JEWS ARE ‘SURGING’ POST-OCT. 7, WITH PLURALITY HEADING TO CHABAD. WHY?
By Dovid Margolin
Excerpt from chabad.org/7115698
Kevin Schmelzlen was in San Diego visiting his mother when the news broke. Something was unfolding in Israel, something big and terrible. It was Oct. 7, 2023. The brutal images on Schmelzlen’s screen were unlike anything he had ever seen before.
“I had my phone in front of me for hours, just following all the updates,” the 37-year-old recalled.
As shocking as the massacre of Jewish men, women and children in Israel was, it was what took place in the days and weeks that followed that really surprised Schmelzlen: Even before Israel had militarily responded to the barbaric Palestinian attack, large swaths of Western society were condoning the violence visited on the People of Israel—in the news, on social media and in public squares. Some did not even bother hiding behind euphemisms, declaring instead that the Jews deserved it.
“It was the first time in my life where I felt like Jews are under attack,” said Schmelzlen, who was living in Boise, Idaho, at the time. “And the first time in my life where it felt like being Jewish was different than being anything else. I never really experienced that before.”
Rather than hide, though, Schmelzlen felt the urge to explore his Judaism. In this way he became one of the millions of Jews around the United States for whom Oct. 7 became a catalyst for engaging or reengaging with their Jewish heritage, a true great Jewish awakening. The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) commissioned their first study of this upward trend in the American Jewish community in 2024, dubbing the phenomenon the data pointed to “The Surge.” The JFNA’s followup 2025 survey found that even approaching two years since the terror attack, of the Jews who refer to themselves as “only somewhat,” “not very” or “not at all engaged” in Jewish life—making up more than 80% of the Jewish community—over 30% are actively deepening their engagement in Jewish life.
“We started hearing from communities that something was changing in Jewish life,” explained Mimi Kravetz, chief impact and growth officer at JFNA, of the impetus for the study in the first place. “We were hearing from Federations and partners: ‘I took out more chairs after Oct. 7 for an event, and I haven’t put those chairs away.’” A year later they wanted to know if that was still taking place. It was.
According to the JFNA’s findings, the largest rise has been seen among Jews connected to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, with 44% reporting deeper engagement in Jewish life since Oct. 7, 2023. “Close to half of those people who are part of this ‘Surge,’ this group showing up more in some way [to Jewish life] ... are doing it through Chabad,” said Kravetz.
Jewish community surveys had for years grouped Chabad under the rubric of Orthodox Jewry. While Chabad rabbis and their wives are certainly Orthodox Jews, by now most demographers recognize that those participating with Chabad defy simple labels, and as a result ask separate questions with regard to Chabad affiliation. “We didn’t think we were fully capturing what was going on at Chabad, because it’s actually quite unique,” said Kravetz. Someone could self-identify as Reform and yet be an active participant in Chabad.
Indeed, the JFNA survey found that half of those participating in Chabad are unaffiliated, and that it attracts Jews who are “surging” across denominations and engagement levels. Of those who reported participating with Chabad, 39% identified as Reform, 20% as Conservative, 21% as Orthodox and 15% as no denomination.
“The people coming to Chabad, they’re not identifying their denomination as Chabad or Orthodox, which some people might assume,” said Kravetz. “They’re identifying with whatever denomination they think of themselves as, and then saying, but I go to Chabad. I show up at Chabad. That’s the place where I do whatever I’m doing that’s Jewish, whether they’re coming for an event or a service or a camp or a meal.”
The survey also found that younger Jews are turning to Chabad in particular, it being the most popular way to engage for Jews between 18-34, second only to “spending time with Jewish friends.”
It’s a sea change from what Rabbi David Eliezrie experienced when he first went out as a Chabad emissary in the late 1970s. “When I started off, many American Jews thought we were best suited to play the lead in Fiddler on the Roof, but not bring Judaism to their children,” said Eliezrie, director of Chabad of Yorba Linda, Calif. “Decades later it’s clear to everyone that something very real is happening here: Chabad is the mainstream.
THERE’S A THIRST OUT THERE
Rabbi Berel Gurevitch of Chabad West Village in lower Manhattan estimates that attendance at the center he and his wife, Chana, direct has quadrupled since late 2023. “We have literal lines out the door for Shabbat morning prayers,” said the rabbi. “It’s a good analogy for the broader trend: People want to get out of the cold outside and find the warmth inside. We were growing before Oct. 7, but the growth since then has been on a different level. A lot of people who did not pay much attention to their identity before all of a sudden started to think about it very seriously.”
The Gurevitchs’ Chabad center off of West 4th Street has a diverse clientele, from young Jewish professionals excited to party and meet other young Jews in a warm, familiar space, to families searching for a place to give their children a fun and authentic Jewish experience, to older Jews interested in prayer, study and discussion, many of them finding themselves unhappy with what they’d previously seen as their “natural” Jewish homes.
“There’s a thirst for genuine Yiddishkeit,” said Gurevitch, “and an increasing number of people are recognizing that Chabad might be the option they’d never before thought of.”
In its qualitative research interviewing respondents at more length, the JFNA survey found that Jewish mid-lifers, “especially those who had been relatively unengaged prior to Oct. 7, mentioned more positive experiences at Chabad than any other single organization, and attributed positive experiences to Chabad more than any other group.”
“[Chabad is] making it easy,” one mid-life respondent told JFNA. “They’re being out there. They’re welcoming ... . That’s my experience with them, that people welcome me, acknowledge me, shake my hand, ‘how are you? Shabbat Shalom.’ And so I feel community, I feel a connection.”
Kravetz noted that respondents from all three of the largest segments of the surge—young adults, parents and mid-lifers—brought up positive experiences with Chabad unaided by the interviewers.
JFNA’s research found that the two “stickiest” segments of “The Surge”—the ones most likely to be surging in their Jewish journey two years since Oct. 7—were the ones who were already very engaged prior to the attack and responded by deepening their engagement, taking on more mitzvot, and doing things like moving their children from secular schools or camps to Jewish ones. The second “stickiest” were the people who’d done nothing before.
“[They were] the ones who we all wondered, how are we ever going to get them to do anything?” said Kravetz. “And something about this moment caused an awakening of Jewish identity, or as you just called it, of the Jewish soul, and it caused them to do something, to take some kind of action.”
Whether that initial surge can be nurtured and expanded is the remaining question.
