NEW BEGINNINGS

Daniel Elbaum steps in as inaugural director of American Friends of IDF Widows and Orphans

Prior to his first week on the job at the fledgling organization, eJP spoke to Elbaum about the his new role and the group's trajectory

By Nira Dayanim

September 16, 2025

For the bulk of his career, Daniel Elbaum has held positions at legacy Jewish organizations, including the American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League and, most recently, the Jewish Agency for Israel, where he served as head of its North America office and of its international development division. This week, he leaves behind the “100-year-old organizations” and breaks fresh ground as the inaugural executive director of the newly formed American Friends of IDF Widows and Orphans.

IDF Widows and Orphans (IDFWO), the parent organization of the American “Friends of” group, has existed in Israel for 35 years. But until a few years ago, the organization raised money in the U.S. through Friends of the IDF. The decision to split off from FIDF long predates the organization’s recent controversies, as well as the sudden, tragic rise in the number of IDF widows and orphans in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks and resulting nearly two years of war.

In January 2021, as IDFWO’s funding needs increased and the organization sought to diversify its donor base, the partnership with FIDF ended and the group started raising money through third-party platforms, Elbaum said. An American branch of the organization has been working to forge its own path since then, first registering as an independent organization in February 2023, and as a 501(c)3 in March 2024. Until now, the fledgling organization has been led by David Metzler, IDFWO’s director of international relations.

Last week, Elbaum spoke with eJewishPhilanthropy about his career transition, his goals for the new American “Friends of” and the need for trauma support in Israel. Since Oct. 7, 2023, there have been 330 new widows and over 780 orphaned children, Elbaum told eJP, contributing to his view that this role is a “calling.”

Nira Dayanim: You’ve held significant roles at several broad, legacy Jewish institutions. You’re now going to be the executive director of the American Friends of the IDF Widows and Orphans, which is a new and far more targeted organization. What led you to pivot?

Dan Elbaum: It starts and ends with the mission of the organization. So it wasn’t like I always thought, “I really always want to work for 100-year-old organizations.” That is what my employment history was, and I found those organizations to be tremendously fulfilling. I admit I didn’t know very much about IDF Widows and Orphans. I was actually in the process of interviewing with a few organizations that have been around for a while, then I learned about this opportunity. I was approached about it. I watched a couple videos, I spoke to one person, and I told my wife, “This is the job I want. This is where I want to be.” She’s a little more practical than I am. She asked me some good practical questions, like, “Do you know if they have benefits or what they’re paying you, or anything else like that?” I said, “Oh, those are very good questions. I should find out the answer to that.”

For me, it feels like everything that I’ve done professionally has brought me to this point where I can work in a targeted way to help those people who have paid the ultimate price for the survival of the Jewish state, and this is with a ton of respect, admiration and reverence for the legacy Jewish organizations where I worked.

This is for me, an opportunity to create something that didn’t exist before — working with the leadership and the board, and, of course, the parent Israeli organization. That’s a lot harder to do at a legacy organization, where you have these structured ways that things have been done for so long. We certainly don’t have a blank canvas. We have organizations that support us. There’s a small but very active board. There’s definitely a history there, but the ability to really look at the map in the United States, to figure out the best strategy and to put into place a structure for an organization that will support a population that needs support, for — I hope the war ends tomorrow— but for as long as the war goes and then many years afterwards. It’s just the type of opportunity that doesn’t come across your desk very often. For me, it’s never come across before, and it really feels like more of a calling.

ND: To my understanding, support for this cause has historically leaned more right wing within the Jewish community. Have you seen that reflected in the current donor base, and are you looking to broaden the appeal across the political spectrum?

DE: So I’ve begun to do a deep dive into the donor base, but I can’t yet answer intelligently as to whether the supporters do tend to be more right wing. I certainly think that’d be the case with some organizations linked to the word “IDF.” There are many reasons I’m excited about this job, but one reason is that it’s so apolitical in that sense that you can feel however you feel about the military actions that Israel has taken. You can be from the political right. You can be from the political left. But for me, none of that really should be a major factor in making a decision about whether or not you want to find a way to support the families of the soldiers or Border Police, foreign agents or those who have fallen in service of the Jewish state. When you think about the Israeli soldiers who fell, they were religious and they were nonreligious. They were left wing. They were right wing. Some supported the military action enthusiastically, and some had serious reservations about what Israel was doing. They still went. They still served their country. They still answered the call when it occurred. And I don’t see any reason why the donor base within the United States should feel any differently about the organization.

To answer the question, I think that people, committed Zionists — not just Jews — but people who believe in Israel in any way, shape or form, regardless of their political ideology — I feel like they all should be supporting this organization. I also think this organization needs greater visibility within the federation world, which has given so much to the State of Israel, to so many different worthwhile Israeli causes. I don’t think it’s on the radar of as many federations as it really should be, and it’s something that I plan to leverage my own personal relationships and friendships with different federation leaders and executives to try to build support for.

