A few weeks ago, my family hosted a delegation from CIJA, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, for Friday night dinner at our home in Jerusalem. The day began (way too early), as the sun rose over the Kinneret, the Sea of Galilee, where we had gone camping with close friends to mark the end of summer vacation. The day ended on our porch, with a magical Shabbat dinner under the stars, as we enjoyed Jerusalem’s cool-but-not-by-Canadian-standards night air by eating outside.

Our family friends, Israelis who have never visited North America, were fascinated by the dinner guests we were rushing home to host. They could not believe that serious, important, busy people would be devoting a week or so of their lives to come to Israel on a kind of work-mission voluntarily. They were further amazed when we told them that some of these people had come on multiple visits before and that these missions of support, solidarity, and enlightenment were fun and meaningful.

Talking to our friends, I realized that most Israelis have no idea about the vast infrastructure of pro-Israel support and engagement in Canada, the United States and elsewhere. The newspapers are filled with stories of anti-Israel boycotts and berating, of divestment and denouncements. Most Israelis understand that Jewish people across the world support them, but they don’t quite understand what shape that support takes, how intensive a commitment that can be, and how many non-Jews are equally invested and engaged in not just defending Israel, but celebrating it. Given that so many are unaware, they rarely say thank you. 

So, as this new Jewish year begins, in the name of my amazed, impressed and appreciative friends, and in the name of all 8.4 million Israelis who benefit from the good works of so many volunteers and donors in Canada and throughout the world, allow me to say todah rabah, thank you very, very much.

Thank you to organizations like CIJA that do so much to advocate for Israel, educate about Israel, and nurture the strong bond between Israel and Canada that has intensified in the last few years. We salute Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s unwavering support for Israel and note how anxious his campaign rivals are to insist that they are equally supportive of Israel (even as we wish that NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair’s ardent support for Israel was applauded by all his NDP colleagues as a mark of great insight rather than a lapse in good judgment).

We say thank you to the Jewish Federations of North America, mind-blowing do-gooding, fundraising and life-affirming organizations in the United States and Canada that do so much to bring alive the Jewish values of community, generosity, justice and mutual responsibility. In Israel, fundraising, especially for the poor, is often more personal, more informal, more local. The vast, volunteer-fuelled federation philanthropic structure does a great job of taking care of Jewish communal needs both at home and at home – meaning within local communities and in Israel.

We say thank you to the more specific organizations supporting Israeli universities, renewing Jerusalem, helping lone soldiers, healing the wounded, advancing science, and on and on. Federation gifts are important for making a broad statement about supporting communal endeavours. More tailored gifts are important expressions of individual interest and engagement.

Finally, we say thank you to basic educational and identity-building organizations, synagogues, Jewish day schools, Jewish camps and Birthright Israel, which both embody the interweaving of the Jewish People’s destiny with Israel and prepare the next generation to inherit the mantle of leadership, of investing, of giving, of living large in the truest, Jewish sense of the word, by helping others near and far, not by indulging yourself. 

Todah and Shanah Tovah from Jerusalem.