eJewish Philanthropy: Years after taking helm of JCPA, Amy Spitalnick is fighting for the America that saved her family

eJewish Philanthropy‘s Jay Deitcher sat down with JCPA’s CEO Amy Spitalnick to talk about JCPA’s mission, the critical intersection of Jewish safety and inclusive democracy, and her inspiration to act in honor of the legacy of her family’s Holocaust survival story.

As eJP reported, “Under [Spitalnick’s] leadership, JCPA has reorganized and grown substantially: Its staff has increased from two to nearly a dozen, with the of employees working on the Capitol Hill increasing from zero to four; its annual budget has increased from $970,000 to over $2.7 million; and the number of annual donors to the 82-year-old legacy organization has increased from 300 to over 800.”

eJP continued, “Today, Spitalnick said, JCPA serves the majority of American Jews, whom studies show value democracy and civil rights. Pew Research Center polling shows that American Jews lean heavily progressive. In the 2024 presidential election, the Jewish community cited democracy as a key priority. A recent Ipsos study showed that while the majority of American Jews felt antisemitism was an issue, 72% believed that President Donald Trump was using it as an ‘excuse’ to ‘penalize and tax college campuses.'”

“All of the poll data tells us the majority of the Jewish community is holding this complexity, is rejecting the binary approach to fighting antisemitism and protecting democracy that has shaped so much of the public conversation,” Spitalnick said.

As Jeremy Burton, CEO of the JCRC of Greater Boston, said, JCPA knows what values we stand for, and is ready to offer Jewish community relations organizations “the tools and the frameworks that allow us to step into spaces where certain kinds of actions and voices and coalitions are needed.”

JCPA is proud to be the first call for many Jewish community relations organizations working through difficult moments. “After last July’s firebombing in Boulder during a Run for Their Lives hostage support rally, the first person who [Brandon Rattiner, senior director of the Colorado JCRC] called was Spitalnick,” because he knew that JCPA had “the tactical experience [to get] me to a place where I feel safe enough and supported enough to actually go implement the hard parts that I need to do.”

eJP added: “The need for coalition building was exemplified after the Boulder firebombing, which was preceded by a May 2025 shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. that left two Embassy of Israel staff members dead. Soon after the deadly incidents, social media was flooded with commentary suggesting that the attacks were not antisemitism, but protests of Israeli policy. In response, Spitalnick pulled together peers in The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights who released a statement from 65 civil rights organizations, including those representing Muslim, Arab, LGBTQ+, Japanese American, Sikh and other minority communities. The message: ‘When Jews are targeted Over the actions of the Israeli government, that’s antisemitism period full stop,’ she said.”

And on Capitol Hill, JCPA is ready and able to make lawmakers understand “what a majority Jewish voice really is,” according to veteran political leader Amy Rutkin. A former top adviser to Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Rutkin told eJP, “Although there are loud voices on both the far left and right, Spitalnick captures how the majority of America feels, and she’s an ‘equal opportunity condemner’ when it comes to calling out the explosion of antisemitism on either side of the spectrum.” “Additionally, Rutkin said, Spitalnick’s webinar with Ocasio-Cortez led to the congresswoman acknowledging that antisemitism on the left exists and should be condemned; the acknowledgment seemed to open the door to others on the left to follow suit, when such condemnations were rare post-Oct. 7. Soon after, representatives across the left spoke out against antisemitic incidents at the Brooklyn Museum and the Nova Exhibition.”

“‘There’s this broader idea that everyone abandoned us after Oct. 7, and I would say that it’s far more complicated than that,’ [Spitalnick] said. Often, Jews are told not to ‘sit at the table with folks with whom we might have real disagreements, but that’s the only way we’re going to build the coalitions we need to keep us safe,’ she said. ‘We’re not going to solve antisemitism by talking to people who already agree with us.'”

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