Introductory note: The following is an edited presentation I made on February 5 to Congregation Beth Torah, a Reform synagogue in Ventura, California.

The trauma of October 7^th remains palpable in Israel and for so many of us in the Jewish Diaspora despite the official end of the war in Gaza, though fighting continues there and there’s growing violence in the West Bank. Israeli society is struggling to absorb the horrors of that deadliest and most traumatic day for Jews since the founding of the State of Israel and the Holocaust. Border communities still bear the scars of destruction and displacement. The trauma of war affects virtually every Israeli. To have seen the starving and tortured faces of some hostages as they were released recalled the old black and white photographs taken when the camps were liberated in 1945.

Israelis now find themselves at a crossroad in their history, and so too do we American Jews. For the first time in American Jewish history since the founding of Israel, many liberal American Jews are shaken not only by what happened on October 7 and being blamed by anti-Israeli antisemites for the attack starting on October 8, but by Israel’s overwhelming military response against Hamas that killed tens of thousands of Hamas terrorists and tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians.

American Jews must understand that this longest war in Israel’s history was a legitimate response to Hamas’ butchery of Israelis in the south and what the Israeli government and the IDF most feared might happen immediately after October 7, that they were fighting for the existence of the state itself. They knew Hamas intended to expand its attack and cruelty, that there were realistic threats as well by Hezbollah and Iran to join the war, and that a sympathetic uprising could ignite in the West Bank forcing Israel to fight simultaneously on three fronts. It was unclear whether Israel could meet those threats.

The IDF was disorganized and its command believed it had to distribute its authority to a far lower level of officers than it had ever done before, a decision that reduced the IDF’s customary safeguards to protect Palestinian civilians who were being used by Hamas as human shields. They believed that Israel had to fight with overwhelming fire power to disrupt Hamas’s chain of command and reach its leaders hiding everywhere in more than 400 miles of tunnels everywhere under homes, apartment buildings, schools, community centers, hospitals, and mosques. If Israel didn’t succeed in disrupting Hamas immediately and demonstrating to Hezbollah and Iran how capable the IDF still was, Israel’s leadership feared that tens of thousands of Israelis could be killed.

Both Israelis and American Jews are only now beginning to ask about the impact this war has had on Israelis and Palestinian civilians and what long-term psychological damage has been done to both peoples. We’re trying here in Diaspora communities as well to figure out where we stand as American Jews and how much we want to say publicly about our fears and moral concerns in relationship to the war, the illiberal social and ethical trends that have grown in Israel, and the growth of antisemitism on the far right and far left.

Taking a 10,000-foot view, the significance of this period in Jewish history is unparalleled in the modern era except for the three years from 1945 to 1948 when the Jewish people went from our lowest nadir after the Shoah to the establishment of the Jewish State. That wide swing of the pendulum is testimony to the Jewish people’s durability and ability to survive, adapt and thrive after catastrophic events.

It will take time for Israelis, most especially, to heal from the losses and trauma of the war. Whatever happens, however, there must include a pathway to a demilitarized Palestinian state of some kind in Gaza and the West Bank in the context of a larger Middle East peace agreement that includes Israel and Saudi Arabia and all of Israel’s moderate Arab neighbors. The vast majority of Israelis, however, are no longer speaking about the viability of a Palestinian state. They fear, legitimately, that any such state could well be taken over by Islamic extremists bent on Israel’s destruction.

The war, in part, solidified for now the hold that right-wing Israeli political parties and the extremist settler movement have on Israeli politics. Should those extremist and messianic forces have their way in the next Israeli election in October, more terrorism and war with the Palestinians and Islamic extremists will be inevitable and Israel’s democracy will be threatened.

Israelis are facing many significant challenges including what to do about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the lack of a consensus about the role of the Palestinian Authority in the future governance of Gaza and the West Bank, Israel’s severely damaged international standing, what we in the American Jewish community think and feel about Israel and Zionism, and the dramatic rise in antisemitism around the world.

Among the greatest and immediate internal challenges facing Israel is that it has yet to set up an objective state commission of inquiry into what happened leading up to October 7 and Israel’s conduct in the war. Israel needs a power-house independent authority to undertake this inquiry to restore the people’s confidence that every lesson has been learned, that leadership failings are exposed, conclusions are drawn, and whether military excesses and war crimes were committed.

In considering Israel’s culpability, we Jews in the Diaspora who love Israel have to be able to distinguish between two kinds of criticism leveled against Israel’s conduct of the war. There’s criticism from Israel’s friends that the IDF went too far, bombed Gaza too heavily, and that Israeli commanders and soldiers, in the heat of battle, crossed red lines against international moral and legal standards of war. Israelis and right wing American Jews need to address this legitimate criticism from Israel’s friends and not characterize it either as anti-Israeli or antisemitic.

The second kind of criticism comes from those who believe that the Jewish State has no moral legitimacy to exist, that it is a colonial and foreign entity in the heart of the Islamic Middle East, and no right to defend itself. That criticism is not only anti-Zionist and anti-Israel, but is antisemitic because it denies to the Jewish people what is the right of every people in the world, to define ourselves and our narrative, and to have a nation state in our historic Homeland.

Despite the loss of a thousand young Israeli soldiers in the war, the murder and suffering of surviving hostages and their families, and the massive carnage and loss of life and property in Gaza, there are a few positive things for Israel and the Jewish people that have come from this war.

