When I first heard the reports of an active shooter situation at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, around 7:30 Thursday evening here in Jerusalem, my first thought was — Jen.

Rabbi Jen Lader is a member of Temple Israel’s clergy team, responsible for the congregation’s teen-related activities, and is president of the Michigan Board of Rabbis.

She is also a longtime friend of mine — we went to college together twenty years ago and last had dinner together in Jerusalem just a few weeks ago.

I immediately texted her to make sure she was okay and let her know I was thinking of her. When she finally texted back an hour later, she wrote, “I’m okay, thank you,” and then, “All kids okay.”

She was referring to the 106 children who attend the temple’s early childhood center, all of whom were safely evacuated by their teachers and temple staff as the synagogue’s security team confronted and ultimately neutralized the attacker, averting what could have been a catastrophe.

Several hours later, as she finally made her way home, I spoke to Rabbi Lader about how she and the community were grappling with the day’s harrowing events, how the temple’s security team saved lives, why she wasn’t surprised by the attack, and what message she has for Americans and for Jews around the world.

Click on the play button above to listen to our conversation.

Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem — A.M.

This episode of the Jerusalem Journal Podcast is being made available to all readers of Jerusalem Journal.

Rabbi Jen Lader joined the Temple Israel clergy team in July of 2012, following her ordination from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, Ohio. She serves as the synagogue’s ‘youth guru,’ running all teen-related activities, and is the current president of the Michigan Board of Rabbis. Hailing from Austin, Texas, Rabbi Lader earned a Bachelor of Arts in Jewish Studies from the University of Maryland and a Master of Hebrew Letters degree from HUC-JIR. She and her husband, Daniel, have two beautiful children.

Editor’s note: Since the United States and Israel launched their joint military operation targeting the Iranian regime Saturday morning, I have spent much of the time on various news networks commenting on the latest developments and offering an on-the-ground perspective. In between interviews and dashes to the bomb shelter, however, I have tried to sort out my thoughts about the broader meaning of what we are currently experiencing. This is the result. May our men and women in uniform return safely from their missions and may Iranians, Israelis, and all the nations of the region share a new era of peace. — A.M.

Like October 7, this past Shabbat morning began with a siren.

After all the bleary-eyed residents of my Jerusalem building had made their way down to the communal bomb shelter, however, it turned out that it was merely a loud and obnoxious reminder to stay alert and abide by Home Front Command directives — a sign that hostilities had begun, but we were not in immediate danger.

As on that awful morning two and a half years ago, after a few moments’ hesitation, I decided to make my way to Shabbat services at my nearby synagogue, which meets in the gym of a local elementary school. Though there were fewer people than usual, we had a minyan before too long, and the morning service proceeded as usual.

We were in the middle of the Torah reading when the first real siren sounded. After a brief deliberation, we decided to take our Torahs and prayer books with us and go down into the school bomb shelter, which doubles as an art studio. We moved a few pieces of furniture aside, arranged a bunch of chairs, placed a Torah on a table, and continued the reading.

This was not just any Shabbat. It was Shabbat Zachor, the occasion on which congregations around the world read the passage from Deuteronomy that contains the commandment to remember the Amalekites’ vicious attack on the Israelites as they left Egypt.

“Remember what the Amalekites did to you on your journey out of Egypt, how – undeterred by fear of God — they ambushed you while you were on your way and cut off all the stragglers who were lagging behind,” the text reads.

“Therefore, when the Lord your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you, in the land that He is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget.”

The portion is read on the Shabbat before the holiday of Purim, linking the ancient Amalekites’ attempt to annihilate the Israelites to a latter-day Amalekite’s attempt to do the same. Though he was a Persian king’s royal vizier, Haman, the villain of the Purim story recounted in the Book of Esther, is referred to as an Agagite — a descendent of the Amalekite king Agag and an apparent heir to his biblical forebears’ genocidal ambitions.

Each year, Shabbat Zachor takes place around the anniversary of my grandfather’s passing, so I volunteer to chant the brief passage from the Torah. It is considered a special religious obligation to hear the Zachor reading and a hush tends to fall on the congregation as people cling to every word.

As I unrolled the Torah to recite the blessing, seemingly on cue, a siren blared.

(A congregant — one of several journalists in our community — muttered, “someone should really write something about this”; I told him not to worry.)

I waited for the siren to die down and proceeded with the reading as dull, distant explosions reverberated through the thick concrete walls of the shelter.

For the past couple of days, as I have been following and commenting on the dramatic developments while going in and out of bomb shelters, I have found myself considering the significance of this moment. The historical parallels invite themselves; the echoes of our people’s storied past seem too obvious to ignore.

Like the biblical Israelites, and like the Jews of ancient Persia, we, too, have been beset by genocidal foes — the most powerful of whom happen to control the Persia of today. Like Haman, the leaders of the Islamic Republic have spoken openly about their dreams of annihilation and their vision of a world devoid of sovereign Jewish existence. And like the Jews’ ancient enemies, they have sought to put their words into action, dispatching their proxies to murder Jews in Israel and around the world, exporting their venomous hate across the globe, launching ballistic missiles at Israeli towns and cities, and diligently developing the ultimate means of bringing about the Jewish state’s destruction.

But like the weary Israelites, who summoned the strength to overpower the Amalekites, and like the threatened Jews of Persia, who turned their swords on those preparing to annihilate them, over the past few days, we have experienced a striking turn of fate.

Rather than sitting passively and awaiting the first blow, Israel — alongside its closest ally, the United States — has seized the initiative and taken the fight to Iran. The Islamic Republic is now in crisis, its future uncertain, as Tehran is rocked by constant bombardment methodically destroying the regime’s centers of control. The Iranian people, long oppressed and impoverished by cruel and fanatical rulers, are stirring; expats around the world are rallying, waving American and Israeli flags alongside the historic flag of Iran. And just as Haman and his sons were hanged on the gallows he had prepared for Mordechai, Ali Khamenei and several of his children and intended successors are now dead, killed by bombs dropped from aircraft emblazoned with the Star of David.

But here in Jerusalem, rather than immediately rejoicing upon our enemies’ demise, we pause.

Unlike the rest of the world, where those who had abstained from food and drink during the solemn Fast of Esther immediately transition to the festivities of Purim, here we wait 24 hours before we celebrate what is known as Shushan Purim — a phenomenon unique to Jerusalem and other ancient walled cities.

In many ways, that moment of contemplation is where we now find ourselves as a nation.

Despite the stunning military successes of recent days, the future remains unclear. The Iranian regime — whatever remains of it — is still clinging to power. We do not yet know what reality will emerge from this war or how a new Iranian government might relate to its own people, to Israel, or to the world. And, of course, we are still under fire, preparing to read the megillah in our bomb shelters later this evening.

But if Jewish history teaches us anything, it is that, to quote Faulkner, the past is never dead — it’s not even past. Ours is a story marked by danger and deliverance, tribulation and triumph. Time and again, we come back from the brink of annihilation to stun the world and thrive.

Tonight, as on Shabbat, we will read an ancient text about a threatened people who vanquished their enemies and survived, and that story will resonate more powerfully than ever because it is our own.

Happy Purim.

In early December, Israeli journalist Nadav Eyal broke a story that drew far less attention than it deserved.

Israeli defense and intelligence officials, he reported, had concluded that much of the wave of anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment that has engulfed global discourse over the past two years has been deliberately engineered by a state actor. The sophistication, coordination, consistency, and interconnectedness of both the messaging and those promoting it online and off led the officials to determine hat only a world power — or a state with vast financial resources — could be behind such a comprehensive influence operation.

While considering the involvement of other countries with axes to grind against the Jewish state, the Israelis have focused their attention on one primary suspect: Qatar.

To even casual observers, the signs of a broad effort to cultivate hostility toward Jews and Israel linked to the wealthy Gulf emirate are difficult to miss: from Al Jazeera’s propagandistic coverage to Tucker Carlson’s recently discovered affinity for the country, and from the appearance of Hamas leaders at government-hosted conferences to the prevalence of virulently anti-Israel narratives at academic institutions that receive Qatari funding.

Taken together, Qatar’s role in shaping global hostility toward Israel — and its remarkable success in leveraging its unfathomable wealth to advance its interests — has proven strikingly effective in fostering negative perceptions of the Jewish state and in undermining its legitimacy at a moment when Israel has been fighting for its very existence.

In this episode of the Jerusalem Journal Podcast, Eyal joins us to discuss how Israel identified Qatar as being behind this global defamation campaign, why the emirate has chosen to target Israel now, how it has cultivated influence in the United States and around the world, and what Israel can do to fight back.

This episode is being made available to all listeners. To receive full access to all Jerusalem Journal Podcast episodes as soon as they are released, become a paid subscriber today.

Nadav Eyal is one of Israel’s leading journalists and political commentators, a senior columnist for Yediot Aharonot and Ynet, and a regular contributor to Dan Senor’s Call Me Back podcast. He recently launched his own Substack newsletter, Between Us. Eyal is a senior scholar and adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, focusing on the Middle East, Israel, and the crisis of democracy.

Some months ago, I took one of my suits to be cleaned at my neighborhood dry cleaners here in Jerusalem. When it came back, I removed the plastic garment bag and discovered a small hole in the jacket lapel. Annoyed by the damage to the fabric, I briefly considered complaining to my trusty dry cleaners before realizing what it was: the mark left by the yellow ribbon pin that had been there for the previous two years.

All of my suit jackets have borne those pins for two years and three months. This evening, I removed them once and for all.

The recovery of the body of the final Israeli hostage, 24-year-old Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, from Gaza and its return to Israel earlier today marks the close of one of the most painful chapters in Israel’s history.

“Rani has returned home,” said Itzik Gvili, Ran’s father. “He was the first one to go in fighting and the last one to return,” he added, alluding to his son’s heroism on October 7, 2023, when he battled terrorists for hours at Kibbutz Alumim before being killed in action, his body spirited away. “Thank you to the people of Israel.”

For 843 days since that terrible day, the hostage crisis has been a festering wound, a dark cloud hanging over Israel. Now the wound can begin to heal. The cloud is finally dissipating.

And we can breathe again.

