Posted on September 14, 2026
When I first moved to the States 20 years ago, everything was new. And I didn’t exactly ease myself in by choosing somewhere with a familiar British or European feel. I went all in and moved to Los Angeles.
The language was sort of the same, but almost everything else felt different. I had to get used to driving on the right side of the road – that is to say the wrong side, restaurant portions large enough to provide three meals, and a level of friendliness I simply wasn’t prepared for. Everywhere I went, complete strangers seemed deeply invested in whether or not I had a nice day.
But the thing that made me feel most like a foreigner – constantly reminding me that I was living somewhere new – was the grocery store. American supermarkets were nothing like the ones I had grown up with. They were enormous, and everything was just familiar enough to be recognizable, but different enough to be completely unsettling.
I was a fish out of water until I found a life raft in those turbulent seas, a light house in the dark. Trader Joe’s. The first time I walked through those doors, I knew I had arrived. Trader Joe’s became my place. It was small enough to be manageable, the selection was limited enough to not overwhelm, and there were staff everywhere to be helpful. Gradually, a shopping experience became a beacon of familiarity. A place that felt like home.
To this day, Trader Joe’s is part of my day-off ritual. You will find me there chatting with the cashiers and mindlessly filling my cart. When we lived in New York, I would drive 30 minutes, past multiple other grocery stores, just to walk those familiar aisles, enjoy the friendliness of the staff, and hunt for random seasonal items that appeared and disappeared as if by magic.
But now I’ve encountered another challenge, and it’s one I imagine many of you can relate to. I know the layout of our Framingham Trader Joe’s like the back of my hand. So when they have the audacity to rearrange the shelves and move things around, I am bereft.
I shouldn’t need to ask where to find the teeny tiny avocados or the peanut butter-filled pretzels. They should be in their regular place. In the correct place.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets disproportionately upset when they rearrange the aisles of a favorite store. There is something reassuring about finding things where they are supposed to be. And through that sense of knowing a place also comes a sense of comfort, and through that an awareness that we are in the right place, the place where we belong, where we are home.
When the aisles change, we stand in the same place, a place we have been hundreds of times before; but it is different. It has changed. The comfort is gone.
Twenty years after first moving to the States, I have intentionally made my home here. Several years ago, I became a citizen because I wanted to formalize my connection and place in this country. But while America is my home and feels like home, I am becoming aware of that old familiar and unwanted feeling – there is a sense of unease, of dislocation, of estrangement.
It feels like the world has been moving at a break-neck pace over the last few years, it is hard to catch one’s breath or to get a firm footing as the land appears to be shifting underneath our feet. So many of the assumptions that we took for granted, so many of the institutions that provided stability, so many of the partners that we relied upon, so many of the values we thought were universal – they have shifted in ways that leave us uncertain of our place. I imagine that this is happening for people across the globe. I am certain it is happening for many Americans. But I know that it is particularly acute for the Jewish community.
A feeling of displacement where we were once firmly rooted. A feeling of isolation where we once belonged. A feeling of estrangement where once we were welcomed. Homelessness
When we think about the last few years of American Jewish history, it is unfortunately clear that antisemitism has reemerged and taken root in ways that few could have imagined. This is not a problem of the right or the left; it is a problem of both extremes. And it is one which is infecting society as a whole and is compromising our political and civic systems.
The place of Jews on either side of the aisle has been questioned and challenged in ways that few of us would have imagined possible in America just a few years ago. This election cycle has brought the situation into sharp focus. Candidates running for their party’s nomination, and now some of them standing as the representatives of these parties, have said hateful and hurtful things, they have allied with antisemites, and they have given voice to rhetoric that should be, that once was, unacceptable. Whether you consider yourself Republican or Democrat, there are ways in which both major parties are no longer the home they once were.
Homelessness.
And for many Jews there has been another loss of home. We have stood shoulder to shoulder with partners in struggles for racial justice, LGBTQ+ equality, immigration reform, and the protection of vulnerable minorities. We believed that these were shared values, and that when one community was threatened we would stand together. And yet, especially since October 7th, there have been moments when those partnerships have felt painfully one-sided. We have watched organizations and individuals with whom we thought we shared a common moral language minimize antisemitism, exclude Jews because of a connection to Israel, or remain silent when we expected them to speak. Places and movements where many of us felt at home no longer feel as welcome or open.
Homelessness.
And then there is Israel. We are still living in the shadow of October 7th and all that was unleashed on that dreadful day. Israel, which was once a unifying factor in American politics and for the American Jewish community is not viewed in the way that she once was. Many of us feel a love and connection for the place and her people while struggling with the policies of her Government and the actions of extremist groups in the country. Our connection to Israel is a part of our Jewish identity, but we cannot express it fully in certain parts of society without fear of repercussion or retribution. And I know that there are some who struggle with their Israel connection and do not feel that they can share it fully in the Jewish community.
Homelessness
I grew up with an understanding that Jews could never have too many passports, because we never know when we will be forced to leave one place in search of a new home. I have taken this lesson to heart and personally hold three passports.
But in today’s world where would we actually go?
I want to be clear, I do not think that we have reached a moment where Jews should be packing our bags and moving. But I am sure we are not the only family who have talked about where we could go if it became necessary. And if I am honest, over the last couple of years, the places we would move is an ever-dwindling list. Both Canada and England have a serious antisemitism problem and the current Israeli Government is leading in a direction I cannot join. To illustrate how quickly the world is changing around us, in my first draft, I singled out Germany as a viable possibility. Germany, the country from which my grandmother fled. That same Germany felt like a potentially safe option. And then in between sermon drafts, the extreme right wing made significant electoral gains. So where does that leave us?
