There are many things that Jews in the Diaspora can do to help Israel in this time of crisis. But the first and most important is psychological: to shatter the business-as-usual mood.

Even after news of the mass murder of Jews in Europe was confirmed in the United States in late 1942, much of American Jewish communal life proceeded undisturbed. A January 1943 editorial in the Jewish Spectator found it ‘‘shocking and – why mince words? – revolting that at a time like this our organizations, large and small, national and local, continue ‘business as usual’ and sponsor gala affairs, such as sumptuous banquets, luncheons, fashion teas, and whatnot [.]’’ …

A handful of students at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Conservative rabbinical seminary in New York City, set out to change all that. Noah Golinkin, Jerry Lipnick, and Buddy Sachs began by setting their pens to paper.