“I am writing this letter to you at a time of great urgency for our country and the Jewish people.  I have not been so alarmed about the future of America and Israel since I was in college during the Vietnam War and Israel’s wars of survival in 1967 and 1973.
 
“I believe the choice of our country’s next president will determine the future of our country’s most fundamental values, including the protection of civil liberties and individual freedoms like a woman’s right to choose and the separation of church and state.
 
“Equally important, Israel’s survival may depend on the decisions of the next president. I believe that John McCain and Sarah Palin are the wrong choice to be our new national leaders at this crucial time.”
 
So begins Robert Bildner’s compelling case for Obama as we stand at the threshold of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.   Rabbi Arthur Green, in turn, draws out the great risks our nation and planet face if we continue down the Bush-Cheney path of environmental irresponsibility, a course McCain and Palin will follow, with our environmental policy dictated by the oil companies. 
 
If 5739 is to be a year of health, security, prosperity and flourishing for America, for the Jewish community and for Israel, a year of true renewal, it must be the year in which the catastrophic economic, healthcare, national security, civil rights, environmental, social and foreign policies of the Republican Right are brought to an end and replaced with a new vision.   This New Year must be the year of Obama. 
 
It must be the year in which more Americans than ever before — Jews foremost among them — see through the lies and deceit, the lashon hara, that pass so often for electoral politics in this country.   It must be the year in which we refuse any longer to allow fear to cloud our grasp of the dangers and opportunities we face, to confound our capacity to act rightly. 

 

It must be the year in which we as a nation and a people begin again to walk down the path of righteousness and wisdom which the Jewish tradition calls on us to tread.   It must be the year in which we as Jews begin our return to Jewish values.  
 
We must strive together, rededicating ourselves to reach the summit, avoiding complacency and hubris, to make 5739 dramatically different from its predecessor.  

 

We must make this New Year the Shana Obama.