Am Yisrael Chai! It’s not just a slogan, it’s a way of life

I remember growing up as a kid in Brooklyn singing the Am Yisrael Chai chant, we’d sing it with great excitement and with great pride. And then I remember myself as a young adult, growing into my career as a professional Jew working for various nonprofits, always ending my talks, and my social media posts, with the chant: Am Yisrael? (audience) Chai. I remember how friends and colleagues thought it was cute, reminiscent of a time when they too may have sung the song as kids, they’d chuckle. That’s what I was known for, I was the guy who people knew would scream out AM YISRAEL CHAI wherever and whenever possible.

Am Yisrael Chai is not a slogan, it is a way of life.

Fast-forward to post October 7, 2023, Am Yisrael Chai has once again re-emerged as the rallying cry for the global people of Israel. My wife jokes that I should’ve copywritten the slogan back then, not that I think that would’ve been possible, but boy I would’ve been a millionaire by now! The reality is that we stand at an intersection of historic proportions, a point of reference requiring us to rise to the challenges confronting our people, once again elevating the rallying cry: Am Yisrael Chai!

I know, I see it all over social media, and I hear it all the time, you do too, and I love it.

Am Yisrael Chai is not a slogan, it is a way of life.

The earliest use of the slogan appeared as early as 1895 in a Zionist songbook, and again at the Second World Jewish Conference in 1933, summoned to fight Hitler’s new Nazi regime through economic boycott. Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise ended the final address by declaring to the crowd: “We are prepared to defend ourselves against the will of Hitler Germany to destroy. We must defend ourselves because we are a people which lives and wishes to live. My last word that I wish to speak to you is this – our people lives — Am Yisrael Chai!”

And again, on April 20, 1945, five days after the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated, British Army chaplain Rabbi Leslie Hardman led a Friday evening Shabbat service for a few hundred survivors at the camp. Knowing the service was being recorded by Patrick Gordon Walker of the BBC radio service, a Jewish army chaplain proclaimed “Am Yisrael Chai!, the children of Israel still liveth” after the group sang the anthem Hatikvah at the conclusion of the service.

The slogan reemerged in 1965, when Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach was asked to compose a song ahead of a planned Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) rally in front of the Soviet Mission to the United Nations in New York on April 4, 1965. While in Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia, Carlebach wrote and first performed “Am Yisrael Chai” before a group of youth in Prague.

At each of these historic instances the slogan Am Yisrael Chai served as a living reference and driving force inspiring Am Yisrael at its most challenging times – The People of Israel LIVE!

Am Yisrael Chai is not a slogan, it is a way of life.

Fast-forward to today, we know that Am Yisrael Chai isn’t merely a slogan, rather Am Yisrael Chai is a way of life with a purpose that is projected forward from generations before our time to future generations yet to be born, driving our active participation in reclaiming, retelling, and realizing our story. Just as in the examples shared above, so too today, the slogan serves our current global Jewish anchor of hope and forward moving existence.

Am Yisrael Chai is not a slogan, it is a way of life.

The question is how do we perpetuate and live this value? By doing something about it. By being an active participant and not a bystander. By getting involved in every which way possible, by educating yourself, educating your children, and sending your kids to Jewish youth group and sleepaway camps, and by educating your community. It means getting involved in your local synagogue/temple, in a local communal organization, and getting involved with a cause that directly impacts Jewish Peoplehood and Israel, and it means role modeling for your children and others.

Am Yisrael Chai is not a slogan, it is a way of life.

What kind of ancestors will we be to our future generations?

My hope is that we will be just as amazing as those who came before us. Our ancestors who outlived exile and perpetuated Jewish life for 2000 years in exile, ancestors who witnessed the rise and fall of empires, ancestors who maintained their Jewish way of life—in hiding if needed, ancestors who survived the worst that humanity has to offer during the Holocaust, ancestors who came out from the ashes of the Holocaust to make the dream of the modern nation state of Israel, a reality.

And now it is our turn, Generation Zion, to choose life!

In the future, this period of history will be learned about, talked about, and will be celebrated. Who knows? It may become a holiday (think Hannukah or Purim) where we read a megillah, pray and sing, make kiddish, eat a meal, maybe candy, and celebrate that the People of Israel live, all because you, we, did something about it.

About: Rabbi Leor Sinai is Principal of Sinai Strategies, a consulting agency focused on advancing Global Jewish – Israel relations, Education, Leadership Development, and Organizational Advancement. Sinai also serves as a motivational speaker, sits on the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Board of Governors as Chair of the Youth Aliyah & Absorption Committee, and serves on the board of Atchalta—a non-partisan think tank advancing social cohesion and national resilience in Israel. Originally from New York, Sinai made Aliyah with his family in 2011