The war that Hamas launched on October 7 is now over. Israel’s war objectives have been achieved. Hamas has been decimated; though it still exerts control over parts of Gaza and remains committed to Israel’s violent destruction, it no longer poses the threat to Israeli communities that it did on October 6. The residents of those communities have largely returned home and some of the kibbutzim have expanded; there are now more Israeli families living in areas near Gaza than there were before the war. And, as of today, there are no more Israeli hostages, living or dead.

Dramatic declarations at Davos notwithstanding, critical questions remain: about the disarmament of Hamas and the demilitarization of Gaza; what the territory’s future governance will look like; how to ensure Gaza’s population is thoroughly deradicalized; and how to prevent Hamas from seizing control and again transforming the territory into a base from which to attack Israel and murder Israelis. Even if Israel permits the Rafah Crossing to reopen in the coming days, as it has committed to do, it does not appear as though Israeli forces will be withdrawing fully from Gaza anytime soon.

Moreover, many of the challenges that have emerged over the past year will endure for many years to come. Our defense doctrine will need to be rethought and our economy refashioned. The unprecedented mental health crisis produced by the war will need to be tackled. The global assault on Israel and on Jewish communities around the world will need to be repelled. And we will need to rebuild trust between Israelis and the government bodies, institutions, and leaders that failed them on October 7 and have proven unequal to the task for much of the war. We will be exploring some of these challenges in Jerusalem Journal in the months ahead.

Yet this is a moment to pause, to take stock, and to reflect on all that we have endured and all that we have achieved over the past two years.

Caught by surprise and having suffered horrific loss and devastation, Israel swiftly rallied and responded with tremendous military might. A nation still reeling from the worst day in its history mobilized to support the families of the fallen, the wounded, and the hostages, as well as the hundreds of thousands of Israelis evacuated from their homes. Despite missile barrages, airport closures, and boycotts, the country’s economy powered ahead, emerging stronger than it was on the eve of the war. And Iran’s vaunted ring of fire — which had encircled the Jewish state and threatened to strangle it — lies in smoldering ruin, its various proxies defanged and the Islamic Republic itself wounded and humiliated.

Throughout it all, young Israelis — like Ran Gvili and the more than 1,100 other members of Israel’s security forces killed on October 7 and during the war, and the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and reservists who participated in the war effort — put their lives on the line in their country’s defense, engaging in acts of heroism and sacrifice reminiscent of bygone eras. It is they, we now know, who have been — and ultimately will be — Israel’s salvation.

When the soldiers of the IDF’s Combat Engineering Corps finally identified Gvili’s body in a Gaza cemetery earlier today, they realized they had accomplished one of the military’s most solemn missions throughout this war. “The tension in the field erupted,” recalled one officer who was at the scene. “Some of the soldiers were moved to tears and embraced over the graves.” Their emotions reflected those of an entire nation.

For several days after discovering the hole in my lapel all those months ago, I tried all sorts of methods — suggested largely by ChatGPT — to shrink or conceal it. But now I’m glad it is there for good: a reminder of our collective resilience in the face of unfathomable trauma, of the heartbreaking and awe-inspiring dedication of the hostage families, and of the final fulfillment of our most sacred national promise to leave no man or woman behind.

Editor’s note: As the dramatic events of recent weeks continue to unfold in the streets of Iran, gripping the world's attention, we invited Iranian-born human rights activist Marjan Keypour Greenblatt to reflect on the origins of the current wave of protest — and why things will never go back to the way they were. I know you will find this piece as timely and moving as I did. Shabbat Shalom from Washington, D.C. — A.M.

I remember the dark days of the war with Iraq.

I was a middle school student attending a government-run public school in Tehran, where a full day of moral education was intermittently interrupted by math and science. I would come home to radio and television programming blaring military marches, mournful Quranic recitations, and daily announcements listing the names of dozens of young soldiers killed at the front. Many were my peers — boys between the ages of 12 and 21 — who had enthusiastically enlisted. They were promised a better life in heaven: seventy-two virgins, divine reward, even metallic keys to paradise worn proudly around their necks.

In the years that followed, these “martyrs” were immortalized in street names. Their families received government subsidies and special favors, woven into a system that rewarded sacrifice with material and symbolic recognition.

Nationalism ran deep, but it was intertwined with something stronger: a fantasy of salvation in the afterlife. I, too, absorbed this belief. I would tell my parents, “I’m not afraid of death. Death is an honor for those who love their country.” I was thirteen, a Jewish girl who despised the regime — the compulsory hijab, the suffocating propaganda, the omnipresent fear, the absence of freedom. Yet had I been a boy, I might have secretly enlisted to fight for Iran — not for the regime, but for the nation.

This fusion of nationalism and spiritual idealism proved immensely powerful. The former is distinctly Iranian; the latter Islamic. Together, they sustained Iran through seven years of war with Iraq.

The Islamic Republic became highly skilled at cultivating and exploiting these emotions. Manipulation was easier in a country that controlled every word of its educational curriculum, broadcast media, cultural production, and — later — much of its digital space. Through these instruments, the regime justified its failures and advanced its narratives. Over the past 47 years, it framed the hijab as protection against sexual assault, blamed American imperialism for global poverty, cultivated selective compassion for Palestinians, equated nuclear development with national pride, portrayed child marriage as maturity, and pacified hunger with promises of a better life in the afterlife.

But as the regime pulled emotional strings, the world changed. Technology cracked open the information ecosystem, and a new generation of literate, tech-savvy Iranians gained access to alternative narratives. Armed with information, young people rebelled against state-imposed norms. They pushed back against restrictions, demanded dignity, and openly mocked their inept rulers. A nation long defined as a religious entity witnessed a quiet but profound rejection of Islam — and, for many, of religion itself.

This shift extended even to identity. Young people changed their names from Ali, Mohammad, and Zahra to Ardeshir, Kourosh, and Manijeh — shedding Islamic markers to reclaim pre-Islamic Iranian roots.

Politically, faith in the system collapsed. Once a vibrant electorate, reaching a peak of 85% participation in 2009, turnout fell to 73% after the failure of the Green Movement, to less than 50% in the cycle before Mahsa Amini’s murder, and finally to less than 40% — its lowest point, at which the current president, Pezeshkian, was elected. Iranians came to understand that their votes had little impact on their lives; they served instead as propaganda, enabling the regime to claim legitimacy abroad.

The nature of protest evolved, as well. In 2017, during what became known as the Dey Protests, demonstrators in the religious city of Mashhad chanted, “No fear, no fear, we are all together.” In a totalitarian system where neighbors fear one another and informants thrive, the chant was transformative. Until then, many Iranians believed Mashhad firmly supported the regime.

By 2018, the slogans reflected a deeper political awakening. Protesters chanted, “Our enemy is right here; they lie when they say it’s America.” The rhetoric grew sharper, even extending to foreign policy: “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon — my life is for Iran,” and more recently, “Both Gaza and Lebanon shall be sacrificed for Iran.”

Iranians were losing faith in both God and government. The 2022 murder of Mahsa Amini — arrested for refusing to wear her hijab and beaten to death in police custody — marked a breaking point. Promises of heaven no longer compelled obedience and fear no longer restrained defiance. This was the moment many women rejected compulsory hijab altogether, reversing the equation of fear — daring morality police to arrest them.

The Woman, Life, Freedom Movement launched after Amini’s killing is filled with snapshots of fearless resistance: women intimidating security forces with uncovered hair; young people following clerics and knocking their turbans into the street; protesters hurling tear gas canisters back at their attackers; buildings set ablaze. They fought back knowing the risks — arrest, torture, death. Fear had lost its power.

Life for the Iranian people did not improve after the 2022 protests. The economy tanked to new lows, inflation skyrocketed, and the basic necessities of life — even clean air, water, and electricity — became scarce. Freedoms were promised but never delivered. Whatever liberty people exercised, like walking around without the hijab, was a moment of freedom earned at great risk. They lost hope in their government and God, but they found faith in themselves.

With fear gone and power regained, more people took to the streets. This is how the current wave of protests has emerged as the largest since the 1979 revolutionary uprising. “Death to the dictator,” they chant, “Javid Shah: long live the king” — slogans that challenge the foundation of the revolution in its entirety. A return to the beginning.

From the accounts of people who left videos behind, it is clear they were aware of the dangers they faced — the very real possibilities of arrest and death. But they wanted to redeem their dignity and fight for their own rights.

To quell the people’s rage, the government promised extra subsidies and food to the public. That pathetic act of charity offended the protesters. They have taken to the streets with their treasured bags of rice and thrown the contents into the air, rejecting the regime’s pitiful efforts to calm their decades-long struggle with a little bit of money. It was too late. The regime has destroyed so much and taken away so much that nothing can pacify these people.

The Iranian people are not motivated by promises of the other world should they be shot; instead, they express their love for their country and urge the importance of saving it — even at the cost of their lives.

I know one thing for sure. If I were in Iran today, I would be among the protesters, fighting for exactly what my brothers and sisters are fighting for — even if it cost me my life.

Marjan Keypour Greenblatt is a human rights activist and advocate for women and minorities in Iran. Born and raised in Iran, she is the Founder and Director of the Alliance for Rights of All Minorities (ARAM) and StopFemicideIran.org, the first interactive map documenting acts of femicide in Iran and memorializing the victims. A non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, she holds a degree in sociology from UCLA and a Master’s in education from Harvard University.

Editor’s note: Many readers were moved by our recent podcast conversation with Rachel Moiselle about her fight against antisemitism in Ireland (which is now available to all). Today we are publishing this powerful piece by Alan Shatter, who served as Ireland’s Minister for Justice and Equality and Minister for Defense from 2011 to 2014. It is a damning indictment of the country’s political class for its role in fomenting widespread hostility against Israel and Jews — and a cautionary tale about the dangers of incendiary rhetoric gone unchecked. Shabbat Shalom from somewhere in the Pacific. — A.M.

They have been a slow burner.

Neither official Ireland’s hostility toward Israel nor escalating antisemitism in Ireland emerged overnight. They have no single root and follow no straightforward path. Rather, they derive from a convergence of historical and contemporary forces that have shaped Irish political culture. Spread from the top down, they now subconsciously contaminate the outlook of too many who live on the island of Ireland, north and south.

There is a difference between criticism of the Israeli government and hostility toward all Israelis or toward Israel’s continued existence as a state. There is also a difference between criticism grounded in factual, balanced knowledge of history and present realities, and toxic denunciation based on selective facts, distortions, invention, or political opportunism that deliberately ignores context and complexity.

