My generation grew up hearing stories from our grandparents of being pulled from their homes. We saw images of babies executed, and the tattoo on Bubbie’s forearm. We saw pictures of burnt children and heard our grandparents tell us about hiding, terrified. We met the people who survived while their entire family was murdered.
I sat next to my grandmother when she told me how German students marched through her high school chanting, “Death to the Jews.” I heard the survivors say, they came for every Jew, left-wing, right-wing, religious, and secular. Only Jews see the differences, the Nazis saw us all as Jews.
We each saw ourselves hiding under a barn, standing by a locker as the students marched by. We law awake at night trying to escape the Nazis.
Every Jew of my generation looked around and thought, I wonder who would hide me if they came for me again?
Our entire generation grew up looking over our shoulders.
Then we said, Never Again. Never Again meant F-35s and Iron Domes. It meant drones and submarines and for a moment, we thought Israel would give us the safety to be Jewish without looking over our shoulder.
When I landed in Israel 3 weeks ago my son said to me, now I do not have to worry about wearing my Kipah in public! I told him, 80% of people are Jewish here. You’re safe here.
Then, two weeks ago we saw Jews killed in their cribs, kids tortured in front of their parents, and the remains of burnt Jewish children. We saw left-wing peace activists killed next to right-wing neighbors. I saw my son’s face when he ran to the bomb shelter.
Each of us asked ourselves, is there nowhere safe for a Jew in this world?
That is why your Jewish colleagues are unable to focus on work. That is why when crowds march through the streets and college campuses chanting, “Gas the Jews”, I see so many of my colleagues posting that they are not okay.
That is why a 37% increase in hate crimes against Jews in 2022 hits us so hard. I have friends who have started wearing baseball caps in public and those who are defiantly wearing Kipahs to work. I know hundreds of people who have gone to Israel to volunteer.
When I was thirteen, I saw myself in my grandmother’s high school in Germany and now I see my 5-year-old daughter in the picture of the girl kidnapped and taken to Gaza.
When Jews see the massacre in the South of Israel, the marches in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Australia, Professors who call the murder of Jews, exhilarating, and the Jewish woman punched in the NY subway yesterday, we ask ourselves, once again, Is there any place in this world that is safe for the Jew?
I am now home from Israel with my family, but I am not okay.
Shabat Shalom
.
Hello Neighbor,
The senseless attack on the peaceful Nation of Israel is perplexing, the outcome of this atrocity surely will make the citizens of Israel stronger.
Violence has never resolved differences between opposing beliefs. My prayer is for the continued blessings, grace, and mercies of God to encourage all Jews where they are to stand united and watch God turn this vicious attack ultimately into a blessing for all of God’s children.
Shalom
Welcome home, Eli and family!! What a powerful article you have written. The situation in Israel and Gaza has definitely pulled at our minds and our hearts.