Our Future Starts Now: Stepping Up for Global Jewry
Zack Bodner, President and CEO of the Oshman Family JCC, opens the Z3 Conference 2024 by celebrating 10 years of the annual Z3 Conference. He shares gratitude for our community who, in the wake of a harrowing year for the Jewish people worldwide, stepped up to sustain crucial conversations amid rising antisemitism. His call to empower Jewish youth to speak out against antisemitism on college campuses and in schools highlights their role as the future leaders of Zionism. Our future starts now as we learn from the past year in order to rebuild the connection between Israel and the Diaspora.
About Our Speaker:
Zack Bodner serves as the President and CEO of the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto. Under Zack’s leadership, the JCC began hosting an annual conference called Zionism 3.0 which became The Z3 Project, a global effort to reimagine Diaspora-Israel relations. Before joining the JCC, Zack served for 14 years as the Pacific Northwest Regional Director of AIPAC. Zack holds a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Religion and Theology from Claremont Graduate University, earned his Bachelor’s degree from Yale University, studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and Stanford Business School’s program for Executives in Non-Profit Leadership. Zack is the author of the book “Why Do Jewish? A manifesto for 21st Century Jewish Peoplehood.” An Amazon #1 new release in Jewish Life and Religion & Philosophy, “Why Do Jewish?” takes one of our oldest wisdom traditions and provides an accessible road map for anyone looking for answers to life’s most important questions.
Video Transcript
Good morning, good morning. Good morning, welcome to Z3 2024. Our 10-year anniversary 10 years. Can you believe that 10 years ago, folks are still coming in, grab a seat, join the melee. How many? By the show of hands? How many of you were here 10 years ago at our first Zionism 3.0 conference? Oh, that's pretty good. That's pretty good, all right. How many of you are here the year that the food truck got stolen? Remember that year? I think it was 2019. It was the only year we didn't have any complaints about the food. I'm just kidding, Wendy. Everyone loves the food.
How about the COVID year, when we had to do it online? Raise your hand if you Zoomed in online 2020. Yeah, we've been doing this for a long time. This is our 10-year anniversary. Pretty remarkable, right? You all know this.
But it takes an army of individuals to make something like this happen every year. It takes so many volunteers stuffing the bags, dealing with registration, doing the name tags, so many staff working day and night. I can't possibly thank everybody. We'd be here all night if I was thanking all the individuals who put so much of their time and energy into this, but you should know that last night we had a little dinner to honor the founders, the trailblazers, the folks who were here in that very first year, the Zionism 3.0 Conference year.
We did thank them, but I would be remiss if I didn't thank a handful of incredible individuals, families and foundations for making today possible. I want to thank the Koum Family Foundation for all that they have done, and the Arcadia Family Foundation as well, for the work that they've done in making this a reality. I want to thank the Rayant family. I want to thank the Saal and Leslie families for all that they have done to make this a reality as well. I want to thank the Taube Foundation, the Koret Foundation. Your years of support of this has made this a reality. Thank you so much. And finally, I want to thank the Dayan family, the Weingarten family and the San Francisco Federation. You guys are incredible. Thank you for always being there, always.
There's a list of all of our sponsors and donors in the back of the program. Check it out. 10 years ago I'm not even sure we could have envisioned where we are today. And now the Zionism 3.0 conference has become the Z3 project, a three-legged stool led by the brilliant Rabbi Amitai Fraiman, and he's put together not just these conferences, but three important elements, three columns that hold this up. The conferences, by the way, you need to know that this conference and conferences that are happening all over the country, events that are happening here, led by the incredible Maya Yaniv, Maya, thank you for all that you do. There are over 130 leaders of organizations that are staying over for the next day and a half to participate in our Z3 leadership labs, and those leadership labs are led by Dror Stein. Thank you, Dror, for all that you do.
And finally, we're thrilled to be able to launch this year the Z3 Institute. It is our think tank that's going to allow us to change the way we talk about, think about, frame Zionist ideology, jewish peoplehood, diaspora, israel relations for the future, and it's led by the great Dr. David Hazony. Thank you, David. And, by the way, what's incredible is that we've already published our first book. You'll see it out there today the Young Zionist Voices book. 31 incredible young, modern-day Maccabees have contributed to this wonderful book that was just launched today, our first product of the Z3 Institute. So well done to the Young Zionist Voices.
And, of course, this is all held together by our brand-new addition to the Z3 family, Grace Bartell, and to Ronit Jacobs and the entire ICC. Let's give them all a round of applause. Really, folks, it just goes to show what a small group of committed individuals the core, the acorn has done to help blossom this into an oak tree. I want you to hold on to that notion, this idea that a small group of committed individuals can change the world.
We're going to come back to that because we know that this past year has been a tough one, perhaps one of the toughest in our lifetimes 1,500 Israelis killed, kidnapped, tortured on October 7th, over a hundred hostages still being held for 408 days, more Israelis dying every day defending our incredible homeland in uniform. Tens of thousands of rockets have been falling on Israel all year long and nearly a hundred thousand Israelis have had to evacuate their homes in the South and the North because of this year-long war.