Not all criticism of Israel’s government is antisemitic, just as not all criticism of Ireland’s government is anti-Irish. Israelis and Irish people alike regularly criticize their own governments, and neither state should be immune from international scrutiny. Where criticism is inaccurate, it should be corrected — without vituperation or imputations of bad faith.

But the relentless deployment of emotive falsehoods that demonize a state’s actions while stripping them of context inevitably leads to darker conclusions. When the line between legitimate and illegitimate criticism is repeatedly crossed, identifying underlying causes and motives is justified.

Since October 7, 2023, the actions and pronouncements of the Irish government — successive Taoisigh (prime ministers) and ministers — have all too often crossed that line. The rhetoric and conduct of opposition parties and many elected representatives have gone further still.

For decades, successive Irish governments have favored a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I include myself among those ministers and politicians who advocated that position in discussions with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. What is routinely ignored in today’s Ireland is that Arab states rejected such a solution in 1948, choosing instead to seek Israel’s destruction; that Egypt and Jordan between 1948 and 1967 could have created a Palestinian state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza but chose not to; and that two-state offers made by Ehud Barak in 2000 and Ehud Olmert in 2008 were rejected by Yasser Arafat and later Mahmoud Abbas.

Whether any such agreement would have ended the conflict permanently is unknowable. But there is reason for doubt when reflecting on Gaza’s history since Israel’s withdrawal in 2005.

After that withdrawal, Palestinians had the opportunity to develop Gaza as a peaceful, self-governing entity supported by billions in international aid. That was not the path chosen. Hamas instead dedicated itself to Israel’s destruction: constructing hundreds of miles of tunnels beneath civilian infrastructure, initiating repeated wars, abducting Israelis, and ultimately perpetrating the atrocities of October 7, 2023 — atrocities it has promised to repeat.

During the war Hamas initiated and deliberately prolonged, it murdered, tortured, sexually assaulted, and starved hostages, while openly calling for the global murder of Jews. It continued the war by firing thousands of missiles into Israel from locations adjacent to civilians and denied Gaza civilians access to tunnels in order to maximize and weaponize civilian casualties for propaganda benefit. Hamas openly boasts of sacrificing “martyrs” and opposes any permanent two-state solution.

Yet despite this reality, Ireland’s political class has continued reflexively to call for a two-state “solution,” while ignoring Hamas’s responsibility and agency. Palestinians and their divided, incompetent, and corrupt leadership are infantilized and absolved of responsibility for continuing conflict, while Israel is portrayed as solely responsible. With few exceptions, Israel is depicted as the aggressor and rarely as a state defending its citizens in a war it did not initiate.

This mentality — denying Palestinian agency while demonizing Israel — has dominated Irish political rhetoric since October 7. It extends beyond politics into trade unions, civil society NGOs, activist groups, and much of the mainstream media, including Ireland’s state-supported broadcaster, RTÉ. RTÉ’s selective coverage — its routine framing of the conflict as “Israel’s war on Gaza,” reliance on Hamas-run health ministry figures, and presentation of tragic but context-free imagery — has significantly shaped public perception. These narratives are echoed across print media, podcasts, and social platforms and reinforced by the relentless campaigning of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign and its ever-proliferating offshoots.

There are additional factors that cannot be denied: the inflammatory rhetoric of some Israeli ministers; the violent conduct of a minority of West Bank extremists; abuses of Palestinian prisoners; and instances of excessive IDF force. These warrant criticism. Too often, however, they are deployed selectively to obscure Hamas’s crimes rather than to confront the conflict honestly.

Since October 7, almost weekly protests in Dublin and Cork have become social rituals for students, activists, artists, trade unionists — and antisemites — seeking belonging. Their focus is not peace or reconciliation but Israel’s elimination. Concerts, academic events, and sporting campaigns demonize Israel and promote boycotts, divestment, and sanctions aimed indiscriminately at all Israelis.

For some in Ireland, the Palestinian “cause” has filled an existential void left by the collapse of traditional religious faith. For others, it serves as a vehicle for intersectional ideology and the revival of a Soviet-era anti-colonialist narrative that falsely equates Israel — the world’s only Jewish state — with Britain’s colonial rule in Ireland.

This narrative is most enthusiastically embraced by Sinn Féin, which during the Northern Ireland conflict acted as the political front for the Provisional IRA. Since the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Féin has grown into Ireland’s main opposition party and embedded itself deeply within trade unions and activist networks. Its focus is the demonization of Israel as an apartheid state and advocacy of BDS. While it preserves strategic ambiguity about Israel’s existence, some members openly advocate its replacement. The smaller left-wing party People Before Profit goes further, openly applauding the “resistance” of October 7 and calling for Israel’s extinction. For some, “Zionist” or “Zio” has become a routine term of abuse, and the only “approved” Jew is a self-declared anti-Zionist. The Social Democrat Party, which replicates the Sinn Féin narrative, in the spring of 2024 deselected its only Jewish member chosen to contest Ireland’s local elections because she privately expressed concern about the impact of its toxic rhetoric.

Since October 7, the Dáil has devoted more time to the Israel-Gaza war than to any other issue, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or Ireland’s housing crisis. Even after the UN Security Council endorsement of an international peace framework, the obsession continued. While ritual calls were made for the release of hostages, their release was never prioritised. Absent was any reference to the complexity of tunnel warfare, Iranian sponsorship of terrorism, or Hezbollah missile attacks that endangered Irish UNIFIL troops. The refrain of Israel’s “disproportionate response” became constant. The possibility that the war could end if Hamas simply released the hostages was never discussed. By November 2024, the Dáil unanimously adopted a resolution denouncing Israel as guilty of genocide.

In spring 2024, five months after October 7, Israel’s ambassador was excluded from all Irish political party conferences while Iran’s was welcomed; in May 2024 Ireland recognized a Palestinian state alongside Spain and Norway and was publicly praised by Hamas; in September 2024 Ireland’s embassy in Tehran was reopened; and in November 2024 Ireland supported South Africa’s genocide case at the International Court of Justice, later intervening by proposing that the Court expand the definition of genocide to apply it to Israel’s conduct of the Israel-Gaza war. That December, Israel withdrew its ambassador.

In January 2025, the government committed to the so-called PIGS Bill, criminalizing the importation of goods from Israeli settlements, a euphemism for Jewish-originated goods. The government admits its bill — reminiscent of the darkest periods of Jewish history — is symbolic: the affected trade amounted to €650,000 over five years. If enacted, it would violate the EU’s exclusive international trade competence, trigger U.S. anti-boycott laws, and damage Ireland’s international standing. Its symbolic message, however, is unmistakable: that no Israeli or Jewish person should reside or work in East Jerusalem or anywhere on the West Bank or Gaza, and that any future Palestinian state should be judenrein (free of Jews).

By late 2025, two controversies crystallized these trends: a proposal to rename Herzog Park in Dublin, adjacent to Ireland’s only Jewish school, and RTÉ’s campaign to exclude Israel’s broadcaster from Eurovision. The Herzog Park proposal collapsed on procedural grounds but not before councilors denigrated Chaim Herzog as genocidal and condemned the “crime” of Zionism. Campaigners then sought an “approved” anti-Zionist Jew to replace his name. RTÉ’s failed effort to exclude Israel from Eurovision culminated in its own withdrawal from the competition, defended as “solidarity” by the current Taoiseach but achieving nothing beyond reputational damage.

In today’s Ireland, extreme hostility toward Israel — and antisemitism itself — has become mainstream. Depicting Israel as genocidal is routine. Jewish children face bullying in schools. Irish social media is saturated with conspiracy theories and antisemitic abuse. Journalists and academics who dissent from the prevailing narrative are marginalized; Jewish experts who challenge orthodoxy are effectively silenced.

After the terrorist massacre at Bondi Beach, Irish leaders rushed to condemn antisemitism — many of them having marched at events where chants to “globalize the intifada” were commonplace. The hypocrisy was stark.

It is possible this tragedy will prove a moment of reckoning. It could lead to restraint, meaningful application of the IHRA definition, abandonment of the PIGS Bill, and serious engagement with Ireland’s Jewish community that results in positive action.

But experience counsels skepticism. Politicians are adept at issuing the right words in moments of crisis — and then moving on.

This time, I hope to be wrong.

Alan Shatter served as Minister for Justice and Equality and Minister for Defense of Ireland from 2011 to 2014. He was a member of Ireland’s parliament, the Dáil, for thirty years, and chaired its Committee on Foreign Affairs. Today he serves as a member of the Board of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations and as Chairman of Magen David Adom Ireland.

Editor’s note: Hanukkah is a time to celebrate heroism, from the Maccabees of yore to the heroes of today, including those who displayed extraordinary valiance just this week in Bondi Beach. In this moving and timely essay, historian and Zionist thinker Gil Troy urges us to consider why the war of the past two years has produced so few classic “war heroes”— and what that reveals about Israel as a nation. Shabbat Shalom and happy Hanukkah from Jerusalem. — A.M.

In their wrenching, miraculously successful defense of Israel — and the West — since October 7, the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces performed remarkable feats. Military colleges will long spotlight the spontaneous, grassroots counterattack that terrible day, the Hezbollah beeper ruse, the twelve-day war with Iran, and Israel’s defiance of expert predictions that subduing Gaza would cost thousands of soldiers’ lives.

Yet despite all these heroics, the fighting produced few classic war heroes.

Hostage-heroes emerged — from Hersh Goldberg-Polin to Noa Argamani to Eli Sharabi — and bestsellers detail the many superheroes of October 7: Aner Shapira throwing back seven grenades before being killed by the eighth; Rachel Edry calming Hamas home invaders with freshly baked cookies; police officers like Bedouin Israeli Ramo Alhuzeil, who saved dozens of Nova festival goers; Captain Daniel Perez, who valiantly led his tank crew to battle, holding off the invaders for hours until he was killed; and Sergeant Eden Nimri, the 18-year-old who sacrificed her life so eleven comrades could escape. But since that day, although many Israelis personally know extraordinary soldiers, Idan Amedi may be this war’s one broadly recognized hero — and he was already a household name.

