RIGHT SPEAK: Chris Christie Calls for a More Aggressive Foreign Policy (Full video included)

Courting powerful Jewish donors for the second time in two months, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called Sunday for a more aggressive foreign policy that defends American values abroad, but he also said he is concerned about the direction America is heading in.

"The rest of the world watches in desperation and hope that America will realize and act upon once again its indispensable place in the world," Christie, a prospective Republican presidential contender, said in a keynote address Sunday at the Champions of Jewish Values International awards gala in New York. "We must lead."

He charged that America must represent the strongest military and economic power, but also "the strongest moral power for what is good and what is right in the world."

“We see Russian activism once again rearing its head in the world, we see an America that backed away from a commitment made by the president of the United States in Syria, we see a country, our country, permitting even a thought of a terrorist state like Iran having nuclear capability,” Christie said. “It's unthinkable that the America that has led in the way that it has always led this world would permit that to happen. Yet we are sitting in a world, we are watching the vacuum that the lack of American leadership has created being filled and it is almost never filled by virtue, it is almost always filled by evil.”

The appearance offered Christie a second chance to impress deep-pocketed Jewish donors after stumbling in a recent speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition. Sunday's event also featured Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and major political donor Sheldon Adelson.