Immediately after October 7, Israel’s civil society came together from across all political and religious lines to support one another. In Diaspora communities $1.4 billion was raised for Israel representing the single largest set of contributions on behalf of Israel in our history, and 300,000 Jews and friends of Israel convened in Washington, D.C. in solidarity with Israel, the largest Jewish demonstration since the 1987 Soviet Jewry rally on the Mall.

Many American Jews felt a reconnection to Zionism, Israel, and their Jewish identity. More than 70% of Jewish Diaspora adults feel emotionally attached to Israel, and 60% said Israel make them proud to be Jewish. 70% said that it is sometimes hard to support actions taken by Israel or its government. 74% of American Jews between 18-49 support self-determination for both Israelis and the Palestinians, and 88% believe that “Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish, democratic state.” But, 14% of Jews ages 18 to 34 identify as anti-Zionist, an increase from 8% five years ago.

In the early weeks and months of the war, many American Jews sought out the organized Jewish community for identification and support, began reading books about Israel, attending classes and on-line seminars on Zionism, Israel, Middle East history and politics. Non-Jews chose to convert to Judaism in numbers greater than we’ve experienced in a generation.

However, too many American synagogues have become unsafe spaces where rabbis and congregants are unable to discuss civilly the wide range of views concerning Israel, Zionism, antisemitism, the war, the Israeli government, illiberal trends in Israeli and American Jewish communities, and the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab conflicts.

It ought to be clear to everyone that we North American Jews and Israelis are in a significant transformative era. Whereas in years past, Israelis were happy simply to take Diaspora Jewish dollars and welcome American Jewish political support in Congress and the administration for Israel’s security needs. In a recent Israeli poll, 80 percent of Israeli Jews now feel strongly that the Israel-Diaspora relationship is important to them personally.

Though we Jews are one people, there exists today a wide chasm between most Israelis and most liberal American Jews. That reality requires us American Jews to understand that since October 7, Israelis as a whole have thought of themselves, perhaps for the first time in their lives, as victims who responded to Hamas from a place of fear, anxiety, rage, hostility, and a desire for revenge. From that embattled position many Israelis have justified themselves morally in responding militarily in Gaza to whatever the Israeli government and the IDF did. In the initial months of the war, I felt as Israelis felt. Feeling victimized perhaps explains why the vast majority of the Israeli media did not focus throughout the war on the destruction of Gaza and the huge loss of life there, and why Palestinian society has historically tolerated and embraced terrorism as a legitimate response against Israel and the Jewish people.

Consequently, Israel has lost the affections of a small minority of the American Jewish community, especially among our young people. At the beginning of the war, a colleague called me distraught because his college-age son had joined the Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Israel and anti-Zionist Jewish organization. His son claimed to want no part of Israel in his life and even said that Israel should never have been created. My colleague was deeply upset and asked me what I thought he ought to say to his young adult son. A number of my congregants called me as well with the same question about their college age and twenty-something sons and daughters.

I responded this way:

“First – these are your kids. Your relationship with them is what’s most important now. Don’t say or do anything to alienate them from you. Love them a lot, which means listening to them without having to instruct or correct them. Recognize that we’re all struggling in this new era of American Jewish history. Remember that they’re at the beginning of their adult journeys as Jews and they likely will evolve and change their thinking just as we’ve done over the course of our lives. You’ve instilled in them liberal Jewish values focused upon justice, compassion, and peace. This is not the end of their engagement with Jewish life or in their relationship with Israel. They already know how you feel and what you believe about Israel. If they’re open to reading about why Israel matters to the American Jewish community, to our identity and security in the Diaspora, and what liberal Reform Zionism has to offer them, there are books that deal directly with these challenges.”

The greater question confronting us now is how to better educate ourselves and our young people about Israel and Zionism. The best thing is to go there and meet Israelis face to face from the right, left, and center, with Palestinian-Israeli citizens and Palestinian Arabs living under occupation in the West Bank, with Israeli and Palestinian journalists, members of the Knesset, and our Israeli Reform movement rabbis and leadership, including the leadership of the Israel Religious Action Center, the social justice arm of Israel’s Reform movement, who advocate daily before the Knesset and courts and in the media on behalf of pluralism, equality, inclusion, and democracy in Israeli society.

There are many questions all Diaspora Jews, young and senior alike, need now to be asking:

• What does it means for us to belong to the Jewish people and have a Jewish state?
• How ought we to respond to those who feel we Jews are colonialists and interlopers in our historic Homeland?
• How do we rebuild trust in our Jewish institutions, clergy and teachers who many young people regard with suspicion and distrust because we haven’t been honest enough about Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when they grew up?
• How do we understand anti-Zionism, anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism today?

Our message as American liberal Zionists and lovers of the people and State of Israel has to be clear and unrelenting – DON’T GIVE UP ON ISRAEL. We have a moral and Jewish duty to fight for Israel despite her imperfections just as we have a moral duty to fight for American democracy despite its obvious imperfections.

As Reform Jews, we have the duty also to join with our growing Israeli Reform movement in its fight for religious pluralism, democracy, inclusion, and equality in the Jewish state, and to pursue with those Israelis who believe in the necessity of creating a new pathway to peace with the Palestinians, the Arab and moderate Muslim world.

My Zionism grew from a particular time in history. I was born a year after the State was established and was raised on “the crisis narrative” of Jewish history. The Holocaust hovered over my childhood and formative years and has been a defining experience affecting the post-war Jewish psyche. The Shoah taught Jews everywhere that powerlessness risks death and the State of Israel is our surest protection against deadly forces that would destroy us.

