From Our CEO
Two Countries, One People
September 19th, 2014

In this week preceding Rosh Hashanah, I traveled from Israel to Ukraine and back, experiencing how we are bringing new beginnings to Jews around the world.

I was joined by UJA-Federation of New York’s executive committee, on what was their first-ever mission to Israel as a group. Planning for this trip started last May, with the intention of marking my becoming CEO and affirming the centrality of our connection to Israel. However, the trip took on new meaning following the events of the summer.

One of our first stops was at Nahal Oz, a kibbutz only 800 meters from Gaza, whose surrounding fields were infiltrated by Hamas tunnels. Most tragically, a resident of the kibbutz, 4-year-old Daniel Tregerman, was killed by mortar fire shortly before the cease-fire went into effect.

Calm has been restored, but life is hardly back to normal. The kibbutz once housed more than 100 children; fewer than 50 children remain. Some of the remaining parents speak of leaving should hostilities resume. Huge concrete barriers have been erected around the kindergarten to protect the children from the possibility of resumed mortar attacks. And many of the fields in the kibbutz were destroyed during the conflict, causing significant economic hardship.

In 1956, Moshe Dayan famously referred to Nahal Oz “as bearing the heavy gates of Gaza on its shoulders.” Sadly, almost 60 years later, it still does. But it is not carrying this burden on its own. The Jewish Agency for Israel, one of our largest overseas agencies, is making it a priority to sustain this community and others in the area by providing loans and strategic assistance to struggling business owners. It is also encouraging young Israelis connected to Jewish Agency programs, including lone soldiers from North America, to make this area their home.

Following this heartrending visit, we met with impressive young Israelis in Beersheva who renewed our optimism about the future of Israel. Harnessing the energy and passion of Israel’s early pioneers, this group is committed to living and working in communities across Israel’s socioeconomic periphery for the long term. Reflecting the diversity of Israel itself and including graduates of secular Zionist youth movements, religious Zionists, native-born Israelis, and olim, they work with local municipalities to enhance education, welfare, and identity, creating strong and vibrant communities. Long supported by UJA-Federation, there are now 180 such communities, with the potential to transform the modern face of Israel.

Later, we met with the IDF general who leads Israel’s Home Front Command, the equivalent of our Department of Homeland Security. He stressed that in addition to shelters and early warning systems, the most important element in protecting Israel’s civilian population during times of crisis is resilience training — teaching people how to react and behave under fire. Citing as a key partner the Israel Trauma Coalition (ITC), created by UJA-Federation, the general described a new national Academy for Domestic Emergency Preparedness and Training that will expand ITC’s reach to 258 local municipalities. I am proud to say we are allocating $1 million to help make that effort a reality.

From Israel, I traveled to Dnepropetrovsk in central Ukraine with our president, Alisa Doctoroff, and chair, Linda Mirels. The situation in eastern Ukraine is significantly more dire than any of us had imagined, and what we saw there was brutal and hopeful at the same time. There are thousands of Jewish families who have become “internally displaced persons,” including Holocaust survivors who never imagined they would be displaced again. Fleeing from the east, they are being housed, fed, and comforted by our partners — the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Jewish Agency. These families are terrified, anxious about the looming winter, uncertain even who the enemy is. In a sad irony, some had been volunteers or workers for JDC in eastern communities — now they are clients.

I spoke to a family from Donetsk making aliyah because the parents can’t imagine a future for their son if they remain. I will not soon forget the look on the faces of those parents. But thanks to our support of the Jewish Agency, they were able to leave for Israel the day after we met them, just two weeks after deciding to go. Another man said he was “lucky to be born a Jew” with a homeland to go to, the most basic affirmation of the importance of the State of Israel.

At the end of our trip, we met with about 20 young people — counselors at Jewish summer camps and the local community center — who are firmly committed to staying. They spoke with enormous passion and intelligence about the importance of Judaism to their lives and their ambitious plans for tomorrow. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was something quite familiar about their passion and optimism: it echoed that of the young people we’d met just two days before in Israel. Two Jewish groups, thousands of miles apart, determined to sustain and enhance Jewish life.

As Rosh Hashanah approaches, I am humbled by the new beginnings UJA-Federation makes possible — in Israel, Ukraine, New York, and 70 countries around the world. And, notwithstanding the many challenges, I feel optimistic about the Jewish future.

Shabbat shalom