Michael Balaban's Update on the War in Israel

- Michael Balaban
Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia President and CEO

In the days since I last wrote, the emotional landscape has only grown more complex. Each piece of news from Israel seems to arrive layered with both clarity and pain — a reminder that even as we move forward, the wounds remain raw.

The return of several hostages’ remains has reopened pain that never had the chance to heal, intensifying the burden on families already carrying the unimaginable. In recent days, Israel received the remains of Meny Godard, may his memory be a blessing. And still, three beloved souls — Ran Gvili, Dror Or and Sudthisak Rinthalak — have not been brought home. Their families rise each morning into the same unbearable question: How do you grieve without a body? How do you hope without evidence? The silence that surrounds them is its own violence, and it is a grief that reverberates across our global Jewish family.

Meanwhile, Israel’s northern communities remain displaced, their homes standing in the shadow of continued threats from Hezbollah. Entire towns — once vibrant and full of life — are quiet except for soldiers and emergency workers who walk streets where children once played. For those uprooted, “returning home” is no longer a moment on the calendar but a distant aspiration.

What has emerged, unmistakably, is a profound national fatigue: families stretched emotionally and financially; young adults caring for younger siblings while parents navigate trauma; and seniors who survived earlier wars now reliving nightmares they thought they had outlived. And yet, in conversations with Israelis, I continue to hear something striking — not resignation, but resolve. It is a determination to rebuild lives even when the ground beneath them feels unsteady.

Here in Greater Philadelphia, we are experiencing our own strain — different in nature but similar in emotional weight. Food insecurity is deepening at a pace that alarms even those who have worked in social services for decades.With the instability of SNAP benefits from the recent government shutdown, which has now thankfully been reopened, thousands of families across our region are facing impossible choices: groceries or medication; heat or rent; feeding children or feeding themselves.

At the Mitzvah Food Program, we see these choices up close. We see the parents who arrive at our pantries with quiet apologies, unsure how they found themselves needing help. We see older adults who never imagined that, after a lifetime of giving, they would be asking for assistance. We see the fear — the same fear we hear from Israelis — that the systems meant to protect them may not hold.

And this is where our reflection must lead us:
Pain is not comparative. Crisis does not recognize borders. And responsibility is not divisible.

Our task is not to decide which suffering is more deserving. Our task is to expand our capacity to respond to all of it — because we are one community, interconnected across continents, history and fate.

The families in Israel waiting for their loved ones’ remains ... the evacuees from the north trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy ... the families in Northeast Philadelphia counting cans and dollars to make it through the week — these are not separate stories. They are different verses of the same moral call.

And in this call, I hear three obligations:

To remember:
Not as an act of sentiment, but as an act of justice — ensuring that the unrecovered hostages, the displaced and the grieving, are not allowed to fade from view.

To rebuild:
Not only homes in Israel’s south and north, but also the safety nets here in Greater Philadelphia that protect dignity and sustain hope.

To remain human:
Especially when fear and exhaustion tempt us to withdraw. Especially when cynicism feels easier than compassion. Especially when our hearts feel like they cannot hold anything more.

This moment demands that we resist despair. It asks us instead to lean on one another — our neighborhoods, our people, our shared future.

Our community has always met its greatest challenges with courage, generosity and love. And I believe we will rise to meet this one, too.

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