To historians, “war heroes” include generals like Washington, Grant, Dayan, and Rabin, and against-all-odds combat fighters like Sergeant York, Audie Murphy, and Avigdor Kahalani in 1973. War heroes are Ariel Sharon crossing the Suez Canal, and Yoni Netanyahu at Entebbe. We hail acts of self-sacrifice from Nathan Hale — “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country” — to Joseph Trumpeldor’s “It’s good to die for one’s country,” to Major Roi Klein shouting “Shema Yisrael” while jumping on a grenade in order to save his soldiers’ lives.

The word “hero” is often overused, but democracies at war need them. They embody the war aims, the shared values, the national soul, and help societies navigate war’s contradictions — unleashing violence to secure peace, fighting ethically while violating the usual strictures against killing. Heroes, ordinary people doing extraordinary things, reassure others that their cause is just and that the break from normal life is temporary.

This dynamic works in civilian life, too. The world was so deeply moved by the Bondi Beach heroes — from the Syrian-born Ahmed al-Ahmed to the two sixty-something Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union, Boris and Sofia Gurman, all of whom struggled with the gunmen, the latter two losing their lives in the attempt — because they proved that ordinary people do, at times, rise to the occasion for the right reasons, even at an unfathomable price.

Israel’s shortage of classic war heroes in this war therefore tells a deeper story. It shows how Israel remains stuck in the October 7 trauma, how global hostility constrains Israelis, and how modern warfare — with its masked commandos, anonymous intelligence officers, and collective operations — obscures individual exploits. It also points to the real secret of Israel’s military success: thousands of dedicated Israelis whose names remain unknown.

Despite many triumphs, Israel is still reeling from October 7. Focusing on hostage-heroes allows Israelis to admire resilience while grappling with the inconceivable cruelty inflicted on them. “We’re talking about innocent people taken from their beds, from a dance party — taken into pure hell,” Noa Argamani said after her rescue. Their extreme experiences have become the national prism, reflecting the fear, confusion, and pain still gripping Israelis. Their tales of suffering also allow Israelis to indict Hamas, Palestinian terror, and the world’s indifference, without moral ambiguity.

Addressing the UN in March 2025, Eli Sharabi — who lost his wife, daughters, and brother — asked: “Where was the United Nations? Where was the Red Cross? Where was the world?” He exposed Hamas’s theft of humanitarian aid: “Hamas eats like kings while hostages starve.” Mocking the claim that Gazan civilians were uninvolved, he added: “No one in Gaza helped me. The civilians in Gaza saw us suffering… They were definitely involved.”

The hostages have become secular prophets for a nation lacking unifying leadership. Omer Wenkert found God in the tunnels, chanting Psalm 23: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” — just as Natan Sharansky had in the Soviet gulag decades earlier. Many hostages once distant from Judaism stayed sane through ritual: Keith Siegel reciting the Shema daily; Omer Shem Tov calling prayer his “oxygen”; Agam Berger refusing to cook on Shabbat; six hostages subsequently murdered lighting Hanukkah candles together in the tunnels; Eliya Cohen imagining wrapping tefillin and leading fellow hostages in kiddush on Friday nights. And many drew strength from Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who shared Viktor Frankl’s insight: “He who has a why can bear with any how.”

Meanwhile the world’s frenzy to criminalize Israel has pushed battlefield heroics underground. Forgetting the Hamas charter’s genocidal vows and ignoring how democracies fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, international bodies distorted the laws of war to target Israel. Soldiers now fear harassment abroad; that makes them thankful their identities are blurred.

Modern warfare further hides its heroes: we will never know who sold Hezbollah those beepers, who maneuvered around Iran to position drones near military bases, who detected Nasrallah’s vulnerability, or who identified and tracked key figures in Iran’s nuclear weapons program so they could be eliminated simultaneously. Scientists, engineers, and technicians — from laser defense innovators to mechanics who retrofitted aircraft — have played essential roles that cannot be personified.

As in America’s War on Terror, few Israeli figures emerged as iconic heroes. Pat Tillman became famous because of his NFL career; others like Chris Kyle or Michael Murphy achieved recognition through books and films. Perhaps future Israeli storytelling will highlight individuals, but the essence of this war has been collective action.

The 1,152 fallen soldiers’ ideals appear in the tournaments, good deed projects, and sites honoring them. Memorial stickers plastered across the country create a kind of prose poem to heroism: “Be the hero we need”; “Heroine in green, angel in white”; “Everyone who knew you knew you were a hero”; “You didn’t fight for hatred of those in front of you, but for love of those behind you”; “Be good”; “No matter what”; “Live for me.” All echo the Hebrew root g-b-r — to overcome, to strengthen, to be a hero.

These messages reflect the casual gallantry long woven into Israeli life: grandparents sleeping fitfully with grandchildren at the front; parents who, knowing what they know now, still escort their children proudly to induction; rising numbers of volunteers for combat units, including a sharp increase among women; professionals who could leave the country but stay because Israel is the only place they want to raise their families. It is evident in people keeping routines even when missiles fly, and in Israelis refusing to hide their identity abroad despite hostility.

Long after this phase of the war ends, Israelis will continue the everyday heroics of building the Zionist project — maintaining one of the world’s largest nonprofit sectors, sustaining high birthrates seen as a mark of optimism, and juggling ancient traditions, from lighting Hanukkah candles to celebrating Passover seders, with modern innovation in fields like AI, medicine, and pharmacology. Israel consistently ranks high in national happiness, as measured by community, purpose, and rootedness, despite being surrounded by enemies who seek and endeavor to destroy them.

Proverbs teaches, “The righteous fall seven times and get up” — as Jews have done throughout their roller-coaster history, including on October 7. Ethics of the Fathers asks, “Who are heroes? Those who conquer their urges” — including the urge to flee or to be too-vengeful. Joseph Campbell writes that a hero is someone “who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” And the Hanukkah holiday we are currently celebrating teaches that an ever-escalating spiral of spiritual grandeur and physical derring-do produces humans ready to do whatever it takes for the people and ideals they cherish.

Heroism is collective, outward-facing, and often contagious. Heroes define a generation, exemplify its values, and inspire others to follow their example.

Israel’s modern Maccabees since October 7 have done all that and more — even if few become household names. As John F. Kennedy once said of his own wartime exploits, “It was involuntary. They sank my boat.” Israelis might say the same: barbarians invaded our country and butchered our loved ones. We should celebrate our citizen-soldiers’ impressive generational accomplishments, their astounding heroics, and the values that drove them and for which some lost their lives, leaving successors more than ever committed to living for them.

The philosopher William James wrote: “The greatest use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.” Israel’s wartime heroes lived such lives, and Israelis — everyday heroes — honor them by continuing to live with purpose and determination in the country they defended and will keep making better and better.

Professor Gil Troy is an American presidential historian and Zionist thinker who serves as a Senior Fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) and as a Distinguished Scholar in North American History at McGill University. Last year he published, To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream and The Essential Guide to October 7th and Its Aftermath. His latest e-book, The Essential Guide to Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, and Jew-Hatred, was recently published by JPPI and and can be downloaded from the institute’s website. He lives in Jerusalem.

To Jews around the world, all too many place names have become shorthand for the terrible things that befell our people there: Kishinev, Munich, Toulouse, Pittsburgh, Manchester — and now Bondi Beach.

Sunday’s horrific attack targeting a community Hanukkah celebration at the iconic Sydney landmark was shocking — in its brutality, in the innocence of its setting, and in its ghastly death toll, which currently stands at 15. But to many in the Australian Jewish community, it was hardly surprising.

One such individual is Joel Burnie.

Joel is a longtime advocate and leader in the Australian Jewish community. He served as President of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students during his university years, went on hold a succession of senior communal roles, and today serves as Executive Manager of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), the leading public affairs organization of Australian Jewry.

For years, Joel has been sounding the alarm about rising antisemitism to Australian government officials, media figures, and civil society leaders, warning that ever-escalating attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions would inevitably lead to bloodshed — as they did so dreadfully on Sunday.

In this timely conversation, which took place just 24 hours after the Bondi Beach massacre, we discuss the mood within the Australian Jewish community, the government’s response to the surge in antisemitism, and what Israel and Jews around the world can do to help fight back.

Due to the urgent nature of this conversation, this episode is being made available to all Jerusalem Journal subscribers upon release. You can listen to previous episodes here.

Editor’s note: Einat Wilf is one of the most thoughtful voices in Israeli public life. A prolific writer, gifted speaker, and fierce advocate, she recently added another item to her already impressive résumé: founder of a political party. This piece — her first since announcing the launch of her new movement, Oz, just three weeks ago — offers a compelling vision for an Israeli politics that rises above our tired binaries and provides valuable food for thought as Israel enters an election year, with many pivotal debates still ahead. Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem. — A.M.

“Seriously? Another party? Who needs another party?”

That is the most common refrain to my announcement that I have established a new political party titled Oz — no, not the wizard, but the Hebrew word for strength and determination (or, as the writer Tom Gross said to me, “May the Oz be with you”).

But we do need more political parties, more political candidates, and, most important, new ideas for the country.

This is what the Oz Party seeks to do.

After October 7, this need became unmistakably clear. In the weeks following the massacre and invasion, I found that far more people were suddenly listening to ideas I had been writing and speaking about for years — ideas that, in many ways, had anticipated the failures that day exposed. It was then that I realized I had not only a vision for the State of Israel but also a practical roadmap to achieve it. And I saw, with absolute clarity, how far we had fallen short.

Having lived through the complete disappearance of the state structure in the days and weeks after the massacre, it became painfully clear that we cannot outsource our leadership, politics and public service to corrupt mediocrities who are living off the sweat of hard-working, fighting and sacrificing Israelis. This was the moment I resolved not only to re-enter political life after more than a decade away, but to do so as the chair of a party that could bring these ideas directly and without distortion to the Israeli public.

Oz aims to break Israel’s long political stalemate by doing something truly extraordinary: focusing on what rather than who. It appeals to all those deeply, viscerally tired of politics, media, and public discourse being organized around a single individual, to the detriment of the urgent need for serious discussion about Israel’s future — domestically, regionally, and internationally.

What Oz brings are ideas that can finally unstick political camps ossified around the outdated categories of “left” and “right” and various sectarian identities. Oz has been built around three key principles:

1. Pursue Peace Based on Arab and Palestinian Embrace of Zionism

Pursuing peace based on Arab and Palestinian acceptance of Zionism means recognizing the core obstacle that has always stood in the way: the consistent Arab — and especially Palestinian — rejection of the Jewish right to self-determination in any part of the Land of Israel.

