As an estimated 4,000 attendees gathered this past weekend at a hotel in Hollywood, Fla., for the IAC’s 10th annual summit, its leadership says the organization has firmly taken its place in American Jewry’s alphabet soup and is increasingly becoming a home for Diaspora Jews seeking a meaningful connection to the State of Israel.

“We’ve been successful, in large part, in integrating Israeli-Americans into the Jewish world—in synagogue membership, Federation involvement, lay leadership—all the kind of standard hallmarks of Jewish community involvement,” its CEO, Elan Carr, told JNS. “I discovered long ago that just like you have to teach Israeli-Americans how to become Diaspora Jews, by the same token, Diaspora Jews need a dose of Israeliness.”

Founded to fill a void in organized American Jewry to represent the interests of Israeli expats, the IAC has engaged more in bidirectional bridge-building, Carr said. As a result, more Diaspora Jews, he continued, “see the IAC as the address for this kind of deep, rich, spiritual connection to Israel. And they’re right to see it that way because that’s exactly what we are and what we aim to be.”

Carr told JNS that IAC is singular in the Jewish world; it’s “a coast-to-coast community organization, as opposed to only an organization of advocacy or positions,” Carr told JNS. “Our community isn’t only Israeli-Americans. We are a Jewish organization.”

‘How to engage’

Carr, who served as U.S. State Department special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism in the first Trump administration, touts the IAC’s 21 regional bureaus and its year-round local engagements—both celebratory and calls to action—increasingly to fight antisemitism across the political spectrum.

“So what organization is best equipped to meet those challenges? It’s a community organization, because at the end of the day, you can put out position papers, but you need the people,” Carr told JNS, stressing that he’s not just talking about demonstrations but a growing focus on civic engagement “in the institutions that most affect how we live.”

That sentiment was reflected in this weekend’s summit, with panel discussions on topics like “How the IAC Community Can Stop Anti-Israel Candidates Before They Reach Congress” and “Local Civic Engagement: Why It Matters and How to Do It Right,” the latter of which featured mayors and community activists.

“Everyone knows what Congress is. But how many Americans really know how to engage in a local city council or in a school board, or the importance of a school-board election to curriculum?” Carr said, bringing up the example of a state investigation of the school board in Plano, Texas, for deep antisemitic and anti-Israel bias.

“You can’t get a more friendly state than Texas. Go to Plano, and ask the Jews and the pro-Israel community how things are going. They’ll tell you it’s a train wreck. Why? Because the school board was taken over by people who openly traffic in antisemitism,” Carr told JNS. “Even with a friendly governor and a great legislature, if we don’t engage on the street locally, we are going to get beaten where it matters most.”

The IAC is building robust national civic-engagement programs, Carr told JNS, emphasizing that it’s not enough to tell its community to get involved and engaged.

“We must train our community members on civic activism and civic engagement, and how to have a meaningful influence on candidates,” he said, noting the IAC, as a nonpolitical entity, doesn’t and can’t endorse political candidates, but can educate about candidates’ positions.

‘Always a bit of an outsider’

Carr told JNS that the organization is attempting to stand out—willing to talk about the most controversial, heated issues within its community. At the summit, the IAC held panel discussions on Haredi integration into the Israel Defense Forces and on Israeli judicial reform.

“Most organizations would run for the hills before touching that issue. We are there not to take a side, but to educate the audience on the deep and important issues so that we can turn them out as real agents of influence into society,” Carr said.

While some analysts say those divisive issues weakened Israel ahead of Oct. 7, the military and diplomatic victories since then have put Israel in its best geopolitical position since the 1967 Six-Day War, Carr said, adding that this strengthens the hand of the Diaspora.

“The Jewish people are connected. Israel’s weakness led to Oct. 7, and our enemy smelled blood in the water and turned out against Jews all around the world. So now, Israel’s power and influence empower us here, and the task for the Jewish Diaspora is to leverage Israel’s victories and turn them into our own victories here. That’s what IAC is focused on doing, and that’s what the summit is pointed toward,” Carr said.

The IAC’s own hand has been strengthened in recent years, as well, Carr said, by an increasing interwovenness into the American Jewish community. He cites the organization’s unanimous vote of admission as a full member into the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations last March, as well as the 5,500 votes it garnered last summer during its first entry into the World Zionist Congress elections.

“We were always a little bit of an outsider, and that’s not the case anymore. We’re seeing unprecedented cooperation, locally and nationally,” Carr told JNS.

He cites specifically the IAC’s leadership in its work on campuses to protest encampments and other antisemitic and anti-Israel activity.

“I’m not putting anyone down, but some organizations were worried about rocking the boat and making things even worse for students. We were the first organization—in the early days, the only organization—to jump into the fray and lead coast-to-coast rallies, demonstrations on campus to support students,” he said. “And then it became many, many organizations that joined with us and co-sponsored and endorsed and said, ‘Yes, this is the right moment.’”

“And what happened to the encampments? Where are they today?” Carr asked rhetorically.

He also pointed with pride to the IAC’s program to train some 3,000 teachers and administrators in the K-12 space on how to recognize Jew-hatred and bigotry, and keep it out of classrooms.

“Just like our enemies are investing in schools because they know if they have any chance of winning, it’s to capture the future,” and to do that, Carr said, “you capture the future in the schools.”

It’s a point not lost in world history. He added that is why “the Soviets and the Nazis did it, and that’s why our enemies are doing it. And we’re not letting them.”