The story of the Jewish people often unfolds in moments of crisis. The past two years mark one of those chapters. It began in the darkness of Oct. 7, 2023, and moved toward the bittersweet relief of watching our people return home from captivity. In those months, the global Jewish community discovered a unity born of necessity. We stood together because no alternative existed. We marched, we advocated and we supported one another because our shared survival required it.

Now, the immediate existential fog has lifted. The rhythms of democratic life have returned, in Israel and in the United States alike, along with the tensions of election seasons. A harder test stands before us. Can we sustain our cohesion when tragedy no longer forces it upon us?

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We must build unity by choice.

In our work at the Conference of Presidents, we see every day that our community is not a monolith. It is a mosaic of religious commitments, political convictions, and lived experiences. We sit at tables where leaders disagree sharply about judicial reform, American foreign policy, and the path forward in Gaza, yet choose to remain in the room and continue the conversation. Our strength never depended on uniformity. It rests on belonging and mutual responsibility. Real resilience means holding deep disagreements without allowing them to fracture our shared enterprise.

This week, we lead a mission of 70 leaders from across the American Jewish spectrum to Israel. At a moment of healing, we represent the broad center of our community, those who refuse to allow partisan anger to hollow out communal responsibility. Election seasons in both countries heighten passions. Algorithms elevate the loudest and most extreme voices, and a single post can define someone as an enemy within minutes. We reject that dynamic. If we can stand shoulder to shoulder on the National Mall in Washington with fellow Jews whose politics differ sharply from our own, we can approach a ballot box without severing the bonds that sustain us.

Jewish continuity depends on reclaiming machloket l’shem Shamayim, argument for the sake of Heaven. This tradition demands more than surface civility. It calls for intellectual humility and the discipline to assume good faith. No political movement holds a monopoly on Jewish wisdom. When we argue constructively, we recognize one another not as adversaries to defeat, but as partners in shaping the Jewish future.

The return of the hostages offers a powerful lesson. When we worked for their freedom, we did not ask how they voted or where they stood on policy debates. We acted because they were ours. That unconditional responsibility must guide our internal discourse. We proved that we can fight for one another in moments of terror and grief. Now we must show that we can live with one another in moments of choice.

The cost of failure is not abstract. A fractured community weakens our advocacy in Washington, strains our partnership with Israel and diminishes our credibility when we speak in defense of Jewish security and democratic values. Our mission affirms that intense internal debate does not dilute our external resolve. We choose to move from a unity shaped by shared vulnerability to a unity shaped by shared purpose. That purpose requires us to build a canopy broad enough to shelter the observant and the secular, the progressive and the conservative, the American and the Israeli, each bound to the same collective future.

As we enter the debates and decisions ahead, we urge our community to guard its empathy. Let us vote. Let us debate. We will disagree. But we must never forget that we remain one people. History bound us together in crisis. Our character will determine whether we remain united by choice.

Betsy Berns Korn is the chair and William Daroff is the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the central coordinating body representing 50 national Jewish organizations on issues of national and international concern. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the positions of all member organizations.