Tomorrow marks a whole month since October 7th. A month? Does it feel like less or more? I’m not sure. It’s a whole new world we live in now. Israel will never forget that day, and the Jews of the Diaspora will never forget the month that came after it. The outside is eternally changed. And the inside is fortified in a way it never has been before.
Shloshim, as many of you know, is a Hebrew word. It means 30. And it describes a 30-day period after a death to mark intense mourning. During shloshim, it is customary to not listen to music, not watch TV or go to the cinema, abstain from concerts and social meals. I have felt personally as though I have been in a period of unbearable mourning since October 7th. I have not once switched on the TV. I can barely hear a song. The most I indulge is in a gym class, and even at that, my time is consumed by a feeling of guilt and distress. Every Uber ride feels like a risk. Even the sun on my skin is clawing. Nothing has been comfortable. People you thought you knew suddenly become like strangers. And every passer-by in the street carries a threat. We are once again wanderers.
Just after October 7th, I met Regina Spektor on Instagram, and have so appreciated the passion and disdain in her bold voice. With her permission I share something she wrote and posted today, because it collapsed onto my shattered heart:
I feel like I’m in a world wide Shiva (for those who don’t know – it’s the Jewish week of ritual mourning when someone very close dies). Except instead of a week, it’s open-ended. My appetite and sleep are different. I walk among people, but I’m alone. Separate. Other. This is grief. I see sorrow in the faces of other Jews. In my imagination we all begin to look like those black and white photographs from family albums, books, walls of Holocaust museums, documentaries. A time machine has somehow sucked us back into an era we thought we left behind. We can’t seem to wake up from this nightmare we’re living in.
How did we arrive here? A massacre in Israel, on October 7th, the biggest since the Holocaust, full of unspeakable brutality. Then, instantly, all over the world; celebrations, hate rallies hate speeches, violence, justification of murders, tortures, rapes, kidnappings. It’s ok cause we’re “white colonizers” now. Was the lynch mob in Dagestan looking for white people? In colleges are they harassing white students? Somewhere along the way everyone forgot we were indigenous to the Middle East. Scientists, Archaeologists, Historians all know we lived there for 3000 years, earlier than any Arab existence by centuries, but our certificate got revoked.
I kept trying to figure it out. How do students who care about safe spaces, micro-aggressions, social justice, women’s and LGBTQ rights align shoulder to shoulder with Hamas - a terrorist organization that calls for genocide of the Jewish people, has honor killings of women and NO human rights for ANY people. Then a moment of clarity. What are terrorists best at? How do they keep going? RADICALIZATION! They are SO good at radicalizing and they’re patient. Slowly they took an ancient strain of antisemitism and plugged it into a new context and new bodies, making this super virus for our times. The ever-mutating disease of prejudice always finds a way.
I see it on a video. This time it’s a young lesbian (whom Hamas would rape, then kill) and she is tearing down posters of KIDNAPPED CHILDREN AND CIVILIANS in the name of stopping colonization. She is white (the Jews on the poster are not). She is on ACTUAL COLONIZED LAND (USA) built after an ACTUAL genocide (of the Native Americans). The fact that she is traumatizing an oppressed and massacred minority somehow invigorates her. She’s found her scapegoat. Now she can be absolved of her sins. She can live in a world where “Words are literal violence!”, while she ignores and excuses LITERAL violence.
There’s nothing I can do to reach her or others like her. I don’t have the mental health background to engage with someone radicalized in a meaningful way. I can’t deprogram someone in a cult. Yes - I get a front row seat to some ignorance. Messages saying that my records should be burned, that I’m a genocide supporter, a dirty colonizer, heartless to the death of Palestinians, and some other typical rape threats for good measure. The gift is that I also get a front row seat to the LIGHT! The incredible, intelligent, gentle, loving, conflicted, nuanced, passionate, worried and scared, yet never hopeless messaged from people in Israel and all over the world. That’s what matters to me.
I’m not blind or indifferent to the suffering of innocent Palestinian people in Gaza who have lost their lives and homes. It’s tragic! The danger of you calling for a ceasefire instead of a full surrender is that you’re enabling Hamas’ genocidal agenda. You’re not helping Palestinians or Jews achieve peace. As recently as yesterday Hamas leadership said there would be another October 7 and another and another. They want to terrorize and massacre indefinitely. Call for the unconditional surrender of Hamas and the return of all the hostages! This and only this will bring freedom to the Palestinians and peace with Israel.
I will continue to say Hamas is NOT the Palestinians, because I know if the protested in Gaza they would be killed. What I don’t get is - in other parts of the world I’ve yet to witness ONE Palestinian rally that says “Not in my name!” and “You DON’T get to bake and behead babies, shoot children and parents in front of each other, torture and rape, for ME!” I see Jews getting arrested, standing with the Palestinians, writing open letters, walking out of jobs because they disagree with Israel. But WHERE are the Palestinians or any Arab rallies saying “Don’t slaughter Jews!” At this time only wishful thinking. The real world is at Dagestan Airport in a lynch mob, on US campuses calling for violence against us, painting stars of David on our synagogues, businesses and homes.
The small brave Jewish nation stands between you and the mouth of hell. When you wake up from the nightmare of your prejudice, and realize that you’re the hateful forces at the first ever desegregated school, or the people who stood by quietly while laws in Germany changed for your Jewish neighbors, it will be too late. They want to eat us first, but YOU’RE the main course. So how do I go on? Why do I still have hope? I believe there can be peace. I don’t know why I believe it, but I do. I believe education and connection can heal things. I believe that humanity is ultimately striving for good. By the way - if you burn my records - please wear a mask, don’t inhale - that shit’s bad for you. Am yisrael chai.
