Grand Central Station is occupied with screaming pro-Hamas mobs. College campuses shake from virulent shouts calling for the genocide of Jews, ‘by any means necessary,’ ‘resistance in all forms,’ and ‘we are all Hamas!’ Ivy League presidents suddenly grow dumb and mute when questioned about threats to their Jewish students and hide behind clever legal answers like ‘it’s about the context’ instead of confronting their double standards when it comes to protecting the Jews. We are called ‘colonizers,’ ‘murderers’ and supporters of an apartheid state. The streets of Europe are once again filled with virulent antisemitic throngs, hatred towards the Jews now in chic and in vogue.
We were massacred, burned, shot at, gruesomely disfigured, women violated, babies snatched, kidnapped, and yet the world remains shockingly silent. City councils, teachers, professors, students, legal unions, the United Nations, and women organizations have lost their moral compass. This should not be a hard call to make. And yet it is as if their soul has gone missing.
The Red Cross somehow cannot find a way to fulfill its mission and even bring needed medications to those who were stolen away on that black day. Instead, they condemn Israel for trying to defend themselves while not uttering a word about the barbarism and anti-humanism of Hamas.
“What have you done? The voice of your brother cries out to Me from the ground!”
The majority of Americans ages 18-29 think that Israel should be ended and given to Hamas. They also had the largest proportion of respondents who disagreed with the statement that Israel has a right to exist. Young Americans have the most anti-Jewish sentiment than any other group and disbelieve the Holocaust, saying that it’s a Jewish myth. The youngest age bracket polled agreed with statements such as “Jews have too much power in America.”
I hear my mother’s voice, in the final years of her life, that she sees her childhood visions haunting her. “The world is on fire and we are sleeping,” she would insist over and over again.
We did not get it.
We did not comprehend.
We did not see what she saw.
But here we are.
But what pains me most are the articles and clips of our own Jewish youth marching against and disparaging our land. For thousands of years we have wandered this earth, gone through every type of persecution, blood libels, Inquisitions, crusades, gas chambers, and now missiles and a massacre that no human being can fathom – but the cry for Yerushalayim has never left our lips. The dream of returning home, of washing the Wall with our tears, of walking the earth that our mothers and fathers once journeyed on, that dream has never died. They tried to murder us, obliterate us, wipe us off the face of this earth but we defy them and sing ‘Im eshkachech Yerushalayim’ under the chuppah in even the darkest of times.
How do so many of the next generation wrestle with those who have come before them? I read, I hear, comments like ‘we lived thousands of years without Israel, who needs it now?’ or ‘I don’t think the state of Israel should ever have been established. It’s based on this idea of Jewish supremacy and I’m not on board with that.’
Whose heart cannot hurt?
How did we get to this place?
We can analyze many reasons. The demonization of Israel on college campuses, the rise of wokeness and liberal diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that marginalized Jewish voices, assimilation, disconnect from Judaism, a lack of identity and roots, almost zero Jewish education, and division amongst our people. Perhaps you have more thoughts, I would welcome your ideas.
But here is the bottom line. We are losing too many of the next generation.
The words of Yehuda as he speaks to Yosef echoes to us all: “Eich eelaeh el avi v’hanaar einenu eti – how will I go up to my father and the youth is not with me?” One day we will each stand before Avinu Shebashamayim. And we too will have to ask this question. How can we have lived on this earth, witnessed the alienation of our youth and remained passive?
It is time for us to think about how we can reach out, reeducate, stand strong for our land, our chayalim, and reignite the spark that lies within the heart of every Jew.
