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The Israeli origins of Amitai Etzioni’s big ideas about community
(JTA) — “Although I was born in Germany, my formative years were spent in the early, idealistic days of the cooperative Jewish settlements, in pre-Israel, Palestine,” wrote Amitai Etzioni in his 2003 memoir, “My Brother’s Keeper.”
In writing about his early years in a cooperative settlement called Kfar Shmaryahu, the Israeli-American sociologist and polymath provided the origin story for the big idea that made him famous: communitarianism.
When Etzioni died May 31 at age 94, the obituaries noted how he came to Israel as a young refugee from Nazi Germany and fought in Israel’s war for independence. But few noted his early life in Israel shaped his life’s work. Nor did they note how far Israel had come — for better and for worse — in the years since he lived on a kibbutz, battled as a Palmach commando and studied at the Hebrew University.
Communitarianism is a social philosophy that emphasizes the importance of society, as opposed to the individual, in articulating the good.”[W]hile individual rights surely matter, these rights must be balanced with commitments to the common good — for instance, by protecting the environment and public health,” Etzioni explained.
He also held that the various liberation movements of the 1960s went too far in undermining authority figures and what he called “the accepted standards of upright conduct.”
Because it proposed a “third way” between liberalism and conservatism, communitarianism was also embraced — and ridiculed — on both sides of the aisle. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were fans. Some labeled George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” communitarian.
Etzioni left Israel in his mid-twenties for a teaching job at Columbia University. He opposed the Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race, activism that propelled him beyond the academy and into the role as a “public intellectual.” He taught ethics for two years at the Harvard Business School before launching into a hybrid discipline he called “socio-economics.” Hired by the Carter administration in 1979 as a senior adviser, he joined the faculty at George Washington University, where he taught international affairs for more than 30 years.
The theories behind communitarianism weren’t new, but Etzioni’s articulation came to wide public attention on the eve of the Clinton presidency, when, according to one profile, it was “supposed to be the Big Idea of the ‘90s, the antidote to ‘Me Generation’ greed and the cure for America’s cynicism, alienation and despair.”
“We need an awakening of values, of caring and commitment,” Etzioni told an interviewer in 1992. “The Communitarians are saying this is possible; in fact, it is inevitable.”
“It was as if I were growing up in a high school of communitarian theory and practice,” wrote Etzioni about his youth spent on an agricultural cooperative in Israel. (Courtesy of Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi)
Although communitarianism never did live up to the hype, Etzioni became a reliable commentator and theorist in a host of fields and causes, including just war, bioethics, national security and privacy.
Although he occasionally wrote about Israel, his roots there were rarely front and center in his work or public image. In his memoir he notes that a lot of readers thought he was Italian. (“Amitai” comes from the Hebrew word for truth; he took “Etzioni” from a folk tale about a boy who learns to protect nature from a tree – “etz” in Hebrew.)
In his memoir, however, he delves deeply into his youth in Israel. “In those days, the country was quite different from what it has since become,” he writes. “[I]t was strongly imbued with the spirit of community (from which the term communitarian arises); most people were dedicated to serving the common good and to erecting a home for Jews escaping Nazi-dominated Europe. It was in that pre-Israel that I first knew the high that one gains when serving a cause greater than oneself.”
His parents were among the founders of the small farming community; a young Etzioni would attend co-op meetings with his father, where members would debate how cooperative they needed to be – a question, he writes, that was never settled.
“It was as if I were growing up in a high school of communitarian theory and practice,” wrote Etzioni.
He also discovered the limits of that practice after a year as a teen on Kibbutz Tel Joseph. He found the kibbutz “excessively communal,” with little tolerance for individuality or privacy. Communitarianism itself would often be attacked on the same grounds: Etzioni would later have a fierce antagonist in the American Civil Liberties Union, which felt some of his calls for limiting privacy and suspending individual rights in the name of the common good went too far.
Etzioni wrote movingly about watching friends die in the fighting for Israel’s independence. Although he never wavered in feeling the war was justified, he lamented that the Jews and Arabs might have avoided the bloodshed had they agreed to the two-state partition that, in 2003, he still felt was inevitable. Nor did he regret Israel’s founding: “The Jewish people require a homeland to protect them not merely from physical annihilation, but also from cultural devastation,” he wrote in 1999.
But perhaps the most fascinating influence on Etzioni’s thinking was the year he spent in a Jerusalem institute set up by Martin Buber, the Vienna-born social philosopher. The formidable faculty included Gershom Scholem on Kabbalah, Yeshayahu Leibowitz on biology and Nechama Leibowitz on Bible.
