“Strengthen the Core Through Voting in the World Zionist Elections,” Rabbi Elaine Zecher’s Shabbat Awakenings
February 28, 2025 | 30 Shvat 5785
Welcome to Shabbat Awakenings, a weekly reflection, as we make our way toward Shabbat. This week I share with you the d’var Torah I shared last week. The focus is on the way we can all engage in the internal strength of Israel. You can listen to it as a podcast here.
We are at an important moment in time to deepen our connection to Israel. Our hearts ache, especially this week for the youngest of the hostages whose lifeless bodies were finally returned by their Hamas murderers. We will keep on counting until all the hostages are home.
The external affront to Israel’s safety is ferocious. The horrific, barbaric events of October 7 elevated our attention and drew others in. The subsequent war in Gaza and the fight for the lives of the hostages and the impact of Hamas terrorists hiding underground beneath innocent civilians has made the situation worse than we could have ever imagined.
The internal situation within Israel challenges Israel’s stability as well: Jewish extremists inciting violence, the government’s rigidity and leadership composition, the power grabs of the ultra-nationalist, the ignoring of minority rights, the misuse and appropriation of land on the West Bank. Like the story of Joseph and his brothers, the ancient story of brothers wreaking havoc on brothers continues. And yet, we must still ask the question: does it mean we should give up?
Our attention and focus about the vigor of Israel and her people remain important as ever in this moment. Israel must be strong and righteous from the inside out and when we have the capacity to influence Israel’s ability to strengthen her core, we must insert ourselves.
The aspiration for Israel’s core is in the Declaration of Independence. When the United Nations recognized Israel as a country, its founders penned this ambition in the way it expressed its intention of what Israel has had the full potential to be.
From Paragraph 13:
[The State of Israel] will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants: it will be based on freedom, justice, and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
They understood that to come home as they had been hoping in “every successive generation to reestablish themselves in their ancient homeland” placed a heavy responsibility upon themselves. This had been the hope and the dream all along living in the diaspora facing tremendous challenges.
So, how we can help Israel to pursue justice and compassion from within? In order to do so, let me take you back to a different moment in time.
Imagine you are living at the end of the 19th century in Europe. You have witnessed with your own eyes the blatant and violent antisemitism in France hoisted upon Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish French officer who was falsely accused for espionage and publicly humiliated. You ask yourself, “how can Jews continue in this country, on this continent, with no land of our own. How can we manage if we do not have a say in what happens within the world around us? If you lived then and you asked these questions, you might have been Theodore Herzl, known as the father of political Zionism.
An epiphany came to Herzl, Jews truly did need their own land to which they longed to return to, but that, actually, was not the only realization. Herzl understood that he would need to gather representatives from around the Jewish community to create an entity which would give voice to the Jewish longing for a homeland. He would need to allow various Jewish groups and individuals a forum to further that Zionist idea through the millennia. In 1897, in Basel, Switzerland, he helped to give birth to such a group and together those gathered named themselves the World Zionist Organization at the first World Zionist Congress.
It must have been an incredibly exciting time to be present and to hear Herzl say that within the next 50 years, there could be a Jewish home. He uttered prophetic words for exactly 50 years later, the world witnessed the founding of the state of Israel. During that half century, the World Zionist Organization became the engine for cultivating the establishment of Israel. During the 3 decades of British rule in Palestine, when all Jews, Muslims, and Christians and everyone else were called Palestinian, the World Zionist Organization built a state within a state, creating educational, social and health institutions. Outside of the land, the WZO did work to train future immigrants and raise funds. Chaim Weizmann served as the President of the WZO while David Ben Gurion headed the Jewish Agency. As history has already shown us, they immediately moved into the offices of the President and the Prime Minister of Israel. The WZO functioned, and still does today because it gathers representatives of the Jewish People. It is known as the “Parliament of the Jewish People.”
There were many iterations of Zionism expressing a wide range of ideologies but it was Herzl’s initial vision that Zionism represented the right of self determination for Jews to establish a home in the land of Israel so we could all be part of the “Parliament of the Jewish People.”
Wouldn’t it be great if they all lived happily ever after?
That is our part of the story.
Every five years the World Zionist Organization holds worldwide elections. Different Zionist groups put forth a slate of delegates and depending on the percentage, a certain number on each list has the honor of gathering in Jerusalem. The Reform movement in Israel is one of those groups. And Rabbi Oberstein, our member Dimitra Dimopoulou, and I are on that slate. Our chances are slim since we are far down on the list. You don’t really get to vote for us. We all get to vote for a better, stronger Israel. We want to raise up liberal Zionism. Israeli Jews and Palestinians citizens of Israel, Bedouin, Druze, Reform and Conservative Jews. Liberal Zionism helps to strengthen the backbone of Israel, her people. In particular, the chance for liberal Judaism to find strength also strengthens Israel.
For many Israelis, living a religious life is not even viewed as an option because they have experienced the strangling hold the ultra Orthodox establishment has on their lives. Marriage, divorce, conversions, B’nai Mitzvah, holiday celebrations in a synagogue have one flavor. Fortunately, more and more Israelis are learning that there is more than one way to be Jewish and they can discover that way through the blossoming Reform synagogue movement in Israel.
Our Reform voices aim to influence Israeli policy and budget decisions, advocating for democracy, pluralism and paths to peace. Ultra Orthodox and ultra nationalist extremists have launched their campaign that has the potential to squelch important voices like ours to shape the future of Israel.
Here is what it will mean to vote REFORM in the World Zionist Election
As Reform Zionists, we seek a democratic, pluralistic and vibrant Israeli society. We believe deeply in Jewish peoplehood and that all Jews are responsible for one another. We support the work and mission of our Israeli Reform Movement in creating vibrant, authentic, new expression and models of Jewish life in the Jewish State and working to provide for those who are powerless and on the margins of Israeli society. We continue to work tirelessly for the release of the hostages and an end to the war. We are alarmed by and are committed to combating the rising threat of antisemitism and anti-Zionism in the U. S. and in Diaspora communities around the world.
Billions of shekels are at stake. Starting March 10 through May 4, we can add our voice. As we get closer to the beginning of voting, we will have information on how to vote and we already have a great team from TI working on the election. Feel free to leave your name on the clipboard to be part of the team and take a postcard that explains how to register to vote even now. There is a $5 election administration fee that everyone who votes must pay. (It used to be $7.)
A strong yet tender thread weaves its way through our past, present, and future, through our lives in Boston and through what we imagine and learn from those who make their home in Israel and struggle to find strength and tranquility. That thread connects us, implores us to have a stake in the prospect of what will become of that same land on which our ancestors sojourned and sought to settle in. Israel is complex, complicated, and still connected to all of us. We can’t guarantee “any happily ever after,” but it is still upon us all to try.
Shabbat Shalom שבת שלום!
I look forward to hearing your thoughts and impressions. Share with me what you think here. Your email goes directly to me!
Rabbi Elaine Zecher
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We welcome speaker, Dr. Rachel Fish, at Qabbalat Shabbat at 6:00 p.m. onsite and online. Join us to sing, to pray, and welcome Shabbat in community. Register here to join on Zoom.
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See Temple Israel’s webpage for livestream options.