I wish so much that Regina was not such a refreshing and unusual voice in all this. I cherish every word of her statement.
I said this last night but it bears repeating given how much we continue to face. Jewish people are the only people who are not trusted to define our own prejudice. And our prejudice is the oldest enduring hate against a minority. Seems like non-Jewish people are just too attached to their ideas, and too accustomed to having control over us. And it complies with their newly radicalized thoughts anyway, because to align with an Arab worldview is to align with a society in which Jews will be subjected to different “dhimmi” laws, treating us as second class citizens. They are already imposing a caliphate before it comes. They enjoy being the oppressor. They don’t know that soon the key will be taken from them.
I came under fire today for calling out Vice President Kamala Harris, who last night, declared a focus on Islamophobia in America in this current moment. She made no mention of antisemitism. Jews make up 2.4% of the US population and we are the targets of 60% of hate crimes. But… Islamophobia. Free Palestine protestors march through the streets citing Islamic death chants to Jews, and we are doing all we can to eradicate Islamophobia. Sure! Is Biden really that scared of losing Arab American votes right now?
This is a watershed moment in history. The speed and girth of Jew hate is hard to fathom. It trounces every other prejudice going. It is by design that Iran have poured funds into every social justice cause, to chuck Jews in at the bottom of the oppression pyramid - when, in fact, we’re right at the top. Our enemies on the Left, on the Right, and among Islamic fundamentalists are imposing different tropes, but are all gleefully engaging in this borderline masturbatory genocidal hate-fest. Their hatred is beyond limit. They’re so incensed they refuse to breathe. They turn down any logic. They have no time for measure. Their explosive emotions are out of control. They have no decorum. What are they going to be like when there’s an actual war here?
Even if this moment dies down, even at that - we know what the temperature is outside now. And I have to ask: what kind of a world do you want your children to grow up in? I’m asking you this, even if you’re not Jewish. There is nothing driving this progressive ideology forward other than tribal warfare. Our freedoms are at perhaps an even greater risk than the security of Jewish lives.
People around us have no perspective on how fundamentally antisemitic their core belief systems are and why. It’s become a part of their identity. They have no idea what they've adopted without question, or where the truth is. But worse - they don't want to have it challenged. The ego has become a barrier to common sense and reason. In their heads, everyone is on their own pulpit at their own freedom rally. They will always be vulnerable to populist ideas, but staying rooted in reality, as scary as the reality is, somehow provides me personally with a sense of comfort.
As I pointed out a few essays ago, Hamas learned from the Third Reich’s best when it comes to propaganda. They have been building this public offensive for decades. They have used the Gazan people as pawns. Provoked Israel in an atrocious act of terror. Invited a war on Gaza that they structured their whole terrain for when they decided to build a society on top of a war bunker, and charmed the non-profits, social justice causes, and organizational bodies of the world with disinformation to incriminate Israel before any action was taken. So that when Israel inevitably detonated the human shield booby traps that Hamas laid, an orgy of outrage would ensue among the morally righteous. Hamas have multiplied their disinformation by lighting a match in the forest of social media and actively fueling fake statistics, AI imagery and emotionally manipulative intel to whip the globe up into an anti-Israel frenzy. The UN and mainstream media are complicit. Why? Follow the money.
Here is my friend Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) who do groundbreaking work policing social media companies, and advocating for legislation against online hate speech.
So according to Imran, and I would agree, whether you have good or bad intentions it doesn’t matter, you’re spreading rhetoric that Hamas wants you to spread. It’s selfish. Mindless. Frightful. Ultimately self-sabotaging.
Consider what kind of future you want your children to have as you watch this next clip. Here is a brilliant display of moral courage from Senator Hawley who takes Alejandro Mayorkas, US Secretary of Homeland Security, to task for refusing to acknowledge the genocidal and antisemitic desires of current employees in his own department. That’s right. In the Department of Homeland Security:
Why has she not been fired?
It is despicable. And it is atrocious. And this is how the conversation is playing out for many of us. An absolute refusal by those who should be held accountable for letting the horse bolt the stable; for allowing people in possession of dangerous thoughts and speech to abuse the freedoms and rights we must ferociously protect.
Again, what kind of a world do you want your children to grow up in? Do you want them to go to schools in which the teachers have erased Israel from the world map? That is already being petitioned by The Hamas Caucus aka The Squad in schools throughout America. They have a lot in common with the Chinese, apparently.
I know that what I’m saying isn’t falling on deaf ears, because something I have learned in the last four weeks, and will hold onto for the remainder of my life is that I am blessed with the most incredible non-Jewish allies. Some of the strongest, most resilient people I know. It doesn't surprise me who they are. And they have withstood a lot this month. They have been subjected to the same name-calling, the same rejections, the same boycotting, the same rescinding of social invitations, that we all recognize too well. Thank you to all of you for giving me – and all of us – light in this dark hour. You know who you are.
I went down to Canter’s Deli on Fairfax tonight to support the business after their antisemitic attack two nights ago. “We speak only of life” says the mural. We are the people of life. Hamas are the people of death. So if you’re here on this page, then you’re on the right side.
עם ישראל חי
Excellent and so important. Thank you.
Ronnie Spektor’s comments brings me great hope and joy. She is a light in these very dark times. Josh Hawley may have had a point and been right but his badgering and refusal to allow the witness to respond clearly shows him to be the attention seeking blowhard he has always been. Remember he is the same person cheering on the 1/6 crowd, supporting a government insurrection and is a die hard Trumpster. Be careful who you choose to support. A scorpion given a ride across a river will bite you.