Dear friend of EMET,
We Jews are about to enter the most significant time of the Jewish calendar, when each of us is asked to examine ourselves, internally, and to reflect upon, not only our relationship with G-d, and how we can improve ourselves in that relationship, but with our fellow human being and our fellow Jew.
Our people have a saying, כל יהודי אחראי אחד על השני (Every Jew is responsible for one another.) Yet, it has been very painful for us to have to acknowledge that for my generation, and at increasing frequency, for generations born after mine, the existence of the state of Israel is something far too many of us have grown to take for granted. Most of us were born after the systematic attempted genocide of our people during the Holocaust, and it seems to many, to be just a distant relic of history. According to recent surveys, fully half of the millennial population in the United States does not even the continuous survival of the state of Israel, a priority. There are other priorities that have taken its place, like global warming, or a woman’s right to chose, but we have millions upon millions of people working on those issues throughout the United States and the world. Our unique mission, as educated Jews. is to not forget our people. Remember: If we do not stand up for ourselves, no-one else will.
During these days of deep and somber reflection, I would like you to please take a moment to appreciate the absolutely existential threat that Israel and the Jewish people are up against. I cannot actually remember a time more perilous for Israel than what it is facing now. According to Israeli government estimates, Iran now has enough highly enriched uranium for at least 3 nuclear bombs, and they have long had a delivery mechanism. We know, that irrespective of whether or not Iran will launch any of these bombs at Israel, once they are under a nuclear umbrella, there will be no restraint in ability to bully and to terrorize the rest of the world. (Take. as one example, how the world treats North Korea.) And with at least 150,000 estimated Hezbollah missiles on Israel’s north, Israel sits in a very precarious position, and has some very difficult and lonely decisions to make.
Since April of 2021, when the United States entered into indirect negotiations with Iran, (since they weren’t even allowed in the same room with representatives of Iran), EMET has had more than 400 meeting on Capitol Hill with mostly foreign policy staffers, but occasionally members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle. We stress, not only how perilous these negotiations have been, and will continue to be, not only to the state of Israel and to our Sunni Gulf Allies, but to the free world, everywhere, including here in the United States.
We stress, every day, how the Islamic Republic of Iran has increasingly warm ties with Russia, which because of their heinous war on Ukraine, everyone recognizes the evil that Russia, under Putin is, as well as with China. Iran has already begum selling its drones to Russia, (one of which was shot down by the Ukrainian army, last week), has lucrative oil deals with Russia, and the Iranians have, just this weekend, signed the Shanghai Cooperation Pact between China, Russia and Turkey, cementing a block of nations together with the Islamic Republic, all of whom are rivals of the United States. Why are we empowering our enemies, while we are seemingly throwing, our friends, Israel and the Sunni Gulf nations in the Middle East, under the bus?
You should be aware that Hezbollah has insidiously increased its footprint just under our borders, throughout Latin America, and has many cells right here, in the Continental United States. We are not immune, here, from Iran’s hegemonic ambitions.
Just this weekend, we again witnessed the horrific evil that Iran truly is, when a beautiful 22 year old woman, Mahsa Amini was arrested and brutally tortured by the “morality police” because her hijab was “worn too loosely.” Next thing we heard, she was in a coma and then, suddenly, that she had died. As the great Former Soviet physicist and human rights activist, Alexander Solzhenitsyn once said, “If you want to know what a country’s foreign policy is,look at how they treat their own internal dissident population.”
We are asking for your support. And we want you to understand that EMET represents your voice on Capitol Hill. We absolutely need every single one of you to take a moment and to donate as much as you comfortably can to help EMET with our critically important work.
With warmest wishes for a Shana Tova Umatukah (a good, sweet year), and a year of peace for Israel and the world,
Sarah
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