By the time I was 17, Israel had fought three wars. When I was 23 and living in Jerusalem, Israel was nearly overtaken by Egyptian and Syrian forces in the Yom Kippur War. I understood then that Israel could not lose a single war on the battlefield, that her security and survival must be the number one priority for Israelis and world Jewry, and that to ignore the real threats to the Jewish people can never be an option.

Though I grew up with the “crisis narrative” of contemporary and historic Jewish experience, that narrative is no longer sustainable despite what happened on October 7.

I agree with Dr. Tal Becker, an associate at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, who writes that the crisis narrative “is both narrow and shallow.” It’s narrow because the singular focus on survival keeps us from talking about “the breadth of what this sovereign project [on the land] might offer for the collective Jewish experience.” And it’s shallow because “it pursues Jewish survival for its own sake but tells no deeper story as to why that survival is important and worth fighting for.”

Dr. Becker argues that to achieve a vision of Jewish unity behind an Israel that we can support, we need to focus on values and ask what it will take to address Israel’s challenges and build a moral and just society in which the policies, politics, and culture reflect our liberal Jewish values, tradition, and experience as a people.

For those operating strictly out of the crisis mindset, Jewish unity is defined narrowly by who stands with us against common threats. But the values narrative defines Jewish unity in terms of a moral engagement that we share – not because we agree or because the one overriding issue confronting us is survival, but because we’re committed to engage in a process of writing together the next chapter of Jewish history.

It’s difficult to find the balance between our particular Jewish interests—the concerns and identity we have as a nation and “tribe”—and our concerns for democracy and the wellbeing of all. Yet the tension between the particular and the universal, the tribal and the humanitarian, runs throughout Jewish tradition and history. A values-based discussion about what Israel should be can bring about a new Zionist paradigm.

“Aspirational Zionism” evokes these questions that can take us to the heart of a democratic nationalism:

How do our liberal Jewish values augment Israel’s democratic, diverse, and pluralistic society?

How do we bring the moral aspirations of Judaism into contemporary challenges like Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians and Arab-Israeli citizens?

How do we fight our anti-Israeli, anti-Zionist, and antisemitic enemies without our sacrificing our Jewish moral sensibilities and democratic values?

How do we genuinely pursue peace as a moral obligation despite the threat of terror and war?

How do we preserve a Jewish majority in Israel while supporting social justice, a shared society with Arab-Israeli citizens, and the human rights of all?

Nationalism has become shorthand for self-interested exclusion, oppression, and supremacy, but democratic nations are what we make them. In this spirit we can insist on and fight for an Israel that lives up to its founding principles of democracy, justice, and peace; an Israel that reflects the best of Jewish culture and tradition.

We liberal American Jews can be fully Zionist even as we ask the hard questions like those above. That’s the Israel and the Zionism I support and grew up with, and our support for our Reform Zionist movement in the United States and in Israel in our Israeli Reform movement’s synagogues, youth programs, pre-army educational programs, kibbutzim, and social justice work are what give me hope for Israel and the Jewish people.

Introductory Note: I delivered this sermon on Kol Nidre at Temple Israel of Hollywood where I served as Senior Rabbi from 1988 to 2019. The YouTube above is available to watch or the written text below.

Shanah tovah.

It’s so good to look out from this bimah once again and see so many friendly faces. I’ve missed you.

I thank our Board of Trustees and my clergy colleagues for extending to me the invitation to speak with you on this holiest of nights. I’m honored to have this privilege. The adage that you can’t go home again doesn’t apply to me here. Temple Israel was and remains a home away from home for my family and me. Our sons were educated here, and now our two grandchildren are enrolled in our schools. L’dor va-dor.

Since I became Rabbi Emeritus six-plus years ago so much has happened in each of our lives and our families, in the life of this community, in our country, Israel and the Middle East, and around the world.

And here we are, together again at this annual reunion, as we begin Yom Kippur and Temple Israel’s 100^th anniversary year.

Tonight commences our day of fasting, reflection, self-criticism, and renewal, and is an opportunity to count our blessings too, to cherish each other, to remember those who have passed on who have been dear to us, and those who built this community and left it to us as part of their legacy.

Particularly in these soul-crushing and heart-breaking times in which we’re trying to make moral sense in this new era that began on October 7^th two years ago, it’s important to remind ourselves who we are and who we’ve been as Jews over our long history.

Judaism includes many things, a moral and legal tradition founded upon the principle of tikun olam (repairing the world), a religion and faith, a culture, history, languages, a Homeland, literature, art and music.

Though twice we were forcibly exiled from the Land of Israel, we’ve kept the Holy City of Jerusalem in our hearts. In exile we’ve suffered persecutions, but we survived as Jews despite all those who sought to destroy us.

Our liturgies, philosophies, theologies, and ideologies evolved as we’ve lived and adapted in lands throughout the world.

We are therefore not a religious and faith community alone. We’re a people and civilization distinguished by our moral values, ideas, and sense of community, lived experience and history no less significant than the Greek, Roman, Ottoman, and British empires, though we’ve never occupied as much territory as any of them.

I was asked to speak tonight about Israel, the war, Zionism, and our relationship as American Jews to the Jewish State, and I confess that after accepting the invitation, I asked myself how I ought to speak about this most horrific inflection moment in modern Jewish history and in the history of Israel.

To start, the 20-point peace plan unveiled on Monday at the White House, has many good things in it, including an end to the war, the immediate return of the hostages, a plan for the day after in Gaza, the surrender of Hamas, a surge of humanitarian aid, no forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, an eventual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a recognition of the Palestinian aspiration of self-determination and a “credible pathway” toward statehood, and the support of the Arab world, not a small thing at all.  

