September 1, 2026
This column appeared in the Florida Jewish Journal.
As Jews gather to celebrate Rosh Hashanah starting on the evening of Sept. 11, we will dip apples in honey, hear the piercing blasts of the shofar and pray to be inscribed in the Book of Life. It is a holiday filled with hope.
But Jewish hope has never meant simply believing that everything will work out. Throughout our history, hope has required something more — courage.
The courage to remain proudly Jewish when others sought to make us afraid. The courage to rebuild after destruction. And generation after generation, the courage to believe in a better future and then work to create it.
That message feels especially urgent as we enter 5787.
We continue to pray for the safety and security of Israel, where families still bear the scars of the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, and the hope for lasting peace remains painfully elusive. At the same time, we confront an alarming level of antisemitism here at home.
In my work as Palm Beach County regional director for American Jewish Committee, I have many conversations with people who are deeply worried about antisemitism, about Israel, and about what the future holds for their children and grandchildren.
Increasingly, those conversations reveal something more troubling. Fear about being visibly Jewish. Fear about speaking openly about Israel. Fear about whether the country they have long considered a safe haven for Jewish life is changing around them.
AJC’s State of Antisemitism in America 2025 Report found that 91% of American Jews feel less safe as a Jewish person in the United States because of violent attacks on American Jews in the past year, while 55% have changed their behavior at least once in the past 12 months out of concern for their safety. Behind those numbers are deeply personal decisions — whether to wear a Star of David, attend a Jewish event, or identify oneself publicly as Jewish.
We should be alarmed by this reality. But we must not be intimidated by it.
The answer to rising antisemitism cannot simply be higher fences, stronger locks, or additional security personnel, as necessary as those measures have become at synagogues and Jewish institutions. Our response must also be to live more confidently and openly as Jews.
That means filling our synagogues, celebrating our traditions proudly, investing in Jewish life and ensuring that our children inherit confidence rather than fear.
It also means standing proudly with Israel, affirming the fundamental right of the Jewish people to self-determination and the right of Israel to exist regardless of whether we agree with every decision of its government. We should never allow intimidation to weaken that bond.
Toward that end, we must strengthen relationships with neighbors of every faith and background and ask them to stand with us, just as we must stand with others when they are targeted by hatred.
At AJC, we created a Combating Antisemitism Playbook that gives government officials, educators, technology companies, community leaders and other sectors of society a detailed blueprint for how to confront antisemitism wherever it takes hold. Since Oct. 7, 2023, those conversations have become more urgent. The good news: we have found more people are willing to listen.
Antisemitism, after all, is not only a Jewish problem. History teaches that it is often an early warning that a society is losing its moral bearings. When hatred against one community becomes normalized, the freedoms of others are ultimately endangered as well. Confronting antisemitism is therefore both a Jewish responsibility and an American one.
That is why the sound at the heart of Rosh Hashanah feels especially powerful this year. The shofar is more than an ancient ritual. Its piercing cry calls us to awaken, to reject complacency and summon the courage and resolve this moment demands.
Its message could not be timelier: Do not allow fear to determine who you are. Do not allow hatred to silence you. And do not allow antisemitism to become so commonplace that our society simply learns to live with it.
For generations, the Jewish people have answered uncertainty with resilience and fear with courage. This Rosh Hashanah, we are called to do so again.
Shana Tovah.
Laurence Milstein is Director of AJC Palm Beach County.
