A year ago, over 500 guests from Poland, the U.S., and other countries met at the Polin Museum to celebrate the opening of the new Warsaw-based American Jewish Committee office - AJC Central Europe.
Mireille Knoll’s murder haunts me. It is a painful reminder (as if we needed one) of the face of antisemitism in France today, where a helpless and sick 85-year-old Holocaust survivor can be killed in her apartment for one reason only: because she is Jewish.
For the first time, American Jews and Israelis have a chance to develop a relationship between Jewish grown-ups. We need to recognize each other’s achievements, and understand, if not indulge, each other’s failures (which are often a consequence of geographic circumstance).
There has yet to be serious conversation, let alone effective action, on the issue of religious pluralism in Israel, one of the core issues that may determine the future of relations between Jews in Israel and in the United States.
The issues that pose the greatest challenge to strong American Jewish-Israeli ties are not the oft-cited left/right matters such as settlements or access to the Kotel.