The picnic lunch that we planned with friends last Rosh Hashanah had to be relocated from the park to the courtyard outside our synagogue in our small northern Israeli town. We had to be close enough to a bomb shelter in case of a missile attack by Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Israel, at the time, was in the throes of Operation Northern Arrows, a major ground campaign in southern Lebanon against the Iran-backed terror group. 

This year, such precautions are not front-of-mind for most Israelis, even as the war in Gaza drags on and Yemen’s Houthis continue to fire ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, mainly to the country’s center and its southern tip of Eilat. Over the past Jewish year, Israel has significantly diminished the capabilities of Hezbollah and set back Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. And yet, nearly two years after the Oct. 7 terror attacks, 48 hostages remain captive in Gaza, and the Israeli military estimates that its latest offensive against Hamas in Gaza City will take at least several months, despite diminishing support for the war within Israeli society.

Israel’s national security is only one way in which the coming year differs from last. There is a new president in the White House, albeit one serving his second term in office, along with a Republican majority in Congress, which are both advancing policies with profound effects on philanthropy and the Jewish community: from changes to the tax code that are expected to reduce charitable giving to cuts to federal grants, which philanthropic foundations are increasingly being called in to fill.

The coming year may be one of the most consequential in Israel’s relationship with the Diaspora, particularly American Jewry. Yesterday’s rhetorical recognition of Palestinian statehood by a growing list of Western countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, may prompt the Israeli government to formally annex the West Bank, effectively ending the prospect of a two-state solution. “There will be no Palestinian state to the west of the Jordan River,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared in response to the recognition. 

Though it has decreased over the years, the majority of American Jews still support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, according to a 2024 Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs study, as do most major American Jewish organizations. This is even as a recent Tel Aviv University poll found that support for such an arrangement has reached an all-time low among Jewish Israelis, more of whom back annexation without granting citizenship rights to Palestinians. (For the first time, less than a majority of British Jews support the two-state solution, though it remains the most popular option, according to the Jewish Policy Research Institute.) 

What American Jewish support for Israel — political and philanthropic — will look like if its government goes ahead with annexation, even partial annexation, may be a defining question of the coming year and for years to come. If until now, more progressive American Jews could continue to support Israel despite their discomfort with its military rule over Palestinians because the arrangement was temporary, decisive action by Israel to solidify that control over the West Bank and its non-citizen population may accelerate the existing distancing of American Jews from the Jewish state. 

Of course, de jure annexation has not happened yet, and the last time that it was floated, in 2020, Israel ultimately decided against the move in favor of normalized ties with parts of the Arab world through the Abraham Accords, whose five-year anniversary was marked last week.

Alongside the differences, this coming year is also seeing the continuation of existing trends. 

Security concerns remain a top priority during these High Holy Days, following two deadly attacks on Jewish events over the past year, as well as multiple arson attacks on synagogues, Jewish institutions and Jewish figures around the world. Though the number of antisemitic events recorded by watchdogs like the Anti-Defamation League decreased last year compared to the year before, the threat they pose has not diminished.

Though “the Surge” has dropped off since it was first identified in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks, that increased engagement in the Jewish world has continued and still represents an opportunity for Jewish organizations to bring fresh faces into the Jewish community and capitalize on the existing ones looking to do more. This is true for participation in programs and religious services — and for philanthropic donations. This trend of increased engagement comes alongside a parallel trend of decreased engagement. Indeed, a recent study by the UJA-Federation of New York shows that while 16% of respondents said they were increasingly participating in JCC events, 6% said they were participating less.

Though Israel is still at war, the country is increasingly shifting to reconstruction and to navigating a new reality in which the country’s social services receive a smaller share of the state budget. The fissures in Israeli society that had been pushed to the back burner in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks — between right and left, religious and secular, Haredi and non-Haredi, Arab and Jewish — have come screaming back.

We bring in 5786 at a fraught time, and many of the people steering us through it are deeply concerned. A recent survey by M²: The Institute for Experiential Jewish Education found that only a small minority of Jewish communal professionals — 24% — feel hopeful about the future. In light of all of the aforementioned challenges, it is not hard to understand why. 

But as we begin reading the Rosh Hashanah liturgy, we are reminded that our fates are not yet sealed. We have the power to ensure that the Jewish People are inscribed into the Book of Life for the coming year: “For repentance and prayer and charity annul the evil decree!”