My warmest greetings to the Rabbis and all the distinguished guests. I know the Sisterhood women are here. I'm not familiar with all of you personally, but I do hope to get to know all of you very soon.

I cannot begin my remarks without saying a warm thank you to Steve Lurie, your chair of the South African Union for Progressive Judaism, for his support and hosting of me while I was in Johannesburg. And also to Reeva Forman, whose idea it was that I should come to this extremely southern part of our world and to get to know you all in South Africa.

I'd just like to say that what you are doing here in South Africa as a religious Progressive Jewish movement is certainly admirable and, I'm sure, challenging. Your achievements are truly amazing in the face of the magnitude of challenges and changes that you have faced as your nation has travelled the path from apartheid to democracy, from discrimination to equality, from "colour-mindedness" to "colour-blindedness". As a nation, you have grown and as a community, you have strengthened even further as the world you knew became a world renewed.

Several weeks ago, I was privileged to be walking to my office in Jerusalem, which is located in Beit Shmuel near Mercaz Shimshon. Some of you may know where this is. It's just across the valley from the Old City of Jerusalem, and it was a beautiful morning, and as I was on my way strolling to work, not rushing, just sort of strolling, I was privileged to be looking at the history of the Jewish people everywhere I turned. In front of me I saw Israeli flags flying over the Jaffa Gate and the Tower of David, to my left was the Montefiori Windmill which reigns over Mishkenot Sha'ananim, established as the first Jewish neighbourhood built outside the walled city of Jerusalem in 1861. I know many of you have been to Jerusalem and you can envision the picture that I'm describing. And if you haven't been, I hope that you come soon.

On my right, I had a clear view of Mt. Zion, where according to tradition, King David is buried. It was from this same spot, looking at the wall of the Old City of Jerusalem, that my husband, as a young child, was shot at by Jordanian sharpshooters as school boy. He lived at number One Windmill Street, which is about 300 metres as the crow flies, from the Jordanian military positions on the Old City wall, and when tensions were running high between the newly founded State of Israel and the Jordanians, shooting at anything that moved was a pleasant diversion for the Arab forces atop the walls.

The fact that a Jew in the 21st century can live in the beautiful city of Jerusalem, the city of our ancestors, speak the language of our forefathers - of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, King David and King Solomon is one, I think, of the true miracles of this modern world. No other nation can make such a claim. No other nation had ever had their language redeemed from the bookshelves of history - the remarkable journey from the dawn of our people to the sunrise of our national return is a story of faith, tragedy, inspiration, admiration, pain, pride and the unity of one people. For on that spring day, as I was strolling along, in an area which I think may be in total about three times the size of this congregation and its parking lot and the surrounding areas, I was seeing the history of our people unravelling before me, and, as lovely as this scene was, I was also concerned about the fate of our people. In the Holy Land of today we are anything but a whole people and that is primarily what concerns me and why I am here.

In the past year I have been meeting with young people from around the world trying to share with them my passion for the unity of the Jewish people. So I was concerned when recently I heard that in South Africa the Jewish community is, to a small extent, distancing itself from the State of Israel under the guise of Israel is also an Apartheid country, but I want to state categorically that nothing could be farther from the truth. Israel is in a struggle for survival. It was not, is not and never will be an Apartheid state because we have our covenant with God and because we have our Torah to guide us, and because of these things, we cannot be an Apartheid state.

And, as you may have noticed, I don't have a typical Israeli accent, even though I have been working on it for the past 40 years. I did come from a small town in Alabama so you know that it's an American English accent. I was raised there in the early 1950s, and even as a young child, I recognized hate and bigotry. I didn't understand it and it wasn't clear to a childish mind, but there were things that were clear - when crosses were burned on front lawns, when the Coloured, as they were called, were kept as servants, but weren't permitted to walk on the same sidewalk with whites or to use the same entrances or eat in the same restaurants, when in Alabama in the early 50s, ironically, there were Coloured but there were no colours, just black and white. It was then that I learned about discrimination and cruelty and hatred, and I understood - now I understand - that these are the true bedfellows of apartheid. And in South Africa, I am happy to see that you've left these behind you, and that I can categorical say that Apartheid has not made aliyah to Israel.

Israel is not an apartheid state, as I've said, but it is a fantastically complicated country. I often think of it as a mosaic: when viewed from afar it's lovely, maybe even perfect, but on closer examination one sees a multitude of individual pieces, and every one is different. In Israel, even though we are all different, we do share one thing - we are the one Jewish people, we share a special identity which cannot be divided and this identity comes with a price - an often horrific price. We only have to think back to 60 years ago to the Holocaust and the cruel years that have intervened and the wars that we have seen in Israel and the price that our soldiers have paid to keep our country alive. When G-d made His covenant with us, He charged us with being "a light unto the nations", "Ohr l'goyim" - and this is a tremendous responsibility which defines us as a nation - from ancient times to modern times, from Israel to South Africa, to here, to right now.

