Tears and Trials
I have less optimism to offer today. The weight of it all is…well, you know. If you’re reading this newsletter, you probably understand.
First, there is some tearfully good news. Four more girls and young women have returned home from Hamas captivity: Karina Ariev, Naama Levy, Daniella Gilboa, and Liri Albag. Their names and their faces are so familiar to me that it genuinely makes me cry to think that they are finally, finally home. The video of bloodied Naama being taken…but she is home. May they all know only peace for the rest of their lives.
And then there is the bad. Convicted terrorists and mass murderers were freed in exchange for the hostages. Terrorists for girls. That is the deal. The only option. A damned bad deal. But the only one. It had to be done. These girls had to be rescued from that hell.
I watched Sheryl Sandberg’s documentary Screams Before Silence all the way through again. The second watch is…worse, somehow. Because you know what’s coming, and you can’t stop it. You can’t save them. The women. The girls. The ones brutally raped and then murdered, left for dead where they lay uncovered and undressed. And no one seems to care. No one is standing up for these victims of unimaginable cruelty and violence. If the world cannot agree that what befell the victims of October 7th was evil incarnate, then why are we here at all?
Rape-denying, self-proclaimed “feminists” abound. I know of at least one that still teaches law. Yes, their institution knows—I wrote the letter informing them myself. They just don’t care. The apathy of the world to Jewish suffering is a stain on all of our souls. History will be harsher on me than most for failing to stop this wave of antisemitism when I realized what it could and has become. From the very beginning, I knew. There must have been a way to save us from this moment. I just didn’t find it. Justice and human decency demanded it, and I didn’t find it.
This unmitigated hate should chill the blood of any decent human anywhere on the planet. I am seeing more serious discussions of making Aliyah than before. It is undeniable that Australian antisemitism is completely out of control, and Canada, France, and Britain are not far behind. Aliyah is not an option for me, but if it were…
Look, I love America. This is my home, my only home. And I have and will fight to save it. But I cannot guarantee that I, that we, will win. I have learned too much history to believe otherwise.
In the long run, triumph over evil is assured. But at what cost will it be? Which places will fall to ruinous hatred before then? At the turn of the last century, Germany was the “pinnacle of European culture”. If you had told someone in 1900 what was to come, they would have laughed in your face. I fear that something of that nature is on the horizon again. And I want for nothing more in the world than to be wrong.
The most tragic part of it all is that we KNEW—we knew—where “anti-Zionism” leads. We have a “shining example”—in MENA. Where are the Jews of MENA? Where are the Jews of Morocco? Libya? Egypt (how ironic)? Iraq? Syria? Lebanon?
Almost all of them are in Israel now. The Mizrahi (literally ‘Eastern’ Jews) were ethnically cleansed from their homes across the Middle East and North Africa in the past 8 or so decades, and all in the name of “anti-Zionism”. There was no systematic industrial slaughter of them—because they had a place to escape the hate, a “safety valve” for antisemitism. Israel is an utter necessity to exist in the world, and anyone who claims otherwise is either a total ignoramus or actively malicious.
This is the ultimate aim of “anti-Zionism” anywhere in the world: to make the current location so inhospitable to Jewish life that Jews have no choice but to leave or be slowly strangled until death. Make no mistake, countries across the world are in danger of losing their Jewish populations to immigration to Israel. One by one, countries will lose Jews until Jews exist in only one location in the entire world. And it will be absolutely devastating, for everyone and everywhere.
I can’t imagine an America without Jews. You all built this country as much as anyone. You have as much right to be here as anyone else. George Washington said as much two and a quarter centuries ago, “May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.” —Letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island (1790).
Hate is here in America. I have witnessed it for many, many months now. And I refuse to be silent about it. Many of the people that knew me in my past life now wish for my absolute nonexistence. I join with them on that. Why should I live in history? I am unworthy in the fullest sense of the word. The only thing about me that is “special” is that I have tried my entire life to not be so. I am the wrong person to be here. But I am the only one that is. The demands of Justice on me are clear. I can never stop fighting for a better tomorrow, even when I cannot see it now.
I will get over this lapse of hope. Od lo avdah tikvateinu. It’s always darkest before the…
Next weekend if it’s ready will be a treatise on the historical Nazi roots of the “free Palestine” cause. Take care of yourselves. Seriously.
🇮🇱 עם ישראל חי