I’m back home on the UWS of NYC after a quick trip to Israel to put my boots on our traumatized Holy Ground. Traveling with a group of donors from New York, I continued my too long tradition of going on “solidarity missions” in the wake of the many wars against Israel’s Right to Exist. My first solidarity mission was the National UJA Young Leadership Cabinet Annual Retreat in August of 1991. Cabinet leadership boldly changed the location of the summer conference from Utah to Israel after Iraq’s Scud Missile War, knowing we needed to show up.
While that was my first trip to Israel as a wife and mother, my very first trip to Israel was in 1979, the summer before my senior year at the University of Michigan. As a participant on a 6-week American Zionist Youth Foundation (i.e. Jewish Agency) summer college program, my emotional baggage was packed with Pop’s sabra roots, my USY-inspired Zionism and my university studies on the Middle East. I still treasure my writings and photos from that initial trip, where I was greeted at Ben Gurion airport by Pop’s first cousin Zvi and his wife Guela with chocolates and flowers, even though I was going straight to the bus!
During the halcyon and economically successful Oslo era of the late ’90, those Palestinians who never wanted to make peace with Israel, began to sow seeds of fear with the first wave of bus bombings. Again, to show the Palestinian terrorists that Israel never stands alone, the Cabinet did not cancel the previously organized “Capitol to Capitol” mission in March of 1996. So despite the fact that terrorists were now blowing up buses killing innocent people, I left my 3 young children and flew from Washington to Jerusalem.
At that first Cabinet retreat in August of 1991, I became a Lion of Judah, which means that I joined the group of philanthropic women who make a significant donation to the Federation system of their own resources, independent of their spouse if they have one. In my former Jewish community of Cleveland, women wear their Lion of Judah pins with great pride. In NYC, other than the Lion Lunch, not so much.
As I packed for this latest in a long line of solidarity missions, along with my Hostage Forum t-shirt, my Nova exhibit t-shirt and my Saving Israeli Democracy t-shirt, I packed my Lion of Judah pin. This piece of jewelry is a statement of my profound and enduring financial investment in the modern Jewish Democratic State of Israel. Yet, these 3 t-shirts each represent a difficult chapter in the current story of the State of Israel. In other words, despite the massive investment of resources of every kind by World Jewry in the Zionist enterprise, we have been reduced to celebrating just how “resilient” we are. Sorry Folks but this is not exactly the kind of “return on investment” my generation of Jewish leadership thought we would see. So, I ask all of those late stage Baby Boomers who like me invested so heavily in Israel, how did this happen on our watch? And what do we do to work with Israelis to make sure it never happens again?
Tuesday was the day we drove down the highway of slaughter known as Route 232, entered the home of Yocheved and Oded Lifshitz, walked the killing fields of Nir Oz and tracked through the lake of mud at the site of the massacre at the Nova Festival. Knowing the terrain and Israel’s winter weather, I had packed my green boots from REI. So it was that on one of the worst weather days this winter, I found our “Beautiful Child” Gili Adar’s memorial at the site. Tomer Meir, a survivor of the Nova massacre, sparkled as he told us his dark story of survival. As he spoke, sharing his first -hand account of his horror, the heavens opened and She Above sobbed. We shivered. We cried. We celebrated his resilience. How did this happen to Tomer on our watch?
From Nova, we headed to our next stop of the day, the coastal town of Ashkelon. The stormy weather continued to provide the perfect metaphoric backdrop to this solidarity mission. The mayor of Ashkelon spoke to us in a yurt as the rain we all pray for in winter pounded on the roof. To the beat of the raindrops, the young translator was able to convey the Zionist and civic pride of Mayor Tomer Glam in his town that has weathered far too many projectiles lobbed at the Jewish State. Umbrellas in hand, we then trekked our way through the mud to the EcoPark Ashkelon, home to the brand new and glorious Lion Park. Designed by Helen Roet Nitzan, the founder of Elo & Nitzan, and funded in part by New York donors, this grand playground is Israel’s largest and is designed to bring healing and resilience to the children of Ashkelon and the surrounding Regions in Israel’s decimated South. While I am proud to be a part of a community that can help build playgrounds designed to heal, I am simply ashamed that under our watch we allowed conditions to deteriorate to such a state that the innocent civilians of the South have been the sitting ducks for decades. This was a trip that did not allow participants to duck the raw truth of the simple failure of the government of the modern Jewish Democratic State of Israel to keep Her people safe from harm on October 7. How did this happen to the children of Ashkelon on our watch? And how do we work with Israelis to make sure it never happens again?
