Reasons for Israel today!
For many, Israel was created as a refuge for Jews who could not find a home or acceptance elsewhere. Is that still relevant today? Why should Israel still matter to us as a Jewish state?
- Well...there are still places in our world where Jews do not feel safe. There is significant and growing antisemitism, as well as attacks, rejection and persecution. And even in places like the United States, where Jews have flourished as perhaps never before, recent years have reminded us that acceptance and security should never simply be taken for granted. A country whose fundamental answer to a Jew in danger is “you have a home here” still matters.
- And refuge is not the same thing as homeland. The United States can be, and has been, a wonderful home for Jews. But Israel is the one place where Jewish history, language, culture and peoplehood are not simply accommodated as a minority tradition. They help shape the public square. Even if one never chooses to live there, there is something different about knowing that a Jewish homeland exists.
- Israel is an incredibly diverse society, its own melting pot bringing together Jews from Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Ethiopia, the former Soviet Union, the Americas and elsewhere, alongside Arab citizens and other communities. Different backgrounds, ethnic groups, colors, flavors and opinions are all part of what Israel is. And there is no “home” to send many Israeli Jews back to, as some would assert. Israel is their home.
- There is something thrilling about building a new, modern society based on ancient roots. Israel is still figuring out what it means to be both Jewish and democratic, ancient and modern, religious and secular, Middle Eastern and Western, traditional and innovative. Israelis argue fiercely about all of it. That messiness is not always pretty. But the experiment itself is remarkable, and we get to be connected to it.
- Similarly, Israel is the quintessential “start-up nation,” and not just in the high-tech or entrepreneurial space. It is a relatively young modern country constantly creating, experimenting and wrestling with how to build the best society it can for a remarkably diverse population. There is something exhilarating about belonging to a movement and a people still building toward the future, with hope and aspiration for what can come next.
- While we may be accepted and welcome in the United States, and capable of building comfortable lives and wealth like never before, what might be missing along the way? Pride? A sense of community? Resilience? Purpose? The US might be a golden land for Jews, but that does not mean Israel becomes irrelevant. There can be something powerful about belonging to a larger Jewish story that began long before us and will continue long after us.
- My Dad tells a story from when he was in basic training to head to Vietnam in 1967. He and his unit, mostly Jews and mostly from NY, had an antisemitic drill instructor. Yet after the Six-Day War, the instructor looked at these recruits with a bit of newfound respect, thinking, “I guess these Jews can fight.” There is something to be said for the pride instilled by having a strong, capable and even powerful Jewish state. Israel’s strength, ingenuity and perseverance can give others pause, create a bit of awe from the outside, and give Jews everywhere a sense of pride from the inside.
- Israel also creates. We should mention the advancements and contributions Israel and Israelis have made to the world: high-tech and software, medicine and science, agriculture and water technology, literature, film, television, music, food and culture. None of these comes out of the blue. They grow from the remarkable mix of people, ideas, pressures, arguments and creativity that Israel has brought together.
- And Israel is not only something to read about in the news or defend in an argument. It is a living Jewish civilization. Hebrew is spoken on the street. Jewish holidays shape the calendar. Ancient texts are argued over in contemporary ways. New Jewish music, film, food, literature, scholarship, religious thought and secular culture are being created all the time. You do not have to agree with Israel’s government, or even spend your days thinking about politics, to find something there that belongs to you.
- None of this means Jews have to agree about Israel. We never agree about anything. And it certainly does not mean supporting every Israeli government or policy. But Israel does raise a deeper question about Jewish identity: Do I understand myself only as an individual who happens to be Jewish, or as part of a Jewish people with a shared history, shared responsibilities and a shared future? Families argue. Communities argue. Israelis certainly argue. But for those of us who see ourselves inside that larger Jewish tent, Israel is part of the conversation and part of our story. You do not have to live in Israel for Israel to matter to your Jewish life.
And not that I didn’t give you enough to read above…here are some more top reads about Israel and antisemitism today
Is the Whole World Wrong?
Natan Sharansky, Tablet, October 9, 2026 - This is almost tailor-made for your newsletter. Sharansky uses Ahad Ha'am's 1892 essay on the blood libel to confront the psychological power of an international consensus hostile to Israel: can everyone else really be wrong? His answer is yes, consensus is not evidence of truth.
Read it in Tablet
We Jews Have the Honor of Being Hated
Bret Stephens, Commentary, March 2026 - A deliberately provocative essay arguing that Jews need to stop imagining antisemitism can finally be “solved,” recognize its appearance across ideological camps, and build Jewish confidence rather than Jewish identity around winning the approval of others.
Read it in Commentary
3. No Longer on the Sidelines: How the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Impacts Diaspora Jews
Theodore Sasson and Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis, INSS, October 2026 - Extremely relevant for a Federation readership. The authors argue that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become a local issue for Diaspora Jews, affecting antisemitism, communal cohesion and Jewish political influence, and therefore Diaspora Jewry increasingly has a direct stake in Israeli policy.
Read it at INSS
Responding to Antisemitism
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, Tablet, September 2026 - A Yom Kippur sermon that starts with the ancient Merneptah Stele's reference to Israel and uses Jewish history to explore what contemporary Jews should actually do about the persistence of antisemitism. Very accessible for a communal audience.
Read it in Tablet
Where Criticism Ends and Antisemitism Begins
Yehuda Kurtzer with Dara Horn, September 2026 - A wide-ranging conversation about campus antisemitism, the limits of Holocaust education, Jewish peoplehood and the challenge of distinguishing legitimate criticism from movements that seek to expel Jews from public life. Its focus on courage and action gives it a more personal and accessible quality than a policy report.
Read or listen to the conversation
Is Anti-Zionism Antisemitism? It Doesn’t Matter
Yossi Klein Halevi, December 2024 - The title is intentionally provocative. Halevi argues that the practical threat is the delegitimization of Israel, and that endless attempts to settle the definitional dispute can distract from confronting that threat. Hartman itself lists it among its antisemitism resources.
View Hartman’s antisemitism collection
Defeating Antizionism
Adam Louis-Klein, February 2026 - This essay argues that contemporary antizionism has acquired institutional legitimacy through academic disciplines, comparing that process to the way earlier universities converted racial pseudoscience into purported knowledge. It is intellectually provocative, though I would likely choose only one of this and the Stephens piece because they overlap.
Read “Defeating Antizionism”
Anti-Israelism
Jonathan Karp, Jewish Review of Books - Older than most of this list, Winter 2024, but conceptually very useful. Karp examines what he calls “anti-Israelism” and the point at which political opposition to Israel can adopt imagery and ideas with recognizable antecedents in older antisemitism.
Read it in Jewish Review of Books
More than the Old New Antisemitism
Reviel Netz, Jewish Review of Books, May 2024 - Pairs nicely with the Karp essay. Netz asks whether contemporary anti-Israel hostility actually represents a historically distinctive form of hatred, not simply another variation of familiar European antisemitism.
Read it in Jewish Review of Books
‘Zio’ Is the New ‘N-Word’
David Christopher Kaufman, Commentary, March 2026 - Kaufman examines the emergence of “Zio” as an antisemitic slur and argues that its increasing acceptability illustrates how hostility toward Zionism can provide socially permissible language for hostility toward Jews.