Maccabee Task Force

MTF describes itself as a campus organization focused on combating antisemitism and opposing BDS, which it characterizes as antisemitic. Its operating model identifies influential student leaders, brings them to Israel, and follows up through coalition-building, mentorship, leadership development, and campus support.[2][4]

Its programs include Israel trips, the MTF Fellows program, post-trip engagement, international campus work, alumni engagement, and professional networks. The organization reports taking more than 5,000 student leaders and campus influencers to Israel, although its homepage does not provide full methodology for its published impact figures.[4]

Sheldon and Miriam Adelson established the Maccabee Task Force in 2015. At its launch, then called Campus Maccabees, the initiative reportedly set a fundraising goal of $50 million; the amount ultimately raised was not known in the launch report.[9] The Adelsons began funding MTF in 2016, with the aim of helping college students promote Israel, fight antisemitism, and counter BDS.[10]

David Brog was identified as the founding executive director. MTF’s early approach emphasized providing students with strategies and resources while allowing students and campus professionals to lead activities, with the organization often working behind the scenes.[11] In 2016, Brog described an initial presence at six California campuses in spring, expanding to 20 campuses in the 2016–17 academic year and 40 in 2017–18.[3]

MTF’s reported presence later grew to 80 North American campuses. In a 2019 report, Brog said the organization had supported more than 1,200 pro-Israel events and taken 1,500 campus leaders and influencers to Israel in the preceding year, primarily non-Jewish participants.[12] The organization’s account of the COVID-19 period said it had to cancel hundreds of trips and events; Brog wrote that networks established through trips persisted initially but began to weaken as participants and peers graduated.[13]

MTF’s campus strategy has focused on selecting universities facing serious BDS or other efforts to delegitimize Israel, then working with local students and campus professionals to develop tailored action plans. Activities described in reporting included public events about Israel, advocacy training, relationship-building with campus groups, and coalition work. The organization also shared ideas it considered effective across campuses.[3]

Rather than requiring its logo on activities, Brog said MTF wanted students to receive credit for their work. Its later strategy included funding established pro-Israel organizations for activities proposed in locally designed plans. Campus meetings could bring together 10 to 30 leaders to develop ideas, with MTF funding projects when participants agreed to carry them out and report on results.[3][14]

MTF has also convened larger training events. At its annual academy in 2019, more than 400 campus professionals and student leaders from nearly 80 campuses attended sessions on promoting Israel and opposing BDS resolutions.[14] Its programs include the MTF Fellows program, international campus work, alumni engagement, mentorship, and professional networks. MTF says alumni can connect with Israel-connected professionals in fields such as business, law, technology, medicine, and public policy.[4]

MTF identifies influential student leaders—including student government officials, journalists, faith leaders, activists, and campus organization heads—and brings them to Israel for immersive educational trips. Its follow-up work includes reunions, mentorship, leadership development, coalition-building, and campus support.[4] A Campus Israel Fellow at a Pennsylvania university received MTF’s Israel Fellow of the Year award for engaging Jewish and non-Jewish students, including by organizing an Israel trip. She described the visits to historical sites and meetings with local leaders and people affected by the conflict as giving participants “a deeper, more nuanced understanding.”[7]

Israel trips have been central to MTF’s efforts to build ties between pro-Israel students and other campus communities. Brog said that 34 of the organization’s 40 campuses implemented a trip in 2017–18, bringing 746 mainly non-Jewish student leaders to Israel. Trips lasted about a week and could include Ramallah, meetings with Palestinian students or officials, and visits to other locations in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria.[3]

A 2019 report described trips for emerging non-Jewish campus leaders that included visits to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and meetings with the Palestinian Authority. The organization said it chose campuses based on the seriousness of the BDS challenge and the potential of participants to become future leaders, and discussed adapting the trip model for European campuses.[12] That report also described plans to expand to 11 universities in six European countries, without naming the institutions or countries.[12]

MTF developed outreach to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), where its coordinator described the work as proactive because BDS was less established. For its first Israel trip for Black HBCU student leaders, 31 students and five advisers traveled in December before a July 2020 report. Their itinerary included meetings with Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah, visits to residents near the Gaza border, encounters with African migrants and Ethiopian legal advocates, and Christmas in Nazareth.[5]

In October 2021, MTF held its first Black Student Leaders Summit in Atlanta, bringing together 100 students from HBCUs. The two-day event included sessions on Black-Jewish relations, the U.S.-Israel relationship, and rebuilding an alliance against racism and antisemitism. MTF said it planned annual summits, leadership trips to Israel, and related campus activities.[15]