I believe that for many of us there has been a shift in our experience as American Jews. America is still our home – we have deep roots, we are invested in this country, we are committed to her future. And yet, the sense of security and belonging that once came so naturally can no longer be taken for granted. Something about the country has changed; our place within it feels less certain. It is like standing in those familiar aisles of the grocery store after everything has been moved around. We know where we are, we recognize the place, but we no longer know quite as instinctively where we fit.
We are home, and yet somehow we feel less at home.
This is not the first time in Jewish history that we have lost a sense of home and stability. When our sense of permanence has been challenged. When we have been forced to respond to challenging forces surrounding us. Our ancestors were called upon to question and reconsider their place in the world and their sense of home on countless occasions. And each time they found ways to survive and to rebuild, to establish new homes and communities.
We did this because we have always known that beyond bricks and mortar, beyond roots and foundations, there is something eternal and everlasting at the heart of Judaism.
I do not think it is an accident that our most sacred text of all – the Torah – is not a story about settling in a home and putting down deep roots. Instead, the text centers around our journey to a Promised Land, a journey throughout which our ancestors were challenged to recognize the Divine truths that do not change with location or place in the world.
Abraham and Sarah, who received the initial call from God, were told to embark on a journey, traveling towards a Promised Land that they did not know, and from which they were forced to leave and return on subsequent occasions.
We even received Torah in the wilderness. Perhaps this was to teach us that while the places we call home may change, the covenant, the values, and the stories that we carry are eternal.
And in the Jewish story, when one chapter closes, we have always found a way to turn the page and to begin writing something new.
Perhaps there is no better example of this than the Jewish response to one of the most catastrophic moments in our history. When the Romans ravaged Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple, we lost the place we called home. We lost our physical homes. We even lost the place that the people considered the home of God. In this moment, Jewish survival hung in the balance. The places and institutions we relied upon had disappeared before our eyes.
Homelessness.
How could Judaism endure without a Temple?
How could Jews survive without sovereignty in their homeland?
How could the community continue after this crushing defeat?
The Rabbis, in this moment of crisis, did not seek to find a way to return to the status quo, to maintain what had once been. Yes, they mourned for what was lost. But they then imagined something new, something that responded to the challenges of their contemporary moment, something that would speak to the people in this new reality.
Rabbinic Judaism moved from sacrifices to prayer, it built synagogues in place of the Temple, it centered Jewish practice on the family rather than the priesthood.
And what was once a crisis response to change and loss, has survived and thrived for almost two thousand years.
They found a way to preserve what was eternal while transforming what needed to change.
And the amazing thing about this rabbinic transformation is the way in which today, all that was once innovative and revolutionary is now considered ancient and traditional. The Judaism that we think of as having always been this way, was once the most revolutionary of ideas.
The response to a devastating homelessness has become home.
So I’m sure you’re all thinking, okay, what now? He’s laid out the problem, we’re feeling seen and validated, maybe a little bummed out. Now he’s going to give us the solution. Tell us what to do.
Oh how I want to. I’ve written multiple drafts, filled with a smattering of quasi-solutions. Half answers. Maxims. Adages. You know how we Rabbis like to do it. But it all rang hollow. Nothing felt quite right. Because the truth is, as difficult as it is to accept, I don’t have all of the answers. I’m not even sure I have one of them. But I will tell you what I do have: Hope.
I have hope because I know that in moments of crisis, the Jewish community has always found ways to not simply survive, but to thrive. I have hope because over thousands of years, Judaism has reinvented and reimagined itself in new ways that spoke to the contemporary moment. Again and again and again. And I have hope because of you. Because you are here. Because you showed up.
Showing up. It’s not a small thing. Yes, we lament those that haven’t shown up for us in recent years. It is indeed a loss worth mourning. But more important is how we show up for each other. And we in the Jewish community aren’t doing it enough. We have to spend less time waiting for other communities to show up for us, and spend more time showing up for us. For all of us, and not just the people in this community. We have to show up for our people.
When we show up for each other, it gives me hope.
This is not a moment for a single leader or any individual institution to offer all of the answers. This is a moment for leaders and institutions to listen and make space for the creativity and ingenuity of their people. It is a moment for the community to come together and dream and reimagine the future.
So what is it that you imagine? What is your dream for our community? What is your vision for our future? For your children’s and grandchildren’s future? What do you want home to look like?
Hope. I have hope because even if that doesn’t feel like home right now; this, this, this is still home. You. My community. You are still home. This is my home. And this is yours. This will always be home. These people. Our people will always be home.
I have hope, because I look around this room and see all of you.
When the aisles in the grocery store change, it is disorientating and it can leave us feeling lost and unsure of our place. But we still have the power to choose how we respond. We can complain, we can leave the grocery store, or we can put one foot in front of the other, find those peanut-butter filled pretzels and learn how to navigate this new reality.
Saying that America feels less secure and stable as our home today, is not the same as saying that America is no longer our home. Instead, it is a call to action.
The aisles of American society may have changed and our sense of where we fit may be less certain. We may not be able to put everything back where it once was, and perhaps we shouldn’t even try. But we still have the power to choose how we navigate this new reality. We can rise to face this moment. We can find our place again. We will find our way home.
