Let's Stay Connected With Our Israeli Family

Rabbi Malcolm Cohen

Yom Kippur Morning | Thursday, October 2, 2025

Never before in my rabbinic career have I felt the need to offer a sermon pre-amble but here it is one more time. Each sermon is responding to real pain. Not everyone will enjoy my words because we have a diverse congregation. I don’t think I’m objectively correct, these are merely my subjective thoughts. If my sermon makes you mad, let’s do coffee!

This is the third of three sermons over these High Holydays on Jewish identity. On Rosh HaShanah morning, I dealt with our identity as American Jews, and what the American flag should stand for. Last night, our identity as Jewish Americans, antisemitism, how we shouldn’t believe what Jew-haters say about us, but double down on our Jewish pride and commitment. 

My message this morning is simple. There are jewish people who are disconnecting from Zionism, Israel and the Jews that live there but we are one people. We are connected, different parts of the Jewish People, one body, one heart, despite the differences. One family.

There are people in our community, who feel so much less connected with Israel because of the fact that the Israeli military has killed thousands of innocent Palestinians while trying to reduce Hamas as an existential threat. They also don’t identify with Israel because of the ultra-religious elements in the current Israeli government, which is very understandable. At the same time, I speak to members who are deeply troubled when they see any criticism of Israel in public, who feel that Israeli Jews should be considered mishpacha, family, for us, who fear for the future in a world where Israel is so isolated, who blame Hamas for putting civilians in harm’s way. 

Let me explain where I’m coming from with regard to Israel. A story. I’m standing on a footpath at the top of Masada, an ancient Jewish fortress in Southern Israel built on a mountain. I have climbed, at dawn, with my family, to see the sunrise. This is the place where Jews held out against the invading Roman army for three years. I see the sun rise over the Dead Sea, the rays of light twinkling on the surface of the water. Up on the mountain top I hear the sound of an accordion and turn to witness a line of people accompanying a bar mitzvah student with a Torah scroll, dancing and singing. Across from them, a line of newly-minted soldiers, their commander talking to them about their responsibilities to their country. The Israel I connect to is a place of deep Jewish history, authentic Jewish commitment, and vital Jewish military power. 

Another story. I’m sitting in an olive grove in the West Bank. A Palestinian, who had once been in an Israeli prison for terrorism, stands next to an Israeli Jew while they describe joint hikes they organize for Jews and Palestinians to pick up trash in their local neighborhood. They pass around mud-like cups of coffee and relate their ideas for living in the same land, rarely agreeing but making it work. The Israel I connect to is also a place of actual and potential coexistence, where, eventually, however hard it seems right now, there will be peace. 

A final story. I’m sitting in the living room of a summer camp in Northern California. Filling the room are about thirty Israeli Jews chatting, singing, laughing together. Some with origins in Eastern Europe. Others originally from Yemen or Iraq. A huge contrast in personalities and backgrounds but they seem to move as one organism, vibrant, creative, and so alive. One has just left the army. One is about to travel across South America. Yet another is an aspiring chef. All of them committed to being living examples to young American Jews in a summer camp setting, to connect to these Jews on the other side of the globe, because they consider them family. The Israel I connect to is a place of huge diversity and also unified peoplehood. If you don’t have a connection already to this branch of our family, I dearly wish it for you. 

As we gather together here, almost two years after October 7, it is vital to not sugar coat the situation, vital to deal with reality. There are many Jews and their loved ones or allies, many in this very congregation, who simply don’t feel a common cause with Israel, can’t stomach what the Israeli government does, or think the mainstream Jewish community portrays a simplistic, unconditional support of Israel’s position, all of which is understandable. There are many people right here at Kol Ami who would differ wildly on the subject of Israel and Zionism. 

There are others in the congregation who feel it in their gut when Israel is criticized in public, who worry about the existential threat to the Jewish People if Israel is laid low. They worry about close friends and family members sheltering in safe rooms as rockets fly towards their city. I think it’s important to acknowledge that reality. I wouldn’t want to suggest a divide along the lines of Israel supporters and Israel questioners, though, that’s too black and white. Really, it’s a spectrum, with more folks at the questioning end than ever before. One could deny it but I don’t think it would serve the Jewish community well. 

Nevertheless, we are one people, one family. We fight. We disagree. We get angry with each other. We misunderstand each other. I don’t believe we should disconnect. I think there is a way forward where we stay engaged. 

Here is one of the most important things I’m going to say today in the name of staying connected. Above all, there is simply a huge range of opinions about Zionism and Israel amongst Israelis! Of course, opinions of jews outside Israel count less than those of Israelis. We don’t sacrifice what they sacrifice. It is instructive, though, even as I hope it’s obvious, that Israelis think differently about Israel depending on who they are. That must surely give us permission to do the same, even if we don’t have the same stake in Israel and should stay humble on that basis. 