If I look back and I ask myself: What were the lessons of our enslavement in Egypt and the Exodus to freedom? And I know that was a 40-year struggle to receive God's laws, to become a people, to achieve nationhood, to reach the Promised Land. Along the way, there was misery, there was dissension, there was rebellion, and we only have to look back to the recent Parashot that we have been reading to know all of the travails that Moses went through to lead us to the Promised Land. In Israel today we are in the Promised Land, celebrating our 60th year of independence, but our struggle is far from over. There is much to celebrate - peace with Egypt, peace with Jordan, technological advances, scientific innovations - but there is also room for concern because the fibre of our peoplehood is being stretched. Sixty years in the life of an ancient people is but a snap of the fingers. For a people of thousands of years of history, 60 years has given us the challenge that we have much to do and to attain.

Our struggle continues. If we are weak and divided, we have no future. So if you believe in the miracle of the Jewish people, and the return of the Jewish people to its homeland, you believe in a miracle which is a reality that no other nation in the history of the world has been able to achieve. We are a unique people. No other nation has returned to its homeland. Yes, countries have struggled from within for independence with many rebellions and many over-turnings, but no people has gathered itself anew from the five corners of the world, reclaimed its homeland and established the miracle that we have established in Israel. But we have not done this alone. A people cannot survive if it is alone and I am convinced that what makes us special among all the other special things that make the Jewish people - our covenant with God, our Torah - is the wonderful fact that we are a united people even when we have many, many different pieces in our mosaic.

It makes me often think where would we be if Hitler had won? Who would we be? Would we even be? I know many of you have roots in Lithuania and when I was reading, I discovered that the Litvak population in South Africa is the backbone of what you've become today. I don't want to slight any other people, any other countries, but I know that there is great influence from Lithuania, and I know that that community was virtually wiped out in World War II.

Would our lives be easier today if there were no Israel? And I think you all know that the answer to that is no - impossible. If Ahmadenajahd or Hezbollah or Hamas have their way and destroy Israel, will we be able to survive another 2000 years in exile? And I think that we have to say we cannot allow this to even be a possibility.

The current rate of assimilation in the United States is appalling, and notwithstanding its remarkable record of religious freedom or perhaps because of the unprecedented religious freedom that Jews enjoy there, our people is shrinking. In 1948, there were 11 500 000 Jews in the world, far fewer than before World War II. But nonetheless, 11 500 000. In 2002, there were 13 300 000, according to the statistics of Dr. Sergio Della Pergola, who is our esteemed demographer. Israel is, in fact, the only country in the world where the Jewish population is not only not shrinking, but is growing. So without Israel, could we be a united Jewish people, and what are our chances?

I believe that the answer lies in education and involvement! We, the adults of the community, must take responsibility for passing on our heritage to the next generation. We have to have excellent religious schools; we have to encourage our youth to join Netzer, and we have two wonderful representatives in Meghan and Tali - I know Tali and Meghan, who are with us tonight, and they do fantastic work.

We need to involve more of our children in Birthright programmes so they can come to Israel, learn and see for themselves. And we need to have children join Shnat Netzer, the one-year Netzer programme in Israel, so they can experience the reality of a vibrant and living Jewish people in its homeland.

And that brings me to ARZENU. Somebody said: "ARZENU? What is ARZENU? What is she talking about? Why is she here?" And I know, even if you have heard about ARZENU, because Reeva and Antony are working very hard to put ARZENU on the map in South Africa, I think I should tell you just a little about what it is and why it's so important.

It's the voice of the Progressive Jewish movement in the Zionist world. That means the Reformim, as we're called in Israel, not because we do reforms, but because that's the plural of Reform in Hebrew. And what ARZENU does is represent all the Reform, Progressive, and Liberal Jews around the world, who are Zionists, in the World Zionist Organisation (WZO). We sit among other streams of Judaism, Orthodox and Conservative, and among international Jewish organisations, like WIZO, Maccabi, Hadassah, B'nei Brith, the Labour Zionist Movement, Likkud, Kadima and others. Now that's a mixture of politics and organisations that do wonderful work. And in the World Zionist Organisation, we are treated as equals around what is called the "Parliament of the Jewish People." There is no other place where Reform Jews are treated as equal. We are certainly not equal in the State of Israel. We have no representation in the Israeli Knesset. So this is our chance to reach out to the rest of the Jews around the world as equal partners and to be together the light, a light, one of the lights, unto our people wherever they are in the Diaspora.

But you may or may not know, the WZO is a political organisation and when you say politics, people often think of two words that turn them to thoughts of hmmm… power and money…Power and money are at play in the WZO. And some people are saying that politics is a negative thing, but I want to say that politics is part of this real world. Even the Red Cross, for example, the organisational epitome of altruism, is a political organisation. And I only need to remind you of the fact that it took only 60 years - a mere 60 years of the State of Israel - for us (Magen David Adom) to be admitted to this 'non-political', altruistic organisation called the Red Cross.

