A Message From Your Clergy

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning,

If I do not remember you, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth

If I do not place Jerusalem over my greatest joy (Ps 137)

Our ancestors, mourning the loss of the Temple from their captivity in Babylonia, wrote these words as an expression of loss and longing. For two thousand years that followed, the Jewish people wandered from state to state, from one persecution to another, culminating in the worst genocide in human history. For generations, these facts have been integral chapters in the narrative of our people.

When I was a child, great educational emphasis was placed on the connection between the Shoah – the Holocaust – and our strength as a people. The State of Israel was seen as the greatest miracle of the 20th century – a place for our dreams and ambitions of autonomy, security and Jewish creativity to blossom And the past seventy five years have proven, that those dreams are real; our ambitions fulfilled

Alongside the pride and comfort we all should feel about our Jewish homeland, the issues which have plagued Israel since statehood in 1948 have persisted as well Without a meaningful constitution or bill of rights, questions of identity politics and religious definitions have gone unanswered. And for the first time, as the percentages of Reform Jewish communities in Israel are greater than that of those affiliated with ultra-orthodox groups, tensions have spilled over into Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, and into the streets. Mass protests continue each week on the streets of every major Israeli city. And the rights of Palestinians who continue to call Israel or the occupied territories their home are now wrapped up in this larger battle to define Israeli society by democratic standards as well as Jewish ones.

Each summer the Reform movement sends our teens to Israel to experience the miracle firsthand They tour and study, meet Israelis their own age, and connect with their “homeland” in deep ways And they do engage with these existential questions every summer Many of our kids have had lifechanging experiences, but having my daughter on the trip this year meant that I saw those experiences in much more detail. This year, groups were given the opportunity to visit Poland for a week first.

Walking through the Warsaw Ghetto, and visiting the Tykocin synagogue, our children followed in the footsteps of seventeen hundred Jews who were marched into the Lupachova forest and killed. After a short ceremony of remembrance, their group did what our ancestors could not – they walked out of the forest together. They then visited Maidanek concentration camp and Auschwitz, as well as Oskar Schindler’s factory in Krakow. What more powerful way to bear witness to these devastating tragedies than to experience them firsthand

As I write this, the group is still in Poland, and I do not know what my daughter’s experience of Israel will be I only know that, for all its flaws, the State of Israel remains a miracle It is a miracle of thriving Jewish culture and religion, a miracle of technology and innovation, and a miracle of Jewish survival after unimaginable destruction, hatred and terror We forget that without the strength Israel provides, current trends of antisemitism would certainly swell out of control around the world, even here in Indiana. We are Klal Yisrael – the one people of Israel, and the destiny of Jews in Indiana is inextricably linked to our future in the homeland for all Jews. The issues Israel faces are going to require the participation of the entire Jewish community to solve, especially our liberal, American Jewish community. We have a great deal to teach Israel about what it means to be Jewish and democratic. And yes, both are possible –and both are vital. May peace come swiftly to all Israel’s inhabitants and to all who dwell on earth