Look no further than this snapshot of Israeli life you can see on the screen. A balcony. Two neighbors, two signs. The sign above reads, “‏החטופים עדיין בעזה כי נתניהו רוצה שהמלחמה לא תיגמר The hostages are still in Gaza because Netanyahu doesn’t want the war to ever end”. The sign below reads, “‏אוהבים את השכן מלמעלה אבל החטופים לא חוזרים כי חמאס הוא ארגון טרור רצחני, we love our neighbor upstairs, but the hostages are not returning because Hamas is a murderous terrorist organization”. Here are two of our Israeli Jewish family members arguing with each other, disagreeing but not walking out. Neither one is moving from their apartment any time soon. They stay in the struggle and in proximity, despite the difficulty. 

So, families argue, we fight. What I want to avoid though is family in-fighting based on misunderstanding. We sometimes talk about Zionism as if it is one thing. We can discuss Israel as if the ideology of Israelis and Zionist Jews is monolithic. On occasion, we have opinions about Zionism which might be based on a narrow view of what Zionism actually is and can be. 

I get the problem. Many of us grew up learning about the moral center of Judaism and, from what you read and see, you don’t think Jews in Israel represent that when you see a dead Palestinian child. Of course it is valid and right to feel sorrow under those circumstances, regardless of Hamas setting the conditions. My claim, though, is that we have a responsibility to our fellow jewish family members to not disconnect from them, to try and understand them, that they’re not just one thing, and to work out the best way to engage with them, whatever our misgivings. 

Maybe this is obvious, but American Jews share a huge amount with Israeli Jews but are not the same as us. American Jews went to America because of pogroms or antisemitic legislation or the rise of nationalism or for opportunity. In the English speaking world they, for the last hundred or so years, were basically living in the best and safest place for Jews in our history. Israeli Jews are the ones who specifically wanted to go to the Land of Israel or couldn’t choose the English speaking world. Some of them are the ones who couldn’t get into America once America, and other countries, limited immigration from the 1920s. Some of them died in the Holocaust or were massacred in the Arab world by regimes, like that of Iraq, that supported the Nazis. Baghdad was a quarter to a third Jewish in 1930 but, by 1960, there was hardly a single Jew there. 

These Jews became Zionists, either through ideology or necessity. Many of these Jews, who came to Israel, were, essentially, refugees, and the only place they stopped dying en masse was Israel. They finally had control of their own destiny. They stood shoulder to shoulder with other Jews in Israel and no longer were victims. If you ask Israeli jewish high schoolers now, over 90% of them would fly anywhere in the world to save other Jews, any of us. Whatever your understandable worries for Palestinian civilians, this is not the time to disconnect, it’s the moment to get closer to our people in Israel. They are family. We are relatively comfortable in America. We have it better than any other Jews in history. We owe it to the other biggest Jewish community in the world to understand them and engage with them. Most of us came from Eastern Europe. Our family in Israel came from Russia and Poland, but they also came from Yemen, Iraq, India, Ethiopia, and Syria. 

In the name of engaging with the complexity of Zionism and Israel, and with our Jewish family, let’s talk about some of the subtle truths which exist alongside one another in the post-October 7 world:

It can be true at the same time that you can love Israelis, our people, our family, while disconnecting from the actions of the Israeli government.

It can be true at the same time that you love and appreciate friends and family in the Israeli army for defending our people against terrorism while decrying the death of Palestinian civilians at the hands of the IDF. 

It can be true at the same time that you can decry the death of Palestinian civilians at the hands of the IDF while also acknowledging that Hamas set up a huge terrorist infrastructure underneath Gaza and are happy with civilian deaths because it helps their cause. 

It can be true at the same time that prospects for the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians seem completely dead in the water and that it’s still important to not give into despair. 

It can be true at the same time that the opinions of Jews that live outside Israel, regarding Israel, count less but that they still count on some level if they come from a position of understanding and love. 

It can be true at the same time that Jews who back the Palestinian cause do so because of their good-hearted support for social justice and that swathes of non-Jews in the social justice sphere dislike Israel disproportionately compared to other countries. 

It can be true at the same time that Hamas has stores of food that it could share with the people in Gaza, and uses the sale of foreign aid to finance its terrorism operations and that, since Hamas is a terror organization whose cause is strengthened by the death of its own civilians, Israel should work with aid organizations in the most effective way, to save Gazans from starvation. 