The proposal needs Hamas to support it and we’ll know soon enough if it does. Word is that it intends to reject it, but even if Hamas accepts the plan, it’s likely that Prime Minister Netanyahu and Hamas’ leadership will, for their own domestic political reasons, drag their feet and put obstacles in the way, or even derail the initiative altogether.

A significant weakness of the plan is that no Palestinians were involved in developing the agreement and there was no mention of the future of the West Bank. For true peace and a two-state solution ever to emerge, Israelis and the Palestinians must work face-to-face, from the ground up, not top down with one of the parties excluded, as Trump’s plan does.

After the press conference, PM Netanyahu, speaking in Hebrew, rejected Palestinian statehood as he has done throughout his political career.

I fear, therefore, that the status quo before Monday’s announcement hasn’t really changed, though I would love to be wrong.

My initial intent in speaking with you tonight was not to talk policy; rather, to reflect about who we are as Jews, and what impact the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 and these two years of war have had on our identity as liberal American Jews, our Jewish values, and our relationship with the people and State of Israel. 

Since October 7^th, like so many of you, I have continually felt despondent, outraged, grief-stricken, vengeful, and deeply worried about the families of those murdered on that day, the well-being of our hostages and young soldiers and their families, and about the thousands of innocent Gazans who have lost their loved ones, homes, and communities.

I’ve been a Zionist since my earliest years. My family was among the earliest pioneers to Palestine starting in 1880, and I have many dear Israeli friends. I’ve studied, taught and written about Zionism, the State of Israel, and Jewish history, about Jewish texts, literature and values. But, nothing has pierced my heart and soul like what we have experienced during these past two years. Consequently, no sermon I have ever given has been more difficult and painful for me to write than this one.

The founding of the State of Israel only three years after the greatest tragedy ever to befall our people, transformed who we were to become as Jews in this era. The new state returned us to our ancient Homeland and to history. Israel gave us confidence and agency. It restored our pride as a people. It offered us protection from antisemitic hate and violence. And it became a laboratory in which our people’s ethical tradition could be tested in the context of our attaining power and sovereignty for the first time in two thousand years.

But, what happened on October 7^th represented the greatest existential threat in most of our lifetimes to everything we have been as a people in the modern era.

Israeli commanders feared in the initial days after the attack not only that Hamas would continue its savage rampage going north killing Jews with the ultimate goal of destroying the Jewish state, but that Israel’s enemies on all sides would join the war in a coordinated attack. Such a combined assault would have overwhelmed Israel’s defensive capacity.

Even before that awful day, Zionism and the State of Israel had come to be regarded by many in the United States and around the world cynically, with derision and in the most pejorative terms. That downward trend intensified and metastasized almost immediately as Israel began fighting back. Those hostile to Israel have for years sought to re-frame Israel’s narrative as discriminatory, racist, colonialist, and as a cancerous foreign element in the heart of the Islamic Middle East that had no legitimate right to exist.

An increasing number of progressive left-wing Americans, people many of us thought were our friends and social justice allies, agreed openly with the harshest Israel critics, justifying morally what Hamas did and some even celebrating Hamas by calling its brutal and savage terrorists, inexplicably, “freedom fighters.”

Every people has the right of self-definition, and we liberal American Jews and Zionists who support and love the State of Israel have that right as well. Especially now after two years of war, a dramatic rise in antisemitism around the world, and Israel being labeled a pariah nation, we Jews cannot allow Israel haters, antisemites and right-wing extremist Jews to define us or to determine the inner life of the Jewish people. We need to be able to restate our liberal Jewish narrative and lead with it whenever we discuss with those who know much or little about the history of the Jewish people, Judaism, Zionism, and the State of Israel. 

I want to express to you tonight as clearly as I can, from the deepest place in my being, in an effort to reclaim our narrative, why I remain a liberal American Jew, a liberal Zionist and a supporter of the people and State of Israel despite my very strong protest against the policies of the most extremist, anti-democratic, right-wing, messianic, and myopic ruling coalition government in the history of the Jewish state.

As a liberal American Jew, I believe in the right of the Jewish people to a state of our own in our historic Homeland and in the right of Israel militarily to defend itself whenever it’s attacked by terrorists and hostile states set on its destruction.

As a liberal American Jew, I affirm that the universal humanitarian values advocated by the ancient prophets of Israel, developed by rabbinic tradition over the past two millennia, and included in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, including equality, justice, compassion, empathy, human rights, and peace – all foundational virtues in Judaism – must be the core values guiding all of the Israeli government’s policies and reforms, its military and civil society.

As an American Jew, I acknowledge that I am not an Israeli citizen. I do not pay Israeli taxes nor do I send my children and grandchildren to the Israeli military. Nor do many of us American Jews know people who were murdered on October 7, though two of the young people killed at the Supernova music festival, Norelle and Roya Manzuri (aleihen b’shalom), grew up here in our own Briskin Elementary School.

Few American Jews have family members who were taken as hostages, and few among us have been subjected to missile attacks forcing us to run quickly with our children and babies in our arms into shelters with only seconds to spare before the explosions and the walls of our home shake.

Only Israeli citizens have the right to take the hard decisions that impact their lives and well-being. However, as an American Jew who loves Israel and who cares deeply about Israel’s citizens and future, I insist that I do have the right to share my ideas and criticism of Israeli government policies and trends that I believe are harmful to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, that threaten our security and well-being as Diaspora Jews, and are contrary to our liberal Jewish and democratic values.