Etzioni imbibed Buber’s ideas about “I and Thou” relationships – the “unending struggle between the forces that pushed us to relate to other human beings as objects, as Its, rather than as fellow humans, as Thous.”
Etzioni would call this “moral dialogue,” as in his definition of democracy: “[O]ur conception of right and wrong are encountered through moral dialogues that are open and inclusive. It is a persuasive morality, not a coercive one.”
Etzioni’s memoir and his obituaries recall a more hopeful political climate, when right and left could briefly imagine common ground around the common good. They also recall a different Israel, before it largely embraced the free-market economics of the West and let go of many of its communitarian values.
In 2013 Etzioni wrote about his own seeming irrelevance – he called it his “gradual loss of a megaphone” — after his brief flurry of influence. He had no regrets, nor loss of confidence: “Until I am shown that my predictions or prescriptions are ill-founded, or not of service, I will try to get out what must be said. I’ll keep pulling at the oars, however small my boat, however big or choppy the sea.”
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Report: Concerned with Iran’s Rearmament, Netanyahu to Propose to Trump Joint US-Israeli Military Action
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, Aug. 10, 2025. Photo: ABIR SULTAN/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will lay out the case for a renewed attack against the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program to US President Donald Trump when the two leaders will meet at Mar a Lago in the last days of December, NBC News reported on Saturday.
While the damage visited on Iran’s ballistic missile program and uranium enrichment program during the 12-day war in June this year is understood to be substantial, Jerusalem is nevertheless concerned that Tehran restarted both, the report said, citing an official with direct knowledge of the matter and four former US officials briefed on the plans.
When the leaders meet at the president’s Florida estate, Netanyahu will make the case that Iran’s rebuilding efforts represent a threat necessitating swift and decisive action.
A White House spokesperson said that “The International Atomic Energy Agency and Iranian government corroborated the United States government’s assessment that Operation Midnight Hammer totally obliterated Iran’s nuclear capabilities. As President Trump has said, if Iran pursued a nuclear weapon, that site would be attacked and would be wiped out before they even got close.”
The visit to Mar a Lago on December 29, confirmed by Netanyahu’s office earlier this week, will mark the premier’s fifth trip to the US since Trump returned to office; it will be his first since the US-brokered ceasefire and hostage release deal in October that has halted the Gaza war after two years.
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Australia PM Says Jewish Community ‘Completely Unbreakable’ After Bondi Attack
Members of Bondi Surf Life Saving Club and North Bondi Surf Life Saving Club walk towards Bondi Beach during an event to stand shoulder to shoulder as they observe three minutes of silence to honour victims, responders, and lifesavers following the mass shooting that targeted a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach on December 14, in Sydney, Australia, December 20, 2025. REUTERS/Audrey Richardson
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Saturday that the country’s Jewish community was “completely unbreakable” after attending a memorial at a Sydney synagogue for the victims of a mass shooting attack on a seaside Hanukkah celebration.
The mass shooting at Bondi Beach on Sunday, Australia’s worst in nearly 30 years, is being investigated as an act of terrorism targeting Jews. Authorities have ramped up patrols and policing across the country to prevent further antisemitic violence.
Albanese said the event he attended at the Great Synagogue in Sydney on Friday night showed “the spirit of our Jewish Australian community is completely unbreakable.”
“It was a night of unity, resilience, comfort, faith and love,” Albanese said in remarks televised from the capital Canberra, ahead of a national day of reflection on Sunday to honor the 15 people killed and dozens wounded in the attack allegedly carried out by a father and son.
LIFESAVERS RETURN TO BONDI BEACH
Albanese, under pressure from critics who say his center-left government has not done enough to curb a surge in antisemitism since Israel launched its war in Gaza, has vowed to strengthen hate laws in the wake of the massacre.
The government of New South Wales state, which includes Sydney, has also pledged a raft of reforms, including a tightening of hate and gun control laws.
It promised on Saturday to introduce a bill on Monday to ban the display of symbols and flags of “terrorist organizations,” including those of al-Qaeda, Al Shabaab, Boko Haram, Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic State.
“The displaying of these symbols can only be done by someone who’s either deranged or has an intention to insult and intimidate and scare,” state Attorney General Michael Daley told a press conference in Sydney, where 15 of those injured in the attack remained hospitalized.
Around 1,000 surf lifesavers returned to duty at Bondi Beach on Saturday, restarting regular patrols after a halt sparked by the shooting on the first evening of the Jewish festival of lights. After the attack, authorities closed roads across the famed beachside suburb for several days.
