Rosh HaShana 2010 / 5771
Dear friend,
My name is Dr. Moises Salinas and I’m the new President of Meretz USA.
I’m writing today to enlist you in an ambitious mission: Together, you and I and thousands more are going to reclaim American Zionism, infuse it with new hope, and refill it with the progressive values by which it once was recognized.
Several months ago, in a groundbreaking essay, Dr. Peter Beinart warned that American Zionism has reached a perilous crossroads. Articulating what many of us have been sensing for years, Dr. Beinart reported that at the same time that more and more young, liberal American Jews are giving up on Zionism, a growing percentage of American Zionist activists are giving up on liberalism, and abandoning the vocabulary of peace, democracy and human rights.
With your help, Meretz USA will stem this bad tide. With your generous support, Meretz USA will forge the tools needed for our daughters and sons, granddaughters and grandsons to fuse their liberal, progressive values with a deep, long-lasting connection to Israel.
In his now famous essay, Dr. Beinart challenges the American Zionist establishment to move past its uncritical thinking on Israel, and become “a Zionism angry at what Israel risks becoming, and in love with what it still could be”. That’s exactly where Meretz USA has been all along!
Because my children and yours should never be forced to choose between love of Israel and their love of all humankind, I urge you to support Meretz USA today with as large a gift as your means allow.
Before I let you read more about what Meretz USA has been doing, let me just say what a wonderful opportunity I have been given to lead an organization that traces its roots to the early days of Zionism, but whose message remains as relevant to Israel’s future, and to the future of American Jewry, as it ever was.
With best wishes for peace as we enter the new Jewish year, 5771,
L’ Shana Tova,
Moises Salinas
President, Meretz USA
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