In speaking about my own journey — from once assuming the obstacle was occupation and settlements to understanding something deeper — I often quote post-WWII British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin, no friend of Zionism, who explained in Parliament on February 18, 1947, why Britain failed to fulfill its Mandate obligations: “For the Jews, the essential point of principle is the creation of a sovereign Jewish State. For the Arabs, the essential point of principle is to resist to the last the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine.”

For years I have emphasized that this remains the core of the conflict. It is not about territory but about the Jewish people’s right to exist as a sovereign nation in their ancestral homeland. The wars, terrorism, and suffering are all consequences of this rejection.

Once this truth is understood, it becomes clear that true peace will be possible only when Arabs — and especially Palestinians — end their century-long war against Zionism. Peace will come when the destructive ideology I call “Palestinianism” is replaced with a positive aspiration to live alongside a Jewish state rather than on its ruins. That means, among other things, that millions of Palestinians — particularly in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jordan — must finally recognize that they are home and not “refugees” entitled to “return” to sovereign Israel.

Oz’s vision is therefore to pursue peace by replacing “Palestinianism” with what I call Arab Zionism: Arab recognition of the equal right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their historic homeland. Even if realization is distant, this must become the organizing principle of Israel’s foreign and security policy. After decades of failed shortcuts, only such a long-term, patient vision can lead to genuine progress.

This idea cuts across the old left–right map. On one hand, Oz insists that Israeli leadership must constantly articulate a vision of peace — a traditionally “left-wing” stance. On the other, it rightly maintains that peace requires nothing less than the end of Palestinianism and the rise of Arab Zionism — a supposedly “right-wing” position.

2. Public Services for Those Who Serve the Public

When Oz calls for public services to be provided only to those who defend Israel militarily, it is speaking not only about national defense but about the nature of the welfare state itself. Advanced welfare systems — those that expand freedom, quality of life, and opportunity — depend on solidarity and mutual responsibility.

Historically, this shift from extended-family support networks to national welfare mechanisms rested on a shared sense of obligation among citizens. Their willingness to pay taxes to fund high-quality public services in education, health, welfare, and transportation depends on that solidarity.

In Israel, especially until peace is achieved — as October 7 starkly reminded us — the highest expression of mutual responsibility is military service. Oz therefore proposes mandatory service in the Israel Defense Forces for all citizens — Jews and Arabs, men and women, secular, religious, and ultra-Orthodox — at age 18.

This position is “left wing” in its insistence on equality and the importance of the welfare state, yet “right wing” in tying rights to duties. Once all 18-year-olds receive equal draft orders, those who refuse to serve would be deemed to have abdicated mutual responsibility and would not receive state-funded public services. High-quality education, healthcare, transportation, and welfare benefits would be provided equally to those who serve and to their families.

3. Complete the Zionist Revolution: From Diasporic Mindset to Sovereign Conduct

The third pillar of the Oz platform is the most fundamental. Over centuries of exile — when Jewish communities lived at the mercy of others — patterns of thought and behavior developed to ensure survival under powerlessness and transience. These included prioritizing the present over shaping the future, waiting for a messiah rather than acting in history, and focusing on internal disputes rather than external threats.

These habits, though once necessary, are ill-suited to sovereign life. Many of Israel’s current problems stem from the incomplete transition from a diasporic mentality to sovereign responsibility. Addressing Israel’s challenges therefore requires advancing this mental and civic transformation.

The Oz website outlines several practical implications, from religion–state relations to civil service reform. One long-standing example is judicial reform. Here, the argument is that resolving the struggle between the judicial and executive branches — assuming one truly seeks resolution — requires strengthening Israel’s only elected sovereign body: the Knesset. Both the judiciary and the executive must return powers accumulated over decades and recognize parliamentary sovereignty. The Knesset, in turn, must elevate the quality and conduct of its members to reflect its role as the representative of the entire public. Again, this combines “left-wing” respect for the rule of law with “right-wing” insistence on parliamentary supremacy.

My journey has only begun, but I have already noticed not just interest, curiosity, and enthusiasm, but something more important: that Oz is giving a political home to the politically homeless, and allowing very different people to feel that they have a place. If I began this essay with the skeptics, I will end with those who found a home — people telling me that “you are the only person my father-in-law and I can agree about over Shabbat dinner,” that “this is the first time our Likudnik grandma came to the same political gathering with the rest of the family,” that “after my wife saw one of your videos we are no longer fighting over politics,” and that “my left-wing friend abroad sent me one of your videos, and now we are close friends again.”

There is no way of knowing if Oz will succeed. It is up to the Israeli public. But I believe that October 7 created a tear in time, revealing a deep thirst for ideas, vision, and genuine leadership — a thirst we have not seen in a very long time.

Dr. Einat Wilf is the founder of the Oz Party. A leading Zionist thinker and former Member of Knesset, she is the author of seven books, the most recent of which is “We Should All Be Zionists.” She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge.

From the Irish government’s effort to redefine the term “genocide” in order to apply it to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza to the national broadcaster’s recent announcement that it will boycott the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest due to Israel’s participation (a decision about which I had some choice words), Ireland’s approach has prompted the Jewish state to shutter its embassy in Dublin and has caused the tiny Irish Jewish community to feel increasingly beleaguered. In recent days, an effort to rename a Dublin park honoring Israel’s Belfast-born sixth president, Chaim Herzog, drew both international headlines and national criticism, resulting in the measure’s removal from the city council’s agenda.

Among the individuals most assiduously pushing back against the tide of anti-Jewish hate in Ireland is Rachel Moiselle. Born to a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, Rachel has gained prominence for publicly calling out antisemitism in Irish society, deftly navigating both traditional and social media platforms as she raises awareness of the problem — often to those who would prefer not to see it. A doctoral student at Trinity College Dublin, Rachel has met with Irish leaders in an effort to combat the scourge of antisemitism and has spearheaded some of the most visible public efforts to push back against it.

In our conversation, we explore Rachel’s personal experiences with antisemitism, how hatred of Jews and of Israel finds expression in Irish society, and why she believes international pressure is the only thing that can force the Irish government to change course.

This podcast episode was first made available to paid subscribers of Jerusalem Journal. It is now available to all listeners.

To become a paid subscriber, click here.

Editor’s note: Last week, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Boaz Bismuth, a member of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud Party, presented a bill that would regulate the enlistment of young Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men, igniting a firestorm of criticism — including from within his own party. One of the lawmakers most staunchly opposed to the bill is Likud MK Dan Illouz, who previously broke ranks with fellow party members by refusing to support legislation that would have enabled young Haredi men to avoid military service to nevertheless receive government subsidies. Illouz, 39, was born in Montreal and immigrated to Israel at the age of 23, serving as a member of the Jerusalem City Council before entering the Knesset in 2023. In this piece — his first since declaring his opposition to the current legislation — he explains why he won’t support the proposed bill and what an effective Haredi draft law would look like. Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem. — A.M.

For nearly two years now, since the horrors of October 7, Israel has been fighting a war unlike any we have known. It is a war on seven fronts. A war that has demanded extraordinary sacrifice from the reservists who left their families and jobs, from the young men and women who put on a uniform without hesitation, and from the citizens who understand that victory is not optional — it is existential.

In such a moment, the debate over the new draft bill is not just another political argument. It is a defining test of our values as a nation and as a movement. It forces us to confront a simple but unavoidable question: What kind of country are we? And just as importantly: What kind of party is Likud?

For generations, the Likud has been the political home of the serving public. We have been the party of the soldiers, the reservists, the pioneers, the parents who send their children to defend this country, and the citizens who carry the burden of national responsibility with pride. Our party emerged from a worldview that combines freedom with duty, individual liberty with collective solidarity. That is the meaning of the national-liberal tradition.

It is precisely because I am committed to this tradition that I cannot support the draft bill in its current form. Not because I oppose compromise. Not because I seek confrontation. But because a law that fails to bring about real, historic change in the enlistment of the Haredi community is worse than no law at all.

Over the last year, we finally saw meaningful progress. The enforcement of existing sanctions — such as those related to day care subsidies — has already led to a significant rise in Haredi enlistment. That is a fact. The trend is real. For the first time in years, young Haredi men were stepping forward not because of political pressure but because incentives and expectations began to shift.

A responsible law should strengthen this progress, not reverse it.

Yet the bill in its current wording weakens the very mechanisms that proved effective. It removes key sanctions, adds exemptions that encourage avoidance rather than service, and defines the criteria for defining individuals as “Haredi” so loosely that it risks artificially inflating the number of exemptions through bureaucratic loopholes.

No national-liberal party — certainly not the Likud — can look reservists in the eyes and say this is acceptable.

Let me be clear: this is not about punishing the Haredi community. The Haredi public is a vital part of the Jewish people. I want them integrated, empowered, and fully participating in the shared responsibility of defending our homeland. I want every young man in Israel to feel that service is an honor, not a burden placed on some while others enjoy exemption.

Proper policies create incentives. They do not humiliate; they invite partnership. They change the cultural and economic structures that today make military service difficult and unattractive for many Haredi youth. And yes, they include sanctions — smart, targeted, effective sanctions — because a society cannot function if duties are optional.

The current bill does the opposite: it reduces pressure precisely at the moment when pressure is finally working.

Some argue that “unity” requires us to accept a weak law. But unity does not mean surrendering principles, and responsibility does not mean legislating illusions. A fake solution is not unity – it is escapism. A pretend draft law that enshrines inequality instead of addressing it will not calm the public; it will deepen division. It will tell the serving public — the backbone of the Likud — that their burden is invisible.

When our soldiers risk their lives, the least we owe them is honesty.

Likud voters understand this. They know that without a fair and effective enlistment framework, Israel’s security — and social cohesion — will erode. They know that a country that cannot maintain a strong, broad army cannot survive in the Middle East. And they know that the path to long-term unity between secular, traditional, religious, and Haredi Israelis is not built on denial but on shared responsibility.

Some in the political system hope that if they pass any law, even a weak one, the public will move on. But the public will not forget. The reservists will not forget. The nationalist, Zionist majority inside Likud will not forget.

And they will ask: Where were you when Israel needed courage — not “formulas”?

My position is simple:

We must pass a real draft law — not one that evaporates on contact with reality.

