New York Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove says his congregants need to hear not just AIPAC and ADL and J Street opposing the Amnesty report on Israeli apartheid. But from him too, “for Zion’s sake.” “Israel is part and parcel to my Jewish identity, it’s central to my vision of the rabbinate, and as long as I’m the rabbi of Park Avenue [Synagogue], it will remain central to the mission of this synagogue.”

The Israeli government minister Nachman Shai says that a “crisis” is coming between the U.S. government and Israel over the Iran deal, and Israel will need American Jews to come to its side. “During many crises… many issues between Israel and the United States, American Jewry has always been there supporting Israel,” he told the Park Avenue Synagogue.

French writer Bernard-Henri Levy makes an absurd assertion on Kristallnacht anniversary– that just as Jews ignored the warning signs of the coming storm in 1938, they are ignoring signs now; “anti-Zionism and hatred of Israel” are “black stars which are above our heads, which are still under control for the moment but which could be the prelude to the worst.”

At a time when some American Jewish congregations are avoiding the Israel subject as divisive, the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York has doubled down on its support for the “Jewish state,” and that support was rewarded during its Rosh Hashanah service with a video speech from Israel’s Foreign Minister, Yair Lapid, who told the congregation that Israel loves American Jews and is waiting for them to come to Israel.