It is a familiar Jewish feeling. Throughout our history, moments of hope have often been paired with uncertainty. Our enemies rise, threaten, and try to derail us. And yet, the story is always the same. We endure, we adapt, and we move forward together.
I began my term as President of AMIT in September 2023, just weeks before October 7. My first official trip in this new role was scheduled for October 8, 2023. Unfortunately, instead of packing bags, we watched in horror, prayed desperately, and entered a period that reshaped all of us.
When I wrote for the Spring 2024 magazine, it was with a heavy heart. We were praying for missing hostages, grieving unimaginable loss, and planning countless trips to Israel that felt both essential and uncertain.
Now, as I write this message, I find myself constantly refreshing the news to see whether there will be another war with Iran. We planned an extraordinary mission to Israel, and once again I am unsure whether circumstances will allow it to proceed. The uncertainty feels all too familiar.
My thoughts keep returning to the powerful trip I took this past fall with a small group of AMIT supporters who were experiencing our schools and our impact in person for the first time. Seeing AMIT through their eyes was both humbling and energizing.
We began in Sderot, visiting students and staff whose resilience defies description. As they shared their experiences of October 7 and the support AMIT provided in the months that followed, there was not a dry eye in the room. What stood out was not only that this community survived, but how intentionally AMIT focused on each individual’s recovery. Emotional safety, academic continuity, and human dignity were priorities, not luxuries. From the very first day, we saw how AMIT lives its mission of building Israel “one child at a time.”
That philosophy followed us throughout the trip. At an IDF Disabled Veterans Center, we met AMIT students who had used their school’s makerspace to design technological solutions for wounded veterans. These were practical innovations rooted in the understanding that a strong nation cares for those who have sacrificed for it. Our AMIT students were rebuilding Israel in their own way, one soldier at a time.
As I write these words today, not on the day you are reading them, I know the landscape will look different by the time this magazine reaches your hands. The headlines will change. The uncertainty will shift. But the arc of our story will not. With Pesach approaching, I can’t help but think about how we relied on our faith in God and national resilience to endure and ultimately escape slavery in Egypt. We will find that same faith and resilience to carry us through today’s challenges.
The future of AMIT is being built each day, both physically and conceptually, in our new Kfar Batya campus. The innovation at work there is preparing students to think critically, act ethically, and lead responsibly. AMIT innovates to ensure that Israel’s long-term strength rests in educated and values-driven young people.
This fall, AMIT will mark an extraordinary milestone: one hundred years of educating, nurturing, and building the future of the Jewish people. To honor that legacy and to look toward what comes next, we will be planning an inspiring mission to Israel. I hope you will join us. There is no substitute for seeing AMIT’s work up close, or for meeting the students and educators whose courage and daily commitment define what national strength truly means.
This Passover, when we say, “Next Year in Jerusalem,” we say it as our ancestors did. With hope. With determination. And with the quiet confidence that we are already doing the work that will get us there.
I hope you will come with me to see it for yourself.