A law that:

• Maintains and strengthens the sanctions that have already proven effective;

• Prevents manipulation by accurately defining who qualifies as Haredi;

• Creates real incentives for service – economic, educational, and professional; and

• Ensures that Israel will have the manpower necessary to win in every arena.

This is not extremism. This is responsibility. This is Zionism. And this is the Likud.

I know some prefer to avoid this confrontation. I understand their discomfort. But leadership is not measured by avoiding debates — it is measured by choosing the right side of them.

This moment calls for clarity. It calls for honesty. It calls for a renewal of the national-liberal spirit that once defined the Likud and must define it again.

We must remain the party of the serving public. The party of national responsibility. The party that understands that without victory, there can be no Israel — and without a strong, shared IDF, there can be no victory.

I will fight in committee for a historic law. I will work with every Zionist Member of Knesset in the coalition to ensure that the final bill is one that strengthens the army, strengthens national unity, and strengthens the Likud’s commitment to the serving public.

If we pass a law that meets these principles, I will proudly support it. If not, I will oppose it — because loyalty to the movement means loyalty to its values.

This is not a moment for political maneuvering. This is a moment for a moral stand. And I am taking that stand.

For our soldiers.

For our movement.

And for the future of the State of Israel.

Dan Illouz is a Member of Knesset on behalf of the Likud Party. He formerly served as a member of the Jerusalem City Council. Born in Montreal, he immigrated to Israel in 2009. He lives in Jerusalem.

Editor’s note: As families across America (and some turkey-loving expats overseas) gather to celebrate Thanksgiving, I wanted to offer a reflection on this moment in the Torah reading cycle and in Israel’s history — and on the resonances between them. Happy Thanksgiving and Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem. — A.M.

Over the past month and a half, sitting through Shabbat morning Torah readings in several cities on two continents, I have been struck by how closely the biblical story has come to mirror our own.

The release of the twenty remaining live hostages came on the eve of Simchat Torah, the holiday on which Jews around the world conclude the previous year’s Torah reading cycle and begin anew with the first portion of the book of Genesis, Bereshit.

At the time, several commentators drew on the story of creation, finding parallels between the beginning of the world and the new beginnings experienced by the hostages and all of us who had been gripped by their plight over their two years in captivity.

Two weeks later, addressing a congregation on Long Island, I commented that I thought the next portion, Noah, might be even more instructive.

Like Noah, we have all been through a cataclysm that destroyed the world we knew — or thought we knew — and have emerged to contend with an entirely new reality.

But the lesson of the next reading, I noted, is no less powerful, because it is there, in the portion known as Lech Lecha, that Abraham is instructed by God to go forth to the land that would come to be known as Israel.

The Torah’s message, I posited, is that it is not enough to reconstruct what was. That world is gone. Abraham was tasked by God — and we are tasked today — to pursue a loftier mission, to gather ourselves and build a world that is better than the one that once existed. For us in Israel, and for Jews around the world, that means acknowledging and reaffirming that the reality of October 6 will never return — and that the Israel we build going forward must be worthy of the sacrifices that made its future possible.

As we enter the latter half of the book of Genesis, it is hard to escape the feeling that the readings are still sending us timely messages.

This week’s Torah portion, Vayetze, is the first that centers on a dream. For the rest of the book, dreams will play a pivotal role in the narrative. From Jacob’s fateful dream of a ladder reaching the heavens, to Joseph’s dreams about his elevated stature compared to his brothers, to Pharaoh’s dreams that set Joseph on a path to greatness, these biblical dreams are no mere escapes from reality — they are the forces that redirect it.

When Jacob arrives in the place he will later call Beit El and falls asleep, dreaming of angels ascending and descending that heavenly ladder, he receives a divine promise that the land on which he lies will be his and his descendants’, and that God will be with him and will bring him back to that land. When his son Joseph, already getting on his brothers’ nerves, regales them with his dreams about their sheaves of wheat bending to his and about the sun, moon, and stars bowing down to him, it serves as the final straw that drives them to throw him into a pit and sell him to a passing caravan heading to Egypt. And when Joseph goes on to successfully interpret the dreams of Pharaoh and his key aides, he begins a rise to power that will eventually draw his father and brothers to Egypt and set the stage for both the Israelites’ bondage and their transformation into a people with a divine mission.

In a way, the arc of the past two years can be seen as closely mirroring the biblical story.

As my predecessor at the helm of The Jerusalem Post, Yaakov Katz, suggests in the title of his recent book, during the period leading up to October 7, Israelis were asleep. We had let our guard down, having been lulled into a sort of national slumber by the very group that was plotting the most devastating attack in our national history. We had allowed ourselves the perverse luxury of directing our spears inward as we bickered over the government’s divisive legislative agenda, tearing into one another at a time when those who wished us harm were looking for every weakness to exploit.

Our national nightmare began on October 7 and stretched for two long, devastating years. At times, the nightmarishness of it all seemed too much to bear: the sheer scale and cruelty of the massacre; the unprecedented number of hostages; the slow, sickening realization that the nightmare was not a moment but an era.

The blows kept coming: Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran itself. Tens of thousands of Israelis were evacuated from their homes; millions slept in bomb shelters for days on end. Families lived in constant fear of the dreaded knock on the door informing them that a loved one had been killed in action. Businesses collapsed. Airlines stayed away. Our economy suffered. Around the world, calls for our destruction became normalized as a wave of vicious antisemitism swept through cities large and small, fueled by media, civil society, social platforms, and officials who manufactured and amplified despicable libels.

Throughout it all, the knowledge that fellow Israelis — parents, spouses, siblings, children — were languishing in dark underground tunnels, malnourished and abused, tortured our collective consciousness, forcing many of us to wonder whether the nightmare would ever end.

And then, suddenly, with a 109-word post on a niche social media platform in the wee hours of a Thursday morning, seven weeks ago, a new phase of our two-year ordeal began.

“I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan,” President Trump wrote triumphantly. “ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon.”

Like so many other Israelis, at first I didn’t believe it. Despite our protests and our prayers, experts had cautioned us not to expect all of the hostages to return. They were too valuable to Hamas, we were told. They were the terrorist group’s highest-value bargaining chips, its most effective human shields. There was no way they would let all of them go.

Over the tense days that followed, there were conflicting reports about when and how the hostages would be released, with some openly asking whether this was some kind of cruel ruse by Hamas.

And yet, that Monday morning, we all found ourselves glued to our televisions and computers, watching in disbelief as the President of the United States arrived in Israel and addressed the Knesset while wave after wave of hostages returned to Israeli soil until there were no longer any living hostages in Gaza.

In the few minutes I allowed myself to shop for the holiday that was to begin that evening, I found myself wandering the aisles of my Jerusalem supermarket with tears in my eyes. I ran into several friends and we whispered hushed hellos and hugged one another as we watched the joyous reunions between the former hostages and their families on our phones.

In my last media interview of the day, shortly before going offline for the holiday, I tried to convey what I — and so many Israelis — were feeling.

“If I look a little bleary-eyed, it’s because I pulled an all-nighter in anticipation of this day, and also because I’ve spent much of this day in tears — as, I think, have many Israelis,” I told MSNBC’s Erielle Reshef. “It almost feels surreal. This is a moment that we’ve been praying for, that we’ve been desperate to see for two full years.”

Over the course of the holiday, I found myself walking around humming Psalm 126, which is recited before the Grace After Meals on Shabbat and holidays: “When God brought back the captives to Zion, we were like dreamers.”

And it felt, in fact, like a wonderful dream.

But after every nightmare, and after every dream, the time comes to wake up and confront reality.

And that reality is dramatically different than that which existed before October 7.

The war has not ended. There are still many Israeli soldiers in Gaza, serving as a buffer between what remains of Hamas and the Israeli communities they have sworn to attack again, just on the other side of the border. There are two murdered hostages — 24-year-old Ran Gvili and 43-year-old Thai national Sudthisak Rinthalak — whose bodies are still being held by Hamas. The challenges that lie ahead are massive: we must rebuild our society and our economy, deal with concentric circles of trauma that include virtually all Israelis, and navigate a world — including our closest ally, America — that is more hostile to us than at any point in recent memory.

But like Noah emerging to a changed world, like Abraham set on a path to a new land, like Jacob given the promise of providence and return, and like Joseph drawn from the depths and elevated to greatness, we now stand at a moment of both opportunity and responsibility.

We are being called to imagine a national life that is better than what was, to write a new Israeli story that draws on the pain of the past two years and the joy of the past two months to build a stronger and brighter future.

Over the past two years, we have proven more resilient, more determined, more courageous, and more committed to our sovereign existence in this land than many might have imagined. Now is the time to channel those powerful qualities into creating an Israel that reflects our most cherished values and ideals as both a Jewish state and a democracy that is part of the family of nations — an Israel that is, at once, more prosperous and more equal, more self-assured and more open, more decisive and more thoughtful, more secure in its distinctive identity and more inclusive of all its citizens.

We are no longer asleep. Our moment is here. All that remains is for us to seize it.

When I boarded my flight home at JFK, polling places were still open across the city’s five boroughs. By the time I landed in Tel Aviv, the results were in and a strange new era had begun in the most Jewish city in the world.

It was a grim bookend to a trip that had started with a dilemma that I had never experienced before in America. Landing in Denver from London, I instinctively put my hand in my jeans pocket to extract my kippah, and then hesitated. While I have long since gotten used to concealing my Jewishness in Europe, this was the first time I found myself wondering whether I should do the same in the land of my birth.

As it turns out, I’m not the only one hesitating.

Over the course of my six-day trip, I heard numerous accounts of Jews who are taking steps to hide their Jewish identity — refraining from wearing Jewish symbols, removing mezuzahs from the entrances to their homes, changing their names on Uber and DoorDash to sound less Jewish.

While some would dismiss these precautions as paranoia, they are not without justification. Several days before I arrived in New York — my city of birth — a 59-year-old Israeli tourist was punched in the face outside Mr. Broadway, a well-known kosher deli in Midtown Manhattan; the attacker also tore his victim’s kippah from his head and stomped on it. When I had dinner there a few days later, I found myself glancing around the entrance to confirm the coast was clear before hurrying in from the cold.

In the days leading up to the New York mayoral election, there was a sense among many American Jews that something dark was coming. While some of the people I spoke to were convinced that the polls were wrong, most were struggling to come to terms with the inevitable. “How could this be happening?” they asked as they shook their heads slowly, their eyes wide with disbelief.

