This Fourth of July, I feel the heartache — and hope

This Fourth of July, I feel the heartache — and hope — of two homelands

American Jews can transcend polarization, writes a scholar who splits time between Israel and the United States.

July 6, 2026

July 6, 2026

Dr. Sara Labaton is Director of Teaching and Learning at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, where she serves as a conduit between the Kogod Research Center and program directors, overseeing programmatic excellence and ensuring that research topics and content are informed by the realities of the field and experience of program participants. She was a member of the inaugural cohort of North American David Hartman Center Fellows. Sara received a B.A. in Religious Studies from Columbia University and a doctorate

“It feels strangely appropriate that our family’s calendar has us celebrating July 4th in Israel and Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, in the United States.

Like many American Jews, we live in a liminal space, experiencing a push and pull between our at-homeness here and our at-homeness there. This feeling of being in-between is even more acute after having spent last year living in Jerusalem, leaving us with the persistent challenge of knowing what home is: Is home where you can seamlessly express yourself in your native tongue, or is home where you belong to the majority culture? Is home where you vote and pay taxes, or is it where you imagine your family’s story originating and unfolding many generations ago?…”

Read the full article at JTA.

This Fourth of July, I feel the heartache — and hope — of two homelands

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