On Jan. 20, 2025, Donald Trump was inaugurated for a second term and almost immediately issued an executive order freezing foreign aid for 90 days. Six weeks later, he cemented his actions by slashing 83% of U.S. Agency for International Development programs.

One year after the initial freeze, Jewish humanitarian aid and international development organizations are still trembling from the aftershocks, alongside their non-Jewish counterparts. As the number of deaths that researchers have connected to these federal funding cuts rises around the globe, the organizations supporting the world’s most vulnerable populations are adapting, finding new ways to fundraise and planning for a future experts say will never be the same, leaders in the field told eJewishPhilanthropy

“The dust has not yet settled,” Dyonna Ginsburg, CEO of OLAM, a network of Jewish organizations and individuals working in international aid, told eJP. Agencies are encountering knock-on effects from the reductions, where alternative funders, including several affiliated with the United Nations, had attempted to make up for the USAID funding but realized they couldn’t. Twelve months after the initial cuts, grants to international aid organizations are now being canceled. Additionally, the Trump administration continues to pare down what is left in foreign aid, as seen by U.S. withdrawal of support for 66 international organizations, agencies and commissions earlier this month, most of which were associated with the U.N. and focused on climate, labor and migration.

“Private philanthropy can probably not fill those gaps, at least not in the short-term future,” Ginsburg told eJP. “But for the Jewish ecosystem, which is still relatively small, Jewish philanthropy can actually step up to ensure that that ecosystem can continue to exist and can weather this difficult period and then come out stronger on the other end.”

Jews need to stake their presence at the global table, she said, especially because Jewish aid organizations are often the face of Judaism to international communities. “For us to retreat from that in a moment where combating antisemitism is at the forefront of many people’s minds, that would be a mistake.”

For Jewish organizations in the humanitarian aid and international development field, the past year has been particularly challenging, according to Ginsburg. “This is a compounding crisis, because many of these organizations…experienced funding cuts due to philanthropic shifts, Jewish philanthropy moving towards Israel or combating antisemitism and non-Jewish philanthropy distancing itself from Jewish or Israeli organizations doing this work,” she said.

‍A Year Post-USAID Cuts, Jewish International Aid Groups Still Trembling... Continue reading

This article was originally published in eJewishPhilanthropy on January 30, 2026.