Israel and American Jews are not alone. That was the main message that U.S. officials delivered at a “fly-in” event on Tuesday at Sixth & I, a cultural center housed in a historic synagogue in Washington, D.C.
National Jewish leaders convened at the venue to show “resolute and ironclad commitment to Israel and her security,” say organizers, and after the event, 50 leaders of major Jewish groups and local Federations flew to Israel to show solidarity.
“We already see a little bit of misinformation can go a long way to change the narrative around Israel,” Stephanie Hausner, chief operating officer at the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, told JNS. The group will “bring back firsthand accounts of what’s going on,” she said.
The leaders will meet with Israeli officials; families of those who have been taken hostage and remain captive in Gaza; families evacuated from southern Israel; and injured soldiers. Their goal is to “show solidarity and help people on the ground,” said Hausner, and then bring those experiences and information back to Washington.
‘Every second is a year’
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told the audience that he stands with Israelis “in their grief and their pain, as they face down existential evil.”
“I stand with you and Jewish communities around the world as you face alarming new varieties of the age-old scourge of antisemitism,” he added, describing the present moment as one that “demands moral clarity.”
“Israel’s fight is the fight of the entire civilized world,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) described meeting with families of 12 hostages during a recent bipartisan trip of senators that he led to Israel. “Every second is a year,” the families told him.
Schumer said there are now 200 hostages in Gaza, including Americans. “We must bring every one of these hostages to safety,” he said. (Many at the event wore blue ribbons, which the Jewish Federations of North America encourages in solidarity with Israeli and American hostages in Gaza.)
Biblical flood
“Hamas must be decisively defeated for the good of Israel, for the good of the Palestinian people, for the good of the region and for the good of this world,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
Jeffries represents the nation’s 16th most Jewish congressional district which includes “the entire landscape of the Jewish diaspora.”
“I want to make it clear that I stand in support of the Jewish community that I represent in Brooklyn. I stand in support of the Jewish community in North America. I stand in support of the Jewish community in Israel. I stand in support of the Jewish community all across this world,” he said.
The only speaker to reference the parshah, or weekly Torah portion, Jeffries noted that the Genesis account of the story of Noah notes that the world at the time of the Flood was full of lawlessness, or chamas.
“This is a moment for accountability, and Hamas will be washed away,” he said.
“We know what’s at stake right now,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told the audience. Scalise observed that Hamas “purposely attacked the most vulnerable, young people at a music festival, children, the elderly, the disabled.”
“There is no equivalence between the pure evil of Hamas and Israel’s effort to defend itself against terror,” he said. “Their Iranian backers must be punished as well.”
Scalise urged Americans to “turn inward.” He noted that “gleeful displays in major cities and at elite universities” should be a wake-up call.
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, who is Jewish, told the audience about the recently released FBI hate crime statistics for 2022. More than half of the religion-based hate crimes targeted Jews.
Mayorkas promised flexibility in the more than $156 million that his department has “distributed to nonprofits that serve Jews to meet current needs.”
“I not only implore alertness and vigilance. I implore strength,” he said. “The strength to live our Jewish lives, and not allow fear to prevail.”