ND: You mentioned that you feel there’s a blind spot towards this cause in the Jewish communal world. Why do you think that is?

DE: The historic connection with FIDF certainly plays a role. The organizations have similar enough initials, I think people have also assumed that other organizations might be providing a similar enough service. This is the organization recognized by the Israeli government as the sole organization to represent the spouses and children of IDF veterans. Its board in Israel consists entirely of the spouses and the children of IDF soldiers who have fallen. So I don’t think it’s gotten the visibility that it needs to get within the United States.

In terms of the “why,” I’ve learned in Jewish life to have a degree of humility. If problems were easy, they would have been solved long ago. So as an outsider coming in, I feel like it should not be a hard sell to make this organization more visible within our community. It certainly needs and deserves that level of visibility. But as I start, I’ll learn why some of these challenges might have existed and do all I can to overcome them.

ND: You’re stepping into this role as the demand the organization is meeting has significantly increased. The past few years of war have had a really significant toll on many Israeli families. What factors have you considered when deciding to focus on this cause at this moment?

DE: This organization has always played a vital role within Israeli society. It’s the fundamental contract that Israel makes with its citizenry. You’ll serve in the IDF, and not only will we do every single thing possible to bring you back, should something happen, alive or dead, but we’ll do all we can to support your family. I think world Jewry plays a role within that covenant.

Since Oct. 7, with those needs increasing as exponentially as they did, and as the services and the need increased too, I found myself thinking that this was an area where I really felt I could make a profound difference. In terms of my own personal background as the grandson of Holocaust survivors, my mother was born in a refugee camp after the war. [She and my grandparents] came to Israel in 1949. My grandfather fought in the Sinai campaign in ‘56. They came to America in ‘58. For me, these are the stories I grew up with. This is really what shaped me, not only as a Jew, but as a person — in terms of this notion of communal obligation, service, everything else. There are any number of ways to do that, but as I thought about these families and the unique way they had been impacted, it really felt to me that this was a way I could make a difference.

The second part, and this came to me later within the process, is that I’m a person who’s devoted myself professionally, whether at AJC or the Jewish Agency, to the idea of “How do we connect American Jews to Israel?” It’s something that I wake up very worried about, that the connection is becoming less strong than it once was. This organization, I think, has a unique role, both in terms of the ability of American Jews to lend support to these families, just very tangible support that needs to happen, and also to increase understanding between the American Jewish community and the Israeli community.

It’s a strong statement to the Israeli people that the American Friends of IDF Widows and Orphans has a strong presence within Israel. And I think for us, the more children of fallen IDF veterans we can bring over for their bar mitzvah trips, for different exchanges, to have those conversations, to have points of human to human connection, the different ways we can find and maybe new and creative ways to really combine those two populations, is something that I think can really make a fundamental difference in how many American Jews feel about Israelis their age. Again, with a ton of respect for the Jewish Agency and AJC, but with a newer organization with a tiny staff — I’m employee number two at this organization — there’s a chance to shape something in a way that it didn’t exist before.

ND: Since Oct. 7, 2023, there’s been a significant level of loss for many Israeli families, through war, through terror. Why focus specifically on families of fallen soldiers, as opposed to the broader space of bereavement and trauma support? What draws you to this area specifically?

DE: It’s an important question to ask, because obviously, you have those directly impacted by acts of terrorism. Every single Israeli, no matter whether he or she has served, has undergone some degree of trauma. Both Israel and the global Jewish community are just starting to get our heads around that. I don’t even think we’ve started to get our heads around the colossal amount of recovery that will need to take place.

With this organization and with this narrowed focus on the family members and the spouses and the children of fallen IDF soldiers, I do feel like, in many ways, it’s a way to reach the many through the few. There’s traditionally been nothing that has unified Israeli people more, and in some ways, the Jewish people more than the IDF. Certainly in Israel, where the overwhelming majority of the population serves, it is understood as part of the rite of passage. It’s understood that there is an obligation to those family members, should, God forbid, something occur. The club that no individual ever wants to join is to become part of the bereaved families. So I think on that level, even though this is reaching a segment of the population, it’s not only a population that has been uniquely impacted, but it’s a population that I think speaks to the national psyche and national soul.

On a very deeply personal note, when I was at the Jewish Agency, I was in Israel at the time of the funeral of one of our former shlichim [emissaries] who had fallen in Gaza. I was able to attend that funeral, and that was one of those events that will never leave me. Sitting, listening to that service… my Hebrew is getting better, but I maybe understood 40% of what was said. To look around and to see all the men and women wearing the uniforms of the different branches, the family members, the makeshift parking lot, because there were too many cars to fit into the area… the image of the sacrifice that was made… What do we owe them at that point as a community? Because after that last salute is fired after the last piece of dirt is put into the ground, the Mourners’ Kaddish is concluded. At that point, the story for that family is really just beginning.

https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/daniel-elbaum-steps-in-as-inaugural-director-of-american-friends-of-idf-widows-and-orphans/