For many Americans, 9/11 changed us in profound ways. The images of planes being flown into buildings, of desperate people jumping from the Twin Towers are seared into our memory. Few can understand the hatred that led nineteen hijackers to intentionally take thousands of lives.
9/11 also transformed how we view public service. Firefighters, police officers, military personnel, intelligence professionals and emergency responders were no longer distant figures performing unseen jobs; they became real-life heroes. On that day, New York City lost 344 firefighters who gave their lives to save others. Amid the horror, we witnessed extraordinary acts of courage and selfless devotion.
As a nation, and as individuals, we were deeply grateful for their sacrifices. That gratitude resonated deeply with me because gratitude has always been central to my family’s American story.
I am named for my great-grandmother, who was murdered in Auschwitz along with most of her children and grandchildren. My maternal grandmother survived the Holocaust, bearing the tattooed number on her arm and a trauma that only fellow survivors could comprehend. My father and his parents fled Soviet-occupied Hungary after the 1956 revolution and eventually found refuge in the United States.
In our home, America and its blessings were never taken for granted. It was the country that opened its doors when so many others closed theirs. It was the place where refugees became citizens, survivors rebuilt families, and devout Jews practiced their faith openly and proudly. For that reason, the Jewish obligation of hakarat hatov, recognizing and responding to goodness, has always shaped how I think about citizenship.
The prophet Yirmiyahu articulated this responsibility centuries ago when he instructed the Jewish exiles in Babylon: “Seek the welfare of the city where I have exiled you, and pray to G-d on its behalf, for in its peace you shall have peace.” For generations, Jews recited those words as a vulnerable minority in the various countries in which they lived. In America, however, we had the extraordinary opportunity not merely to pray for the welfare of the country but to help shape it. American Jews, including American Orthodox Jews, have done exactly that.
At a moment when antisemitism is rising, American Orthodox Jews should not withdraw from the public square. We should enter it more fully.
Bringing with us values rooted in education, responsibility, family, tzedakah and community, we have helped strengthen every corner of American life. Jews, secular and religious, and their descendants have built businesses, advanced medicine and science, served in government, enriched the arts and created institutions that benefited the broader society. American Jews faced antisemitism in America and overcame it with determination and belief in the American dream. Indeed, many American cities have a hospital with “Mt Sinai” or “Jewish” in its name, because when Jewish doctors weren’t permitted to practice in existing hospitals, they responded by forming their own, some becoming the finest in the country.
The American story is a story Jews understand well: people arriving from different lands, carrying different histories, yet joining together to build one nation. Few communities embody that story more fully than we do. Many of our grandparents and great-grandparents came from shtetls in Eastern Europe, as well as cities and communities across South America, Western Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, the former Soviet Union and beyond. They brought with them diverse customs, traditions and life experiences, yet together they became part of a shared American story.
That is why today’s rise in antisemitism is so painful. We feel unsettled by the hostility we see around us, and for many families, the fear is familiar. Yet a proper response to antisemitism is not withdrawal and retreat. It should be pride and purposeful engagement.
The Book of Esther offers an enduring model. Facing a grave threat to the Jewish people, Esther did not counsel isolation. Instead, she instructed Mordechai: “Lech kenos et kol haYehudim—Go gather the Jews.” The answer to the challenge of external hatred was organization, prayer, unity and collective action. That lesson feels especially relevant today.
Recently, candidates opposed to our community’s values won primary elections in heavily Jewish areas, in one case, by roughly 2,000 votes. The Jewish community barely showed up at the polls. Regardless of one’s political affiliation, the lesson is clear: Communities that engage shape outcomes. Communities that stay on the sidelines permit others to shape them.
Citizenship is not a spectator sport. If we care about the future of our communities, our country and America’s relationship with Israel, we must participate. We need more Orthodox Jews serving in public life. More Orthodox Jews running for office, serving on school boards, joining law enforcement, entering government, serving in the military and contributing to the institutions that make society function.
It is not only the right thing to do; it is a profoundly fulfilling thing to do, as I learned during almost twenty years serving in the US intelligence community and the White House. And, while the days were often long and the work challenging, I felt blessed to contribute my skills to a country whose values of equality and freedom inspire all of us and allow us to thrive as proud Americans, and as proud Jews.
With blessings come obligations. Beyond tragedy, the twenty-fifth anniversary of 9/11 should remind us of responsibility. It should recall those brave individuals who served, sacrificed and answered the call when their country needed them.
Yirmiyahu taught us to seek the welfare of the society in which we live, and Esther taught us to act in moments of challenge. Generations of Jews fleeing Europe’s hatred taught us the exceptionalism of America’s freedoms. The generation of 9/11 taught us about the nobility of public service. Those lessons point in the same direction.
At a moment when antisemitism is rising, American Orthodox Jews should not withdraw from the public square. We should enter it more fully. We should bring our deep-seated values, our talents and our traditions to the service of our country. With gratitude for what America has given us. With pride in what we contribute to America. And with the confidence to say, as Avraham Avinu did: Hineni. Here I am.
Anne Neuberger is a distinguished fellow at Stanford University. She served as deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology in the Biden Administration, from 2021 to 2025.