The Bondi Beach volunteer and professional surf lifesavers, in their distinctive red and yellow uniforms, lined the sand on Saturday morning for two minutes of silence to honor the victims, Surf Life Saving Australia said.
Peter Agnew, the group’s president, said in televised remarks that the tribute was “out of respect to the Jewish community and also to support each other this morning.”
Australia’s Jewish community on Friday gathered at Bondi Beach for prayers, while hundreds of swimmers and surfers formed a huge circle in the waters off the beach to honor victims.
Alleged gunman Sajid Akram, 50, was shot dead by police at the scene. His 24-year-old son Naveed Akram, who was also shot by police and emerged from a coma on Tuesday afternoon, has been charged with 59 offenses, including murder and terrorism, according to police. He remained in custody on Saturday in hospital, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said in a statement.
Authorities believe the pair was inspired by militant Sunni Muslim group Islamic State, with flags of the group allegedly found in the car the two took to Bondi.
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We tried to fix Hallmark’s Hanukkah problem. Here’s the movie we made instead
Hallmark holiday movies are famously formulaic. They all have guaranteed happy endings and almost universally involve a homecoming, a life-changing shift in work-life balance and a chaste kiss amid glowing lights. But that doesn’t mean they have to be bad.
Since 2019, Hallmark has occasionally applied this formula to Hanukkah. This is generous of them. It is also where the trouble begins.
Sorry to be a Grinch, but this year’s installment in the Hallmark Hanukkah canon was not only corny (that’s to be expected) but also honestly kind of offensive. In the plot, a rabbi’s son comes home for the holidays and falls for the pastor’s daughter; their families end up combining Hanukkah and Christmas services and traditions to “unite their communities through song,” since, as the logline says, “coming together is the best way for everyone to celebrate the holiday season.”
After watching the movie, two of us — Mira Fox and Benyamin Cohen — cringed in dismay. We thought we could easily write a better plot, one that didn’t seem knocked out by a monkey typing into ChatGPT but still stays true to the frothy hallmarks people love about, well, Hallmark, complete with soapy romance and happy ending, but without the Christian hegemony.
So here’s our attempt. Give us a call, Hallmark.
The name
Love at First Light
The plot
Esther Rayzel Stiefel (not all Jewish women have generic names like Rebecca Goldstein) is a high-powered Jewish consultant who flies home to her struggling childhood synagogue to “fix Hanukkah,” a simple marketing mission her boss thinks will somehow reverse decades of suburban synagogue decline through a few simple branding choices.
Naive and headstrong, Esther believes it’s a task she can confidently take care of in one night, with a PowerPoint. Instead, it drags on for all eight days — derailed by committee meetings, Talmudic disputes and the discovery that Hanukkah is, theologically, a minor holiday that has nothing to do with synagogue attendance. This insight comes thanks to Esther’s new study partner: the synagogue’s new, young rabbi, Shaya Carlebach, who is singlehandedly revitalizing the shul’s youth attendance through his impish grin and knowledge of the slang term “6-7.”
Romance, sufganiyot and and a humorous montage of the pair trying to make an “elevated” latke out of everything but a potato ensue.
The cast
Kristen Bell, Emmy-nominated for her role as a non-Jewish podcaster dating a hot rabbi in Netflix’s Nobody Wants This, stars as Esther. Some call it stunt-casting, or worse, others progress: an attractive blond with a normal-sized nose can play a television Jewess.
A shaggy-haired Timothée Chalamet repurposes his Wonka topper as a black hat to play Shaya Carlebach, a Rashi-quoting neo-Hasid who has a penchant for Yiddish EDM and moonlights as a DJ. The supporting cast — including Benny Blanco playing himself as a music industry friend — all correctly pronounce the end of his last name as “CH” and not “CK.”
Jamie Lee Curtis, who has real-life experience restoring a shul, plays Shaya’s widowed mom who falls in love with the equally widowed dad of Esther, portrayed by Kelsey Grammar. The star of Frasier — whose sixth season featured the holiday episode “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Moskowitz” — already has daddy-daughter chemistry with Bell from their little-seen 2018 film Like Father.
Seth Rogen, his beard dyed white in a nod to Santa Claus, plays Esther’s boss, Nick Frost. Barbra Streisand makes a cameo.
Behind the scenes
Hallmark passes because the jokes have too much Yiddish and the executives didn’t get any of them. Also, Streisand requests fresh rugelach on set, a bark mitzvah for her cloned dog, and $18 million.
