Yes, we have been together since times immemorial… We loved each other…we hated each other…we tricked each other… at times, we wished that each other would disappear… and at times we even tried to get rid of each other.

We went through floods and fires. We suffered together under the yoke of slavery and we rejoiced together celebrating our redemption into freedom. We shared the gift of Torah at Sinai and the sweet taste of returning to our Promised Land.

Our historical baggage is awesome and plentiful. We witnessed the crowning of our kings, the building of our Holy Temple in Jerusalem and the strengthening of our kingdoms.

And, oh! We suffered together while exiled in Babylon remembering and yearning for our beloved homeland that was taken away from us.

Together we created our Synagogues and composed our treasured scriptures - the Talmud, the Mishnah and the Guemarah. We were massacred by inquisitions, pogroms and concentration camps while holding on tenaciously to our faith.

For countless generations we mourned the loss of our nationhood, never despairing for we knew that some day we would regain it. Some of us felt that only the Messiah would enable us to return to our beloved Zion; yet, many of us knew that it would not be given to us on a silver platter…

We knew that we would have to fight in order to regain our autonomy and dignity and that the price to achieve our independence would be a dear one, and that many of us would have to pay for it by offering our own lives as the price of our freedom.

Yet, we always maintained the integrity of our heritage in spite of all the odds against us.

We had differences of opinion as to how we should worship, how we should observe our holidays and how we should live our Jewish lives. Some of us felt that there would be no need to follow our traditions while others felt that we should observe the precepts of our faith intact without reflecting the changes that developed with the passing of time.

We argued, we dickered, we debated, cursed and insulted each other when, at the very least, we should have tolerated our shortcomings while accepting the fact that each of us had the right to be as we were.

While our people were being rescued from endangered parts of the world and brought back to our homeland, Israel, we tried to concentrate our efforts and energies by fortifying and enhancing our borders; we built-up our infra-structure, so that, once again, we would become a strong and sovereign nation.

We did not feel the need to invest our resources into solidifying our cultural and religious institutions, while others continued to place ever-greater demands on our government to assure the survival and growth of our places of worship and learning.

Some of us were given excessive allocations, subsidized lavishly by the government, and at taxpayers’ expense, while others were neglected or even prevented from getting their fair share of funding.

Many of us had to share the burden of risking our lives and the lives of our children in order to defend our borders, while others shied away from their responsibilities under the guise of scholarship and worship.

With the strengthening of our economy and with the establishment of safer borders, we march toward the path of peace with our once-hostile neighboring countries.

We turned inwards and realized that some of us had abused the privileges of democracy and that our nation was having its democratic foundations corrupted and threatened.

Our government allowed a small segment of our population to take gradual control of the personal liberties of a majority of our people in Israel.

Those of us who wished to have our worship and practices separated from governmental interferences - to free ourselves from a theocraticaly institutionalized grip, felt that there was an impending need to develop the proper legal instruments that would create the means for an equitative distribution of financial resources to all of the streams of our Jewish faith.

We felt that we had to demand the right for conditions that would enable us to flourish in an egalitarian manner in our homeland Israel.

So, with the passing of time, at the dawn of a new millenium and while entering the threshold toward the path of our nation's centennial, we now realize that our house is in great disrepair and that we must rearrange our priorities to fit our times.

With the awakening of Israel’s great segment of a once "silent majority", we find ourselves at the historical intersection that urges us to adjust to this unique opportunity, demanding implementation of the necessary changes. Such changes will ultimately allow all the citizens of the land to live their Jewishness freely and without monopolistic shackles imposed by an intransigent extremist minority. The Jewish nation’s new demographics and the reshaping of our nation’s character demand so.

Now is the time for us to establish and invigorate the areas that have been neglected for so long.

Now is the moment and opportunity for us to complete the important tasks that remained undone for half a century and that await their speedy implementation:

• The establishment of religious freedoms for all of the citizens of Israel;

• The proclamation of a truly egalitarian constitution;

• An indispensable separation between religion and state;

• the equitative distribution of funding for all streams of Judaism in the land;

• the legitimization of all the Jewish religious entities and their respective practices in the land.

And,… yes! We are the keepers of the flame of our Jewish legacy and heritage…all of us.

We were, we are and will eternally be each others’ brothers and sisters and we will always be responsible for each other and for the renewal and perpetuation of our faith.