Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.

The ripple effects of Hamas’s massacre of 1,400 people in Israel on October 7 are still being felt. The dead were mostly civilians — many entire families — whom Israel continues to identify and bury.

Israelis were the primary target of the barbaric attack, but their pain is shared by Jewish brothers and sisters in the Diaspora, just as, five years ago this week, Israelis shared the shock and pain of the deadly shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue.

Here this week from New York to show his love and solidarity with Israelis is Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism which represents some two million Jews in North America. He sat with The Times of Israel after touring the country and getting briefed on the situation here on the ground.

We speak about how Jews -- even some from the most progressive edges -- are pulling together today, with some humanitarian caveats.

“This is a moment when we have to be leaning into the kind of response that the world doesn't like to see from us — when we have a strong military response to protect our community, our families, our country. And at the same time, can we hold, in whatever portion of our moral stance in the world, that we do not look at the suffering of innocents, not the suffering of those who are bringing this assault? That's part of us retaining our Jewish religious sensibilities, which we can't lose ever,” said Jacobs.

So this week, we ask Rabbi Rick Jacobs, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

IMAGE: Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, in Jerusalem on June 27, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

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