Each time I've had the privilege of visiting Israel, I marvel at the Jewish history etched into the faces of the men, women and children who walk down its streets. We live in perhaps the strongest diaspora Jewish community in history and have played a constructive role in influencing the American government to use its power to help oppressed world Jewry, including the release of Soviet and Ethiopian Jews. While American political leaders have, in recent decades, been responsive to the humanitarian concerns of the American Jewish community, political leaders still must weigh our requests and pleas along with those of other, sometimes competing, views. In Israel, the starting point has never been to debate what responsibility Israel has for Jews suffering persecution in other nations. Rather, it has been to decide how to rescue them.
Today there are few persecuted Jewish communities left for Israel to help rescue.
The threat of imminent war that Israel faced for most of its first 50 years has been greatly reduced through peace treaties and time, although the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could raise the risk once again. The poor economy of an undeveloped country has been largely replaced by thriving biotech, high-tech and scientific industries. Democracy thrives in Israel, sometimes almost too much. And Jewish culture and literature continue to enjoy a remarkable renaissance. With many of the central challenges confronting Israel under relative control, much greater attention is inevitably being paid to the kind of society Israel has built.