This week on Word on the Street Live, we stepped back from the news cycle for a different kind of conversation. With Yehuda Kurtzer of the Shalom Hartman Institute, we dove into the themes of the High Holidays – reflection, atonement, forgiveness and renewal – and how they speak to this complicated moment for the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

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Yehuda pushed us to explain ourselves, to think outside our comfort zones and to wrestle with the hardest questions about Jewish identity, Zionism and moral responsibility.

Yehuda reminded us that disagreement has always been a source of strength in Jewish life, and that imagination about what Israel could be has too often been replaced with a narrow discourse of loyalty. The most pressing challenge Israel faces, which we couldn’t agree more with, is the question of ruling over millions of Palestinians – and our job is to bring Jewish values to bear on that reality.

Our conversation circled back to humility. Our values, as Yehuda said, don’t mean anything unless they’re put into practice. For us, that means holding onto the core belief that Zionism should be about participation in a collective project – one rooted not only in nationalism, but in the moral vision that defines Judaism itself.

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