Rosh Hashanah Reflections: Encountering our Challenges and Uncertainties

As rabbis prepare their high holy day sermons and as Jewish agency executives craft their New Year messages, various themes frame the agenda for 5785. In some measure these are all one message, and then again, we realize the broad and deep complexities that define our lives and this moment, and how each element is both separate and connected.

• The sense of uncertainty and loss:

Both here in the United States and within Israel, we are undergoing a period of great anxiety about the health and stamina of each of these democracies. We note within both societies a deep desire to find a way forward that no longer seems to trap us with an environment of contention. Within this nation, there is a focus on preserving this society, as Israel grabbles with the realities of an unfinished war and the welfare of its hostages, along with the prospect for a broader regional conflict.

• Confronting our loneliness and need for connectivity:

The onslaught of hate and anti-Semitism directed against Israel and Zionism that American Jews are experiencing leaves us feeling isolated and alone. The divisions within our society have pulled us a part and left each of us in silos of despair. There is an overriding desire for wholeness that seems illusive and distant at the moment.

• The opportunities and possibilities ahead:

Our dreams and our vision for tomorrow however offer us these rays of hope and possibility against the images of conflict.  Making our democracy at home whole, bringing peace to Israel, securing the release of the hostages, and finding ways to defuse the hate-filled rhetoric of the street, all seem to be doable propositions and opportunities that we seek to fulfill.

• The questioning of where we are and how we got here:

There also appears to be a form of institutional rejectionism taking place on the Jewish Street. Whether out of frustration, fear, or ignorance, communal audiences are simply not comfortable with the organizational performances that they are witnessing, and most of this has to do with the post-October 7^th response. This involves the loss of “allies”, the rise in campus protests and community-based hate, and the broader more generic concern that the “American Jewish story” that had been historically aligned with our security, success and access to this nation now appears to be becoming undone. A type of political anomie seems to mark the Jewish communal space, where there appears to be the absence of a shared leadership perspective on how as a community we should and can respond.  The impact of such a paralysis has resulted in a loss of confidence in communal organizations and the public Jewish space. Jews are rightly discouraged over the silo performances of our major institutions, who instead of seeking a unified voice have instead opted for an independent, separate response, choosing brand recognition over communal consensus. In this moment Jews are in search of both collective meaning and messages and in finding none, has led them to begin to push back!

Adding to this vacuum has been a growing criticism of what some funders and activists perceive as a glaring failure of established leadership to have anticipated the political collapse experienced by the community, post October 7^th.

This criticism is being directed at the inability of the communal apparatus to have more effectively managed the “political fallout” and to have anticipated the heightened and extensive anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism experienced over these past nine months directed against Israel and the Jewish community. There is a growing concern over why our leaders seem to misread the basis of this new anti-Semitism, as our legacy organizations identify and treat this phenomenon as if it represents the continuation of the age-old form of Jew-hatred, where in fact we see this a totally new expression of anti-Semitic behavior. With this concern comes the loss of confidence in and support for the established communal order.

• Challenges to political identity:

Jewish liberalism is being tested and challenged as never before, but so are traditional Jewish boundaries around Zionism, Israel, and Diaspora politics. This war against the Jews is designed to tear apart the identity and character of who Jews are and what we believe, whether as political liberals or as conservatives.

While many Jews are feeling “politically homeless,” others are finding sanctuary within two camps, for those on the Center-Right, the conservative political scene is providing a refuge, and for those within the Jewish Left, the progressive camp appears to be representing their interests. However, for those Jews who find themselves politically in the “middle,” they remain disconnected and uncertain about their political home.

As Israel, Zionism, and even Judaism are being vilified and challenged, this moment marks the first occasion since the close of the Second World War where Jews and the symbols of contemporary Jewish life are being publicly labeled, physically attacked, and ideologically discounted in a shared, concerted effort. The goal for such discrediting is to deny the legitimacy and integrity of each of these concepts. We are encountering an orchestrated war against our community.

The terms “Zionism” and “Israel” have been appropriated by the enemies of the Jewish people, where our opponents are giving new and problematic meaning to these concepts. The goal here by our enemies is to discredit not only Israeli actions but the very identities, terms and historic principles that have defined us over time. By doing so, Jews are being denied their own distinctive standing, as we face the most significant ideological and political onslaught since the Shoah.

Reflections:

At no time in our lives have we seen Judaism and Zionism being tested both by those who oppose us and even by some within our own community. Our enemies are seeking to marginalize and minimize the impact and meaning of these sacred ideas. On the other hand, we see our kids and grandkids wrestle and struggle with the meaning of Zionism and the message of Tikkun Olam, as they question their connection to and belief in these notions and their own ties to Judaism and to the Jewish people.

Over this past year, as writers begin to portray the unraveling of the American Jewish experience and question American exceptionalism that has distinguished this Diaspora experience from any other, what might all of these threats to our status and place within this society mean for our future?

We must assert a new game plan for American Jewry:

• In this New Year, American Jewry will need to create ways to engage with one another and those beyond our community. We will need to frame conversations that embrace these hard realities about where we are and what we stand for.
• This will be the year in which we will be called upon to reformulate our political messaging and build a new case for Zionism and Israel.
• Now will be the time for the renewal of our global Jewish partnerships, as we redesign, strengthen, and assert the Diaspora-Israel connection. In doing so, we must declare what we require of Israel and what Israel should demand of us.

All of this will require a reinvigorated Jewish communal and religious system of institutions, the emergence of a new generation of Jewish leaders, and a shared commitment on the part of our community to rethink the American proposition of how we situate ourselves into this democracy and what we will both bring to it, and what this society must commit in supporting us.