Why I Came Home to Vote

Love conquers all. Years ago, I became an Israeli. And in 2024, I made a choice to leave Israel for my work. Leading Honeymoon Israel for the past decade has been a dream come true, and I needed to be in the US to continue to run the organization.

We have connected thousands of young couples to Israel and Jewish life already and there will be many thousands more in the years to come. Most of these couples never saw themselves in the story of the Jewish people until they walked through it in Israel, together with 19 other couples from the same city.

The silver lining of my relocation was that I got to be close to my aging parents. Then I met my wife and decided to stay in Atlanta.

I knew I could keep my connection alive through my work and several trips to Israel every year.

However, landing in Israel this week is different from all the other visits. This time I came back to vote. This election is special because it will likely shape Israel itself and, to a large extent, how the world sees Israel in the years ahead.

This election also feels different because an unprecedented number of Israeli citizens who live abroad have returned to cast their ballots. It feels like a real kibbutz galuyot, an ingathering of the exiles from the diaspora.

This election offers a moment of hope for all Israelis: a reminder that we can control our destiny, and that we can make a difference in how Israel evolves.

Israel’s founders envisioned it as “a light unto the nations.” In many ways, in less than 80 years, Israel has proven to be a miracle in modern times. In so many other ways, the country is still very far from its founders’ vision. In this, it is not alone. The United States aspires to be “a city on a hill,” and it, too, is far from being the country it could become. Aspiring is not the same as arriving. Rabbi MLK Jr. taught us to zoom out: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” What matters is that we keep working toward it, and voting is one way we do.

Coming here to vote is part of loving Israel. And the ultimate reason I love Israel is the reason it was created in the first place. For thousands of years, we were a people of refugees. Today there is not one single Jewish refugee in the world, for one reason only: the creation of the State of Israel. Let’s also affirm that our memory of being refugees for so long obligates us to ensure that no other people remain refugees, in the Middle East and around the world.

The young couples Honeymoon Israel brings to Israel arrive with questions, hopes, and sometimes hard doubts. They want a relationship with Israel that is honest and open. What happens at the ballot box today will help decide how easy or hard that conversation is for them, and for millions of Jews around the world.

So today I am standing in line, ballot in hand. My vote is small, but it is my way of saying that I still belong here and have a role to play.

I found love in Atlanta. Love for Israel brought me back today.