I had little doubt that Israel had to respond militarily in order dramatically to reduce Hamas as a military threat to enable Israelis safely to return to their homes in southern Israel, just as Israel had to defang Hezbollah in Lebanon to allow Israelis to return safely to their homes in the north.

However, I’ve been haunted ever since I read words written soon after the war began by a dear Israeli friend, Nadav Tamir, who wrote:

“After October 7^th, I understood the anger and desire for revenge, but I feared Hamas would win the battle for our souls if they succeeded in making us as murderous and vengeful as they are…” (1)

I knew Hamas couldn’t win this war on the battlefield. Thankfully, Israel is too strong and strategic a military power, but like my friend, I worried too that Hamas would succeed in corrupting the heart and soul of the Jewish people.

This war began as a just war of self-defense against a cruel and vicious enemy that committed massive war crimes against our people. Israel’s initial war goals were to bring the hostages home and to degrade Hamas’ ability ever to attack Israel again as it did on that day.

Like many Israelis and American Jews, I too have felt the need for revenge, but I’ve asked myself at what cost to my heart and soul and to the soul of the Jewish people should I or any of us continue to harbor such self-destructive emotions? And at what moral cost to our people have these two years of violence and killing had upon Israelis and the Jewish people around the world?

Earlier this year, 600 retired Israeli security military and intelligence officials wrote to President Trump to urge him to apply pressure on Israel to end the war because they believed that Hamas was no longer a military or strategic threat to Israel and that there was nothing more to be gained in continuing the battle, that the war was harming Israel’s international legitimacy, causing immense suffering for Gazan civilians, and that the war was no longer a “just war.”

But, despite their advice and expertise, the fighting has gone on and on. Though Trump has now tried to end this war, over the past two years, Israeli bombers, missiles and tanks have utterly destroyed Gaza, house after house, apartment building after apartment building. Water, electricity and sewage infrastructure no longer exist. It’s estimated that 90 percent of all homes, 436,000 residences, are either destroyed or damaged beyond repair with tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians dead – men, women, children, babies, the elderly, entire families wiped from the face of the earth. They and so many of our own Israeli soldiers and hostages that have been killed could have been saved had the war ended long ago. 

If all of this isn’t awful enough, from March to May of this year, the Israeli government withheld all humanitarian aid from Gaza allegedly to force Hamas to release the hostages and to surrender. But that tactic backfired. We’ve seen the images of starving children. Even if Hamas doctored some of the photographs for its corrupt propaganda purposes, is there really any doubt that thousands of children were starving because Israel used humanitarian aid as a weapon of war? This tactic was not only immoral and un-Jewish, but according to international law, a war crime.

After heavy criticism from the United States, Israel opened the gates and aid began flowing again on hundreds of trucks daily into Gaza, but far more is needed to address the horrific long-term effects of famine.

It is American policy that Israel and all recipients of United States’ weapons must adhere by law to standards concerning humanitarian aid and the use of force. As painful as it is for me to say this because I have always supported American military aid to Israel throughout my life, I support those 27 Democratic Party Senators who in July voted to block the sale of U.S.-made heavy bombs, guidance kits for bombs, and assault rifles to stem Israel’s use of these offensive weapons to harm civilians, block humanitarian aid, and contribute to mass starvation in Gaza. Though the bill didn’t pass in the Senate, the intent of those Senators was to put maximum pressure on President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu and his extremist government to end this war.

Those 27 Senators are friends of Israel. In their vote to withhold offensive weapons they carefully distinguished between those weapons and the defensive weapon systems of Iron Dome, Arrow, and David’s Sling that save Israeli lives. These Senators should not be accused of being anti-Israel as some in the American Jewish community have done. They are not that. They instead should be praised for acting on behalf of the best interests of Israel and the Palestinian civilians of Gaza and for applying necessary pressure on the Israeli government to do what is just and compassionate.

Many of us are aware also of the organized right-wing extremist settler violence and murder of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, the demolition and burning of their homes, orchards and fields with impunity and often with the participation of uniformed Israeli soldiers. The intent of these violent settlers, with the backing of this extremist Israeli government, is to drive Palestinians out of the West Bank altogether, from their homes and villages in which they have lived for generations, to make way for more Jewish settlements and the eventual annexation of the West Bank into a Greater Israel, also contrary to international law.

Several weeks ago, I was stunned when Prime Minister Netanyahu arrogantly boasted that Israel will become “Super Sparta” – a reference to the ancient hyper-militaristic, self-reliant society that was isolated from the rest of the world. The “Super Sparta” vision prizes armed-force prowess above all else and is not a vision for Israel’s future that most of us would recognize or of what early Zionists hoped for Israel to become as a nation amongst nations. It’s a road-map to deepen Israel’s pariah status around the world and to accelerate Israel’s moral and political decline.

It ought to be clear by now that given the massive destruction and killing that continues day after day that Israel has crossed red lines and committed war crimes. War crimes are committed in every war, and in this war, it’s likely that rogue commanders and rogue soldiers have shot civilians without provocation, and missiles and bombs have destroyed buildings inhabited by Hamas commanders without nearly enough concern for the number of civilians who would certainly be killed. Those commanders and soldiers should be held accountable when the war is over.

We Jews know better. Our own people have been the victims of war crimes throughout our history. Judaism gave the world a system of justice and a moral tradition of compassion based upon the principle that every human being is created b’tzelem Elohim, in the divine image, and therefore is of infinite value and worth.

