I hope everyone had an amazing Sukkos holiday. I was blessed to spend the past few weeks in Israel. In many ways, it was a surreal time. As Jews, we celebrated the holiday as we have for over 3000 years. Yet, the pale of the ongoing war still hung heavy. Especially having lost precious soldiers in the ground war in Lebanon. Hearing the stories of martyred heroes like Captain (res.) Abraham Yosef Goldberg HY” D was heartbreaking. Captain Goldberg and his wife Rachel raised 8 beautiful children. He was a charismatic religious high school educator who spent 260 days in reserve duty since October 7. The sacrifices that are being made by our people know no bounds.
I was gratified to have the ability to speak to so many of you who were visiting Israel. Our movement is constantly growing and being able to communicate and hear your opinions is crucial for our constant growth. One conversation stood out and I’d like to share some thoughts about that interaction. One gentleman approached me in a restaurant and told me that he is an avid reader of this weekly email and all of our outstanding educational content. I thanked him for his praise and he proceeded to ask me a question.
He said that he noticed that in the past year, Aish has delivered much more political content vis-a-vis Israel. He was wondering if that was a policy change and if we were headed in a broader direction. I told him that honestly, I felt that the entire Jewish world had experienced a titanic shift in a post-October 7th world. In many ways, nothing will ever be the same for Jews around the globe. That being the case Aish needed to make sure that we embrace that change or risk being stale and out of touch with those we hope to lead.
One example of that is our decision to launch a political party called “Aish Ha’am” in the upcoming World Zionist Congress elections. We have populated our slate with social media influencers and university students who are fighting antisemitism every day. Our community must embrace these young leaders as they fight for our people. I encourage everyone to visit aish.com/vote to learn more about this initiative.
Still, I can’t help but be concerned that we are not fully digesting the changes that abound. There is no doubt certain heroes have emerged. From the depths of the progressive movement, Representative Ritchie Torres and Senator John Fetterman have proven to be the strongest allies of Israel, proving that being liberal does not have to be synonymous with antisemitism. Aish’s close friend, undefeated World Champion Floyd Mayweather just made his fourth trip to Israel to visit wounded soldiers and uplift the Jewish people. There is no doubt that we have experienced love from places we didn’t know existed.
Yet, the hate for our people is still very strong. This past week a Jew was shot on his way to his synagogue by an antisemite screaming hate-filled words. Yet the Mayor of Chicago and the police department refused to classify it as a hate crime or reach out to the Jewish community. Concurrent with his horrific crime, the city of Chicago appointed a known antisemite, Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson as the President of the Chicago Board of Education. The person entrusted with overseeing the education of students across Chicago wrote on social media: “My Jewish colleagues appear drunk with the Israeli power and will live to see their payment.” He also wrote that “The Nazi Germans’ ideology has been adopted by the Zionist Jews,” and has made his ongoing support for Hamas terrorists clear. I actually don’t have the words to describe this situation other than to say it is clear that the leadership of Chicago does not value and may not want its Jewish population to remain there.
I was born and raised in New York and I remember vividly in 1991, when I was a young university student, as we experienced the worst antisemitic riot in American history in Crown Heights. The Wall Street Journal has recently published a video documentary called “Get the Jew”: The Crown Heights Riots Revisited.
This three-day pogrom eventually saw the brutal murder of an Australian Jewish University of Melbourne doctoral student named Yankel Rosenbaum. After a member of a violent mob yelled “Let’s go get a Jew,” they surrounded this innocent Jew ultimately beating and stabbing him to death.
This of course is being revisited because we are living through similar times. The antisemitism being experienced by our people is global. Many of us in America thought that this was a European disease and that we were safe. We are now seeing that Jew-hatred has no borders. Throughout our history, every time we entered a new country we worked hard to build it up. That is frankly what Jews do. We improve the world around us. Yet, the end result was always the same. We faced hatred, death, and expulsion. Israel is different.
Finally, over the last hundred years, we returned to our homeland after 2000 years in exile. We found it in ruins, filled with swamps and barren land. As Jews, we did what we have always done. We transformed Israel into a land of milk and honey. Farms were built. Industry was created. Torah study and scholarship have reached new heights. Innovation and entrepreneurship seemed to be flowing out of the faucets. We also learned the lessons of our exile and built one of the strongest militaries in the world. It was staffed by young Jews who knew that they may one day have to give their lives for their brothers and sisters. The bravery and courage that accompanied this effort was breathtaking.
Along with these efforts was a fundamental understanding. As Prime Minister Golda Meir said to then-Senator Joe Biden in 1973: “We Israelis have a secret weapon… We have nowhere else to go.” The world is learning the truth of that statement over 50 years later. The Jews will never leave Israel ever again. We are here to stay and we will fight like lions against anyone who attacks our people. There is no doubt for anyone who has witnessed the thousands of rockets that have been launched against Israel that the Almighty is standing alongside us shielding us from catastrophe. As Prime Minister David ben Gurion said “In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.”
This brings me to my final point, one that I have been reticent to mention until now. I believe that it is time for all Jews to examine the possibility of coming home to Israel. Clearly, this is where the future of the Jewish people is being built. Imagine how much stronger Israel would be with so many talented amazing Jews coming to live here. I am conflicted as I write these words because I have been a lifelong citizen of the United States and I truly love America with all my heart. I have always viewed American history with awe and reverence. It is a story of a ragtag group of revolutionaries who took on the greatest monarchy in Europe to create a land filled with liberty and freedom. I have always felt that G-d must have looked at the great American experiment with love and admiration as they broke free from the shackles of tyranny and spread freedom around the world.
Having said that, at this point in history, the right place for Jews is to be back home in Israel. I don’t say these words lightly and I take my responsibilities as a Jewish leader very seriously. These words that I write now come straight from my heart. As I said at the outset of this article the world has fundamentally changed since October 7. It is time for world Jewry to shift from sending their philanthropic contributions to Israel and to start sending themselves. It is where every Jew belongs. It is time to come home.
