Call it a mash note to Jewish identity, and to the Jewish homeland. 

Hollywood heavyweights took to New York City’s world-renowned Carnegie Hall stage on Tuesday night to highlight the link between the Jewish people and the land of Israel, spanning thousands of years, in the form of recounting historic love letters to the Jewish state.  

“Letters, Light and Love” made its U.S. premiere in a one-night only performance hosted by UJA-Federation of New York as Jewish celebrities including Amy Schumer, David Schwimmer, Debra Messing, Tovah Feldshuh, Jonah Platt and Michael Aloni read excerpts of letters written about Israel across centuries. The notes came from writers such as Julius Caesar, Maimonides, Golda Meir, Sir Moses Montefiore, Albert Einstein, Harry Truman, John Adams, Winston Churchill and Leonard Bernstein.  

The performance was the second-ever showing of the three-act play, which first ran in 2024 in London’s West End. Co-produced by Sarah Sultman and Michal Noé, proceeds from the $1.5 million raised on Tuesday will go towards rebuilding Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel, where around one in 10 residents were killed by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. 

“I’ve always loved letters,” Sultman, who is the co-founder of the Gesher School in London, told Jewish Insider. The idea for the play came to her in early November 2023, while on a solidarity visit to Israel through a U.K. delegation weeks after the attacks. 

“Whilst I was out there, visiting a number of kibbutzim, they asked us what we would do when we went home,” recalled Sultman. “I had this idea about using letters to tell our story. I suppose it was driven by the pervasive narrative that Jews are white colonizers from Poland. That our connection to Israel [began] in 1948. For me, Judaism and its connection to Israel are inextricably linked and always have been.” 

“I came back from that trip and began researching letters, working with the National Library of Israel, digging through archives and accumulating hundreds of letters,” continued Sultman. “We have a 3,000-year-old history. We have letters from across time. [We created] a performance, interwoven with music, that tells our story in a way that is educational, soulful and moving. It’s also purposeful. It should be used as a project of regrowth in Israel.”

“We researched who are the actors proud of their Judaism and Zionism,” Sultman told JI, noting that most of the cast that came on board decided to “because of a personal connection” and it was easier to appeal to the actors directly rather than working through their agents. Several actors that Sultman thought would be interested turned down the opportunity, but she was surprised by others who were eager to participate.

Schumer, whose hits include “Trainwreck” and “Life and Beth,” said in a statement that “being on stage at Carnegie Hall, being a part of last night’s ‘Letters, Light and Love,’ was an honor … I am proud to be Jewish and to represent my ancestors, most of [whom] didn’t make it.”   

The London show “was a wartime effort” and was supposed to be a one-off, according to Sultman. But she described the audience’s response as “overwhelming.”  

It was then that she realized there was a further need for “a space where the artistic community can feel supported and safe and where an audience could feel pride in their story.”

“Post-Oct. 7, we’ve had lots of debate and fireside chat but there was nothing bringing joy in the room and celebrating who we are as a people. New York felt like it was aiming for the stars and a bit crazy,” Sultman said. “But we worked for a year on making it happen… and [finally] got the green light from Carnegie Hall in December.”

The show opened with the reading of a letter written by Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon to his professor, seeking guidance on “man’s purpose in life.” It closed with excerpts from a letter written by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks in 2001, telling Jews that each one is a “letter in the scroll.”

Other readings included notes written by Maimonides to Rabbi Yaphet bar Eliyahu the Judge, in the 12th century; Stephen Norman, the only grandchild of Theodor Herzl, on his first visit to then-Mandatory Palestine in the years before Israel’s statehood was declared; Esther Cailingold, who was mortally wounded defending the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem during Israel’s war of independence; and a final letter written by Elkana Wiesel to his family, just before he fell in battle in the Gaza Strip in January 2024.

There was also a personal nod to Sultman’s love for letters. Schumer, in her comedic style, read an October 1994 note that Sultman mailed to her sister while on a gap year in Israel, sharing that, unlike back home, Israelis party all day during Simchat Torah and celebrating her experience meeting Jews from all around the world.   

“I have all my letters from gap year and camps in my attic at home,” Sultman told JI. The letter was “something personal, but I also felt it represents so many 18-year-olds’ experiences. It was written by me but it could have been written by thousands of young people visiting Israel for their first time and they’re like, ‘Wow, this is so cool.’” 

“When we curated the letters it was important to take the audience on an emotional journey that wasn’t just about being sad or reflective but also celebratory and happy,” continued Sultman. 

“It was important to me that this wasn’t a history lesson. We broke it into three acts so you had moments you learned something, moments you felt sad and moments you felt happy. We also adapted it for New York [to reflect] American Jewry’s relationship with Israel, so we added the letter from Israeli President Chaim Weizmann to President Harry Truman.” About 70% of the letters were the same from the London show, while the others were switched out, Sultman said.  

For many audience members, the two-hour performance offered a welcomed respite from the antisemitism that has plagued Jewish communities since Oct. 7. Attendees were asked not to promote the event in advance as a security precaution and there was heavy NYPD and Community Security Initiative presence. A few cast members asked for their names to not be disclosed in the media, presumably also as a safety measure.   

Sultman said that had the event not been postponed by a day due to this week’s blizzard, she would have expected to see protests outside Carnegie Hall, even though organizers tried to keep the event under wraps. “It was remarkable that there were no protests,” she said. “We pivoted so fast [after the snow storm] that I don’t know that anyone would have caught on to the fact that we rescheduled for the next day. Protesters may have thought it was canceled.”  

The sold-out audience was comprised of three groups, according to the organizers. The parquet seats were given to UJA’s invite-only guests, which included donors as well as cast members’ family and friends. The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and Jim Joseph Foundation funded 800 seats for young people involved with groups including Hillel and Taglit to attend at no cost. The third group, about 1,000 tickets, were available for the general public to purchase through UJA.    

Among the star-studded cast — which also included musical performances by Matisyahu, The Maccabeats, Noa Tishby, David Draiman and others — only one presenter received a standing ovation: Eli Sharabi.

Sharabi, a former resident of Kibbutz Be’eri who was kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7 and held in Gaza for 491 days — and whose wife and daughters were murdered during the terrorist attack — took to the stage to thank American Jewry for its support.  

Sultman isn’t sure what comes next for the show, but she’s received requests to bring it to Los Angeles, Miami, Australia and even to translate it into Spanish for a run in Argentina. 

She said now that they’ve pulled off a performance in New York City — “then we could do it anywhere.”