Rabbi’s Update 8/21/2026

Dear Friends:

I mentioned to you in this space last week that I was going to attend a High Holiday Sermon Workshop in New York under the auspices of the Zionist Rabbinic Coalition. If you know me well, you’ll know that it takes time for me to digest conferences I attend, but I do believe that the presentations and the materials we were given will help me as I try to address some of the things going on which are important to us as contemporary American Jews.

After the presentations, we discussed conclusions and future actions in small groups. One of the things the American Jewish community has to deal with as that support for Israel declines with each age cohort. Sometimes there is a tendency to panic inappropriately, because the landmark Pew Study of 2020 shows that 48% of Jews under 30 still feel emotionally attached to Israel, but this does compare unfavorably with the 67% figure for Jews over 65. And 35% of Jews 18 to 29 consider supporting Israel “essential” to their Jewish identity as compared to 52% of those 65 and over.

One of the rabbis in our group pointed out that today’s Jewish teens and college students have essentially no memory of an Israel with a Prime Minister other than Benjamin Netanyahu. And it’s true -- he has been Prime Minister since 2009 except for one year of the “Change Coalition” headed by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.

Attachment to Israel is not merely intellectual, it is emotional, and it is shaped by our memories and associations. There aren’t that many Jews left who remember a time when there was no State of Israel. My very earliest memories of Israel are from the 1967 Six-Day War. I was only seven years old but I lived in an overwhelmingly Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn so concern for the situation in Israel was all around me. I have much stronger memories of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and I very strongly remember listening to a small transistor radio as I walked the three-quarters of a mile from our house to our synagogue to go back for afternoon and Neilah services.

But if you are in your fifties your earliest memories of Israel are not the Six Day or Yom Kippur Wars but the Lebanon War and Sabra and Shatila. If you are younger than that, your memories are of the Intifada. The earliest Prime Minister I remember was Golda Meir, who reminded every young Jew of my age of our bubbe -- or in my case the bubbe who I never knew. If the earliest (and only) Prime Minister you recall is Netanyahu, your emotional formation vis a vis Israel was very different. No matter how we may feel about it, these things are facts and as a community we have to function within that reality even as we might try to change it,

If you or someone you know is in need because of having been laid off, or has  lost benefits of some type and needs immediate help, please let me know. I can access limited funds through the Jewish Federation almost immediately. For longer-term help, the Hebrew Free Loan Society will loan up to $18,000 interest-free and the Jewish Federation has set up a hotline to access assistance at 703-JCARING.

As a reminder, I am having drop-in hours on Thursday afternoons from 2 to 4 at the shul. For my drop-in hours, you do not need to make an appointment -- that would negate the whole point of drop-in hours -- but I’d urge you to check and make sure I am there regardless as sometimes there are unavoidable pastoral or other emergencies which might take me away from the building. 

As always, if I can do anything for you or you need to talk, please contact me at rabbi@kehilatshalom.org rather than through the synagogue office. I am happy to meet you at the synagogue by appointment; if you want to speak with me it’s best to make an appointment rather than assuming I will be there when you stop by. 

Additionally, if you know of a Kehilat Shalom congregant or another member of our Jewish community who could use a phone call, please let me know.

L’shalom,

Rabbi Charles L. Arian