This past week, Jews around the world experienced a joy we felt unable to express for two years finally erupt, with the release of the living hostages from Gaza. Several of those who were abducted after they were killed, or killed in captivity, were also returned. We continue to stand with the families of the remaining 19, demanding their release as well.

Israelis also look out at a region transformed in the last two years. What had been a noose surrounding its borders with enemies and their proxies, armed to the teeth and ideologically motivated to erase the Jewish state now lies shattered and dramatically weakened. One of the principles which guided Israel’s post 10/7 strategy was a simple understanding: The Israeli people would not stand for any government, any leader, leaving an unfought enemy on its border or within reach of that enemy’s long range arsenal. This is what Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Qatar, Yemen, Gaza and even Judea and Samaria have learned. Amid all of the actions taken by Israel with this principle in mind, and with the experiences of 10/7 and the subsequent war seared on Israeli’s consciousnesses, Israel has shaped a new security reality.

Here in the US, and around the world, we look at those hard fought and dearly won achievements and we salute the magnificent generation of young Israelis who fought and sacrificed to make this happen. But we also look around at our own ‘borders’ - our streets and neighborhoods, our campuses, our political and social landscapes - and we do not see a reality transformed in a positive way. We do not see a safer environment. No. We have unfought enemies on our own borders.

I do not use the word enemies lightly. I could use ‘opponents’, but this is no debate club I am describing. I could write ‘adversaries’ as I have before, and that might describe a certain proportion of those who have been conditioned into advocating against Israel and against Israel’s supporters. But I am describing a movement, its leaders, and its most ideologically motivated followers.

This movement is determined to make and keep Jewish communities - especially but not solely the vast majority who express solidarity with and support for Israel - in fear and unsafe. This movement circulates maps of our community institutions, like they did in Boston, they chase us through the streets, like they did in Amsterdam and Dagestan. They attack our seniors like in Boulder and our young like at UCLA, Harvard, Columbia and Chapel Hill. They hound our visibly Jewish communities on their way to shul, and they harass customers at our supermarkets and restaurants. They flood streets around our institutions, village and town council meetings, and online spaces with ‘genocide’ blood libels. And they stand poised to win elections to lead the places with some of the largest Jewish communities in the country.

All of this is done with coordination, inspiration, or both; from the extreme right, from the far left, and from the radical, violent religious fringe.

They have not been defeated on the battlefield. At best, we have sometimes held them at bay, some of the time. But they continue to march, they continue to seek office, and they continue to malign, libel, and instill fear in our communities.

In recent days the rhetoric coming from the movements against Israel and the Jewish community has become more bitter, and more extreme. Despite the dramatic changes aimed at peace in the Middle East, they see what is essentially an Israeli victory over the butchers they were supporting in hopes of eliminating the sovereign Jewish presence in our homeland, and they fear diminishing crowds supporting them, now that the terrible imagery from Gaza has receded. They worry that the flow of funds from Qatar or its ‘charitable’ local proxies will dry up. And too many on the far right or far left see our community and Jewish communities across the country as the local symbol of what they hate about American or western society. What remains is a large, ideologically diversified, well organized yet angry and disappointed mix of potentially dangerous people with harmful intent.

We do not have the luxury of taking our eyes off of the ball. We cannot afford to cede our streets or our town halls to these determined enemies. Again, I use the word enemy. Anyone who is intent on making life unbearable for members of our community or intent on harming them is an enemy. We have the responsibility to use all legislative, legal, social, and economic means to oppose them.

I’ll close by reminding you - we don’t do this for the sake of the battle itself. We build ‘walls’ because we have a garden to protect behind them. That garden is the flowering and flourishing of Jewish life. It is our synagogues, schools, and camps. It is our seniors and survivors, our adult education and our kosher food bank. It is our social services, our performing arts and our beautiful Jewish music. It is the lulav we shake and the volunteering we do to help the needy. That is why we must be aware of the continuing threat. We have so much life and love and learning to foster and grow.