“Justice, justice you will pursue, so that you will live and you will inherit the land that God is giving to you” (Deuteronomy 16:20).

Though some translations differ slightly, the message is clear: Our promise of the Land of Israel is not unconditional. We must earn it. 

Courtesy

Government officials, CEOs and leaders from Florida visit Kibbutz Kfar Aza on the Gaza border in February 2024. The Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County brought its first delegation of non-Jewish community leaders to Israel to explore the country and its people and bear witness just months after the Oct. 7 attacks.

Since October 7, I have had the unique privilege to join Palm Beach County leaders who are not Jewish on their first visits to Israel. These trips, led by Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County’s Palm Beach Center to Combat Antisemitism and Hatred, were meant to show them the reality of Israel, which we certainly accomplished. But for me, the trips did much more. They revealed a broader conversation, a discussion too often forgotten, that extends beyond how Israel or the Jewish community is impacted in the world today. 

On these trips, we asked people to see the reality Israel and world Jewry face every day. We asked them to understand Israel and the Jewish People, including our complexities. Despite the reporting and the world outcry against Israel and how it is used to fuel hatred against us, they came to see the real Israel as it truly is, good and bad. 

As each day unfolded, their eyes opened. We gained friends and allies. They have spoken up for us. They have shared their experiences. What we hoped for occurred. 

But something else, something unexpected, happened as well.

Just as their eyes opened, so did mine. I learned from them as they did from us. The plight we face is not one we face alone. Antisemitism, now often manifested in the form of anti-Zionism, is the world’s oldest hate, but it is not the world’s only hate. As we walked through Yad Vashem, several of us from the Jewish, Black and Hispanic communities discussed the parallels between the prejudice and fear-mongering that facilitated Hitler’s rise to power and the hatred we see today: the intentional effort to create a misperception of the other, to scapegoat, to ignore and erase history. We discussed what happened to the Jews in Europe then, is happening to Jews and Israel now and is also happening to other marginalized groups, including those that were represented on our trip. 

I had to question how I could ask for their support if I was not supporting them. To be clear, I thought I had been supporting them, but I learned that I had been seeing that support through my lens, not theirs. Our discussions showed me that what I believed was support was not always experienced that way, just as many of them thought they supported the Jewish community when I did not see it that way. One member of the community said to me, after leaving Yad Vashem, said that he understands that we need support, but also asked me where we have been. Why did we not hear from you when the state was removing our history from our schools? He was right. I had not made the call to ask how I could help or what support he needed.

Support, I learned, is in the eye of the beholder.

Going into these trips, like many of us, I questioned how, given the history of Jews in America, “they” did not stand with “us.” But, as we walked together through Yad Vashem, we could not help but notice parallels in the world today, not just relative to Jews but to other marginalized groups. I was forced to see that my mindset was putting “us” before “them.” 

I asked why my friends hadn’t called me after the Oct. 7 attacks. My perspective. What I didn’t ask was why I hadn’t called when my friends were the targets, even if not as violently so. Their perspective. I had to ask what more I could do. 

The problem with my question is that I still don’t know the answer. There is no single, simple resolution, and what feels right for me may not be right for everyone. Still, that does not dismiss me from my responsibility to search for that answer. Whatever that answer may be, it must begin with striving toward the mandate to pursue justice, and to find ways to support Israel that do not come at the expense of my support of others. 

Does this impact my philanthropy? My social media presence? How I communicate and what I chose to say? My politics? Even my personal discussions with friends? 

All of the above.

I support Israel, the people and the land. I advocate. I give. I plant my feet — literally and figuratively — and I pray, just as I do for my own country. 

I have also been given the gift of seeing that this is not enough. I must earn Israel by the pursuit of justice, not just for myself but for all who need it. 

Part of that means supporting others who are targets of hate or who have been systematically diminished, as we ourselves have been throughout history. To earn Israel, to truly support Israel, I must pursue justice for its own sake, without expectation of anything in return. I must do so for all who are afflicted, all who are in need, all who are the targets as we are ourselves.

My love of Israel is deep. Thanks to the courageous non-Jewish leaders I have been blessed to come to know, I am more than ever committed to earning the land that was promised to us. Part of that is my commitment to “them” as well as “us.” No matter how difficult that may be at times. 

After all, if I am for myself only, what am I?

Brian M. Seymour is the newly-installed chair of the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County. Seymour has served in dozens of leadership positions throughout Jewish Palm Beach, including most recently as chair of the Federation’s Israel and Overseas committee. He is also a member of the board of trustees for Jewish Federations of North America, a former chair of its Emergency Committee, and a member of its Rebuilding Israel Committee. Seymour is a shareholder at the statewide law firm, Gunster, where he co-chairs its real property practice.