Photo: Sami brings Knafe (a popular Arab pastry) to participants during JCRC’s Israel Study Tour in 2019. – Ethan Roberts Photography 

By Sami Rahamim
JCRC Director of Communications and Community Affairs

March 12, 2026

For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt called to live in Israel.  

After 30 years in Minnesota, I’m answering the call, with plans to make aliya (moving to Israel) later this month, flights permitting. It is both the closing of a circle and the beginning of work at the other end of a bridge.   

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The circle begins in Iran.  

As young parents to my aunt and uncle, my grandparents left relatively comfortable lives in Shiraz, Iran for Israel in 1949. Unlike Jews in Arab countries, the Jews of Iran were not forced out immediately after Israel’s founding in 1948. In fact, under the Shah, Iran was a close ally of Israel and the United States. Israelis and Iranians shared deep cultural, economic, and security ties.  

But my Saba (grandfather), Ezra, z”l, was a Zionist who wanted to remake himself in the Jewish homeland, which by then was the Jewish state.  

For him and my Safta (grandmother), Sara, it was a rough arrival. They left the familiarity and support of large families for the uncertainty of fledgling, besieged Israel. They spent their first Israeli winter in tents, sleeping on thin mattresses on ground that turned to mud during rains. 

Two years later, my Aba (father), Reuven, z”l, was born.  

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To interpret this moment in Israel’s evolution, the Israeli philosopher and public intellectual Dr. Micah Goodman borrows from the French political tradition of numbered republics. 

France has had five Republics since 1792, each a reborn version of itself after a seismic rupture. Goodman invites us to apply this lens to see two distinct Israeli Republics in its almost 78-year history.  

The First Israeli Republic, founded in 1948 by David Ben-Gurion, was Ashkenazi, socialist, and secular. Its symbol of pride was the kibbutz movement. Aba was born into this Israel.  

The Second Israeli Republic, founded in 1977 by Menachem Begin, is more Mizrahi, diverse, capitalist, and traditional—symbolized as Startup Nation. 

What was the rupture that brought the end to the First Israeli Republic and gave rise to the Second? The 1973 Yom Kippur War, Goodman says.  

That war began with catastrophic intelligence failures, misconceptions about Israel’s enemies, and heavy Israeli losses. But Israelis didn’t crack under pressure. The army earned a decisive victory on the northern front and an ambiguous outcome in the South.  

Aba was serving in a signals intelligence unit on Mt. Hermon, the scene of intense border battles between Israel and invading Syria. Unlike many of his friends, he was lucky to survive. The Yom Kippur War was nothing short of an earthquake for Israeli society. Israelis were traumatized and disenchanted. They lost trust in their leaders and institutions.   

50 years and one day after the Yom Kippur War began, Hamas launched the October 7 attacks—and the pattern repeated, only more so. 

The intelligence failures were greater, the strategic misconceptions more catastrophic, and the surprise attack more devastating. At the same time, the victory in the North was more decisive and the outcome in the South more ambiguous.  

Like a half century ago, Goodman sees a tectonic shift happening today: the Third Israeli Republic is emerging. Midwifing it into existence is the generation of Israelis who fought the October 7 War and mobilized as a civil society to step in where the government was absent.  

After the traumatic rupture of the Yom Kippur War, on both the national and personal levels, Aba came to America at 22-years-old and built a remarkable life in Minnesota.  

Now, after our generation’s seismic shock, I feel called to close the circle my grandparents began and my father opened—to return home to Zion. My dream is to join the generation that builds this Third Israeli Republic, a “hybrid” Israel that embraces both its democratic and Jewish identities, that speaks a language of integration within the Middle East and of partnership with America and the Jewish Diaspora. 

I don’t know yet what that will look like. As a first step, I will immerse myself in Israel’s stories—its land, people, layers of history, contradictions, aspirations—by taking the Tour Educator Course offered by the Israel School of Tourism at Haifa University.  

Israel today offers the world’s most meaningful encounter with Jewish civilization as a living organism. A beautiful, messy, astonishing place with unparalleled diversity, innovation, challenges, and opportunities. 

I’ve always understood my service at JCRC as bridging Israel with Minnesota, Jewish civilization with our non-Jewish neighbors. As I complete this round of my family’s circle by transplanting my life from Minnesota to Israel, I’m launching Rooted, a Substack newsletter where I’ll share reflections and encounters from Israel, continuing to serve JCRC and our community from the other end of the bridge.  

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None of this would be possible without the love and support of my family, my partner, my remarkable JCRC colleagues, and teachers and friends across the community who shaped me into the Jew I am today. 

This moment is pregnant with possibility. For Israel, for Diaspora Jews, for Iran, and—given the AI revolution—for the world as we know it. As an uncertain future unfolds, I am blessed to answer the call and return home.  

This isn’t goodbye, Minnesota. It’s l’hitraot — until we see and are seen again. 

PS – Join me for a webinar conversation tomorrow, Friday, March 13 at 1:00 PM for a conversation on the past, present, and future of the Persian-Jewish Story with Rabbi Tarlan Rabizadeh, a Los Angeles-based Persian Jewish leader, and Ali Alizadeh, a local Iranian American entrepreneur and advocate for a free Iran. 

Sami Rahamim is Director of Communications and Community Affairs at JCRC. He plans to make aliya this month. You’ll continue hearing from Sami via JCRC channels or you can subscribe directly to his new Substack newsletter, Rooted. 

This blog post was the featured staff column for the March 2026 Gesher (‘Bridge’ in Hebrew) – JCRC’s monthly email newsletter.
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