We returned to Tel Aviv with an hour to clean up and then reboard our bus, expertly driven through the driving rain by Menashe, to the Herziliya home of the Lion’s designer, Helen and husband Assaf Roet. On a cold and wet night in January, their magnificent home was filled with warmth, love and solidarity of the personal kind. I was taken back to the many times I played host to multiple delegations from Beit Shean and the surrounding Region, now known as Emek HaMayanot, during my Cleveland days. Both during the glory days of the late ‘90’s and the Second Intifada Days of the early 2000’s, I built profound bridges on a deeply personal level with so many in both the development town of Beit Shean and the Region. I even recall hosting Sali Meridor in my home when he was chair of the Jewish Agency. I wonder why his brother Dan Meridor has walked away from Israeli politics?
As I thanked Helen for the beautiful evening, I commented that her Lion reminded me of the Mifleset, the Monster. This iconic sliding board in the Kiryat HaYovel neighborhood of Jerusalem has been a destination playground for residents and visitors alike for decades. With all due respect to the designers of the Mifleset, watching children slide down the multiple tongues of a black and white concrete creature does not ease anxiety for the anxious or those suffering from both historic and current PTSD. The planners of our solidarity mission anticipated that we would delight in the sight of the kids of Ashkelon running through the entrails of Helen’s “Lion of Resilience.” Given the stormy weather and muddy conditions, there was not one child running around Helen’s open, bright, inviting Lion. However, the KDS mission participants brought their open hearts and wet feet to the playground and rejoiced in what we as American Jews can do to help Israel rebuild. Just as we have for so many decades. While I join in the rejoicing, this granddaughter of a Sabra, former lay leader, current activist, and eternal Levite asks this question with a fractured heart. How many more times will We go around this merry-go-round of build, destroy and rebuild?
Of the 3 days on Holy Ground, the third was the most profound. Being at the official ribbon cutting ceremony for the UJA-NY Nova House, a community center for all those impacted by the Massacre at the Nova Festival, mattered. I am immensely proud of the support of the New York community for the Tribe of Nova. While grateful I can do what I do through the “system,” that feeling does not erase the sense of communal shame I feel. The IDF simply failed to protect the citizens and residents of the State of Israel . That October 7 happened on our watch, haunts me like the ghost of every victim of October 7. This is the burden of Jewish Empathy. One People, One Heart. We Are One. Am Yisrael Chai. As a lay leader, I was raised on all these slogans, like so many Baby Boomers. On Day 835 of The War, I wonder how many of them have given up on the Zionist enterprise, given the muddy, murky, unresolved facts on the ground? I wonder how many of them voted for Mamdani as Mayor of the largest Jewish Diaspora? And again, I ask, how did this happen on our watch?
Before leaving for this latest solidarity mission, I made a promise to myself, knowing that my prior Israel experiences, especially during the Second Intifada, my personal investment in Israel’s civil society and my personal traumas make me rather caustic. “Frannie”, I said to myself, “Observe. Absorb. Say Little. Sing Much.” I did my best to keep most of my critical thoughts to myself, my Beats providing the soundtrack I needed on the bus, composing lyrics on the parchment of my journal.
As the Cleveland chair of Partnership 2000 during the Second Intifada, I was boots on the ground in a personal and profound way. During those dark years, in addition to helping build civil society in an area of the country not unlike the devastated South, I represented the Cleveland Federation at funerals, shiva calls, presenting checks from the Jewish Agency’s Fund for Victims of Terror. Speaking Hebrew, I comforted a mother whose son was killed in Tulkarm; to this day, I maintain close ties to the parents of Matanya Robinson’ z”l, who fell in Jenin in April, 2002. I’ll never forget that day in Buenos Aires, when the head of the Regional Council, Yael Shaltieli, shared that we had lost someone in our Region, Mark and Rena’s son. I’ve been face to face with our Jewish pain and suffering for decades, and am still deeply connected to the people of what is now known as Emek HaMayanot. I’ve been working on “resilience” since at least the year 2000. And the PTSD as well. And like so many, I am so tired. It is hard to keep caring so much when your heart continues to break in so many ways. And when you know in your bones that no matter how hard We may try, perception is reality. Especially in 2026/5786.
The weather for Wednesday’s festivities in the forest outside of Netanya was perfect for the ribbon cutting for almost completed center that is now officially known as Beit Nova. Kudos to the planners for facilitating a beautiful lunch with members of the Nova community. And a major shout out to the Tribe of Nova Band that brought the healing power of music to our solidarity mission. Founded by Simo Sela, a grieving father who lost his son at Nova, the band is composed of survivors and mourners of victims.
