To Israel’s future prime minister-designate: Remember what binds us

Congratulations on your electoral success and on being tasked with forming a government. While political maneuvering is inevitable at this moment, the stakes for Israel and world Jewry demand more than moving political chess pieces around the board. Indeed, you have an opportunity to set the nation on a path back to its core principles and repair the erosion of love and respect for Israel.

The renewal of three covenants is essential to the next phase of Israeli existence. First and foremost is the restoration of quiet and security. This is necessary for all of Israel’s citizens and includes restoring the rule of law as the organizing framework of Israeli society. Second, Israel cannot and should not be an isolated pariah in the world. Corrective action is needed. Third, Israel is the national project of the Jewish people, half of whom do not live within its borders. The covenant between Israel and the rest of the Jewish world needs to be vigorously reestablished.

For North Americans like us, the restoration of Jewish sovereignty after 2,000 years was nothing short of a miracle. We fell in love with that miracle for so many reasons. Our three nations were built on an ingathering of diverse populations, with this very diversity facilitating the concept of “out of many, one.” The founding documents of the United States, Canada, and Israel were imbued with the poetry of aspiration: a vision of a more just world in which nations could work together toward common goals.

We fell in love with Israel because it held out the possibility of a sovereign state that embodied timeless Jewish values: the rule of law, respect for human dignity, and the belief that every person is created in the image of God – BeTzelem Elohim – and is therefore of infinite worth.

The government you form has the potential to help heal the nation and build a resilient future that replaces fear with hope.

Some ill-informed critics in our countries perceive Israel as a colonial enterprise. The irony is that Canada and the United States were, in fact, populated by colonial settlers with unfortunate consequences for their indigenous populations. Meanwhile, Israel restored an ancient indigenous nation to its homeland. The first Zionists were not modern-day innovators; they were Abraham and Sarah.

Israel’s military achievements of 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982 reinforced our belief that we were witnessing biblical miracles. Yet these achievements paled in comparison to Israel’s day-to-day contributions to the entire world. The revolution in global food production spurred by Israeli agricultural innovations was among the earliest signs that this nation would make an extraordinary contribution to the world. Its continuing contributions to medicine, technology, environmental protection, and security around the globe have improved the lives of billions.

How easy it was for us to fall in love and stay in love as our Jewish identity was enriched and enhanced by our love of Israel. Polls showed that, by and large, Americans held positive views of Israel and American Jews. It became a golden era for both Israel and American Jewry, as we partnered with the US government to rescue Soviet, Ethiopian and Syrian Jews.

Despite our love and support for Israel, the relationship has been strained. Your predecessors denied our very validity as Jews because we chose to live outside of Israel. This, despite your National Security Council’s assessment that American Jews were Israel’s most precious strategic asset. Yet rather than heed our concerns, recent Israeli leaders have disregarded our repeated appeals to preserve bipartisan political support for Israel, which we regard as essential to its security.

It is said that nations face a crisis of adolescence around seven decades after their founding. The United States endured a brutal civil war and emerged battered but intact. The Soviet Union, by contrast, collapsed after nearly seven decades, bringing an empire down with it. Israel, too, is confronting a profound rupture. The two previous periods of Jewish sovereignty also ended in catastrophe, with internal divisions playing a part. Today, Israel has strayed from the rule of law and from the Jewish values of human dignity and equality that should underpin the Jewish state. As Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks wrote, Judaism teaches that “human life is sacred, that the individual may never be sacrificed for the mass, and that rich and poor, great and small, are all equal before God.”

Mr. Prime Minister-Designate, we fervently hope that Israel’s current crisis will prove to be a passing episode rather than a turning point from which there is no return. Will you forge a government that restores Israel to a state that aspires to be a light unto the nations? We urge you to create a coalition that will once again seek to fulfill the objectives set out in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

We recognize the devastating impact of the horrors of October 7 and mourn with Israelis as they struggle with the ongoing trauma. The government you form has the potential to help heal the nation and build a resilient future that replaces fear with hope.

We need a clear return to the liberal democracy Israelis cherish, to societal fairness, and to a secure peace. This is the moment, and you have the opportunity, as Jews around the world look to stand with you in this noble effort.

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Charles Bronfman is co-founder of Birthright Israel and chair of the Charles Bronfman Family Foundation in the United States and the CRB Foundation in Canada.

Jeffrey R. Solomon is senior advisor to Chasbro Investments and past CEO of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies.