On Wednesday evening September 17, 2025, Steve & Elaine Crane of Philadelphia were honored by the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of ZOA for their Israel advocacy work, including conducting Israel speaker programs at their congregation, Rodeph Shalom in Center City. They gave moving acceptance speeches, highlighting that inspiring ZOA Gala.
Steve’s Acceptance Speech
I am happy to see so many friends here tonight, and happy to say there are Jews, Christians, liberals, and conservatives. My 80th birthday was just a few days ago, which made me reflect that It was 80 years ago, at the end of WWII, that we learned the full horrible extent of murders perpetrated against our relatives and friends on the fields and camps of Europe.
That suffering was followed with renewed sovereignty over Israel and we said, “Never again.” However, wars continued. The Chistian City of Bethlehem was effectively denuded of Christians as a result of intimidation. We brushed it off. Israel became a global beacon of innovation and democracy in a sea of hate and oppression. We repeated the mantra, “Never again.”
Some of us suggested, “Never mind, we can give up land; forget all the evictions of Jews and Christians from neighboring lands; look the other way in the face of terrorist attacks; ignore the teaching of jihad to children, dismiss calls for the elimination of Israel.”
Folks, if you are here this evening, you know that there were a few voices of caution, even warning. You know that those voices were ignored and belittled. You know that those voices were accurate. And you know that no voice was more accurate and more consistent than that of the Zionist Organization of America.
And then it did happen again, didn’t it? In October 2023. Only by the grace of Hashem, the Israeli defense forces, and American friends, was the plan stymied in its early stages. The danger continues. We must support American and ZOA efforts to help our most loyal ally; and rally around peaceful initiatives such as the Abraham accords.
When Elaine and I visited Israel, we were struck with the success of its democracy. We met a refugee from Somalia thankful to arrive in a country of opportunity; a French woman finally able to practice her Judaism safely; an Iraqi expelled from the land of his birth who was able to restore his life; and, previously, a woman from Ethiopia whose ancestors had been foretelling of their escape to Jerusalem for over 1000 years.
These people and so many like them taste the freedom from oppression and the freedom to think for themselves that Abraham and Moses preached thousands of years ago, made possible today in Israel. That freedom works, and has resulted in a nation of innovation, culture, and democracy.
Thank you
Link to ZOA article on Philly Gala: https://zoa.org/2025/09/10453747-zoa-phila-2025-gala-dinner-attended-by-almost-300-cheering-zionists/
Elaine’s Acceptance Speech
You know how some moments in your childhood stay with you? For me, such a moment occurred in Hebrew School when I was a youngster. One day, my teacher spoke about Israel . . . perhaps only 10 years after its recognized statehood. He said – with awe, with reverence – “Imagine!! They’re growing tomatoes in the desert!”
When I visited Israel myself for the first time 25 years later, I was as swept-away as my moreh had been. Here was a nation with academic institutes, symphony orchestras, sculpture in the public squares, museums, deserts and forests abloom, and a population that was confident and dynamic.
How could it be, I asked myself then, that the mainstream press never wrote of these miracles that Israel had produced in just decades? Today, I ask the exact same question: how can it be that the world, that the vast majority of the media, has turned this utterly amazing country into the pariah of the world? This makes my blood boil. This keeps me up at night.
But also, this grieves me. Let’s be honest with each other. To be a supporter of Israel today – can be terribly lonely. It doesn’t matter that there’s nothing Israel would have liked more for the past 100 years, than peace and the uncontested right to a sliver of land on the planet. When the people you are engaged with don’t want peace, and have rejected every single peace proposal, when the people you are engaged with are dedicated to your destruction, as they have unequivocally stated in their charters —— then what are you to do?
No concessions mean anything if it is your obliteration, and only your obliteration that will satisfy. This is the searing, heartbreaking truth Israel must contend with every day.
But there is another truth – one we must not forget and that must give us hope. In the face of all this, Israel’s life-affirming essence, its remarkable ingenuity, which has produced’
12 Nobel Prize winners. It has invented drip irrigation that feeds millions; PillCam, a swallowable camera for diagnosis; the world’s first USB drive; the Microprocessor, which is the computer’s brain; Watergen, which creates drinking water out of thin air; Waze, the navigation system – just a tiny fraction of its contributions, and these only in the tech fields. Its creativity shows voluminously in arts and culture. This resilience gives us hope.
And another reason to hope. An organization like ZOA. ZOA has always looked the harsh realities squarely in the face, unapologetically vindicated Israel’s right to exist, and fought fearlessly to defend the Jewish people here and abroad. It is an organization that is essential at this time in history, OUR time in history.
Am Yisrael Chai!
