After walking beside Jewish Milwaukee students through the post-Oct. 7 landscape, Heni Bizawi is at Israel’s MANOF
Heni Bizawi
Before the Oct. 7 massacre, Heni Bizawi’s work in Milwaukee often began with an invitation: come by, try some Israeli food, talk, and get to know one another.
As an Israel Fellow at Milwaukee Hillel, she organized “shuk” events at Marquette University and University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, bringing Israeli snacks, culture, and conversation to campuses.
That work in Wisconsin helped Bizawi see what she wanted her own work to do: bring people together, strengthen communities, and create practical opportunities for change. Today, she is director of resource development at MANOF: Social Urban Renewal, a nonprofit real estate developer in Israel. MANOF works in underserved neighborhoods, combining housing development with social programs and public spaces. Its aim is not to push residents out, but to help them stay and build better lives where they are.
When Bizawi arrived in Milwaukee in August 2022, a year before infamous attacks in Israel, she started small. Her first Israel fellowship cohort had five or six students, learning about Israeli politics and, later, Zionism and the ideas of home and homeland. She worked to build relationships and develop student leaders. The events reached well beyond the classroom: she recalled more than a thousand students attending campus programs over time, and fellowship cohorts grew from a handful to groups of 20 or more, she said.
Oct. 7: The work changed
Then, came the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. Non-Jewish participants stopped coming to events intended for the wider community. “Friends stepped back; friends of friends stopped inviting me to places. I was this Israeli, like all that people could see is this – that I’m Israeli,” she said.
At one point, a non-Jewish student on campus asked her why Israel was in Gaza.
“I’m like, well, because you know about Oct. 7,” Bizawi said.
She recalls the student’s answer was something like: “What is Oct. 7?”
The moment changed the work to even more of a mission, Bizawi said, “part of the big story of the Jewish people.”
Jewish students who had once been unfamiliar with Israel began seeking connection and community. Some became deeply involved in Jewish life; one of Bizawi’s closest students eventually moved to Israel to volunteer. At the same time, campus life grew more difficult. Bizawi recalled students being challenged in class and feeling uneasy walking across campus. During an Israel Week event at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in April 2024, protesters surrounded the tables where Bizawi and colleagues were sharing Israeli culture, and police escorted them out.
For Bizawi, the challenge was not to provide easy answers, but to make room for difficult feelings and questions. She wanted students to be able to explore their relationships to Israel and Jewish identity without feeling judged — whether they felt strongly connected, uncertain, or somewhere in between. Her work, she said, was to help them hold complexity and feel supported.
The experience also clarified her own direction. Bizawi had spent much of her life in nonprofit and community work, but Milwaukee helped her recognize that serving people was not simply a job she happened to enjoy; it was central to what she wanted to do. She earned a master’s degree in organizational leadership and innovation, looking for tools to lead and build effective social programs. She was drawn to organizations that pair big ambitions with practical results.
At MANOF, that commitment takes a different form. The organization works in Israel’s periphery, in neighborhoods where private developers may not invest and where poverty can persist across generations. Its projects bring together housing, employment coaching, rights assistance, community-building, and planning for public spaces, Bizawi said. Her role is to raise resources and build partnerships so the model can grow.
Bizawi came to Milwaukee in October to see old friends and promote the organization, as part of a national tour of U.S. cities to talk up MANOF.
