Israel is in crisis. Israel is in mourning.
This is not a talking point. It is not a campaign slogan. It is not material for America’s next presidential election debate.
It is the daily reality of a people still burying their dead, still sending sons and daughters to defend their country, and still asking whether the world understands what Jewish survival actually requires.
Yes, all human death and wounds are sad and preventable! All humans have the right to live!
At the same time, American Jews and Jews across the world are not safe in the way many once believed they were. Synagogues need security. Jewish students hide Stars of David. Families wonder whether speaking Hebrew in public will invite harassment. Jewish businesses, schools, and community centers are treated as targets for anger over a war thousands of miles away.
This is a frightening moment. And it demands seriousness.
I write as a Black Ethiopian-Israeli American who served the people of New York City for more than 20 years in public service and who deeply respects the voices and values of American voters.
Israel is not just another issue in American politics. It is not a convenient weapon for the Left or the Right. It is a living country in a dangerous region, surrounded by enemies that do not merely oppose its policies but question its right to exist.
Israel is also a remarkable country: democratic, innovative, diverse, argument-filled, imperfect and alive. It is home to Jews from Europe, Ethiopia, North Africa, the Middle East, Russia, India, and the Americas.
It is home to Arab citizens, Druze citizens, Christians, Muslims, secular Israelis, religious Israelis, soldiers, judges, doctors, scientists, artists, and families who simply want to live.
That reality is too often erased.
American politicians like Rahm Emanuel may call themselves friends of Israel. But friendship is tested in moments like this. The issue is not whether friends may criticize Israeli governments. They may. Israelis criticize their own leaders every day, loudly and passionately.
But when criticism is delivered without grief, without context, and without recognition of Israel’s existential danger, it can become something else. It can become fuel for people who do not want Israel corrected. They want Israel weakened.
And in New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani must understand that Jewish New Yorkers are watching. They are watching to see whether their mayor stands with them clearly, not only when it is politically easy.
They are watching to see whether antisemitism is treated as seriously as every other hatred. They are watching to see whether the city that holds one of the largest Jewish populations in the world will protect them without hesitation.
This is not the time for leaders to make Israel a stage for American ambition. Do not make Jewish fear part of your election-season drama. Do not reduce Israeli survival to a debate-night applause line. Do not use the Jewish state to prove your purity to one political camp or your toughness to another.
Israel faces threats most Western democracies do not face. America does not live with terrorist armies on its borders calling for its destruction. New York does not have rockets aimed at its neighborhoods. Washington has not had to rescue hostages from underground tunnels.
That does not mean Israel is above criticism. But it does mean that Israel deserves to be judged with honesty about the danger it faces, and deserves recognition for what it is: an extraordinary country in the region.
A country that, despite war and trauma, still holds elections, debates its courts, protests its government, investigates itself, treats wounded people, builds technology, absorbs immigrants, and argues constantly about its own soul. That is not weakness. That is democracy under pressure.
Israel's greatest untold story
One of Israel’s greatest untold stories is the story of Ethiopian Jews. Their journey to Jerusalem is a story of faith, suffering, rescue, and belonging.
How many American conferences give Ethiopian Israelis the microphone? How many television panels about Israel include them? How many delegations to Washington include Ethiopian Israeli diplomats, officers, scholars, or public leaders?
Their story matters because it reminds the world that Israel is not the cartoon its enemies describe. Israel is not a foreign implant. It is the homeland of a people gathered from exile, persecution, and danger. Its story includes pain and imperfection, but also courage, rescue, and renewal.
American Jews know this. Jews around the world know this. And today, many of them feel alone.
So here is the message to American politicians: stop speaking about Israel as if it exists only inside your campaign calendar. Stop treating Jewish safety as a partisan accessory. Stop demanding moral perfection from a country fighting for survival while offering moral confusion at home.
A real friend of Israel can criticize Israel. But a real friend also knows when to stand beside a grieving people.
Israel is mourning. Jews are afraid. This is the moment for clarity, loyalty, and courage – not political theater, not slogans, and not abandonment disguised as sophistication.
The writer is a former New York City Supreme Court detective, an investigator and educator in conflict resolution and restorative peace, and a moral diplomacy expert. His upcoming book, Moral Diplomacy for a Broken World, is inspired by the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.