How Our Model Works
MTF’s Israel trips are not the finish line. They are the catalyst for long-term campus impact.
Identify
We identify influential student leaders who shape campus culture, including student government officials, journalists, faith leaders, activists, campus organization heads, and other high-impact students.
Bring to Israel
We bring them to Israel for immersive educational trips that challenge misinformation, deepen understanding, and build real relationships with Israelis, Jewish peers, and one another.
Follow Up
After students return, we maintain engagement through reunion programs, coalition-building events, mentorship opportunities, leadership development, and continued campus support.
Activate
Trip alumni, Fellows, and student allies help organize coalitions, respond to antisemitism, challenge anti-Israel campaigns, and support Jewish students when campus tensions rise.
Lead
Over time, these students become leaders in student government, campus media, professional networks, and broader civic life.
The result: MTF does not simply change minds. We build networks of students with the influence to change campus outcomes.
Our Programs
MTF is building a campus leadership infrastructure that reaches students before, during, and after the moments when antisemitism and anti-Israel activism surface on campus.
Israel Trips
MTF brings influential non-Jewish student leaders to Israel for immersive educational trips that challenge misinformation, build relationships, and help students overcome the false and malicious narratives they’re subjected to on campus.
MTF Fellows
Our Fellows are student leaders on campus who build coalitions, recruit allies, organize programming, respond to antisemitism, and help sustain student engagement beyond the trip experience.
Post-Trip Engagement
The real work begins after the trip. MTF keeps alumni engaged through reunion programs, campus events, coalition-building opportunities, leadership development, and continued support.
Mentorship & Professional Networks
MTF connects high-potential students and young alumni with Israeli and Israel-connected professionals, helping them build lasting relationships with Israel through business, law, technology, medicine, public policy, and other fields.
International Campus Work
From England to South Africa, MTF operates in some of the most challenging campus environments in the world, developing courageous student allies in places where Jewish students often face intense hostility and where non-Jewish leadership can have an outsized impact.
Alumni Engagement
MTF’s work does not end at graduation. We are building long-term pathways for star trip alumni, Fellows, and student leaders to remain connected as mentors, speakers, advocates, professionals, and future leaders.
WHAT STUDENTS SAY
“Nothing I read in the States compared to hearing directly from Israelis on the ground. The trip forced me to confront how much of my perspective had been shaped by oversimplified and misleading narratives. If you’re serious about understanding Israel as it actually is, not as it’s portrayed, you have to see it for yourself. It's an incredible place filled with people seeking peace.”
MTF reaches the students who are often least likely to attend a traditional pro-Israel campus event and gives them the opportunity to encounter Israel directly. For many participants, the trip replaces slogans and assumptions with firsthand experience, real relationships, and a more accurate understanding of Israeli society.
“My MTF Israel trip experience was genuinely life-changing and by far the most transformative trip I have ever taken. Before visiting Israel, much of my understanding came from narratives I had absorbed on campus and online. Speaking directly with Israelis and Palestinians, and seeing the realities of the region firsthand, challenged many of those assumptions and helped me understand why Israel must exist. I also met individuals who had endured hardships I could barely imagine which gave me a new perspective on resilience and gratitude. I knew I couldn’t simply leave that experience behind when I returned to campus, which is why I chose to become an MTF Fellow and stand up for the Jewish community at Hopkins”
The Latest From @MacTaskForce
A troubling new survey found that 22% of college students surveyed agreed with the statement: “America deserved September 11.”
The 2026 Buckley Institute survey of 803 full-time undergraduates under age 25 found that 72% disagreed, while roughly 6% were unsure.
The survey has important limitations. It used an opt-in online sample rather than a traditional probability sample, and it did not ask follow-up questions about what respondents meant by saying America “deserved” 9/11.
So the result should not be interpreted as evidence that one in five college students supports terrorism or believes the nearly 3,000 people murdered on September 11 deserved to die.
But the finding is still worth taking seriously.
Twenty-five years after al-Qaeda carried out the deadliest terrorist attack in American history, a significant share of the students surveyed were willing to endorse language saying that America “deserved” what happened.
That same phrase has also entered popular political commentary. Hasan Piker famously said “America deserved 9/11,” later explaining that he was referring to the consequences of U.S. foreign policy rather than arguing that the victims deserved to be killed.
There is an important difference between examining how American policies may contribute to conflict abroad and describing a terrorist attack on civilians as something a country “deserved.”
Whatever respondents intended, that distinction deserves serious discussion.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch has received the prestigious Theodor Herzl Award from the World Jewish Congress in recognition of her leadership and commitment to confronting antisemitism and protecting Jewish life.