More than one alluded to Franklin Foer’s masterful — and heartbreaking — 2024 piece in The Atlantic, “The Golden Age of American Jews is Ending.”

“It’s true,” I overheard one older woman say to another as we waited to board the plane to Tel Aviv, a setting so poetic that the whole thing could have been scripted. “We had been living in a golden age.”

One day after Zohran Mamdani’s victory, scholar and former White House aide Tevi Troy wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal in which he shared his decision to start concealing his kippah under a hat when visiting New York.

“One reason for the spate of attacks on religious Jews in New York in recent years has been the belief that antisemitic assaults won’t be punished,” he wrote. “My fear is that Mayor Mamdani will encourage even more impunity.”

“There’s nothing I can do about any of that now,” he concluded. “The voters have spoken. But I can make sure that I’m more careful on my regular trips to the Big Apple. If you see me walking around in Zohran Mamdani’s New York, I’ll be wearing my hat.”

It is easy to argue that Mamdani’s election is an outlier, an exception rather than an indication of a new rule in American politics. It was, to a large extent, a perfect storm: a field split between several scandal-plagued candidates who bickered with one another and refused to drop out, paving the way for the progressive, TikTok-savvy candidate to rise to the top on a cloud of populist promises. New York is also the bluest of blue cities and is the home base of the Democratic Socialists of America, the extremist group of which Mamdani is a member and which mounted a sophisticated field operation in support of his campaign, flooding the city with tens of thousands of volunteers deeply committed to putting him in office.

But even if, contra Frank Sinatra, the fact that a far-left candidate made it there doesn’t necessarily mean he could make it anywhere, Mamdani’s victory in New York should give us all pause.

For Democrats, this is a moment of reckoning. I am not a Democratic strategist, and this isn’t what this piece is about, but the party should ask itself whether it truly wants Zohran Mamdani — whose radical views and positions are at odds with those of most Americans, and whose margin of victory was far narrower than some have suggested, despite the favorable conditions detailed above — to be its standard bearer. It is no coincidence that the Republicans are reportedly planning on prominently featuring the controversial mayor-elect in their pitch to centrist voters ahead of the midterms.

And yet, it is also clear that the rules of the game have changed, and what has gotten candidates elected in the past won’t cut it anymore. That so many prominent Democrats are running scared and are scrambling to get on the Mamdani bandwagon is due, in large part, to the party’s failure to cultivate young, moderate, electable leaders, and to build the nationwide field infrastructure to support them. The DSA is on to something; Democratic leaders who want to see their party govern again should take note.

But the ramifications of this moment for American Jews are even more consequential.

It is hard to decide which of the data points emerging from this election should most trouble the Jewish community. Perhaps it is the fact that, even when told by pollsters that “Globalize the Intifada” is viewed by some as a call to violence against Jews, a plurality of young voters said that Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the chant made them much more likely to vote for him. Or perhaps it is the fact that, time and again, in the lead-up to the election, Jews were gaslit and told that their alarm over Mamdani’s inflammatory rhetoric, extremist positions, and dubious associations amounted to nothing more than Islamophobia. Or perhaps it is the fact that a majority of New Yorkers ultimately ignored the concerns of their Jewish neighbors and voted for a man many Jews regard as a threat. Or perhaps it is the fact that a sizable minority of Jews themselves voted for him despite his self-identification as an anti-Zionist, a position viewed by 85% of American Jews (and non-Jews) as a form of antisemitism.

There are any number of disquieting takeaways from the election, but the most salient is this: what would have been unthinkable only a few months ago — that an individual who is openly hostile to a central tenet of Jewish identity, and who holds views and aligns himself with groups considered by the vast majority of Jews to be antisemitic, could be elected mayor of the city with the largest Jewish community in the world — has come to pass.

Positions that would have been disqualifying for a candidate for public office until very recently are now not only acceptable — they are increasingly viewed as an electoral asset. And while it may be tempting to dismiss Mamdani’s election as an aberration, for all of the reasons noted above, the reality is that it is reflective of unsettling trends on both extremes of the American political map that are now seeping into mainstream discourse. In races for city, state, and federal office; on social media and the airwaves, incendiary rhetoric on Israel — often laced with classic antisemitic tropes — is being normalized, and Americans on both sides of the political map are becoming more receptive to it.

American Jews may soon have to contend with a reality that is dramatically different than anything most of them have ever known, one in which it is increasingly uncomfortable — and, at times, downright unsafe — to be openly Jewish and proudly attached to Israel in America.

Back in July, I wrote about what a post-Zionist America could look like and how American Jewish leaders — and Israeli officials — should prepare for it. I won’t rehash it here, but I will say that what seemed like a remote prospect just four months ago no longer feels quite so far off. And while a changed America may not be inevitable, the forces aligning against the Jewish state — and, increasingly, against American Jews — are consolidating their efforts at a pace that we can no longer ignore.

But although I saw more knitted brows during this most recent visit than I ever had before, there were two other anchors to this trip that offered another way of viewing this moment in the life of American Jewry.

The evening after I landed in Denver, I addressed more than 800 members of the local Jewish community at an event attended by both the governor and the city’s mayor. It is, I was told by the local Jewish federation’s CEO, one of the community’s largest annual gatherings, eclipsed only by the yearly celebration of Israel’s Independence Day.

Several days later, I attended a gala event in New York celebrating 25 years of Taglit-Birthright Israel. More than 1,000 people packed the Manhattan venue as we heard from one alumnus after another about how their Birthright experience transformed — and, in some cases, catalyzed — their relationship with their Jewish identity.

While strengthening community and deepening Jewish identity may not, in themselves, turn back the tide of hate threatening American Jews, they are essential if we want to stand a fighting chance.

A Jewish community that is more unified and more fortified in its identity — made up of proud Jews who understand, cherish, and hold foremost the ties that bind them to one another, to their heritage, to their people, and to their land — is one that can, and will, weather any storm.

The word came at 1:51 a.m. Israel time via a post by President Trump on his bespoke social media platform, Truth Social.

Like countless others across the globe, I had been refreshing the page for the better part of an hour when suddenly it appeared.

“I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan,” the president wrote. “This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace.”

“BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!” he concluded, quoting scripture.

It was the culmination of several days of intensive talks in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, spurred by the president’s dramatic September 29 announcement of a twenty-point plan to end the war, secure the hostages’ release, and rebuild a Gaza free of Hamas control.

To Israelis and Jews around the world, it was also the culmination of two years of protest, advocacy, prayer, and exhortation on behalf of the hostages and their families — two years during which we have worn yellow ribbons on our lapels and pieces of tape on our shirts, posted the hostages’ stories and photographs on our social media platforms, and remembered them and their plight at every holiday and every celebration. We have been a nation paralyzed, frozen in that awful day in October two years ago, wracked with anxiety over the fate of the Israelis still held captive in Gaza.

Finally, in the wee hours of Thursday morning, on the third day of the holiday of Sukkot, a light appeared at the end of the tunnel in the form of a 119-word social media post, and the emotions came rushing.

“Matan is coming home,” said Einav Zangauker, whose 25-year-old son is one of the hostages and who has been advocating tirelessly for the hostages’ release. “These are the tears I prayed for.”

“I am finally breathing a little,” Silvia Cunio — whose sons, David (35) and Ariel (27), are being held by Hamas — told the Israel Hayom newspaper. “When it actually happens, I’ll be able to breathe normally. It will be like giving birth all over again.”

Former hostages took to social media to express their joy and relief.

“Baruch Hashem,” wrote 22-year-old Omer Wenkert on Instagram, “Thank God. It finally happened! I can’t believe it.” “Evya and Guy — I’m waiting for you,” he added, referring to hostages Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal, with whom he was held captive in Gaza until his release in February.

“There’s an agreement!” shouted 29-year-old Emily Damari joyously as she broadcast herself waking up her friends and telling them about the development on Instagram Live. She was later joined by fellow former hostage Romi Gonen and the two called Tali Berman — whose 28-year-old twins, Gali and Ziv, remain in captivity — and toasted her sons’ impending return.

In Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square this morning, hostage families and their supporters embraced and danced, waving American and Israeli flags and popping champagne bottles under uncharacteristically gray skies.

But while we hold our collective breath, waiting for the Israeli government to approve the first stage of the agreement and the 72-hour window in which the hostages are set to be released to commence, we must brace ourselves for the deeply emotional days ahead.

According to the official count, there remain 48 hostages, of whom twenty are said to be alive and 28 have been confirmed dead. That number includes 47 hostages taken on October 7, 2023, as well as Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, who was killed in action in 2014 and whose body has been held by Hamas for the past 11 years.

The number of living hostages does not appear to be entirely clear. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, set off a storm of anxious outrage in April when she was recorded muttering “fewer” after her husband said 24 hostages were still alive, causing hostage families to demand clarifications. In May, President Trump said that the number of living hostages was 21 and in August he gave the number as twenty, but added, “the twenty is actually probably not twenty because a couple of them are not around any longer.”

According to the latest Israeli reports, while the official number of living hostages remains twenty, there is “grave concern” for the lives of two of them, suggesting the number may indeed be lower. We will only know for certain once we see them safely on Israeli soil.

But the fate of the murdered hostages remains equally unclear. Israeli officials reportedly believe that Hamas has lost track of some of the hostages’ remains and that the number of bodies that will be returned may be significantly lower than 28. A multinational task force will reportedly be formed to try and locate the missing bodies in Gaza, but it is by no means certain that all the deceased hostages will eventually be brought home. Some may be lost forever.

So while some of the Israeli families who have been clinging to hope for the past two years will indeed get to embrace their loved ones, seeing their greatest dream realized and joyously closing this terrible chapter, many others will not. The fortunate ones will receive a body, to be brought to dignified and proper burial in the land of their birth. Others may never have that closure.

There will be many tears in Israel over the coming days. Some will be tears of joy and relief. Others will be tears of anguish and devastation. We who have accompanied the families from afar over the past two torturous years, who have lived and breathed their hopes and their fears, will have to find it within us to embrace them and help them heal for years to come.

This coming Shabbat, Jews around the world will read the Book of Ecclesiastes, with its timeless reminder that, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven… A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”

In Israel, though, those seasons have a tendency to overlap, blending into one another. Indeed, the story of this country has always been one of bittersweetness, of joy intermingled with pain — from the state’s very birth in the aftermath of the Holocaust, to the annual juxtaposition of Memorial Day and Independence Day, to heart-wrenching moments like those which we are about to witness.

