From the Heartland with Hope

With feelings from Topeka to our friends in family in Tel Aviv, we Jews of America’s heartland will also observe Yom HaZikaron tonight and, when darkness falls tomorrow, Yom Ha’atzma’ut as well. We won’t hear a nationwide siren, but in our synagogues and in various remembrances and celebrations we’ll carve out our own moments of solemnity and also song, affirming that these days have great meaning to every Jew, wherever we live.

“Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh—All of Israel are guarantors for one another,” declares our Talmud (Shevuot 39a), teaching that our bond isn’t symbolic but comes with expectations and obligations that have grown into ties of deep fidelity and love. On Yom HaZikaron, we’ll bow our heads to remember fallen Israeli security forces, and victims of terrorism, and think as we do every day about the 59 Israelis still held hostage in Gaza—parents, children, soldiers—whose absence haunts every prayer. I hope Israelis know that our grief in the heartland is the reflective heartbeat of our family and friends across Israel whose fate is forever linked with ours.

That sense of shared fate matters because our people span continents. Today, about 7.2 million Jews live in Israel and roughly 8.5 million live elsewhere—6.3 million of them in the United States—together comprising a global Jewish family of around 16 million. In towns where our community numbers in the dozens or hundreds, our prayers and practices sustain connections that geographic distance cannot sever.

And yet, we acknowledge the war that rages there and not here. We support Israel’s just effort to dismantle terror networks, to ensure a future free from terror for all who live between the river and the sea, and to bring every captive home. We pray that this struggle achieves its aims swiftly, clearing the path for a new era of quiet and security I hope will follow.

On Yom Ha’atzma’ut, we’ll hang blue-and-white flags from heartland windows and gather for picnics and Hebrew songs and dances. We’ll celebrate Hebrew’s resurrection—the tongue of prophets reborn in classrooms, cafés, and poetry. And we’ll renew our hope in an Israel that not only safeguards its people but also embraces religious pluralism: a nation where Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Jews respect each other’s Jewish life, where state institutions recognize diverse Jewish expressions, and where unity blossoms from respectful difference.

These two days—memory and joy, grief and hope—are Israel’s. From our Midwest communities, we feel this as well and bind ourselves anew to every Israeli family, every fallen soldier, and every refugee and the Olim who made Israel their home. We stand with the captives still in the dungeons of Gaza and cry out for their release. We stand with the living who celebrate freedom’s gift and Jewish sovereignty. And we stand for an Israel worthy of every sacrifice and Jewish history’s greatest dreams: a Jewish state that upholds our highest values, opens its arms to all Jews, and marches together with us into a future that is unknown but brighter through unity.