MTF’s work with non-Jewish student leaders has continued in later reporting. At UCLA, 15 non-Jewish student leaders took part in an MTF-sponsored 10-day Israel visit; the account does not specify when the trip took place. Participants visited Yad Vashem and Mount Herzl and attended a lecture on modern Israeli history in Jerusalem. A UCLA Hillel director said returning participants had organized dialogue between Jewish students and other groups, while students described becoming more engaged and intending to promote campus dialogue.[1]

MTF describes BDS as central to its concern about antisemitism on campuses and states that it considers the movement antisemitic, arguing that it crosses from criticism of Israel into demonization of Israel and its supporters.[2] A 2022 commentary also lists MTF among Diaspora Jewish opponents of BDS and says the organization came out against the movement in 2015.[16] The Israel Forever Foundation includes MTF among campus organizations it says engage Jewish students and oppose BDS and Israel Apartheid Week; that description reflects the foundation’s advocacy perspective.[17]

MTF participated in Act.IL, a joint venture with the Israeli American Council and IDC Herzliya. Act.IL drew on IDC’s Situation Room, established during the 2012 and 2014 Gaza conflicts, and sought to influence foreign publics and counter BDS and the delegitimization of Israel through social media.[18] MTF was also among the organizations signing a letter urging technology companies to do more to combat antisemitism; the listing does not describe MTF’s role in preparing the letter.[19]

After the October 7 attacks, MTF said alumni from varied ethnic and religious backgrounds posted support online, wrote to student governments and administrators, joined vigils with Jewish students, and donated to campus Jewish communities.[20] MTF also shifted its public-figure visits from a prewar emphasis on showcasing Israel as a destination to visits focused on the effects of the war. Uriel Dison, a co-director of its media department, said visitors could become “sort of wartime ambassadors.”[6]

In the roughly two and a half months before a January 15, 2024 report, Dison said his team had brought Michael Rapaport, James Maslow, Scooter Braun, Debra Messing, Guy Nattiv, and Eve Barlow to Israel; the report also names other visitors supported by MTF.[6] Dison said the organization had brought about 100 people on trips over approximately two and a half years before the war, at a cost of about $900,000, and ten celebrities during the war for about $200,000 in total, with trips supported by donations.[6]

He said prewar influencer trips cost about $10,000 on average, compared with about $20,000 during the war, citing flights and insurance difficulties. Arrangements could include security, transportation, accommodation, and meals; some hotels and airlines offered discounts. Dison said MTF had previously asked celebrities to agree to a minimum number of daily social-media posts, but did not require such commitments for wartime visits.[6]

In 2016, posters on University of California campuses named people described as alleged “Jew haters.” CAMERA reported conflicting statements about whether MTF funding had supported the campaign. Brog and David Horowitz denied that MTF funded the posters. Brog said the organization had approved a “modest grant” to the David Horowitz Freedom Center to focus on pro-BDS organizations, but had neither requested nor approved the posters and did not know its funds had been used for them. MTF later said the center confirmed it had not used the grant for the posters; CAMERA noted that this clarification conflicted with an earlier statement acknowledging that the money had gone toward the effort.[8]

Brog also said MTF did not consider targeting student activists who behaved civilly an appropriate or effective way to oppose BDS. In the same report, a spokesperson said MTF planned to add 20 campuses that fall; the account does not establish whether that expansion occurred.[8]

MTF’s funding relationships have also been selective. Brog said it did not fund J Street U because he regarded the organization’s positions as outside MTF’s desired broad consensus, while saying J Street U students could still take part in action-plan meetings and activities. The report noted that some Hillels cooperated with J Street U while receiving MTF funding, and that the restriction applied to the organization rather than individual students. A campus professional praised MTF’s practice of listening to local staff, while a Chabad leader expressed concern that it could place too much trust in some organizations’ assessments of local needs.[3][14]

MTF publishes impact figures, but its website does not provide the underlying methodology for them. It reports that more than 5,000 student leaders and campus influencers have traveled to Israel, that 92% of participants in the 2025–26 academic year shifted toward a more favorable view of Israel, and a 93% success rate in preventing or defeating BDS and other anti-Israel resolutions at partner campuses; the cited page does not specify the period covered by the last figure.[4] A 2023 post reported that 98% of students who held anti-Israel views before a trip shifted toward a more favorable view six months afterward, without giving the polling method or sample size.[20]