CEO and President Deborah Waxman at J Street Convention 2026: On War, Democracy, and the Courage to Hold Complexity

Rabbi Deborah Waxman’s Plenary Remarks: Building Tomorrow: Leadership, Courage and the Architecture of Regional Peace

This is so hard. Everything changes and changes again and then changes again. The world we knew when we entered Shabbat on Friday was gone when we woke up the next day. Suddenly, America is at war and Israel is at war again and millions of people across the Middle East are under attack and seeking shelter, even where no shelters exist. While we have hopes and prayers and ideas and recommendations, we do not know how this will end, and many Americans are devastated at how it started—before every diplomatic avenue was exhaustively pursued and without adequate consultation with or oversight from Congress, in direct violation of the US Constitution.  

This moment asks so much of us. To be clear-eyed about the threats the nation of Israel faces and also to keep our hearts open to the pain and the aspirations of all the people who live there—Israelis and Palestinians alike. To decry the brutality of the Iranian regime and to hold their leaders and our own to the rule of law. To stand in solidarity once again with Israelis who are facing life-and-death battle and to fight for the constitutional ideals that undergird American democracy and that have fostered Jewish life here. To remain in coalition, in community, in friendship, in family with people who hold different opinions, draw different conclusions, pursue different strategies.  

We can do this. We can hold this complexity.  

In the 1920s and 30s, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan articulated a radical, transformative idea: we can understand Judaism to be the evolving religious civilization of the Jewish people. This new understanding would be the basis for Reconstructionism and its central organization, Reconstructing Judaism, which I lead. 

Kaplan was speaking to the children of immigrants, first-generation Americans who were also children of democracy. He insisted on a powerful, liberating truth: Jews did not have to choose between being Jewish and being American. We could live in two civilizations, with each enriching the other. 

As Jews, we are bound up in Jewish peoplehood, in a sense of connection and even mutual obligation that transcends time and geographic space, that connects us to Jews around the world, all who live now, all who came before us, all who will follow.  

From that sense of peoplehood, American Jews can say to Israelis: We are with you. We are in pain around your pain, your concerns, the risks you face, the price you pay to make lives for yourself and for your children. This sense of peoplehood binds us together, so much so that it compels us to speak up when we believe you are acting in ways that undermine the ideals enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence or violate human rights. At its best, peoplehood is not empty symbolism and cheerleading but is full of relationship and concern and yes, even struggle, because we know and believe and commit to making real that our connections will abide. 

And as Americans, we double down on the founding democratic principles of this country, enshrined in the Constitution. The expansive realization of these principles empowers cultural pluralism, which has been a fertile ground for Jewish life to flourish. In a time of rising populist movements and authoritarianism, even in a time of war, we must recommit to democracy. 

Jews in Israel, in America, around the world have not fully processed the aftermath of the dreadful events on October 7 or the years of war that followed with massive disruption to Israeli society, the tremendous loss of life in Gaza. The hostages are all home, but there has been no investigation and Israel is thrust into another war.  

And here at home, we are seeing the rise of Christian nationalism, accompanied by the restriction of rights for minority populations. Antisemitism is surging. Demagogues, misinformation, and hate are having exponential impacts through cutting-edge media, fraying our social fabric and increasing inequality. We are seeing an unprecedented concentration of power in the Executive branch.  

And we are seeing efforts to normalize the militarization of our city streets with government agents being dismissive of basic rights and enacting policies and practices that have inflicted too many injuries. Too much trauma. And yes, too many deaths–including Renee Good and Alex Pretti–deaths that were surely preventable. 

In January, the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements joined together to jointly condemn the violent enforcement of American immigration law and the lack of warrants and due process—actions that are all too easy to see as the gateway to the infringement of other individual liberties. So, too, in our fight against rising antisemitism, we have deep concern about how this fight is being weaponized in a manner that curtails other freedoms. 

The most consequential choice before us now is how we respond to this rising tide of challenges. Retreating inward or asserting superiority are defensive postures that will only lead us backward. We must discern our highest values in the face of overwhelming complexity and then act on those values.  

Jews have been safest in pluralistic democracies and most at risk when those democracies falter or are abandoned. So, for the health of our community and the societies that have nurtured us and so many others, let us commit ourselves to the following: 

We can deepen our Jewish identities. We must invest in creating robust, confident Jewish identities for ourselves and for the next generation, enabling them to draw on Jewish wisdom and practice, providing a solid foundation for them to encounter the world, a world full of potential and a world that includes rising antisemitism, with confidence strength, and to feel abiding connection with Jews around the world and across time and space. 

We must build up effective coalitions, both within and beyond the Jewish community, including ones that were strained or broken after October 7, including ones where we do not agree on every issue. Internally, we must work on the broadest coalitions that presume that all Jews vehemently oppose antisemitism and seek conditions for Jews to flourish, and that do not draw red lines legitimating particular expressions of Jewish peoplehood. Externally, we must see and act on the concerns of allies and potential allies so that we can ask them to see and act on our concerns as well. From a pragmatic minimum, we must show up for others. From an ethical maximum, these relationships must not be transactional: They should be expressions of shared commitments and real relationships. Only then can we call them out if and when they do not show up for us.  

This includes continuing the work to dismantle systemic racism. I vehemently reject the premise that battling antisemitism supersedes fighting racism. They are intertwined. Pursuing racial justice work is critical, enabling white Jews to understand and undo the harm of structural racism to all people of color, Jewish and non-Jewish, empowering us to be potent allies and strengthening the structures and the practice of pluralism and democracy. 

Finally, we must stay engaged with what is happening in America and in Israel. The only way the extremist visions espoused by others become fully realized is if regular people like us check out. That is how democracy dies and our futures get hijacked. 

We are all here at this convention because we are called letaken olam, to repair the world.  And there is work to do. You know that, J Street, and your commitment to Israel, to peace, and democracy broadly is inspiring—even as it invokes strong passion, emotional responses, and, at times, disagreement. We can navigate complexity. We can stay in relationship. We can hold true to our values. 

Oseh shalom, maker of peace, help us to use all our capacities—our voices, our votes, our visions, our partnerships—to make peace for all Israel and for all who dwell on earth. 

—From J Street Convention 2026 | March 1, 2026