Suffering from a lack of song on the mission, I finally found my release singing the verses as well as the chorus of Leonard Cohen’s Halleluyah, especially the following verse, given the current traumatized and broken state of affairs on the ground in Israel. “And even though it all went wrong, I’ll stand before the Lord of Song, with nothing on my tongue but Halleluyah.” And I add as I repeat those words, slichah, slichah. slichah. I am so sorry. On our watch, Start Up Nation allowed her most peaceful citizens to be slaughtered by the evil monster known as Hamas. Military assets reassigned to the West Bank and technological hubris were no match for the primal and low tech tactics fueled by the depraved hatred of a deprived and distorted population.
The grey haired founder of the band, Simo Sela, was featured in the band’s cover of “Yesterday”. The heartbreak of listening to his accented English intoning, “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away, now it looks as though they’re here to stay” was the opening for the most remarkable encounter. After the concert, I approached Simo to offer my condolences on his loss and my appreciation for his music. Given that my life has been a series of sacred synchronicities, was I surprised to learn that Simo lives on Kibbutz Neve Ur, one of the most beautiful kibbutzim in my Region, Emek HaMayanot? Or that not only does he live on the same kibbutz as Yael Shaltieli, the former Regional Mayor who became my mentor, my partner and my friend, but that they are the closest of friends? This is how She Above, the Divine works in my life. Sometimes, all it takes is being present, being open and showing up. The video we made for Yael has me beaming into the camera, showing off my Saving Israeli Democracy t-shirt, knowing she would delight in my ongoing activism in the spirit of our beloved Art Naparstek, z”l and on behalf of our traumatized modern Jewish Democratic State of Israel.
Back at our hotel, still wearing the black t-shirt of the Israeli Democracy movement, we had our final session, an intimate meeting with returned hostage Omer Shem Tov and his father Malki. Having handled Omer’s picture countless times as a soldier in the “sticker army” of the UWS, and being boots on the ground in Central Park with the Hostage Family Forum over the painful 2 plus years of the War, this meeting was especially poignant. Listening to Omer tell his story of survival was mesmerizing; watching him slump in exhaustion after reliving his ordeal reminded me of what resilience requires. Gazing upon Malki, I could not imagine the courage and strength it took for this father to turn his angst into activism, creating the Hostage Family Forum in an instant. Again, the role played by the New York Federation in supporting this effort is a source of great pride. Yet again, that it was necessary, that on our watch, the atrocities of October 7 occurred, is a source of great shame.
I had packed my weathered black Family Forum t-shirt to give to Omer’s family, a recognition of the role the Forum played in allowing Diaspora Jews to be boots on the ground. At first Malki resisted the gift but after I explained to him how the shirt is a physical representation of the bond between Israelis and Diaspora Jews, he accepted it as the first one in what I hope will be a collection of shirts for the October 7 Museum he is planning. Inspired by both Omer’s story telling skills and Malki’s passion for ensuring that the truth be told, I felt a calm come over me as I prepared to end what I had been calling the “KDS/PTSD Solidarity Mission.”
For our closing dinner, I packed my Lion of Judah pin and put on my mourning dove rising necklace, the silver outline of the “yonah” given to me by Yael Shaltieli over 20 years ago, the diamond in the dove’s core a gem I had reset recently. These personal reflections contain the Bottom Line as I see it. After 47 years of Israel activism, engagement, real property ownership, and bridge building, I look around and it is clear that sharing our wealth, the philanthropy represented by the Lion of Judah is not sufficient to to support a modern Jewish Democratic State of Israel.
Another truth. The Monster of Evil will always be present in the Neighborhood and we, the Jews, and the Jewish State, will always be blamed for whatever is wrong in the world. The Bottom Line is this. How we behave in the geopolitical sphere will always play differently in world opinion. For this we were chosen. How we use our Power, whether in an ethical way or in an arrogant way, will always be judged differently in the eyes of the Cynical World Order. For this we were chosen. So, in 2026/5786, we can choose to be “Resilient” or we can choose to be “Resilient and Resolved” to never let the modern Jewish Democratic State of Israel fail her people again. And if we just opt for resilience, then I have a request, as a grandmother whose grandchildren will be serving in the IDF one day in the future.
This is my request to those of my generation who now hold
My boots with Holy Ground still in the treads
positions of leadership. Don’t you think that we should tell our Jewish educators to remove the song “Lo Yisa Goy, el Goy Cherev, Lo Yilmadu Od Milchama” from our educational system? Why should the next generation of Jewish children grow up singing, “Gonna lay down, my sword and shield, down by the Riverside” if we don’t really believe that we can find a way to “peacefully” share the Holy Land with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. And with that final thought, this traumatized Levite, has unpacked her bags and unburdened her resilient heart.
Hallelujah. Amen. Selah.