Rosh Hashanah 2026: October 7 awakened Jewish connection – now we must make it last – opinion by William Daroff (JPost)

Every Rosh Hashanah, Jews stand before the uncertainty of another year, asking: “Who shall live and who shall die?”

But its ending does not restore what was lost.

Perhaps that is the right image for this Rosh Hashanah. Not blazing sunlight. Not the pretense that all is well, with war, antisemitism, Jew-hatred, and uncertainty still very much with us. A whisper of sun.

And yet something remarkable has been happening among the Jewish people since October 7.

Jewish Federations of North America documented what became known as the “Surge”: American Jews seeking greater connection to Jewish life and one another. In 2024, 43% reported engaging more or seeking to engage more. A year later, 31 percent were still seeking greater Jewish engagement.

Part of that turn inward was surely a response to the antisemitism and Jew-hatred that followed October 7. Feeling more vulnerable in the world around them, many Jews turned more deliberately toward one another. That response to hostility also led many Jews toward community, identity, learning, and belonging.

We usually translate teshuvah as repentance. But teshuvah literally means return. Since October 7, we have witnessed a remarkable one.

I saw another expression of that return last week, when I chaired the third gathering of the J50 Forum at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. Leaders representing the 50 largest Jewish communities in the world came together from different countries, speaking different languages and facing very different challenges. Yet beneath those differences was an unmistakable recognition that we remain one people.

What the Surge represents for individual Jews, I saw in Jerusalem among Jewish communities: a renewed instinct to turn toward one another.

Jewish unity does not mean Jewish unanimity. We disagree about Israel, politics, religion, and almost everything else. But beneath those arguments lies a bond of peoplehood and a responsibility to one another.

Crisis brought many Jews through our doors. Our task is to give them reasons to stay when crisis no longer does.

In a world of endless distractions and demands on our attention, we are all Jews by choice. Jewish connection cannot be taken for granted. It is incumbent upon us to create as many on-ramps as possible for Jewish engagement and to build communities where people can enter, learn, participate, and belong.

Invite them back.

Make room for the Jew who does not know the prayers. Welcome the person who has never attended a Shabbat dinner. Answer the questions of those only now wondering what Judaism might mean in their lives. Build communities in which Jews encounter not merely the Jew-hatred directed against them, but the civilization, learning, friendship, memory, joy, and obligation that belong to them.

During Hersh’s captivity, Rachel Goldberg-Polin began her mornings with a command to herself: “Hope is mandatory.”

It was not a prediction that everything would turn out well. Tragically, it did not. It was a way to keep going when despair would have been easier.

Rosh Hashanah asks something similar of us. We do not know what will be written in the Book of Life or what 5787 will bring. We enter the year carrying the murdered of October 7, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, and the other hostages who did not come home alive, and all those we have lost since.

And still, we begin again.

Our responsibility is not to let this renewed connection fade as the immediate crisis recedes. We need to turn the Jewish awakening of these past years into lasting Jewish life and make sure that those who found an on-ramp know there is a place for them further down the road.

We cannot know what 5787 will bring. But we can choose how we will enter it.

Hope is mandatory.