By Chris Menahan – Information Liberation
The Trump administration, through the National Endowment for the Humanities, is giving the largest grant in the agency’s history — over $10 million — to the Jewish-American neoconservative Tikvah Fund to counter “the pathology of anti-Semitism” and teach the Talmud.
The Tikvah Fund is an Israel First group dedicated to advancing “Jewish excellence” that is run by CEO Eric Cohen and famed neoconservative Elliott Abrams.
The group made headlines last month for contributing “nearly 400,000 shekels (around $110,000)” to translate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s book into Hebrew and not reporting it as a political donation, Haaretz reported last month.
“Even though the memoir was used in the Likud campaign and some of the revenues presumably went to Netanyahu as the author, the 400,000 shekels was not reported as a political donation,” Haaretz noted.
The Tikvah Fund was founded in the 1990s. The roughly $15 million to $20 million it spends on annual operations are partly funded by donations and from returns on assets bequeathed by American Jewish businessman Zalman Bernstein.
The Tikvah Fund is among the funders of the Kohelet Policy Forum, a conservative Israeli think tank that provided the blueprint for the effort to weaken the judiciary, as declared by Justice Minister Yariv Levin on January 4, 2023.
Kohelet founder Moshe Koppel sits on Tikvah’s board. The fund has bankrolled conservative projects for years, some of them involving close associates of Netanyahu. These include the Mida website, founded by Netanyahu confidant Ran Baratz, and the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, which is chaired by the former head of the National Security Council, Meir Ben-Shabbat. [Emphasis added]
Haaretz noted that Tikvah also hosts an annual conference in Tel Aviv.
“In its 60-year history, NEH had rarely given more than a few hundred thousand dollars to any single project,” the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports. “On Monday, the NEH announced an even larger, $10.4 million grant for a nationwide ‘Jewish Civilization Project’ aimed at combating antisemitism.”
“Among the prominent alumni of Tikvah’s programs is Jacob Reses, chief of staff to Vice President J.D. Vance,” JTA added.
“The unprecedented award for Tikvah comes amid a period of dramatic growth for the organization. Cohen noted that Tikvah’s U.S. program budget grew from roughly $19.3 million in 2024 to a pre-NEH 2025 budget of $24.5 million, and said the grant will accelerate, not initiate, expansion,” JTA noted.
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) today awarded a $10.4 million grant to the think-tank and educational center Tikvah for a major, three-year, multi-format project to combat the recrudescence and normalization of anti-Semitism in American society through an extensive series of educational, scholarship, and public programs.
This new funding—the largest NEH grant award to date in the agency’s 60-year history—will support Tikvah’s “Jewish Civilization Project,” which will examine Jewish history, culture, and identity in the broader context of Western history, with the goal of countering the pathology of anti-Semitism through greater understanding of the enduring moral, religious, and intellectual contributions of the Jewish people to the Western world and, in particular, to the United States of America.
“While it is essential to combat the rise of anti-Semitism in the political and legal arenas,” said NEH Acting Chairman Michael McDonald, “the humanities also have a vital role to play in this fight. And Tikvah is well positioned to bring a comprehensive approach, grounded in the best of humanities scholarship, to educating future leaders and the broader public on the ways in which the sinister and hate-filled attacks on Jewish people that we have been witnessing on American campuses and streets are, at a deeper level, also attacks on the very foundations that have made the United States the exceptional nation that it is.”
This expansive effort will include: the creation of a Jewish civilization curriculum for middle and high school students, implemented through teacher training and school partnerships; an expanded fellowship program for high school students providing intensive seminars on Jewish civilization; development of university courses in the Jewish humanities, to be offered in partnership with new Western Civilization BA programs at various major academic centers; public programs on the problem of anti-Semitism and the significance of Jewish civilization; a series of scholarly books on the meaning of Jewish resilience in the history of the United States and the Western world; and a fellowship program for early-career journalists who seek to write about anti-Semitism and advance knowledge of Jewish history and culture.
These activities will focus on the foundational texts of Jewish civilization, from the Hebrew Bible and Talmud to modern Jewish literature, art, and philosophy, and examine subjects such as the influence of Hebraic ideas on Western and American civilization, the history and meaning of Zionism, and contemporary challenges facing the Jewish people.
“It is an honor to partner with NEH on this ambitious educational project,” said Tikvah CEO Eric Cohen. “At this weighty moment in the history of the West, we believe that Jewish ideas are essential to strengthening the best of our shared American culture and answering the perverse ideology of anti-Semitism with the enduring majesty of Jewish civilization.”
In a related matter, following in the wake of President Trump’s Executive Orders on combatting anti-Semitism, NEH has also recently updated its notice of funding opportunities to place schools, colleges, and universities on notice that if they receive NEH financial assistance for humanities programs and activities, the agency will hold them accountable for tolerating discrimination or harassment against Jewish students in violation of civil rights law. [Emphasis added]
If this grant was to study the “pathology of anti-Blackness,” it’d be derided by the GOP as wasteful DEI lunacy, but because it’s to fight “anti-Semitism,” they’re showering them with cash.
Rather than dismantle the whole DEI apparatus as Trump ran on, his administration is instead retooling it so it only works for Jews.
Tikvah has an upcoming Jewish leadership conference headlined by Ben Shapiro, Bari Weiss and Dan Senor, titled “Can the Jews Save the West?”
They say on their website that their goal is to “promote Jewish flourishing and Israeli sovereignty.”
If any government should be funding this group, it should be the government of Israel, not the United States.
“…teach the Talmud…” In other words, teach enslavement and murder of Gentiles and Noahiding Christians…folks, that’s all I need to know about this NEH….and Chabad (possible) member Trump.