This is a condensed version of a guidebook articulating answers to basic, pressing questions – while hoping to trigger debates about the ongoing dilemmas facing Israel, the Jewish people and America.
I hope that all of you will use my answers as springboards for more formal and informal discussions clarifying where you agree – and where you disagree – with me, with Israel, with others.
Zionists understand that Jews are a people not just a religion, with millennia-old ties to one particular homeland, and the right to build a state on that homeland.
We must improvise a new ritual that marks our present pain, that illustrates our vital connection with Israel and Israelis today.
The many pressures so many American Jews are under only made me appreciate my Los Angeles welcome even more.
They’re giving Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran propaganda victories they don’t deserve, weakening Israel and America, and holding Israel to standards America and other democracies never meet.
Focus on the overwhelming majority of the American people still appalled by October 7, who understand that the only way to prevent another calamity is by crushing Hamas militarily.
While the challenges are serious – and the underlying trends daunting – we must not despair. Even those who disagree should read this book, to start the deep, reflective, post-October 7 rethink we need.
Zionism can offer a way forward to address academia’s growing abandonment of cherished liberal values.
You students need tremendous spiritual courage to embrace Israel and Zionism on campus. The fact that you get the opposite – cold shoulders, social ostracism, online hostility, even harassment – increasingly requires physical courage, too.