This is the complexity at work here. New York Times op-ed pieces rarely communicate this complexity. Listen, everyone’s doing their best. Everyone here at Kol Ami is coming from a good place, there’s no argument about that. We might not want to support certain actions by Israel and we grew up learning about Jewish ethics. All of that is good. At the very least, though, we don’t have the luxury of disengaging. We don’t get to disconnect from our family members. We have the responsibility to see Israel and the jews that live there in their fullness. To learn who they really are personally and directly, not filtered through Western media. The people who actually live there, who turned East, because they chose to live in a Jewish country, or they didn’t have the luxury of turning West, like all of us.

Where do I get this idea of us being one family from? Our sages tell us that  כל ישראל ערבין זה” לזה וכולם כגוף אחד. All of the Jewish people are a guarantor for each other, and all of them are like one body”. Another text explains that, when the community is in trouble do not say, "I will go home and eat and drink and all will be well with me”, in other words disconnecting from our Jewish family. Should we have to suffer antisemitic abuse or attacks because people blame us for Israel’s actions? No, that’s completely unacceptable, but that doesn’t mean we’re not intertwined, that we don’t have mutual responsibility. There is a phrase in the book of Deuteronomy, “יחד שבטי ישראל, Together are the tribes of Israel.” Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai taught a parable about this: A certain man brought together two ships, tying them with anchors and iron bars. He built upon them a palace. As long as the ships were connected, the palace stood. But when the ships separated, the palace fell. So it is, he said, with the Jewish People. As long as we are connected even in difficult and vexed times, the palace of the Jewish People, the jewish family, stands. 

That doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything. Elana Stein Hain tells the following story: “I was once at a rally in support of Israel. I was surprised to see a particular friend of mine there, as I knew her politics were very different from the organizers of this rally.... I asked her, gently, what she was doing there. She answered something to the effect of: “I thought it was important to show up on behalf of Israel, but I’m standing far enough in the back so that I don’t hear what is said from the microphone.”” We don’t have to agree but we do have to show up and engage with our Jewish family. We are tied together with anchors and iron bars. 

We have to see the difference between the headlines about Israel and the reality: Here are some recent New York Times headlines: “The Ideal of Democracy in a Jewish State Is in Jeopardy”. “Israeli strike kills hundreds in hospital, Palestinians say”. “How Netanyahu Prolonged the War in Gaza to Stay in Power”. “More Than 20 Killed Near Aid Distribution Site in Gaza, Health Officials Say.” Aside from the stories behind the headlines, we can’t accept those sources as the main route by which we get to know our family. We owe them more than that. 

With family, you get to know them, warts and all, faults and all. Sarah Tuttle Singer, a wonderful Israeli writer, paints verbal portraits of the Israelis you meet queueing with you in the office for new immigrants.  The American Immigrant Over-Preparer With the Accordion Folder From Hell. Printed every possible form. Twice. In color. Has six passport photos, a letter from their high school principal, proof of address, a notarized letter from their mom, and their birth certificate translated into Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic. The Crying Frenchman in Tight Pants and Despair. He’s been here since 7:13 AM and is now questioning all his life choices — including the move from Paris to Petach Tikva. His cologne is fighting his tears. His papers are damp. He tried asking a question but the clerk just shouted “ACHAREI HACHAGIM!, after the holidays!” and closed the window.

The Russian Woman Who Will Cut the Line and Your Soul. Wears leopard print, smokes inside, and knows exactly how to get what she wants. She didn’t come to play — she came to conquer. No ticket? No problem. She is the ticket. She will go to the front, slam her documents down, and the clerk will thank her. The Ethiopian Grandma With the Softest Voice and the Sharpest Eyes. She’s quiet. Watching everything. Maybe knitting. Maybe praying. Maybe both. She’s been here before and will be here again. She’s the only one with true patience. When she finally speaks, the whole room hushes and listens. Even the clerks. 

The Filipino Caregiver Registering on Behalf of Her Employer. She’s got it all together. She knows more Hebrew than you do and has cracked the system. She’s shepherding her elderly patient through the line with grace and calm — and helping a few confused immigrants while she’s at it. She’s the true MVP. The Druze Man Who’s Just Trying to Renew His Passport. He’s served the state, pays his taxes, and now just wants to visit family abroad. Instead, he’s stuck in a room full of confused tourists and malfunctioning ticket machines. No one knows what to do with his file. He sighs”. Tuttle Singer actually paints eighteen verbal vignettes in the original piece. These are real Israelis. Israelis, jews amongst them, are our family. We are joined by anchors and iron bars. Before we disconnect, we should maybe engage with them, get to know them. Some of us don’t even know our family members, don’t know what they think about the conflict, don’t know what role they play. All of that is quite different to the NYT headlines. The headlines show aspects of Israel we might feel bad about or indicate stories the veracity of which we might dispute. That’s not what all Israel is, what Jewish life in Israel is. 

