Deborah Lust Zaluda, president of Jewish National Fund-USA, conveyed a powerful message of optimism during her visit to Israel in February as a delegate of the 50th mission of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
“Sitting here this week with this group of people who are committed Zionists, who believe in Israel’s future, I felt that you can wallow in fear, but I don’t think that’ll get you anywhere,” she told JNS in a Feb. 18 interview at the Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem.
“Yes, I am optimistic. You hear the word ‘resilience’ a lot when you talk about Israelis, but it really is true,” she said. “You can see this energy from people who have potentially lost everything but are still moving forward. Yesterday, I heard this story about Gadi Moses, the 80-year-old from Kibbutz Nir Oz who, thank God, came home from captivity in unimaginable conditions. As he comes into Israel, and they’re all rushing in the car, he says, ‘Slow down, I want to see. Who planted the wheat? Did someone take care of the fields while I was gone?’”
For Lust Zaluda, Moses—the oldest hostage released on Jan. 30 after 482 days in captivity—personified the spirit of Israel. “Here’s this man who has been starved and kept in the dark in a tiny space, and that’s what he’s thinking about: Who’s taking care of things? What’s going to happen? OK, this was horrible, but how are we moving forward? It’s that mindset that tells me we have a future,” continued Lust Zaluda. “Yes, I’m optimistic. We’ll deal with whatever negativity is out there, but it’s that resilience and that strong spirit, and the people who really have this in their nefesh, in their soul, will propel us forward.”
It’s this positive mindset, according to Lust Zaluda, that should also form the basis of the Jewish people’s battle against rising antisemitism.
From my perspective, she said, “the way that one should combat antisemitism is not through negativity but through creating a strong personal identity, because if you have a strong identity, a strong Jewish identity and a strong Zionist identity, then you don’t have to go to the anti- and say, ‘Wrong, wrong, wrong!’ but you can say, ‘Hey, I am who I am. I feel good about it and I’m moving forward.’”
She noted, “I’ve had conversations with people connected to Jewish National Fund and not—rabbis and educators—and this is the thought process. How do we deal with Zionist education and Jewish education to create a strong personal identity, because that to me will be the greatest thing we can do to combat antisemitism? It’s not by focusing on the negative but rather on the positive. If you feel strong, you don’t have to worry about the other piece. I’m a strong believer in this.”
‘Increasing population in north and south’
Lust Zaluda joined some 70 delegates to the Conference of Presidents mission in their meetings with Israeli leaders and experts, and their visits to Israel’s north and south.
“For many years in my tenure at JNF, long before I became president, I was focused on the north,” she said. “For me, the north is beautiful. For JNF, our goal is to ensure a future Israel for all of its residents. How do we do that? Well, we do that by increasing the population in the north and the south. Right now, 75% of the people live on 20% of the land, although in the past 16 months, it probably went up to 90%. Not sustainable.
“Because of the events of Oct. 7 and Oct. 8, when Hezbollah decided to join the Hamas war, over 100,000 people were displaced from their homes [I think more than half are still not back in their homes even after the ceasefire], Jewish National Fund began to craft a plan to reimagine how the region can be built in a better way to bring people back and bring in new people, through economic development, through employment, through housing and through security. Security comes in many forms—technical security and emergency response centers, but also employment security, health security and food security.”
Among other things, she pointed out that in the north, Jewish National Fund-USA continued during the war to build a top-notch medical center in Kiryat Shmona, half of which is fortified, a world-class culinary institute in Galilee, and a landmark World Zionist Village in Beersheva.
In the south, she said, it was helping to rebuild Kibbutz Re’im, including a new emergency response center, a community center in Shlomit, a sports center in Sha’ar Hanegev named in memory of Ofir Libstein, the head of the regional council murdered on Oct. 7, and a high school in the Arava, an extension of its popular Alexander Muss High School Campus in Ramat Hasharon.
“We’re bringing education back, employment—all the things that people need to feel secure—and we’re starting with Kibbutz Re’im,” she said. “Then there are our volunteer missions in which we have brought over 40,000 Americans to Israel since December 2023. We began by going to Kibbutz Re’im—planting and cleaning, painting the buildings, making it even better than it was before. If we can take that model and bring it to other places in the country, it’ll have a big impact.”
From a fundraising perspective, she said, Jewish National Fund-USA set a record figure of more than $200 million in what was called a resilience campaign in 2024.
“You might say this is an anomaly: Oct. 7, people stepped up. This year, the emergency mindset might have abated, but we’re already showing a high retention of our 40,000 new donors. It’s pretty extraordinary, and after the first quarter of the year, we are close to 50% of our annual budget.”
The money, she said, is going primarily to the myriad of projects to “reimagine and rebuild” the north and south. “But it’s more about building resilience in the future,” she stressed. “We’re not looking back, we’re always looking ahead. Not forgetting the past, but understanding that we need to focus on the future.”
‘Always keeping the big picture in mind’
After a career as a successful lawyer in Chicago, Lust Zaluda was elected as Jewish National Fund-USA’s president at its annual board meeting on Sept. 30, 2023. She had previously served as assistant vice president of missions, chaired the Go North West Task Force, contributed as a JNF Boruchin Center committee member, and led the organization’s Chicago board as president.
“Everything that I’ve done in my volunteer life has revolved around Israel,” she observed. “But with the Jewish National Fund, I feel like it’s just the perfect fit. Everything we do is about Israel. This is who we are. It really is quite extraordinary, and I feel pretty blessed that I’m in this position in this organization that has a tagline, ‘Your Voice in Israel.’ What it does is it allows me to have a voice and to create a scenario where I along with lots of others, professionals and lay leaders, can have this incredible impact that changes the face of Israel.”
As she took on the role of president, she considered what she could add to Jewish National Fund-USA. “From my perspective, the two main things were: Always keeping the big picture in mind. What’s the mission and vision of the organization?
“To me, it’s ensuring a future in Israel for all its residents. This is what I focus on. Everything we do and everything we talk about has to go back to that. The second main thing is that we’re the Jewish National Fund. What does that mean? For me, everything that we do has to be done with Jewish values in mind.”
This, she said, “is what I’m hoping to bring: an understanding that the work that we’re doing is done through the lens of Jewish values, of coexistence, helping our people, working together for the future. This is my vision.”