07/05/2026
Dear Friends,
As Philadelphia celebrates America’s 250th anniversary, we are reminded that our city is far more than a place on the map—it is the birthplace of a nation founded on the timeless ideals of liberty, faith, and human dignity. Just steps from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, where our Founding Fathers declared that “all men are created equal” and affirmed the promise of religious freedom, we are privileged to live and build Jewish life in a city where those ideals first took root.
For the Jewish people, America has been a blessing unlike any other in our history. No nation has afforded us greater freedom to build synagogues, schools, charitable institutions, businesses, and vibrant communities while living openly and proudly as Jews.
Precisely because we cherish these blessings, the alarming rise in antisemitism over the past several years should concern every American. The intimidation of Jewish students on university campuses, attacks on Jewish institutions, and the growing normalization of antisemitic rhetoric challenge the very principles upon which this nation was founded.
As the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, I have occasionally been told that I see the world through the lens of history. I cannot help but think of Germany, a nation admired for its culture, scholarship, and scientific achievement. Many German Jews believed they were fully accepted citizens. They were educated, successful, and patriotic. They assumed that modern civilization had left antisemitism behind.
History proved otherwise.
The lesson is not that America is Germany. It is that civilization, education, prosperity, and even political progressivism are not, by themselves, guarantees against antisemitism. Hatred has repeatedly adapted itself to different societies and different generations.
Yet the Jewish response has never been despair.
For more than three thousand years, the strength of the Jewish people has not rested primarily on political influence or public acceptance. It has rested on Torah, Jewish education, and an unshakable commitment to our heritage.
It is especially fitting that here in Philadelphia—the city where the ideals of liberty and free
