Let me say these things plainly as they are facts, not opinions.
- Hamas is a terrorist organization who spent a year planning a Pogram in Israel and it carried out on October 7, 2023. The slaughter of innocent Jews was horrific and far too reminiscent of Nazi Germany. The more than 200 hostages still held by Hamas include babies and the elderly, as well as children who are now orphans.
- October 7 emerged as "the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust."
- Worldwide antisemitism appears to have exploded since October 7th and officials are issuing serious warnings about our safety.
- The response to that attack has left thousands of Gazan's injured and dead - without food, water, and electricity.
- The majority of Palestinians DO NOT support Hamas. Just 27 percent of respondents to a recent poll selected Hamas as their preferred party.
I am the grandchild of Holocaust survivors and "never again" was a concept understood from an early age, even though we were by all accounts, reformed Jews. With that said, I believe in a two-state solution — one in which Israel would co-exist with an independent Palestinian state. I am not an absolutist, because I was raised as a critical thinker and I do not think there is ever only one right answer. Sometimes there is 'the right answer for me," or "the right answer for now," and at times there is even "no right answer" - we simply take a leap of faith when a decision must be made.
Humanity is not pie, with a slice for each truth. I can be outraged at the attacks in Israel on "my people," and equally outraged at what is happening to innocent civilians in Gaza.
It is with that mindset that I am trying to make it through each day with some level of balanced indignation, if that is even a thing. But I am slapped in the face each morning with the reality of the hate here in the US and as far away as Russia. I am terrified for my college student in DC, and for the two at home in our tiny town where we have seen our own hate. As a pro-choice, gay woman I am more than used to the vitriol thrown my way. But this feels different. I must remind myself every day that it is not that there are more people who hate us, it is simply that there are more of them who feel emboldened to say so. Social media makes for anonymous keyboard warriors and live protests make for mob mentality, right?
I mean it cannot simply be that previously kind and peaceful students at Cornell woke up this week with the intention of terrorizing their peers, now too afraid to go to class or eat in the kosher cafeteria. It's not possible that the students at American University who slipped a death threat under the door of a Palestinian IT specialist, woke up that morning entirely different beings than they were the day before?
With all of that in mind, my driving fear at this moment is that the hated become haters. In this moment there is nothing more important than making sure that we do not direct our fear, anger, and outrage at an entire population of equally innocent people. We cannot be lazy with our humanity. It is unimaginable to wake up each day hated by so many across the globe, but that reality for us as Jews should be our own wake-up call.
We cannot condemn antisemitism while ignoring or excusing the plight of Gazan's in this moment. We cannot scream about the possibility of "no more Israel" while watching the images of a decimated cities and hospitals only a few miles away. We cannot cry for Israeli mothers and children and disregard the same atrocities across the border.
We make up .02% of the population and yet we wake up each day hated. We know what that feels like, what it looks like and how it sounds. So, as we raise our voices in condemnation, can we find a way to remember that our plight is not ours alone? It is in fact, the universality of that plight that makes us best positioned to lead with humanity in this moment.
