We Are With You

At 9:30 this last Friday evening, I was having Shabbat dinner with my family in Tel Aviv, when the rocket sirens went off. We all went quickly to the saferoom where my 7-month-old granddaughter was sleeping in what's become her bedroom since the war began. She woke up confused as to why eight people were crammed in with her.

This is life in Israel right now.

Life in Israel is also attending a shul for Friday night services that's typically brimming with the vibrant energy of young families, where I always joke that my presence raises the average age by 30 years, now nearly emptied out, most of the young men sent to military bases.

It's walking in near solitude back to my hotel, where I text my daughter-in-law that I've arrived safely. We're both shomer shabbat, but I do this to ease her mind. It's anxiety and trauma and mournfulness that pervades everything and everywhere.

But that's only one side of the story.

The other side is the extraordinary generosity of spirit and sense of community that's felt throughout Israel, the giving. Volunteers cooking for the families displaced from the south. Others gathering supplies. Entertaining children in bomb shelters. Sitting with a group of grandmothers from Sderot who don't want to be alone. Heartbreakingly, there are people volunteering to help dig graves or to sit, as Jewish custom demands, with the deceased in the hours before burial.

It is all too much, really. Astonishing and beautiful how people have come together.

And it's not just in Israel. In calls and emails and texts, day and night, I hear from New Yorkers who want to do whatever is in their power to help.The outpouring of support from the community to our Israel Emergency Fund has been remarkable, enabling us to provide over $26 million thus far to meet urgent needs on the ground: medical supplies, critical support for injured soldiers and their families, relocation costs, emergency equipment in the south and north, trauma counseling, specialized care for Holocaust survivors, and much more. But the vast needs, the scope of the devastation, make it clear that far more will be needed and every dollar counts.

I returned to New York on Sunday morning, and today attended a convening of Jewish organizations in Washington D.C. with leaders of both Congress and the administration. Senators Schumer and McConnell and Representatives Scalise and Jeffries all expressed ironclad support for Israel. We also heard from Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas about the steps being taken to protect the Jewish community from a rise in antisemitism that, as we know well, predated the start of this war.

It's also hard to overstate what President Biden's speech has meant to the people of Israel. To hear the president of the United States speak as he did moved many there to tears. And the president's visit tomorrow to Israel - an active war zone - speaks volumes to his deep and heartfelt connection to the Jewish homeland.

This evening, I have the privilege of accompanying Governor Hochul - whose staunch public support has also been unwavering - on a 36-hour trip to Israel. And when we arrive, my message from our New York Jewish community to the people of Israel will be this:

Be strong. Be safe. We are with you.

We are with you.

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