Israeli soldiers have long been trained in what’s called Tohar HaNeshek, purity of arms, meaning that every means and every effort must be taken at all times by every commander and soldier to preserve innocent human life. (2)

To their great moral credit, hundreds of Israeli reserve soldiers are now refusing to report for military duty because they know that Israel is now fighting a cruel and unjust war. The vast majority of Israelis too, according to polls, are demanding that the war, killing and suffering end, and the remaining hostages be returned home.

This war has shaken Israelis and world Jewry to our core. The wounds of each of our peoples, of Israel and Palestine, are going to be difficult to heal or overcome for generations.

In the United States and around the world, we Jews are dealing also with a rise of antisemitism – much of it exacerbated by this war – that most Jews alive today have never seen, experienced or imagined before.  

The Palestinian-Israeli struggle is amongst the oldest unresolved conflicts in the world. The Israeli historian and writer Fania Oz-Salzberger put it exactly right when she wrote a month ago:

“Here’s a truth to reckon with: neither Israelis nor Palestinians are going to disappear any time soon. No one can destroy their respective claims to a sovereign state in their ancestral homeland, which happens to be the same land. Barring a cataclysmic event, there will be no river-to-sea Palestine and no Greater Israel. This is a conflict that can only be solved by territorial and political compromise.” (3)

There are serious ideas, in addition to what we heard on Monday, that have been developed over the last number of years between Palestinians and Israelis working together, from the bottom-up, who recognize and accept each other’s legitimate national aspirations, needs and rights. Despite whatever despondency I have felt, there are two related ideas that I actually find hopeful and visionary.

One is called “Eretz L’kulam – A Land for All: Two States, One Homeland”, a political vision developed by Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinian Arab citizens. The proponents of the idea envision two democratic and sovereign states alongside each other – Israel and Palestine – linked together in a confederation much the way the European Union functions. (4)

The second idea is a “23-State Solution” that includes all the western Arab states and Israel in coalition with each other, complete recognition of Israel for the first time in Israel’s history by most of the Arab and Muslim world, and the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state, perhaps as part of the confederal model. (5)

This isn’t the time or place to discuss the details of these ideas, but it’s important to know that there are creative and pragmatic ideas that can offer hope and a way forward. After the holidays, this sermon will be posted on our synagogue’s website and on my personal blog (6), and I will include links to both of these proposals that spell out the details, if you are interested.

All ideas about how to resolve this conflict are, of course, not risk-free, but the status quo is unsustainable. Violent rejectionist Jewish Israelis and violent rejectionist Palestinian Arabs will have to be controlled harshly by each state’s respective police forces in any future negotiated agreement.

To be Jewish, especially in these times, means, in part, to lift ourselves up out of the morass of confusion and despair, to reclaim our virtue as critical and creative thinkers who raise moral questions and seek practical solutions, and who can argue with one another without withdrawing from the fight or being intimidated by Israeli zealots or their supporters in the United States who slander us as self-hating Jews, antisemites, Kapos, and traitors because we dare to be critical of Israeli policies and actions as a matter of conscience and moral outrage about this war that long ago should have ended.

We Jews have always viewed our purpose through an aspirational lens. We have striven as a people to be better than we are, that we do not ever settle for the status quo, and that we stay committed to correct moral wrongs and move forward as best we can.

 Some of our own young liberal and progressive American Jews, however, are decoupling the State of Israel from their Jewish identity, and others are closing the door behind them and disavowing being Jewish altogether. Many are walking away from the American Jewish community because they believe that we rabbis and teachers, Jewish leaders of synagogues, national Jewish organizations and Jewish summer camps, who taught them Judaism’s moral principles emphasizing compassion and empathy, justice, human rights, and peace are, in their minds, hypocrites because we have not been nearly critical enough, or critical at all, of Israel’s bad behavior in this never-ending war.

I want to speak now to you, our young generation of Jews.

I understand how many of you feel and why you feel as you do. But, I believe that this is not the time to turn your backs on our people, on Judaism, on liberal Zionism, or on the State of Israel.

Our Jewish moral and ethical principles transcend any specific point in time or series of events. Judaism is not what we see in war or as a consequence of our having to cope with antisemitism, though both can teach us much about ourselves as Jews.

Judaism is what we rabbis, teachers, synagogues and Jewish summer camps tried to impart to you, our young people, about the vitality in living an enriched Jewish life, about the multitude of ways to be spiritual beings within Jewish community, about the wisdom our sages, mystics, and great thinkers have left for us, about ways to live the rhythms of our holidays and life cycles, and about the meaning of the establishment of the State of Israel as the greatest single accomplishment of the Jewish people in two thousand years.

Though you may wish to turn away, I hope you will decide to stay engaged in whatever way is meaningful to you because we need you, your way of thinking, and your critical moral voice.

Another thing about us Jews – our struggles are nothing new. We are, after all, Yisrael – a people who wrestles with God and with the moral challenges and complexities we face every day as individuals and as a people.

We Jews have always recognized the wide chasm between what is and what ought to be. The best of us, however, have not sat on the side-lines nor given up without entering the fight on behalf of our people and for human rights, justice and peace for all peoples and nations, including the Palestinians.

We live in a violent and corrupt world. It’s understandable that so many of us want to turn away from the news out of the Middle East and throw up our hands and shout “enough already!”

But, once we do that and we’ve had a chance to breathe and restore our moral and emotional equilibrium, it’s better for us to draw close to one another again and reaffirm our Jewish identity, our age-old principles and values, and our faith that eventually there will be a better day for Israelis and the Palestinians.

