Remarks by William D. Hess, President of AZM

Keeping American Zionism a Relevant and Robust Part of the Vision

There are three points I hope to make tonight demonstrating Zionism's relevance in the 21st Century and beyond:

Still, 60 years after its founding, Israel really is a good place for the Jews, as though there is another. We may have to fight to maintain her existence; but that always was part of the bargain. Israel is a job for world Jewry not just resident Israelis. It is a Zionist undertaking.
Our generation has a unique responsibility: ours is the first in over 2,000 years to be able to demonstrate Jewish competence in statecraft on our own behalf. We owe it to 6 million and many more Jews who went before us to be competent state builders and visionaries. Young Jews today need to find in themselves the rationale underpinning the concept of Jewish self-determination, to recall a phrase from the 1950's and 60's. Zionism provides that rationale.
The American Jewish Community has some work to do on its own behalf in order to best serve itself and the state of Israel. The Zionist Movement has a central role to play in the "re-Jew-venation" of the American Jewish Community. That role is to be the ideological gadfly that Zionism has always been: giving shape to the body of the people Israel, and providing vision from world Jewry for its prosperous future.