A local community activist in Los Angeles who funds their own pro-Israel campus work recently told me, “We don’t need more whistleblowers. We need more action. Just do something.” It was meant as encouragement, a push toward initiative rather than critique. Yet the comment revealed something deeper about how we understand change inside Jewish communal life. It exposed how easily we assume that those who raise structural concerns lack not only the will to build, but the ideas and imagination to build anything at all.

The advice to “just act” assumes that action is primarily a matter of motivation. It suggests that if someone cared enough, they would simply build something instead of criticizing what already exists. But that framing carries an unspoken implication: that critics may care enough to complain, yet lack either the commitment or the competence to do anything beyond rhetoric. In that framing, responsibility shifts from system to individual. Structural constraints fade from view, and the burden of change is placed squarely on those naming the problem.

Durable action does indeed begin with willpower. Motivation and conviction matters, but willpower alone cannot overcome structural realities. Action requires capital, human resources, legal protections, amplification, and resilient runway to experiment without being professionally or socially punished for failure. Movements are not built on enthusiasm alone; they are sustained by resourcing. To tell critics to act without acknowledging the conditions that determine whether their action could survive is to misunderstand how power operates, and often how change itself operates. Those who control capital frequently determine which ideas are incubated and which collapse quietly from exhaustion.

It is easy to praise initiative in theory. It is far harder to fund the slow, unglamorous work that allows initiative to become durable. Without that foundation, what looks like action can become visible yet unsustainable, emotionally satisfying yet structurally hollow. When durable pathways for building are absent, critique does not disappear. It intensifies.

Whistleblowing should not be romanticized as it is rarely a sign of a healthy system. In functioning institutions, critique is absorbed internally, processed seriously, and adjustments are made before dissent becomes public rupture. Whistleblowing becomes necessary when internal mechanisms fail, when concerns are dismissed, when access to decision-making is restricted, or when the cost of raising structural questions becomes professionally risky. When feedback cannot find a home within the system, it does not vanish; it seeks other channels. What is labeled as obstruction is often an attempt to force attention onto misalignment that could not be addressed internally. The presence of whistleblowing does not indicate a surplus of critics. It signals a deficit of trust and responsiveness within the system itself.

The Jewish community does not suffer from a shortage of builders. There is no shortage of motivated, skilled, imaginative people who want to build durable institutions, launch serious initiatives, and test new models. What we lack are resourced builders — individuals given a structural home where their ideas can be refined, challenged, and strengthened over time.

If we want less public dissent, the solution is not to discourage critique. If we want more action, the solution is not to shame critics into initiative. The solution is to fund infrastructure that allows initiative to survive.

If we want more builders, we must stop sidelining our critics. They are often the same people. The question is not whether they care enough to act. The question is whether we are willing to resource them so that their actions can endure.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)