people enter with strong identities and often even stronger assumptions about one another. 

Again and again, I see how fragile our sense of shared Jewish identity can be. How quickly disagreement becomes separation. How two people keeping Shabbat in different ways — one by keeping to the letter of the law and not touching electronics, the other by driving to his grandparents to share a  Friday night dinner — can initially create distance. 

But I see something else, too. When people are given the space to speak honestly and truly listen, something shifts. It’s not necessarily agreement or resolution, but recognition, an understanding that even across deep differences, we still have something shared. 

I love this open space of diversity and respect, dialogue and exploration, and difference without alienation. 

I want to invite many more Jews into this tent. I want to hear different answers to why people are Jewish — to meet and see people choosing to be Jewish, people who are alive to their traditions and intentional about being a part of the Jewish people.  

For much of our history, the choice to be active with our Jewish identity was not ours to make — we were defined by how others saw us, by those who reminded us, again and again, that we were different. October 7 brought some of that back and antisemitism is rising. 

Nevertheless, we live in a time of tremendous choice and openness. We retain the ability to decide who we are and what makes us a people. We have the chance to write the next chapter any way we desire, not because other people told us, but because we want to be a people, because we are proud of our heritage. 

JDC is foundational to this work, helping to create spaces where Jews from every walk of life can determine their collective future. The fact that we help Jews in need gives us the ability to be in conversation with all Jews. We sustain connections across differences — we are the connective tissue of the Jewish world. 

I was drawn to JDC because of its broad scope and deep roots in Jewish communities around the globe — each with its own history, challenges, and hopes. JDC operates with the belief that there is no single way to be Jewish. They are there to listen and understand what the community needs for a better Jewish life. 

At a time when Jewishness looks increasingly diverse, working for JDC is an extraordinary chance to experience this multiplicity. And if you want to be an effective Jewish leader — ready to tackle the most urgent challenges all of us face — you need to have immersed yourself in Jewish communities worldwide. 

No one understood this better than Ralph I. Goldman, JDC’s legendary Honorary Executive Vice-President. He knew that Jews were all one family and lived his life as a testament to this connectedness. He believed and acted like a member of a vibrant, rich, beautiful nation. That’s why, as a leader seeking to draw Jews of all backgrounds closer together, I am thrilled to link my name with his through this Fellowship. 

Indeed, we are a people. We can take ownership of our identity. We can actively choose what it means to be Jewish, what we stand for. We can build bridges between Jews, not because we are forced to, but because we believe it matters.  And we have the opportunity and the responsibility to help one another, not because we need to, but because we want to. 

The question isn’t if Jews are a single people. It’s “What does Jewishness look like to you?” There are a thousand different answers, and I feel blessed and privileged to spend the year hearing them.   

Hillel Debow is the 2026 JDC Entwine Ralph I. Goldman (RIG) Fellow. Debow was born in Cleveland to educators serving as shlichim and raised in a home grounded in community, Jewish learning, and responsibility. After returning to Israel, he studied at Yeshivat Ma’alot and Beit Prat’s Mabua program, deepening his spiritual world through Torah and Jewish philosophy. Drawn to meaningful engagement, he entered informal education, counseling teens at Camp Stone and later serving as a Jewish Agency fellow in Australia. 

Debow served as a navigator in the IDF’s Haruv Reconnaissance Unit and today is a Section Sergeant in the reserves, completing over 400 days since October 7, 2023. He works at Gesher, facilitating identity-based dialogue and earned a BA in Humanities and Middle Eastern Studies at Shalem. 

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