Jewish Women Commit to Making Joe Biden’s America a Reality

In the weeks leading up to Passover, a group of Jewish women formed Jewish Women For Joe. We believe that Joe Biden will be the inspiring, unifying, and effective President whom the United States desperately needs.  With his character, temperament, and breadth of experience, Joe Biden will lead America to a better future.  In addition, his humility, and his resilience gained through adversity —he lost a wife and young daughter when he was only 30 and then an adult son, only a few years ago — have deepened his empathy for the individual challenges faced by all Americans. Our Jewish values teach us to take the measure of the whole person in evaluating their fitness for leadership and Joe is a role model for our times, and for all times.

While our name, “Jewish Women For Joe” describes a group of people with shared identity coming together around a political campaign, the 2020 election transcends identity and politics. Conducted in the shadow of a deadly global pandemic and arriving amidst a protracted and destructive harsh public discourse this election will be remembered as a referendum by every American on what we believe it means for “America to be America.” In the words of the poet, Langston Hughes, we will cast our votes to determine how we can “Let America be America Again.”

The best of America is now on display through the actions of courageous frontline healthcare and other workers, and also in the compassionate way that every American is a “frontline neighbor.” But we must make our individual efforts add up to something even larger. We need to elect Joe Biden as President because he has the wisdom, character and capability to make our national policies reflect the inherent goodness, generosity and ingenuity of the American people.

Not since the days of the Great Depression and World War II has our country, and the world, faced such a daunting moment of crisis. In order to meet today’s challenge, unprecedented in the last century, we need Joe’s vast experience across all types of government endeavor. His presidential campaign platform clearly demonstrates his deep understanding of not only the size and scope of the challenge, but a finely honed understanding of how complex systems interact with each other at the scale of the U.S. economy, which is the world’s largest. Joe has a solid and detailed plan, based on the science and facts from the world’s top experts, to conquer COVID-19.

This plan comes alongside a program to make urgently needed reforms to the unemployment and bankruptcy systems in order to ensure that families keep food on the table. His plans for health, education and housing will help ensure that America will be able to rely, as we always have, on the talent and hard work of all Americans to ensure that America maintains our leading position in the world. His plans for ending the epidemic of gun violence and addressing climate change demonstrate to students and young people that the U.S. government will take its responsibilities to them seriously. Leaving no-one behind, his plans tackle tough problems including the opioid crisis, criminal justice reform, the intense challenges facing the elderly and disabled, as well as many others.  Joe will revitalize our core alliances and empower a coalition of democracies to address global challenges. His vision of America’s leading role includes strengthening the United States’ relationship with a strong, secure, democratic state of Israel at peace with its neighbors. Joe’s platform represents a path forward which is wide enough for all of us to join and which will, at last, address many of the profound issues facing our country.

Joe’s hallmark is his immense capacity for recognizing the talent and capabilities of the American people. To hear him speak about his enduring admiration and respect for all Americans is to be inspired to hold in one’s own heart the cadences of love of country and loyalty to one’s fellow human being. Rarely in the history of the United States has an experienced leader risen to the fore with such a broad base of true friends and admirers, crossing lines of party, gender, race, class, sexual orientation, geography, and so much more.

Joe’s vision statement is not the bluster of campaign rhetoric, it has an epic quality that is deeply true: “We are in a battle for the soul of America. It’s time to remember who we are. We’re Americans: tough and resilient. We choose hope over fear. Science over fiction. Truth over lies. And unity over division. We treat each other with dignity, we leave nobody behind, and we give hate no safe harbor. We are the United States of America. And together, there is not a single thing we cannot do.”

As Jewish women and as Americans, we say proudly, that our America is Joe Biden’s America, and we commit ourselves to make Joe Biden’s America a reality.