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It is a tradition that we observe as Americans as well, as we enter into booths each fall (and occasionally at other moments during the year) in order to make our voices heard and exercise our right to vote.

Israel is more than what makes the headlines. It is also filled with people who will reach across the divide and give you the opportunity to be in community together.

This year was the first time in a long time I wasn’t with my immediate family in Australia or my cousins in Israel to celebrate Rosh HaShanah.

In this season of renewal, Jews reflect on the year past and look forward to a 5775, a year that brings new opportunity. Since the launch of Double Booked this past January, we have identified some of the challenges that working families face today and discussed a wide variety of cultural, social, and policy solutions. The Jewish new year seems a fitting time to reveal the next phase of our Double Booked initiative, which will focus on working with our interfaith partners to lift up good internal employment policies as well as to engage our denominations and houses of worship in federal, state, and local initiatives to pass much-needed policies to support the modern American family. One such policy is ensuring paid sick days. We are proud to report that the Union for Reform Judaism (which the RAC is part of) offers its employees a generous paid sick days policy. The Union demonstrated its strong support again for these policies in a new resolution that was passed at our 2013 Biennial.

I grew up loving this holiday – until I learned the dark side and felt like a kid discovering that there’s no Santa Claus. It turns out Hanukkah is, in part, a tale of Jew vs. Jew.

Although we don’t vote in Israel’s elections and should not expect to, neither does the Knesset have a monopoly over the Zionist project. It belongs to all Jews.