Warner Bros. pounces, but the script spends months in development, caught up in the midst of a corporate takeover. David Ellison, the new head of Paramount who is constantly trying to prove his Jewish bona fides, promises he’ll cast an Israeli, but only if he can fund the film using sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia.
Netflix produces the movie instead, repurposing the menorahs from the Nobody Wants This set, and says it will give the film a short theatrical release to qualify for an Oscar. Diane Warren scores the soundtrack and includes a song called “Let the Light Find You.”
The opening scene
Esther, wearing a power suit that signals both competence and unresolved resentment toward her mother, kisses a mezuzah as she strides through a glossy open-plan office in Manhattan murmuring into her phone buzzwords like “engagement,” “deliverables” and “community buy-in.”
A junior colleague asks the meaning of Hanukkah. Esther pauses, realizes she doesn’t really know, and says, “I’m too farklemt to do this right now.” Also, she’s late for lunch with her mom, who offers to raise a grandchild so Esther can focus on her career if she’ll just pop one out like, yesterday. (Nagging Jewish mothers might be an overdone trope, but this anecdote is straight out of real life.)
Cut to Esther’s boss assigning her the Hanukkah account — Esther’s childhood synagogue, now hemorrhaging members and relevance. “We need to make it festive,” he says. “Warm. Universal. Christmas-adjacent.”
Esther promises quick results. She books a flight home that night. Eight candles appear on the screen. Only one is lit.
The meet-cute
Esther arrives at the synagogue, a product of multiple mergers over the decades, and buys a hot drink from the lobby cafe, The Kiddush Cup. As she reaches to grab the non-dairy creamer, her hand brushes up against Shaya. They both realize they’re lactose-intolerant and have undiagnosed Chron’s. She introduces herself briskly, explaining she’s here to “optimize Hanukkah engagement.” Shaya smiles and asks if she wants to study.
They sit down for a chevruta — Shaya pulls an Artscroll Talmud off the shelf while Esther opens her laptop to Sefaria.org. They both try not to stare at each other. It’s antagonistic, flirtatious and immediately derailed by a congregant interrupting to ask the rabbi whether LED candles can be used in a menorah. In his attempt to summarize the arguments for and against the electric candles, Shaya digresses into recounting Talmudic gossip, like that time one student lay under his rabbi’s bed while he had sex with his wife because “this, too, is Torah.” Esther begins to realize there might be more to Judaism than Hanukkah-print pajamas.
The plot twist
By night four, Esther’s PowerPoint has grown to 97 slides (98 if you’re counting the one showing all the Jewish a capella groups parodying KPop Demon Hunters into Hanukkah medleys.) She has zero buy-in. Every attempt to “rebrand” Hanukkah collapses: Is it about miracles? Assimilation? Resistance? Latkes? Mensch on a Bench?
Esther is beginning to worry that all her ideas about revitalizing Hanukkah are more about trying to imitate Christmas. Hanukkah stockings aren’t going to convince anyone to come to shul.
That’s when Shaya casually mentions Purim. Esther can’t believe she didn’t think of this herself. After all, she is named after the holiday’s heroine. Perhaps it is a nod to the megillah, in which God’s divine hand is hidden.
In their study sessions, Esther and Shaya begin to speak faster and faster, cooperatively overlapping, discussing how the best way to bring people into synagogue isn’t trying to make Judaism closer to Christianity, but instead leaning into real Jewish practices. Hanukkah bushes might be pretty lame but Purim spiels can be outlandish, whip-smart and fun.
“Wow,” Esther exclaims, “It’s pretty ironic how everyone wants to make Hanukkah about Christmas when the whole holiday is about religious zealots resisting assimilation!” They laugh heartily.
The ending
On the eighth night of Hanukkah, Esther finally gives up.
At the synagogue candle lighting, she scraps her prepared remarks — a TED-adjacent d’var Torah about resilience, relevance and light as metaphor — and instead tells the truth. Hanukkah, she says, doesn’t need to be fixed. It resists optimization. It has survived this long without a content strategy.
Still, Esther has to do something to prove to her boss that she succeeded and get a long-awaited promotion, so she and Shaya decide to host a sufganiyot-eating contest in concert with a local bakery; they have their first kiss covered in strawberry jam. But the real moral — and romance — comes in the beit midrash, with Esther’s realization of the real solution to the synagogue’s woes.
What this synagogue needs is a blowout Purim party: Costumes, chaos, congregational email threads. Shaya offers to DJ. Someone starts arguing about hamentaschen fillings. Good thing they have more than eight nights to plan this time. (Coming this spring, A Very Purim Proposal.)
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