I’ve been thinking about Federation’s role in Jewish life. To be fair, I’m pretty much always thinking about this. But I’m looking at the swirl of everything going on in our world, and wondering what is it that we owe our community in this moment?

As the sociologist Robert Bellah might put it (a reference I’m borrowing from a recent meeting of our Governing Board), some communities find strength in internal alignment while others rely on a series of interconnected bridges to stay strong and cohesive. Our community is likely best defined as a combination of the two. We hold a common commitment to a strong and vibrant Jewish community while operating across a breadth of differences. We must therefore continue building durable throughways to ensure we stay connected to Jewish life and each other.

This, of course, includes our work to engage our community with Israel. Core to our strategy is the goal to engage the full range of our community with the full range of Israeli society according to our community members’ own interests. This year, we’ll be continuing to work with Jewish organizations across our community to build out opportunities for more people to learn about and connect with Israel.

Additionally, as I wrote this week in partnership with scholar Ted Sasson, The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington is a Zionist organization. And as such, we have a responsibility to live up to our definition of the term and show people that Zionism is “broad enough to accommodate a community of Jews who hold (or grapple with) attitudes about Israel that span the range from the right to the left.”

After all, the latest JFNA study found that a majority of American Jews are struggling with specific Israeli government policies, even as they continue to believe in a Jewish, democratic homeland and Israel’s right to exist. If we care about a vibrant Jewish community, we cannot ignore this. We owe it to those deeply troubled by Israel’s actions to continue engaging them and creating the conditions for open dialogue and authentic connections with Israel and Israelis.

On a local note, our latest pulse survey found that political and social disagreements are the number one driver of disengagement with Jewish life and community. After issues of safety and antisemitism, Jews in the DC area rank political polarization as one of the most critical issues facing Jewish Greater Washington. More and more, I see a core part of Federation’s role as not only mitigating this crisis but turning our unique communal makeup into a source of strength.

Disagreement need not mean distance. Uncertainty need not mean isolation. What’s going on in the world, and certainly in Israel, is complicated and, for many, deeply personal. What matters is not that we arrive at the same conclusions but that we feel comfortable and, better yet, moved to meet each other on those bridges and find a way forward together.