1) We are, and must always remain, one Jewish family. My favorite response to the question most often asked by my gentile neighbors about the impact of the events of October 7th is: “ Do you have any family over there in Israel?” My favorite reply to that question that is this: “Yes I do, I have 7 million members of my family there.”
The Talmud teaches us that every single Jew is responsible for the welfare of every single other Jew. Nothing that we do is more important reinforcing that lesson in the aftermath of October 7th. Leaders of Jewish organizations should not use this time to criticize the State of Israel, nor should we. It is not our children who are sent into harm’s way.
2) In the end, as sobering as the thought might be, the only people who will ultimately stand with the Jewish people, no matter what the circumstances may be, are the members of the Jewish people themselves. Many of the coalitions that we built over the years with so many other minority groups seem to have fallen by the wayside, even when it was crucial for them to stand with the Jewish people, and to show their support for us. This reality was painful both to realize and to experience, but the fact remains that those groups which we supported in their struggles, and with whom we shared an agenda, gave us very little or no support in our time of crisis. In fact, many of those groups chose to oppose the Jewish people and the Jewish state when we needed their alliance the most.
We need to reassess our relationships with those groups, who have now chosen to ally themselves with those causes and agendas which differ from our own. Some groups even went so far as to frame the victims as deserving of their fate. They chose to blame the victim.
3) We need to forge and strengthen new alliances with those who do stand with the Jewish people. Many Evangelical Christians and more conservative political groups came to our defense, at precisely the same time that other religious groups and more liberal leaning political groups abandoned us or were even hostile and their approach to us.
4) We, the Jewish people, know the difference, the crucial distinction between intentional attacks of barbarism perpetrated on innocent human life, and those innocent lives lost, fully unintentionally, on the other side, especially when dealing with terrorists embedded in civilian population centers.There is absolutely no moral equivalency between those who seek to protect innocent lives at all cost, and those who seek to destroy innocent human life at any cost.
5) No one need preach to the Jewish people from a moral high ground about the incredible importance of each and every individual human life. There is no compelling argument that can justify the barbaric acts— rapes, beheadings, burning people alive, shooting innocent souls to death—simply and solely because of their religious heritage.
6) The only thing which differentiates the heinous acts, such as those as were perpetrated against Jews in the holocaust, and the acts of October 7th, is that now, at last, the Jewish people has an army to defend itself, able to protect its people and it’s homeland.
7) For Israel, and for the Jewish people around the world, October 7th represents an existential challenge to the very viability and survivability of the state of Israel.
8) Under the guise of anti-Zionism, we have seen once again, the rise of antisemitism throughout the world, including on our college campuses, including the most elite among them. The world most often prefers the role of the Jews as helpless victims. Jews with strength challenge this narrative and this image.
9) For members of the Jewish faith and of the Jewish people, this represents the moments when it is time to choose whether to stand proudly for all that we believe, or to be entrenched in the fear of our own Jewish shadows.
10) For the Jewish people, this is a time to take enormous pride in and support of the Jewish enterprise in our ancestral Homeland. Israel has shown that it can withstand the challenges of any vibrant democracy, including one under direct attack by its adversaries. What Israel needs from us is an unwavering commitment and undying loyalty and unconditional support.
The Jewish Observer is published by The Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville and made possible by funds raised in the Jewish Federation Annual Campaign. Become a supporter today.