Reuniting Our Jewish Family
We have allowed others to define who we are. History teaches us the tragic outcomes of allowing this to happen.
During the 19th and 20th centuries in Eastern Europe when mobs rampaged through Jewish villages, they did not distinguish between the Rabbi and the storyteller, the poet and the postman, the grocer and the teacher. Jews were killed, village after village, regardless of whether one community was more religious than another. The Nazis humiliated Orthodox Jews by cutting off their peyot, murdered young and old, religious and non-religious. You were not Reform, Orthodox, or Conservative; you were a Jew. We must never forget this. Divisions make us vulnerable; unity makes us strong. We must define ourselves
When Jews came to America, survival was often thought to blend in. Many congregations were built to resemble churches; not to abandon Judaism, rather to protect Jewish lives by blending in. Over time, we built walls where none had ever existed. We were always one people, yet we began to divide each other driven by organizational ego, while others defined us as Jews.
October 7 stripped away any illusion of those divisions. Hamas did not ask who was religious and who was secular, who lived in Tel Aviv or Kiryat Shmona, who came from a kibbutz or a city, who was young or old. They decided who would be murdered and who would be taken hostage without distinction. And in the days following October 7, something extraordinary happened: the families of the hostages chose unity. They only saw themselves as one. For 843 days, they stood together—one voice, one mission—until the remains of Ran Gvili were returned, and they have remained united ever since.
They showed us something we had forgotten: We are one family.
The families of the hostages reached across communities and oceans. Jews who had once seemed distant showed up, not as patrons or benefactors, but as brothers and sisters.
Everyone helped bring the voices of the hostages to the halls of Congress and to world leaders so their names and stories would never be erased until the very last hostage was returned home.
Their message was not only about pain. It was about strength, resilience, and the power of our unified Jewish people—Right and Left, Israel and the Diaspora, religious and non‑religious—standing together as one.
And now, we must not slip back into old, bad habits.
When a Jewish congregation was attacked in West Bloomfield, Michigan, too many people described it by its denomination. It was not a Reform congregation; it was a Jewish congregation. Jews were attacked. Israeli families were attacked. Your family was attacked. My family was attacked. Hatred does not see labels, they see Jews.
When rockets fly over Tel Aviv or Kiryat Shmona, it is all our family under fire. Our responsibility is clear: We must raise our voices, our flag, and our unity as one people; to be there for all of our Jewish people everywhere.
Our blue and white flag—with its Star of David and its anthem of hope—is not just a symbol of a state, it is the expression of our people which has been linked to this land for more than 3,500 years. We prayed for our return when we were in exile. We returned to it together, built it together, and Israel is who we are; it is woven into our existence as a Jewish people.
Israel needs us. And we need Israel!
We may disagree politically, and we may practice Judaism differently. Yet we share values rooted in light over darkness, life over terror, hope over despair. This is the difference between us and those who seek to destroy us.
They will not define us. We will define ourselves—as one people, bound by history, shared responsibility, and hope for our future. We are one!