But it's not just Israel, it's the entire diaspora. We've seen a skyrocketing of anti-Semitic attacks, assaults, a pogrom in Amsterdam just last week and here in the United States. The FBI says there's been a 400% increase in anti-Semitism in the last year. 400% increase here in the Bay Area. Our own children are being bullied in classrooms. You can't wear in a cafe in Oakland a piece of clothing with a Jewish star without being kicked out, and the high schools are teaching the high schools here in our backyard are teaching that Israel is an oppressive colonial state that must be violently rejected. So, yeah, it's been a tough year, but look around, look around. Look who has shown up today. This is about showing up. 1,800 people are joining us. Over 800 people are in this room today Don't tell the fire marshal Over 800 people. We have 500 more in the overflow room and 500 people joining us online.
We have, as I mentioned, 130 leaders from across the globe. Seven countries are represented here to be a part of learning how to take this back to their own hometowns. We have speakers from across the spectrum. We have politicians, we have academics, we have rabbis, we have artists. We have a Palestinian activist who has put himself out there to be with us today. We have hostage families who are here. We have survivors from Kibbutz Be'eri, we have slam poets and we have over 100 teenagers the future of our people here today in this room. Perhaps what I'm most excited about is we have 80 B'nai Mitzvah kids in partnership with Beth Am Etz, chaim Kol Amet. 80 B'nai Mitzvah kids are here today to learn about this issue. Stand up, where are you guys? They're right there in the back of the room. Thank you for showing up. This is your family, this is your mishpocha, this is your community.
Speaking of showing up, I felt the need this last summer to show up. I felt the need to go to Israel. I hadn't been since October 7th and if you have not been, you need to go. You need to go, you have to go. You have to show our family there that we're there for them. I needed to show, yes, I needed to show up. I hadn't been.
I went on a Ramah solidarity and service trip and it was incredible. It was transformative. We went to the Nova site and we saw the posters and the memorials that were set up for the hundreds of beautiful young people whose lives have been taken. I thought this was the best of our people, this was our future. I went to Hostage Square, Kikar Hatufim, and I saw the signs, the artistic installations, I saw the tents with the families and I thought this was the best of our people, this was our future.
And then I went to Har Herzl, Israel's military cemetery, and I saw the fresh graves. Fresh graves 18, 19, 20-year-old children who died defending our homeland. I saw the families still weeping. I saw them digging fresh graves and I was devastated. This was the best of our people. This was our future.
I was crushed. I was so stricken with grief, but I was also enraged. Enraged. How could anybody do this to another human being? How could people gleefully film it and then call their parents and brag about what they had done? How could the whole world abandon the Jewish state? Where was the outrage? Where was the UN? Where were the other countries? Where were our own allies? Why did the Jewish people get abandoned in a moment of need?
And then I saw some of our own people standing on the front lines and I thought how did that happen? I was filled with rage. But then I went to an IDF army base and I saw the young soldiers dressed in uniform, proudly serving Israel, their courage, their willingness to put themselves in line. I thought this is the best of our people, this is our future. I volunteered, helping serve food to soldiers, helping pack food for families who'd lost children, and I volunteered next to regular, everyday Israelis who would drop everything on a daily basis to do this, and I thought this is the best of our people, this is our future. I came back here and I saw the Tzofim, the young Israeli scouts, singing on our stage in Hebrew and they got such nachas. I thought this is the best of our people, this is our future. And I saw our own children, my own children, standing up in their middle school, standing up in their high school, standing up in their college, and I thought this is the best of our people, this is our future and our future starts now. So you know, it's been tough, but sometimes, sometimes, strength is forged in the fire.
So this past year, we've been talking about this thing called the surge. Have you heard this term? The surge? There's been a surge of folks in the Jewish community who have come out to help, who've recognized that, unfortunately, anti-semitism is not a thing of the past. Jew hatred is not in the rearview mirror, it exists today. So there has been a surge of young people, especially in our community, who have stood up and said he nay, me, here I am and I want to help. And it has been inspiring. It has been like a shot of adrenaline for those of us who have been in this world for decades and decades to see our ranks being filled with new activists, it's been nothing short of remarkable.
But we've also seen those who've joined the other side. We've seen those who have joined the encampments. Some of our kids are becoming Jewish warriors and some are joining the anti-Israel protests and it's soul-crushing, and I know there are members of our own community who are so upset by this. I heard one member of our community told me this story. They have two children. One child, maid Aliyah, is engaged and will be getting married in Israel next year, and the sibling won't show up because they refused to set foot in Israel. I talked to another member of our community whose son is a senior in a local university. This was a kid who was raised in Jewish day school and Jewish summer camps and has somehow, over the last four years, become brainwashed to not just challenge Israel but to become pro-Hamas.
How does this happen? How is this taking place? We know there is a difference. It's one thing to criticize an Israeli policy, it's one thing to criticize an Israeli politician. It's one thing to even challenge the way that Israel is fighting the war, but to stand next to people who are saying from the river to the sea, that is Jew hatred, that is calling for the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of seven million people.
