Many of my close family members, and many of my cousins live in Israel, including my brother, my aunt and uncle, cousins who I grew up with, their kids and grandkids. An even greater proportion of my wife’s family live there as well. We are blessed when we have opportunities to share family simchas with them, to see them when they are on this side of the world, and to visit with them when we are in Israel. And I have many, many friends who I likewise grew up with, worked with, or got to know, who live there as well. I’d have to say the number of people I know - well or by acquaintance - in Israel is in the thousands.
For more than two and a half years, their safety and security, their health, their feelings and their resilience have been in my most earnest prayers; their stubborn persistence in the face of hardship, terror, and threat has been my inspiration. And the incredible sacrifice of their husbands, wives, sons and daughters on the battlefields and in the skies has left an enormous debt of gratitude in my heart.
I’ve taken many opportunities - in public fora, in my weekly messages, in the halls of Congress and in offices and boardrooms across State and County - to highlight these remarkable qualities. I’ve done so even as the environment around us here in America and throughout the diaspora has changed and evolved in ugly and dangerous ways, and as our need to secure our own community has become even more urgent. And I’ve done so even as the responsibilities of safeguarding our community in the face of attacks such as Michigan, Toronto, and others can feel personally overwhelming.
That’s me; But I know that so many of you have recognized the same historic strength among our sisters and brothers -
- You’ve come out to rally for them, in your hundreds of thousands;
- You’ve donated, among the entire North American Jewish community billions of dollars to support their immediate and ongoing needs in the wake of terror and destruction;
- You’ve demanded better of the craven, hypocritical, and shameless people who were happy to welcome your solidarity when they needed it but turned away or became adversarial when we needed the same;
- You’ve reached out and advocated to Senators, Congresspeople, and the White House when our family in Israel needed it most;
- You’ve prayed, with a fervent intensity unlike almost anything you had ever done before.
You have done all of this, and more, while increasingly concerned about our own community and its own safety. You have done incredible things. In the spirit of Passover, it might have been appropriate to say after each of these - ‘Dayenu!’ It would have been enough! But none of us felt it was enough, so we did more.
Over the last several days, both from my family and from my friends, I’ve heard their pain and even anguish - not at being in the midst of battle, with ballistic missiles falling overhead, which they have come to terms with - but at feeling like almost no one is expressing care, concern and empathy for their experiences. That is how many, especially those with deep roots over here, are feeling.
Those with small children, out of school, needing to run to the Mamad 10 times a day.
Those with children in the IDF, knowing that many of them are headed into combat in Lebanon if not already there (like some of my family are), or responsible for defending the seas and the skies.
Those with elderly parents, slow to move and get to shelter.
Those whose livelihoods have been wrenched away, wondering when any sense of normalcy will permit them to once again think of their dreams and aspirations, instead of how close the last missile impact was to their home.
Those who already lost loved ones, either on 10/7, in combat since then, in previous barrages, in previous wars.
93% of them understand and support the actions taken by the IDF, to end Iran’s nuclear aspirations, reduce its ballistic missile capability to the lowest point possible, and to cut the noose Iran tried to throttle Israel with to shreds and smithereens. They don’t look at war as a video game, with timetables short enough to finish and go sit down to dinner. They don’t expect it to be easy, or without loss. They know more about sacrifice than most of us. And I hope that they know these last years have been challenging, in a different way, for each of us over here as well.
But they are hurting, now, and even with all that we’re going through, it is another, powerful and meaningful act of love and solidarity to message, call, email or Facetime with your family and friends in Israel. Not only because it will strengthen them, but because it will strengthen you.
May we all, in this season of liberation and freedom, be blessed to once again experience the peace, tranquility, and wholeness that is our birthright; and in victory over the evil regime that massacres its own while trying for 47 years to destroy us and our family, be able, as the Prophet Micah told us, sit “under our own vine and fig tree, with no one to disturb us.”
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