Editor’s Note: This past Sunday, November 1, I took part in the 12th annual Z3 Conference at the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto, which included more than 1,300 participants—including JCC executives, educators, institutional leaders, camp directors, teen groups, and some of the most fascinating thinkers, scholars, and strategists in the Jewish world. The next day, the Z3 Institute hosted 15 of its fellows for a full day of reflection, works-in-progress seminars, training, and conversation.
This was a deeply powerful moment for us, for the community, and for the speakers. Rather than try to explain it myself, I’ve asked Z3 fellows who participated to share their own remarkable reactions. Take a look and judge for yourself. We will be posting videos soon!
—David Hazony
David Bryfman
CEO, Jewish Education Project
Being part of the Z3 Institute with this incredible group of fellows was as challenging as it was rewarding. The thoughtful, sometimes intense debates with people I genuinely disagree with, from vastly different disciplines and backgrounds, sharpened my thinking, challenged my assumptions, and made me more aware of the words and ideas that can trigger, agitate, or alienate others—often in ways I might never have recognized on my own. And through it all, we remained united by a shared commitment to advancing Jewish and Zionist thought at a time when the world needs it most.
“A new intellectual and communal movement within American Jewry is emerging, one that is both willing to confront the complexities of Jewish life today and interested in imagining what its future might look like.” —Maia Zelkha
Lahav Harkov
Senior Political Correspondent, Jewish Insider
I get invited to a lot of conferences about Israel-Diaspora relations and pro-Israel conferences in the Diaspora and this was a highlight. Aside from being unusually well-organized, Z3 did a good job of capturing the energy in that relationship and encouraging everyone to channel it into something concrete. I found the second day sessions for Z3 Institute members to be especially helpful. I got to know the truly impressive cohort better and the free flow of ideas was thought-provoking and productive.
Kara Jesella
Author of ‘Feminist Antisemitism: An Intellectual History’
The Z3 Conference was an epic few days with what I described to my husband—even before I was part of it and with great admiration—as “a very cool Zionist intellectual gang.” It is hard to describe what it is like to be able to talk about your ideas about Judaism, Israel, Zionism, and everything else—Jewish feminist artists, the elections here and in Israel, and so much more—without lowering the volume of your voice. Amitai and David have put together an intimate group with incredible chemistry and it was amazing to be able to bounce ideas off of one another in both formal ways (like when I interviewed Benjamin Kerstein, one of my favorite writers, onstage) and informal (hanging out in the VIP lounge or at dinner). I was also invigorated by one of the panels, and experiencing the funny, fierce energy between the four women speaking and their extremely engaged audience, and realizing that it is exactly the kind of energy I want to capture in my new book project about Jewish women.
“A cohort of incredibly engaged intellectuals all working towards the same larger goal of revitalizing Jewish life.” —Kara Jesella
The thing I asked for from the fellows at our session the day after the conference was to help me get in touch with women who might help provide this energy as contributors to my anthology—to make introductions, send me email addresses, suggest ideas—and everyone has been forthcoming and generous. I spent so much time working on my last book alone; it is incredibly helpful to be able to work on this next project as part of a cohort of incredibly engaged intellectuals all working towards the same larger goal of revitalizing Jewish life.
Meg Keene
Executive Editor, Meg Keene Books
This weekend was the shot in the arm that I needed. As part of the larger Z3 conference, I met community members passionate about figuring out our next steps and donors excited to help build our shared future. But the time spent with the other fellows was life-changing. I have rarely been in a room with so many brilliant minds, each thinking and working on these problems from different perspectives. Even passing conversations over breakfast or standing in the hotel lobby at midnight gave me new ways to think about my own work. There was a sense that we were starting something big—working to shape a new intellectual Zionist movement during a dark time in our history. As a Z3 fellow I’m working on a book about building a new Jewish golden age, and this weekend felt like a meaningful step in that direction.
Benjamin Kerstein
Author of ‘Jews of Privilege: Elites, Anti-Zionists, and Our Secret Civil War’
Frederick Douglass once said that the struggle for black rights did not end with the abolition of slavery, but only began. In light of Tuesday’s election results, I feel that only now has the struggle for Jewish rights in America begun in earnest. At the Z3 Conference, I think that the first steps in that struggle had, perhaps, already been taken. Not only by the numerous activists and sponsors who attended, but also by my compatriots at the Z3 Institute. We live in a world of the spectacle in which ideas are weapons, and at the conference, we began to fashion those weapons that will be necessary in what I believe will be a long war for the American Jewish future and the American Jewish relationship with Israel. None of us harbor any delusions on that score, and thus I feel no despair about our prospects for victory.