There is no excuse. So we need a reckoning. We need a deep, heshbon hanefesh reckoning, accounting of our soul. We need to look inward and say how did this happen? How did some of our kids become today's Maccabees, the Jewish warriors, and how did them go the other way? What did we do right and what did we do wrong? Just as Israel is attempting its own reckoning to say how did we fail on October 7th? What happened with our intelligence, security and military infrastructure? What happened? We need to do the same thing what's happened over the last 30 years of American Jewish life, that some have gone this way and some have gone the other way? We need to be honest with ourselves. We can't sugarcoat it. It's going to be a tough conversation, but we must look deeply and figure out what's worked and what hasn't, and we need to double down on what's working.
I have an idea, I have a hunch of something that may work. It's not fully baked. Here's the headline, though deep Jewish knowledge plus personal connection equals Jewish pride, and Jewish pride is the antidote to anti-Semitism. I'll say it again: deep Jewish knowledge plus personal connection equals Jewish pride. And here's why I say deep, deep Jewish knowledge: because we have to embrace the complexity, folks.
We have to embrace the nuance. Our children are too smart, they're too sophisticated, they're getting their information from too many sources. We can't continue to feed them whitewashed, gold-tinged fairy tales. They need to know, yeah, israel's flawed. Israel is imperfect and, just like the United States, Israel's a work in progress. But guess what? Israel is also a miracle. Israel is an island of freedom and democracy in a sea of tyranny. Israel stands for women's rights, minority rights, gay rights, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of expression, in a place where none of that happens. They need to understand what that looks like and what that means, and the way to teach.
That is by not separating the Jewish from the Israel. I had this insight in a conversation with my friend yeah, some of you may know Yehuda Kurtzer from the Hartman Institute, and he and I were having this conversation and I think we've done ourselves a disservice by separating out the Jewish and the Israel. There is no Jewish heritage without the Jewish homeland. They are intertwined. But by having made them binary. We have young Jewish people today who think they're doing the right Jewish thing by standing up against Israel. We have to make it one. We have to help them understand the two are inseparable and once we do that, they will get it here. They will get that deep Jewish knowledge and then we have to give it to them right here, and that's about the connection. That's about the visit we have to take them.
Yes, it's about the Kotel, the Western Wall, it's about Masada, it's about the beaches of Tel Aviv, it's about Silicon Wadi, it's about the falafel stands, but it's also about the people. This is Zionism 3.0. It's about the people. It's about the people who are marching in the streets every week to protest their government, but then they'll drop everything to go down to the Negev and fight to save lives. It's about the people and it's about the press the press who's so critical of their government, so critical of their leadership, and yet they will print a full-page image of the Israeli flag for you to tape up in your bedroom window. It's about the Israeli artists and the musicians that will cry out in pain and anger about the travesty of October 7th, but they will drop everything to go on a singing tour, these Israeli singers coming here to sing in Hebrew in the Hillels across the country. Why? To get our own Jewish kids inspired, to get them motivated to become Jewish warriors. That's what it means to hit them in the kishkers and you'll have that deep Jewish knowledge and you'll have that personal connection and that's what will create the Jewish pride. Because the kids who are standing up on campus today, they have it. They're showing up. They're the ones we have to invest in, they're the ones we have to double down on and we have to figure out how to make more of them, because the future is now Okay.
One last story to end with. It's a story you all know, we tell it every year at the Passover table and the Haggadah. It's a story you all know, we tell it every year at the Passover table in the Haggadah. It's the story of the Exodus of Egypt. You know this story, Moses leads us out. But there's a part of the story that some of you may know, some of you may not know, but when we get to the shores of the Red Sea, imagine this we get to the shores of the Red Sea and the Israelites don't know what to do.
They haven't seen the sea before.
They're terrified. What lurks beneath the dark, swirling depths? They have no idea what to do. They're terrified. And they look behind them and the most fearsome army of the time is barreling down behind. You got Pharaoh, you got the chariots, you got the soldiers, you got horses. War cries, dust kicking and they panic. They're terrified. They start screaming at Moses why did you bring us out here to die when there are not enough graves back in Egypt? And Moses starts to panic, moses starts to cry out to God.
And as Moses is praying to God, as the Israelites are freaking out, there's one man who steps forward, one man who takes the leap Nachshon. Nachshon steps into the sea Nothing happens. He steps a little deeper, up to his knees Nothing happens. He goes up to his waist Still nothing. Up to his chest, nothing happens. But then he takes the leap, he dives into the waters and only then do the waters part.
Nachshon took the leap. He had the courage. He didn't wait for anyone to go in front of him. He took that leap. Friends, we are on the shores of the Red Sea. We do not know what stands before us, but we surely can't go back to pre-October 7th. We cannot go backwards. We have to go forwards. Every single one of you must step up, must take action. Be like Nachshon no more hand-wringing. No more hand-wringing about social media bias. No more hand-wringing about our local politicians being too even-handed. No more hand-wringing about the high school curriculum being anti-Israel. Take the leap, take action, step up, because that is the future of Zionism, that is the future of Jewish peoplehood, and our future starts now.