I keep reminding myself that history swings like a pendulum, from the death of the spirit to renewed life, from division to unity, from war to peace, from despair to hope, and that we Jews have lived this swinging back and forth over and over again throughout our history.

I remind myself that every human-made problem has a human solution if we apply critical and creative thinking, our understanding of the needs and truths of the “other,” and the will to compromise in order to solve the seemingly unsolvable.

As a Jewish community, each of us has the right to think what we want and to feel what we feel – as I have shared with you my thoughts and feelings here tonight – and the Jewish community ought to be a safe space for everyone to find their place and their voice, to argue with one another passionately but respectfully, to disagree without becoming disagreeable, and where even our harshly contrasting ideas and perspectives, our many different life experiences, and our generational distinctions can live alongside each other with humility as we engage in discussion, argument, criticism, and self-criticism.

Our people’s safety valve is that we talk and discuss and argue, and hopefully that we also listen to each other, especially to those with whom we disagree the most.

Our challenge as American Jews in these days is to find ways to come together and to affirm our foundational Jewish values as we struggle to cope in these painful and disturbing times and not to become numb to the barrage of terrible events that are all around us.

And it’s our challenge as well to look to the future with fortitude and hope. Our history of survival as a people teaches us to do so.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote:

“To be a Jew is to be an agent of hope in a world serially threatened by despair …No Jew knowing Jewish history can be an optimist, but no Jew worthy of the name abandons hope.” (7)

This new era in Jewish history begins with a darkly written chapter, but this is not the last chapter. It’s upon us, all of us, to write what comes next.

I wish us all the strength, perseverance, thoughtfulness, and moral courage necessary in this New Year.

I often sign-off my emails to my Israeli friends saying:

“Stay safe and sane. With love – John.”

And I say to you too, my beloved congregation:

Stay safe, sane and strong. And most importantly, hold those whom you cherish very close. We need each other.

With love – John.

G’mar chatimah tovah.

Notes:

1. Nadav Tamir, “Never Again”, The Times of Israel, August 22, 2025.
2. Tohar HaNeshek – Purity of Arms – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_of_arms.
3. Fania Oz-Salzberger, “The Battle for the Soul of Israel”, The Financial Times, August 29, 2025.
4. “Eretz l’kulam – A Land for All: Two States, One Homeland” – see https://www.alandforall.org/english-vision/?d=ltr
5. The 23-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict – see https://jstreet.org/the-23-state-solution/
6. My personal blog – see https://rabbijohnrosove.blog/
7. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Lessons in Leadership – A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible, (New Milford, Connecticut: Maggid Books, 2015), p. 202.

This is my third consecutive post in a series of three concerning the meaning and importance of liberal Zionism and the State of Israel.

In this torturous, confusing and challenging era for Jews since October 7, 2023, I believe it’s worthwhile to read or re-read books that can help focus our moral, Jewish and liberal Zionist compasses. To that end, I recommend 4 volumes:

Gil Troy, The Zionist Ideas – Visions for the Jewish Homeland – Then, Now, Tomorrow with a Foreword by Natan Sharansky (New York: JPS Press, 2018)

“The Zionist Ideas is a must-read, a comprehensive Zionist Bible for the twenty-first century. The outstanding scholar and community leader Gil Troy presents an impressive range of thinkers, from yesterday to today, from left to right, illuminated by his extraordinary commentary, all of which affirm the enduring moral character of the Zionist idea: that Zionism, beyond safeguarding the Jewish state, is anchored in a humanistic ideology of universal resonance.” –Irwin Cotler, former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada and human rights activist.

Yossi Klein Halevi, Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor – with an Extensive Epilogue of Palestinian Responses (New York: Harper Perennial, 2018)

“The most insightful description of this deep-rooted conflict–from the Israeli perspective–which I have ever read . . . A master linguist, Yossi Klein Halevi has voiced the hopes and feats of many Israelis, as well as many Zionists in the diaspora.” –London Jewish Chronicle.

Ari Shavit, My Promised Land – The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel(New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2013)

“With the heart of a storyteller and the mind of a historian, Ari Shavit has written a powerful and compelling book about the making of modern Israel. No country is more emotionally connected to the United States, and no country’s fate matters more to many Americans. And yet until Shavit’s My Promised Land, it has been growing more difficult to sense the character of Israel through all the caricatures. This book is vital reading for Americans who care about the future, not only of the United States but of the world.” –Jon Meacham, American presidential historian and author of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power.

Rabbi John L. Rosove, Why Israel and its Future Matters – Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to the Next Generation (New Jersey: Ben Yehuda Press, 2019; reissued after October 7, 2023)

“Rabbi Rosove shares 11 compelling letters directed at his two sons, but this fascinating work is in fact aimed at an entire generation of perplexed young Jews. He delineates the just case for Israel with precision and delicacy, sans fluff or pandering. This is a book which strives to combat Israel haters and bashers and gives real tools and answers to those liberal Jews who feel somewhat frustrated and confused about Israel. A must-read!” – Isaac Herzog, President of the State of Israel.

All 4 books are available from their publishers or on Amazon.com.

Despite the rightward turn of the Israeli government, we continue to believe in the Zionist enterprise and the viability of the State of Israel, write four leaders of progressive Zionism.

