Above all, we should be sharing our support for Israel in loving and passionate ways.

Be thoughtful in conversations and educate yourself about the situation. If we have the funds, we should send them to organizations that are extension of our hands and hearts.  We should be informed without becoming overwhelmed (hard to do).  If we have friends and family in Israel  be in touch without expecting responses, just let people know we are present and we are praying.  Yes, we should pray.  And hold each other up here and there and when there is a rally we should show up.  And if there is an opportunity to be in Israel we should go, especially those of us in the position to take the time and have the network that allows us to do so.  We don’t want to be in the way, but we do want to help our family in Israel find a way to cope.

And then there is this.

We must find a way to stand as one even in our angry disagreements. Can we possibly table the anger while holding the difference? I cling to the ever-fading hope that we can, at least when there is real conflict in the State of Israel, when there is war and the names of dying soldiers are released, when we are weeping over life and death, that maybe we somehow could observe a ceasefire of words.

Maybe we could learn to not bicker with each other, to for a few days stop drowning each other out when we don’t like what this Jews does or what that Jew says, when your organization and mine don’t agree.

We are, at our roots, a people known to sit around tables of disagreement and yet, those roots are withering. I fear we are a long journey away from that dream and I see it ripping apart the fabric of a community that, I still have the audacity to believe, can do a better job of unifying at least in times of strife.

We have sacrificed our unity on an alter of indignant certainty.

What should WE be doing?  We should all engage with Israel.  We should worry less about being right and more about finding the right path to engagement.

And for those seeking practical and attainable actions, shop on line with your favorite Israeli merchant.  Or call them and order another something.

Be persistent in your love and when this war ends (may it be soon), stick around and be an advocate for Israel well into the future.  She needs us when the normal tensions return.