So power and money are at play, and it is my belief that we should have as much as possible of both. And that's where you come in, because our strength in the World Zionist Organisation depends on your being members of our ARZENU in your local community. When you belong to ARZENU, we have the opportunity to get more of the power, have more of the impact and change the way things are done in the Zionist world, and when we do that, we are actually changing the way things are done in Israel. We have new partners. We're speaking with the Labour Zionist Movement in Israel; we're speaking with Mizrachi around the WZO table. Because we in the World Zionist Organization were blamed for being so political, we've actually gotten our house together and we're doing a lot more unified work than we ever did before.

Our movement's top leaders - Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism in the United States, representing 1.5 million Reform Jews and 900 synagogues; Rabbi David Ellenson, president of the HUC-JIR and Rabbi Uri Regev, president of the WUPJ, representing 1200 congregations around the world, including those of you here in South Africa, all sit on the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency because of the strength of ARZENU in the World Zionist Organisation. And the reason this is important is because there is money at stake - I said this was a naughty word - and there are people who see it only in the narrow context and don't see the larger picture. And the larger picture is that there is money donated by good people like you in South Africa, in Australia, in Canada, in the United States, that goes to the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organisation to support the activities of its members. And we are able, because of our strength in the World Zionist Organisation, to share that money with our constituents. It's one of the reasons that I'm able to be here this evening. Some of the conferences that we hold around the world under the leadership of Rabbi Joel Oseran from the World Union are the result of the funds we get because we are strong in the World Zionist Organisation.

So when we receive money, we are able to channel it back to you, and we're able to channel it into Israel and have a stronger Israel movement within our homeland. And what does the Israel movement do for all of you in the Diaspora? It gives us the chance to affect the Jewish character of the Jewish state. And this is really an important part of the work of the Israel movement. Being able to have impact on issues such as conversion, issues such as who is a Jew through the Israel Religious Action Centre and its legal arm; all of these activities give us the opportunity to make ourselves felt in Israel, and we as Reform Jews, a minority, as you here are a minority, among the vast strength of the Orthodox, have a stronger impact and we have the opportunity to make a difference there, which makes a difference to you here because we are one people, and if we're strong in Israel, we're strong in the Diaspora. If we're strong in the Diaspora, we're strong in Israel.

I wanted to just say that… if you think back to the mid-19th century, early 20th century, the Reform movement went through a period of questioning itself and asking what was the place of Israel within the movement. The fact is that you in South Africa are not newcomers to Zionism. I believe you are its champions, and I would like to quote, which you probably always new anyway but I was the one who didn't, something about your Zionism and your strength of faith in the Jewish people even when the rest of the Reform movement in North America wasn't so sure about Israel in the place of our nation.

In his book, Community and Conscience, Professor Gideon Shimoni speaks of your community and says: "…South African Jewry generally held the record for formal membership in the World Zionist Organization as measured by the percentage of Jews who purchased the 'shekel' membership certificate…" I'm not sure any of you here are old enough to remember that, but it was in fact representative of your identification with the Jewish people and the State of Israel. The shekel certificate entitled each person to "one vote in the elections at the World Zionist Congress. In the mid-1940s, when the first post-war Zionist election took place, no less than 39 945 South Africans out of 104 156 were Jewish shekel holders, and of these 28 876 cast their votes. Two years after the creation of the State of Israel, in 1950, out of a population of 110 000 Jews, 50 000 were shekel holders." Now that's a tremendous number.

And Shimoni writes that "the record of South African Jewry was extraordinary. Indeed, per capita the contribution of this small community was unequalled in the world. From 1921 to 1939, its contribution, even in absolute figures, to the Zionist Organization's major fund-raising instrument, known as Keren Hayesod … was second only to that of United States Jewry."

So that distinguishes you here in South Africa, and I told you before that maybe I was the only one that didn't know that, but far and away, you are to be commended for that remarkable Zionist fervour that you have shown and that you continue to show from then until now.

So what do I actually want from you, you know, I came all this way, I must want something, and the truth is, it's not money! I didn't come to ask for your money. I did come to ask for your time. I came to say, please take the time to support Antony, to support Reeva, to support your vast Zionist heritage, and join ARZENU. Become active. Take the time because there is no time. If it's not now, it may never be.

And to end, I'd just like to say, that as you move on I hope you increase your membership of ARZENU and continue your fantastic Zionist work and your support of the State of Israel. In the Sayings of the Fathers:

Lo alecha hamlacha ligmor
V'lo ata ben chorin l'bitel mimena

It is not your duty to complete the work
Neither are you free to desist from it

Thank you, once again, for having me here!