Our family includes Jews like us, Reform Jews. They are also part of the picture. Just two weeks ago, I was on a Zoom meeting with Israeli Reform rabbis. Speaking from Jerusalem, Rabbi Oded Mazor explained how his Reform Synagogue reacted to October 7. His synagogue has members who proudly serve in the army and all of their members help to speak up for the return of the hostages. Alongside all of that, just two months after the October 7 attack, his members reached out to Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, in the Beit Sefafa neighborhood and set up a language cafe, where Jews and Palestinians learned Arabic and Hebrew while connecting on a personal level. Just two months after October 7! These Reform Jews believe in Israel’s right to exist, believe in her right to defend herself, and also understand that there are Palestinians with whom they can build a shared future. The cafe continues to this day. 

You might already know this but the Jewish Agency for Israel, to strengthen relations between family members sends shlichim, emissaries, around the world to Jewish communities. My family and I hosted, for months at a time, three different shlichim in our house. They are real life family members who come here to get to know us and open themselves up so we can get to know them. We have Daniella Ironi and Yuval Malka in this very city, living amongst us, wanting to interact with us and feel close to us. 

I’m not up here saying to all of us that Israel is perfect. I’m not up here saying we can’t ask questions about Israel’s conduct in Gaza however hard the circumstances, despite the fact that those questions should come with humility since we live here. I’m not saying we should feel easy kinship with ultra-religious members of the Israeli ruling coalition. I’m just saying  that the American and Israeli Jewish communities are two ships, held together by anchors and iron bars, holding up the palace that is the Jewish People. We chose West. They chose or were forced to head East but we need each other. We are family. We don’t get to disconnect so easily from family. At this moment in history, we have the responsibility to engage ever more directly with Israel, using all resources at our disposal (I have a list of resources at the door). We have the duty to get to know more directly our family members, Israeli Jews. We have the burden of understanding Israel and her people in all of their complexity. Most of all, like family, in spite of disagreements and struggles, we stay in relationship. We stay connected. We stay as one body, one heart, one family, one people. Fast easy, shana tova. 

LIST OF HELPFUL RESOURCES TO ENGAGE WITH OUR FAMILY IN ISRAEL

Podcasts: Israel Story, For Heaven’s Sake, Unholy: Two Jews On The Jews, The Promised Podcast.

Newspapers/News Sites: Haaretz (left), Times of Israel (centrist), Jerusalem Post (center-right), Yediot Achranot (centrist), Yisrael HaYom (right).

Classes/Programs about Israel/Zionism: JLL Classes at Kol Ami, Weintraub Israel Center (where shlichim Yuval Malka and Daniella Ironi work) at the Tucson J. U of A School of Middle Eastern & North African Studies. 

Books: In The Land Of Israel (Amos Oz, all time classic about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict). Letters To My Palestinian Neighbor (Yossi Klein HaLevi, tries to empathize with the Palestinian narrative while explaining, particularly to Arab speakers, the Jewish narrative). The Making of Modern Zionism (Shlomo Avineri, Intellectual Origins of Israel). Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai (Matti Friedman, quirky insight into Cohen but also Israel at war). From Beirut to Jerusalem (Thomas Friedman, political/strategic insights). The Wondering Jew: Israel and the Search for Jewish Identity (Micha Goodman). We Stand Divided: The Rift Between American Jews and Israel (Daniel Gordis). Dancing Arabs (Sayed Kashua, the story of a Palestinian Israeli teenager from Tira who is admitted to an elite school in Jerusalem). A Tale of Love and Darkness (Amos Oz, memoir). The Lover (AB Yehoshua, an Arab-Israeli love story). The Hilltop (Assaf Gavron, set in a West Bank Settlement). To The End Of The Land (David Grossman, a tale of an Israeli mother). 

Movies: Walk On Water. The Band’s Visit. Waltz With Bashir. Ushpizin. Paradise Now. Yossi & Jagger. Golda. The Bubble. Zero Motivation. The Women’s Balcony. 

TV Shows: Fauda (about an Israeli anti-terrorist unit but widely watched in the Arab-speaking world). Shtisel (set in the ultra-orthodox world in Jerusalem). Srugim (modern orthodox dating (fictional)). 

If you’d like to read Rabbi Malcolm’s Kol Nidre Sermon, click here.

If you’d like to read Rabbi Malcolm’s Rosh Hashanah Morning Sermon, click here.