Israel needs a reset — and the Diaspora has earned the right to say so.

We are one people. It’s time Israel treated us like the true partners we want to be.

photo: Chris Hearn/Unsplash

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This is a guest essay by Adam Hummel, a lawyer in Toronto.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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Since October 7, 2023, Diaspora Jews have mobilized in ways unseen in modern memory.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have flowed from Toronto, New York, London, and Melbourne into hospitals, recovery centres, displaced families, trauma programmes, and security infrastructure in Israel.

Rabbis have turned their pulpits into rally podiums. Business owners have risked reputations to stand up publicly for Israel. University students have fought back against mobs, risking their educational and career opportunities, all in support of our messy and beautiful Zionist project.

True, we have not fought bravely on the battlefields of Gaza or Lebanon, in the sea abutting Yemen or in the air above Iran, (though many of our sons and daughters have traveled to Israel to do just that), but the Diaspora has bled with Israel — emotionally, politically, and in some ways physically.

We have done what a scattered people do when their brothers and sisters are under attack: We show up. And with that, we have earned the right to ask something back.

Israel must now meet the moment, too.

I respectfully request from Israel a change. Not a thank-you note or photo-op, but something tangible. The Diaspora has proven that loyalty is not conditional on convenience, but loyalty does not mean silence. And I ask this only because I have no doubt that Israel can walk and chew gum at the same time. It can defend the homeland and listen to requests from abroad.

Israel has always been a country that multitasks like it’s a competitive sport. In 1949, it wrapped up a war, absorbed waves of shattered refugees, printed its first passports, and declared itself a functioning state. In the 1960s, it squared off against existential threats while building universities, draining swamps, inventing drip irrigation, and arguing about everything under the sun, all at once.

In the 1990s, it fought terror, welcomed a million new immigrants from the former Soviet Union, launched a tech revolution, and tried again (heroically, naively, pick your adjective) to negotiate peace.

And now, in 2025, with the recent war largely behind us, the country’s to-do list hasn’t gotten shorter. It’s time to rebuild, rethink, and remind the world that Israel doesn’t wait for perfect conditions; it just gets on with the work. As former Member of Knesset Einat Wilf recently said, Israel must go from an exile mentality to a sovereignty mentality, temporary to permanent.¹

Here’s where I think that begins vis-a-vis its relationship with the Diaspora, with eight simple asks.

1) A New Election, Immediately

It’s time. Many Israelis and Diaspora Jews know it, much of the world knows it. The current government has failed to deliver true safety and unity. Tragically, it is mired in division at a time when we need clarity and cohesion.

The unity war cabinet that briefly gave Israelis hope dissolved into bickering and blame. The country’s leadership has turned survival into a slogan and accountability into an afterthought. This is not to opine on the way this war was fought; frankly, I believe that any Prime Minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s shoes would have fought the exact same war, but it is now time to ask, “What’s next?”

Diaspora Jews cannot vote, but we can speak. And we should. Israel needs a reset. It needs an election not because we want chaos, but because we crave legitimacy. A newly elected government won’t fix everything overnight, but it will reintroduce trust, and trust is what keeps nations alive, and democracies thriving, when enemies try to break them.

Of course, there’s a chance that Netanyahu’s Likud party will emerge victorious again. And if that’s what the people choose, so be it — but it must be their fresh mandate, not the stale fumes of a government that lost much of the country’s confidence on October 7th. It’s time for Israelis to speak, for the system to reset, and for a wounded nation to choose its future with clear eyes and a steady hand.

2) A Permanent Diaspora Committee in the Knesset

We are stakeholders in the Jewish future, and that future is not only bounded by the Mediterranean. But we do not yet have a voice in the conversations that shape Jewish destiny. Often, we are told that because we do not fight in Israel’s wars or sacrifice our children on the battlefields, that we do not have that say. But I dare say the battlefield has expanded, and we are, in fact, fighting on another front, yes, less deadly, but nevertheless important.

It is time for a formal, institutionalized mechanism — a standing committee of the Knesset, composed of elected Diaspora representatives — to sit at the table when issues of Jewish identity, conversion, the Law of Return, and global antisemitism (especially antisemitism, even when cloaked in “anti-Zionism”) are debated. It can sit alongside or be incorporated somehow into the already-existing Committee for Immigration, Absorption, and Diaspora Affairs.

Let me be clear: This is not about meddling in Israel’s sovereignty. It is about recognizing that the Jewish nation is global, and that Israel, as the nation-state of the Jewish People, cannot define itself in isolation from that people. Israel can only speak for world Jewry when it listens to world Jewry. This is one surefire way to get that done.

3) Reform how Israel communicates with the world.

If there has been one failure since October 8, 2023, it is that Israel has utterly failed to explain itself to the world. For years, it has relied oftentimes on clumsy spokespeople, angry tweets, and tone-deaf talking points. The result is that Israel’s enemies now wholly own the narrative, and the Diaspora has been left to fight a propaganda war we didn’t start and shouldn’t have to fight alone.