AUGUST 3, 2016 

[Introductory notes: Simultaneously with my posting of my blog on August 6, 2025 – “What does it Mean to be a Liberal American Zionist?” – the British-born former Director of Policy Analysis at AIPAC, Michael Lewis, posted the following article on LinkedIn that was originally published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) 9 years ago, almost to the day, that I co-wrote along with my colleagues (see names below). I thank Michael for posting this. I had forgotten about it. Little has changed, however, in my thinking about what it means to be a liberal Zionist except today, because so many “progressive” Jews no longer identify as Zionists, I prefer to be called a “liberal” Zionist. One more thing. Though the vast majority of Israelis today believe, after October 7, that a two-state solution is unlikely ever to happen, there is still no alternative if Israel is to remain both Jewish and democratic. When I think of the current relationships between the United States and Germany and Japan, no one would have thought such alliances would have been possible in 1945. Perhaps, once this horrendous war ends, there might be a new light showing the way along with the will amongst our two peoples to chart a course that will enable Israel and the Palestinian people to live next to each other in security and peace.]

NEW YORK (JTA) — As progressive American Zionists, we take seriously the critique of Israel and Zionism by professors Hasia Diner and Marjorie N. Feld, contained in their Aug. 1 Haaretz article, “We’re American Jewish Historians. This is why we’ve left Zionism behind.”

However, unlike them, we affirm progressive Zionist values. And those values mandate activism in order to ensure that Israel is both a democracy and the national home of the Jewish people.

The difference between us and professors Diner and Feld is that we continue to believe in the Zionist enterprise and the viability of the State of Israel, despite troubling trends: the rightward turn of the Israeli government; the corrupting influence of the nearly 50-year Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people in the West Bank; the growing messianic nationalism of the settler movement; the ultra-Orthodox influence on the Israeli government and its control over Jewish religious life; the second-class status of Palestinian Israeli citizens. We have a duty as Diaspora Zionists to critique Israeli policies whenever we believe that the State of Israel violates Jewish and democratic values as articulated in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

For us, Jewish “nationalism” cannot be the sole objective of Zionism. Rather, Zionism and the Jewish nation is a means towards the perfection of the Jewish people and the world (tikkun olam).

Since its establishment, Israel has meant many things to many people: a haven from persecution, a catalyst for Jewish renewal and a place where the rhythms of civic life are Jewish rhythms. We regard the State of Israel as the Jewish people’s laboratory of Jewish ethical living, one that has seen unparalleled achievements and successes, as well as considerable deficiencies and failures. We regard the founding of the state as a consummate historic opportunity, to test the efficacy of Jewish ethical values, institutions and the diversity of Jewish peoplehood all while holding onto political power as a sovereign state.

Sadly, the professors base their argument on the highly reductionist notion of Judaism as simply a religion, and they even seem to breathe life into the 40-year-old defamatory attempt to label Zionism as racism. They suggest that it was Israeli homogenization that led to the demise of Jewish communities around the world, as if the great holy communities of Warsaw, Vilna and Krakow would somehow be intact today if it weren’t for…Zionism.

They also deeply oversimplify the reality here in the U.S., with its religiously neutral environment. America, and American Jews, have championed the “Goldene Medinah” — the Golden Land — as the great melting pot and exalted land of assimilation and acculturation. But today, Jews throughout the U.S. struggle with the challenge of balancing the benefits of American religious freedom while responding to communal trends in which Jews struggle to find connections, meaning and relevance in being Jewish.

As Zionists, Israel is the center of global Jewish life, and, it is important to recognize, it has managed to create a vibrant and creative Jewish society with a rich and incredibly ethnically diverse Judaism. Yet, Diaspora Jewry is a partner in assuring Israel’s viability as a democracy and a Jewish state, and its security as a sovereign nation. Our role in the Diaspora is different than that of Israeli citizens, but it is no less important. Indeed, our two centers need each other’s wisdom and support.

Professors Diner and Feld seem to have been defeated by their mythic understanding of Zionism and Israel. Though there is merit to their legitimate concerns about the “other” and what Jewish nationalism must do to include non-Jews as equal citizens in the state, it is unfortunate that they are turning away from Zionism altogether. Their relationship with Israel seems to be conditional. We would like to suggest an unconditional relationship to Israel. That means, like family, when we see troubling trends and abhorrent behavior, rather than disavow the entire enterprise, we prefer to roll up our sleeves and get more involved.

They are right that the Palestinians are entitled to empathy, justice and redress. Israel cannot continue to occupy another people and remain true to its democratic and Jewish values. The only way to preserve Israel as a Jewish state and a democracy is for Israel and the Palestinians to enter into negotiations leading to two states for two peoples.

Similarly, Israeli Jews and Diaspora Zionists must actively engage non-Jewish Israelis to address the real tensions within Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state. Making Israel both more democratic and more Jewish is a serious challenge, but it is the essential struggle of Zionism. And as we reject Professors Diner and Feld when they give up on Israel as a Jewish state, we oppose Israelis and other Jews who take actions that threaten Israel’s essential nature as a democracy.

Ultimately, our vision of progressive Zionism — which is embodied in the Israeli Declaration of Independence and the Zionist movement’s Jerusalem Program — is one grounded in hope and action. And we will continue to strive to fulfill this vision to ensure a just, secure and peaceful future for all Israelis, and an Israel that can be a dynamic inspiration to Jews around the world.

(Rabbi Josh Weinberg and Rabbi John Rosove are the President and Chair of ARZA, the Association of Reform Zionists of America. Gideon Aronoff and Ken Bob are the CEO and National President of Ameinu.)

Original JTA article link – https://www.jta.org/2016/08/03/ideas/why-progressive-jews-mustnt-give-up-on-zionism