“At the conference, we began to fashion those weapons that will be necessary in what I believe will be a long war for the American Jewish future.” —Benjamin Kerstein
Adam Louis-Klein
Founder of the Movement Against Antizionism
The Z3 Conference this year was such an important moment. Z3 is pointing the way toward a new Jewish future, one that meets the post-October 7 moment, takes antizionism seriously, and develops the positive intellectual tools for a contemporary vision of Jewish life. It was a pleasure to speak at the conference, attend an excellent array of panels, and participate in the dynamic and fertile conversations among an impressive group of Z3 Fellows.
Hussein Aboubakr Mansour
Author of ‘Minority of One: The Unchaining of an Arab Mind’
In the age of algorithmic nihilism we now inhabit, it is easy to feel that the world has taken leave of its senses, and that no one remembers any longer who they are or what they ought to be doing. The Z3 conference was a welcome refutation of that feeling, and a reminder that there remain many people capable of genuine thought and possessed of a sincere hunger for community. Over those days, ideas were argued in earnest, and conversations begun in the sessions carried on long after the sessions had ended. Serious education and a living community are the two goods our moment most conspicuously lacks, and they are seldom found in the same room; to have been offered both, not to mention good food, and offered them so generously and so well, was a rare privilege.
Tomer Persico
Author of ‘In God’s Image: How Western Civilization Was Shaped by a Revolutionary Idea’
Beyond the talks and the presentations, for me what was most inspiring was meeting so many wonderful, brilliant Jewish minds, dedicated to working out the next big steps for our nation. A really special group of people that was a delight to spend time with and that made me hopeful for the future.
Joseph Schwartz
Director of Makom: The Israel Education Laboratory of the Jewish Agency for Israel
Z3 this year was a heady experience. In the midst of one of the most fraught times in modern history for the Jewish people, American Jews and Israel, Z3 offered deep, probing panels, fascinating discussions of pressing issues like the origins and prospects of anti-Zionism among the world’s leading independent scholars of the ideology such as Izabella Tabarovsky and Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, along with much-needed hizuk (inspiration) from leading Jewish thinkers and writers like Dara Horn, Tomer Persico and others. The Z3 Institute was even more exciting. A true feeling of common mission and intellectual ferment filled the room as we heard, critiqued and offered support to one another’s projects. It felt, on this third year of the institute, that a distinct sensibility is taking shape—one that is forward-thinking, action-oriented and willing to reconsider our basic assumptions in order to address the needs of this most challenging of times.
Samantha Vinokor-Meinrath
Senior Director of Knowledge, Ideas, and Learning at Jewish Education Project
As someone who spends the majority of their time, both personally and professionally, thinking about the present and future of the Jewish people, the work can at times feel a bit lonely. But in the spaces that Z3 provides, both through the conference and the institute, the inner monologues that consume my thoughts take center stage. Listening to and learning from the cacophony of voices, both those who were platformed and those who bumped into each other organically throughout the day, was an exercise in challenging understandings and expectations, finding points of connection, and recognizing how many of us are caught up in this sacred work. I’m coming away with renewed energy, new contacts and relationships to build upon, and deep appreciation for how important it is that these spaces exist and thrive.
Micki Weinberg
Founder and Director of SHIUR
Z3 felt like we were part of something genuinely new: a carefully curated gathering of independent Zionist thinkers, coming from different backgrounds and disciplines, united by a commitment to critical inquiry. What made it particularly exciting was the openness to genuine encounters, not simply exchanging established positions, but allowing those exchanges to generate new ways of thinking. And it was also a lot of fun!
Maia Zelkha
Founding Editor, Yad Mizrah magazine
The 2026 Z3 Conference proved to me just how many Jews are seriously engaging with the most pressing questions of our time, willing to interrogate old assumptions, move beyond familiar clichés, and entertain ideas that challenge their own convictions. I can say with confidence that a new intellectual and communal movement within American Jewry is emerging, one that is both willing to confront the complexities of Jewish life today and interested in imagining what its future might look like. Clearly, American Jewish life is far more intellectually vibrant, dynamic, and open to reinvention than most of us realize.
Sign Up Now for Next Year’s Z3 Conference!
The Z3 Conference is returning to Palo Alto on November 14, 2027. I’ll be there as well as many of the writers and scholars at the Z3 Institute. Sign up now and we’ll alert you as soon as tickets go on sale.
The plan(s) for immediate and future action?