Ahead of the 2015 elections, American Jews should influence Israel's future character – not through their pocketbooks, but by asserting their vision of how a Jewish, democratic state should look.

For American Jews who care about Israel’s future as a democracy, as a Jewish nation-state that champions Jewish values, as a Jewish homeland they can be proud of, Israel’s early elections are a call for action.

The next 96 days leading up to the March 17 elections offer American Jews a rare opportunity to influence Israel's future character – not through their pocketbooks, but by asserting their vision of what a Jewish, democratic state should look like.

On December 7, 2014 the High Court ruled on Peace Now’s petition number 7891/07 which demanded to carry out Central Command’s delimitation orders and evacuate six West Bank outposts. High Court President, Asher Grunis, ruled that the state must evacuate structures in the outposts located on private Palestinian land, but that there is no place for the court to intervene in the state's prioritization of delimitation orders enforcement and did not oblige the state to evacuate structures located on state lands or survey lands, in light of the state's intention to legalize them.

I know that the headlines are terrible, and that people are throwing up their hands and feeling defeated. "The two-state solution is hopeless," they say. "We will never have peace."

But... consider:

APN and co-sponsor Valley Beth Shalom held the very successful event on Thursday, December 4, 2014, at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, CA.  A large crowd heard keynote speaker Daniel Seidemann, leading Israeli expert on contemporary Jerusalem, speak on "Getting Real About Jerusalem."  VBS' Rabbi Ed Feinstein engaged Mr. Seidemann in a conversation following his talk.

A video of the event is available HERE.  

In case you want to go directly to certain parts of the event, including the very insightful talk by Daniel Seidemann, the time guides are:

4:50 - 5:55 - Jerry Bubis' Remarks
8:15 - 41:20 - Daniel Seidemann "Getting Real About Jerusalem"
41:52 - end - Conversation with Rabbi Feinstein and Audience Q&A

On December 8, 2014, APN hosted Akiva Eldar of al-Monitor.com, the former chief political writer of Israel's Haaretz, for a briefing call on the Israeli political scene following the decision taken by Israel's political leaders to hold early elections in March 2015.