At the awards dinner, Tisch communicated a message antisemitism cannot be left to law enforcement alone. “We should not have to wait until a Jewish New Yorker is attacked before we find the courage to confront the hatred directed at them,” she said.
Thank you, Commissioner Tisch, for using your platform to speak up and reminding us that protecting Jewish communities requires everyday people to recognize hatred.
Making history at just 24 years old.
Yonatan Shalev has become the youngest Member of Knesset in Israeli history, joining parliament as part of Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad list and breaking a record that had stood since 1959.
He served in an elite unit in the IDF called Maglan, fighting in Gaza against Hamas and in Lebanon against Hezbollah.
Shalev says he hopes to bring the voice of Israel’s younger generation into the Knesset and help build a stronger future for the country.
A new generation stepping forward to help shape Israel’s future.
Newly elected MK Elisha Medan, who lost both legs while fighting Hamas terrorists in Gaza, stood on his prosthetic legs to take his oath of office as a member of Israel’s 26th Knesset.
As he declared his commitment to serve, lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle rose in a standing ovation.
Three years after being critically wounded defending his country, Medan stood as a representative of his nation as a member of his country’s parliament.
A powerful reminder of the courage, sacrifice, and resilience of those who defend Israel. 🇮🇱
After weeks in intensive care and multiple major operations, Neria Leiter, son of Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter, has been released from the hospital and transferred to a specialized neurological rehabilitation facility.
Neria was critically wounded in September when a Palestinian terrorist deliberately rammed him with a vehicle at the Bell checkpoint on Route 443. He remains unconscious and has been breathing on his own for a few weeks.
The Leiter family has already endured the devastating loss of another son, Major (Res.) Moshe Yedidya Leiter, who fell fighting Hamas terrorists in Gaza in November 2023.
As Neria begins this next stage of his recovery, his family is asking the public to continue praying for him.
We stand with the Leiter family during this unimaginably difficult time and pray for Neria’s full recovery. May he find the strength to fight his way back.
Jerusalem last night: Ethiopian Israeli youth filled the city’s market with traditional music, dancing, and celebration in honor of Sigd.
For generations, the Beta Israel community fasted, prayed, and gathered on this holiday to reaffirm their covenant with the Torah and express their longing to return to Jerusalem.
Today, their descendants are celebrating that dream as a living reality. Not from exile, but from here in Jerusalem, together with the rest of Am Yisrael, in Eretz Yisrael.
A centuries-old yearning has become a celebration in the heart of the Jewish homeland. The music, traditions, and joy of the Sigd holiday are a beautiful reminder of the diversity, resilience, and shared heritage of the Jewish people.
🎥: X/ Avia Levi
“MTF is the only organization that brings the most influential non-Jewish student leaders from America to Israel to see the truth for themselves.” — David Brog, Executive Director of Maccabee Task Force.
That firsthand experience can change the way people see Israel, and the way they speak about it, usually for the rest of their lives.
Before traveling with MTF, National Spokesperson Taryn Thomas expected to find the apartheid ethnostate her Stanford peers had described. South African student Blessing Mathabela arrived with similar assumptions, shaped by what she had been taught on campus. But after experiencing Israel’s religious diversity and multicultural democracy firsthand, her perspective was transformed. She now plans to continue sharing her story publicly.
Their experiences show the power of seeing Israel how it truly is, meeting people from different communities, hearing their stories, and discovering the humanity so often missing from Western media narratives.
What’s considered a “political issue” abroad shapes the lives of real people and families, and the Jewish people’s inalienable right to self-determination should never depend on whether others approve of it.
That’s why MTF trips matter. They give the top student leaders on each campus the opportunity to see Israel for themselves, challenge the narratives they have been told, and return home with their own experiences and voices to share.
Dozens of mayors and municipal leaders from across the world are gathering in Jerusalem for the 35th International Mayors Conference, strengthening connections between Israel and communities around the globe.
Hosted by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in partnership with the American Jewish Congress, this year’s conference focuses on “Tech & AI: Empowering the Cities of Tomorrow.”
From Europe and the Balkans to Africa, Asia, and the Americas, participating leaders will explore Israeli innovations in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, smart mobility, water desalination, and other technologies with the potential to improve lives in cities worldwide.
The delegation will also visit communities near the Gaza border, the Nova music festival memorial site, and Yad Vashem, and meet with President Isaac Herzog.
This delegation is an opportunity to build lasting partnerships, exchange ideas, and demonstrate how Israeli innovation can contribute to a better future for communities everywhere.