Israel and its government needs a serious, credible, English-speaking communicator — not a political hack, but someone with stature and moral authority. A modern Abba Eban meets Mark Regev meets Eylon Levy meets Jonathan Conricus, who can speak calmly, fluently, and persuasively to the world’s media, universities, and parliaments. Someone who understands that explaining Israel is not a colonial act, but a moral one.

If Israel can build world-class technology, it can build a world-class communications strategy. Right now, it has memes where it needs messages. The truth is on Israel’s side, but unless it finds someone who can actually tell it, the world will keep listening to everyone else’s lies.

4) Reclaim Jewish unity from political faction.

Diaspora Jews are exhausted by watching our sacred symbols dragged through partisan mud. The kippah, the flag, the IDF uniform — these are not the property of one ideology.

We want Israel to rediscover the spirit of October 8th: when the country came together not as right or left, but as Jews. When the only question was, “How can I help?” It is the sort of communitarianism that once existed in Israel when they were developing the national water carrier, or ways to absorb millions of new immigrants.

I submit the Diaspora has in many respects done a good job modelling that unity. In synagogues and community centres across the world, Jews of every denomination and political leaning stood together. We sang Hatikvah (Israel’s national anthem) shoulder to shoulder with people we hadn’t spoken to in years. We rediscovered that Jewishness is not something you agree with but rather something you belong to.

Israeli civil society also modelled that behaviour. When the government didn’t show up, they did for one another. I heard Israelis say that in the days following October 7th, they felt they did not have a mother or father, but they had plenty of brothers and sisters. But now the state needs to step up, put politics aside, and rediscover its reason for being.

We want Israel to build a unity coalition that doesn’t just manage a war, but builds a nation in heart and soul.

5) A ‘Birthright 2.0’ for Israelis

For 25 years, Diaspora Jews have sent their young people to Israel to discover their identity, on the program called Taglit-Birthright Israel.

Now it’s time to reverse it: Reverthright™? There are plenty of Israeli philanthropic dollars available, and maybe even some Diaspora funds too. Every young Israeli (soldier, student, volunteer, and entrepreneur) should spend a few weeks in Jewish communities abroad. Let them see how their cousins live, fight, and pray without a Jewish majority around them.

If we want Israelis to understand the global Jewish reality, they need to experience not just what makes our communities remarkable, but also the vulnerability we live with each day.

6) Create a global Jewish Resilience Fund.

Every time there’s a war or wave of antisemitism, we scramble to fundraise. Enough of the panic. Israel and major Diaspora Federations should jointly create a permanent Jewish Resilience Fund, a standing pool for crisis response, security infrastructure, trauma care, and educational defence.

We’ve proven we can mobilize. We know the fight’s not over. Now we should institutionalize it together.

7) Reconnect with the Jewish story, not just the Jewish state.

Let’s stop treating Zionism as a political campaign; it’s a covenant.

The Diaspora has kept Jewish culture, learning, and identity alive in exile for two millennia. We have raised generations who pray for Israel’s peace even when it costs them socially and professionally. But Israel must meet us halfway by nurturing the spirit of Jewish purpose that makes the state more than just another nation.

Invest in Jewish education, in Hebrew literacy abroad, in exchanges that go both ways. Please stop the quiet condescension toward Diaspora life. We are not “lesser” Jews; we are your mirror, your partners, your proof that the Jewish story did not and does not end at a border.

For those who wish to respond to this by simply saying: “You don’t like the Diaspora? Move to Israel then!” I say: “Moving to Israel is just not an option for everyone, and a vibrant Diaspora helps a prosperous Israel.”

8) A National Remembrance for October 7th That Includes Diaspora Victims

Dozens of Jews from the Diaspora were murdered on October 7th or have fought and died since, in Israel’s defence and honour. The official day of remembrance should honour all of them as one family.

This includes, for example, Paul Kessler, who died in California in November 2023 after an altercation with a keffiyeh-clad thug; Zvi Kogan, an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi residing in the United Arab Emirates who was abducted and killed in November 2024; Karen Diamond, who died from injuries sustained during a molotov-cocktail attack in Boulder, Colorado, in June 2025; and Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz who were killed on October 2, 2025 during the Yom Kippur attack at their synagogue in Manchester, UK.

Their sacrifice is not secondary; it’s proof that “never again” isn’t a slogan, but a covenant that transcends citizenship.

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The relationship between Israel and the Diaspora has always been complicated: part romance, part argument, part destiny. For two years, that relationship has been tested in fire. The Diaspora has held firm. There was never any doubt we would.

Now, we have something to ask of Israel.

We will never stop defending her. But love without honesty is idolatry. And Israel was never meant to be worshipped; it was meant to be built.

We have built it with our hands, our money, and our hearts. Now we ask, with love and pride: Build it better, with everything both you, and we, can offer.

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1. “A New Vision for Israel – with Dr. Einat Wilf.” Boundless Insights - with Aviva Klompas.