The legendary Israeli songwriter Naomi Shemer captured that distinctly Israeli experience in her beautiful song, Al Kol Eleh (“Over All of These”), which has been playing in my head in a loop over the past few days.

Its chorus may offer us a guide for how we might make it through the days and weeks ahead.

Over all these things, over all these things
Please guard for me, my good God
Over the honey and the bee sting
Over the bitter and the sweet.

Please don’t uproot what’s been planted
Don’t forget the hope
Lead me home and I will return
To the good land.

Naomi Shemer sings “Al Kol Eleh,” 1981

Editor’s note: As we mark the second anniversary of the October 7 attacks, many of us find ourselves reflecting on that awful day and its aftermath. Even then, it was clear that nothing — including we ourselves — would ever be the same again.

Nine days after the attacks, I traveled to Kibbutz Be’eri to bear witness to the horrors of that day. I later wrote about what I experienced and published the account in The Jerusalem Post. I share that account with you today.

May the memory of all who lost their lives that day and in the war that has ensued be a blessing and may all the remaining hostages be returned swiftly to their families. — A.M.

Kibbutz Be’eri is remarkably peaceful.

Established in 1946, the community had a population of 1,047 in 2021. Verdant lawns stretch between small public buildings and houses shielded by leafy trees. The kibbutz is home to a printing press that serves as the community’s main source of income, as well as a veterinary clinic and a cycling center, and it is surrounded by agricultural fields. In wintertime, families from across the country flock to the adjacent Be’eri Forest to see the bright red anemones that blanket the area. Some years ago, the community — a bastion of liberalism and home to several prominent peace activists — established a fund to help support Palestinian families just a couple of miles away in Gaza.

At 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, October 7, Hamas launched a heavy barrage of rockets from Gaza into southern Israel. Using the rocket fire as cover, an estimated 2,900 Hamas terrorists utilized bulldozers to tear through the border fence and then drove through on motorcycles and pickup trucks. They then fanned out, making their way directly to kibbutzim and towns throughout the border area.

When they got to Be’eri, they immediately killed the community’s emergency readiness squad and set up an ambush at the main gate to prevent Israeli forces from coming to the rescue. Then approximately one hundred terrorists drove into the kibbutz, dismounted their vehicles, and started going house to house, killing everyone they saw. They wrenched open the trunks of parked cars, removed spare tires, set them on fire, and rolled them into houses in order to burn the families inside to death. Anyone who fled the flames was shot. They fired rocket-propelled grenades at fortified safe rooms in order to get to the families huddled inside.

Within hours, large numbers of soldiers arrived and, after sustaining significant losses, overpowered the terrorists at the kibbutz gate. A fierce gun battle erupted. The army sent several tanks into the community and started shelling some of the houses from which terrorists were firing. The firefight stretched into the middle of the next day, until all the terrorists were neutralized.

A friend of mine who scrambled to Be’eri with his reserve unit that day said it looked like something out of a horror movie. “Never in my life did I imagine that humans could be so cruel to each other, and that I would see it,” he told me. He described seeing bodies everywhere, smoke wafting through the kibbutz.

At least 104 members of the community — approximately ten percent of its total population — were murdered that day, along with six police officers. Multiple residents were kidnapped by Hamas and are being held hostage in Gaza; we still don’t know exactly how many.

I visited Be’eri earlier this week with a colleague, part of a group of editors from Israeli media outlets invited to tour the site.

As we made our way from Jerusalem, we saw long lines of parked cars outside army bases, left there by reservists reporting for duty. Nearing the Gaza border area, we had to pass through several checkpoints, and the IDF’s presence became increasingly visible. As we approached Be’eri, we drove past neighboring Kibbutz Re’im, where the terrorists had targeted a music festival, killing at least 260 young people. Many of the victims’ cars remain on the side of the road.

Read the full piece in The Jerusalem Post

Editor’s note: We hadn’t planned on publishing again until after Yom Kippur, but the events of the past 48 hours have been too striking to ignore. The responses to the U.S. ceasefire proposal have been telling and should cause us all to reflect on who truly has Palestinians’ and Israelis’ best interests at heart — and who does not. Wishing all observing the holiday a G’mar Hatima Tova and an easy and meaningful fast from Jerusalem. — A.M.

Shortly after midnight between Monday and Tuesday, two hours after the White House press conference in which President Trump laid out the U.S. plan for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and Prime Minister Netanyahu accepted it, Gaza-based political analyst Hussein Jamal posed a question in Arabic to his 32,000 followers on X:

“A question for the people of Gaza only, and I hope only Gazans will answer it: If you were in [Hamas leader] Khalil Al-Hayya’s place, and the American initiative was offered to you, would you accept it or reject it?”

“With my eyes closed, I would accept it,” responded one user. “The most important thing is to stop this nightmare. People in Gaza can’t breathe.”

“I would accept it without discussion,” wrote another.

“Accept, accept, accept,” added a third.

They weren’t alone.

A torrent of posts by social media users in Gaza — most anonymous and almost all writing in Arabic — appeared overnight, imploring Hamas to accept the proposed ceasefire and bring the war to an end.

“I call upon the Hamas movement to deliver to us and to the nation the speech of deferred victory, and to accept the proposed American deal,” wrote an X user who identified as Dr. Eman and gave her location as northern Gaza. “Save us, please.”

“Accept anything — just accept,” wrote Adnan in Gaza City. “There’s nothing more precious than the people. Call it whatever you want. Enough blood, by God.”

Some directed their ire at those opining on the proposal from afar.

“Living in a tent — no. Your house got bombed — no. Displaced — no. Slept on the street — no. Lost someone from your family — no. Got injured — no. Went hungry — no. So why are you giving your opinion on the proposal?” asked Mohammed in Jabalia.

“All your analyses about war, resilience, and negotiation are just empty talk from a place of comfort,” summarized Jamal. “Come live one day under attack in a tent or on the street and then share your analyses.”

As Hamas continues to hem and haw — saying it will “study” the plan and consult with other terrorist groups before giving an answer — an unmistakable rift is emerging between Palestinians in Gaza and those purporting to advocate on their behalf around the world.

After nearly two years howling about the war, branding it a “genocide” and demanding an immediate ceasefire, the global “Free Palestine” crowd suddenly doesn’t seem all that eager to see it end. Rather than enthusiastically embracing the U.S. plan, which has been endorsed by a slew of Arab and Muslim governments, some of Israel’s most prominent and vociferous critics have either fallen curiously silent — or have launched broadsides against it.

“The trap of the century,” declared United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese as she circulated a text arguing that the proposal “should be opposed and rejected.” “No matters [sic] how many hands clap, this plan is in breach of international law,” Albanese added.

“Just more colonial repression and Israeli impunity, guaranteed by the complicit U.S.,” charged former senior UN official Craig Mokhiber, who called Israel’s war against Hamas a “textbook genocide” on October 28, 2023 — a mere three weeks after the October 7 attacks and just one day after Israel launched its ground campaign in Gaza.

“We cannot legitimize this farce,” said Spanish Second Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz, claiming that the proposal “perpetuates the occupation” and “consolidates Israel’s impunity.”

“The Trump-Netanyahu plan for Gaza is cruel blackmail,” wrote Syrian-born French politician Rima Hassan — who famously participated in the June precursor to the current flotilla to Gaza — in a lengthy screed. “This plan does not aim for peace. It institutionalizes the colonial management of Gaza and enshrines the submission to the United States of the states that support it.”

“‘Deradicalisation’ is a sanitised term for neutering Palestinians and forcing them to accept their subjugation,” said former Al Jazeera and Reuters editor Barry Malone in one of more than a dozen furious tweets trashing the plan and its various components. “It is not radical to fight for your freedom.”

The contrast between the emerging consensus among the “pro-Palestine” crowd and the cries of actual Palestinians in Gaza could hardly be starker. And it begs urgent questions about just how deeply the Palestinians’ supposed supporters care about their wellbeing and whether they are simply instrumentalizing — and, at this point, actively trying to perpetuate — their suffering to attack Israel.

Gaza-born Palestinian activist and writer Hamza Howidy may have put it best.

“I opened my feed today to see countless posts by Gazans desperate to see an end to this war by any way possible and the huge disappointment they have after many of those who claimed to stand with them during the past two years [have asked] the Gazans to continue get[ting] killed because they don’t like the Trump proposal to end the war,” he wrote Tuesday morning. “Shame on everyone who used their name and refuses to listen to their needs.”

Inundated by angry responses on the part of many such activists, Howidy later put up a second post.

“Apparently one post about Gazans’ opinions was enough to upset lots of those who worship Hamas and its fantasy of ‘armed resistance,’” he wrote. “Anyway, as my friends in Gaza told me, anyone who wants to lecture them on resistance and what they should and shouldn’t accept should go spend two days in a tent in Gaza amidst relentless bombardment, and then they would listen to them.”

It is notable that the critics of the ceasefire proposal include some of the individuals who first accused Israel of “genocide” and have worked assiduously to popularize the smear over the past two years.

Indeed, it is hard to imagine anyone witnessing an actual genocide and claiming to fight for its victims — say, during the Holocaust — quibbling over the technicalities or optics of a plan to end it and save lives in immediate peril.

That so many “pro-Palestine” activists are openly bashing the U.S. proposal to immediately end the war — and, in some cases, openly calling on Hamas to reject it — raises two possibilities: that they never actually believed it was a genocide at all, or that the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza is secondary to their utility as a cudgel against Israel.

It increasingly seems as though both are true.

The “Free Palestine” crowd would be perfectly content to sacrifice the people on the ground, Palestinians and Israelis alike, on the altar of their forever war against the Jewish state. We must not let them. Now is the time for people of conscience around the world to drown out the hate and elevate the voices of those who live in this narrow strip of land and want nothing more than to leave this nightmare behind them.

When this war ends — and it will end — it will be despite the “Free Palestine” crowd, not because of them. And we will remember.

Editor’s note: As the chorus of voices accusing Israel of genocide grows, we asked scholar Sara E. Brown, Ph.D. — who exposed the inner workings of the International Association of Genocide Scholars following its lopsided vote on the subject — to reflect on the charge and its implication for the study and prevention of genocide. On a separate note, I wanted to share a CNN interview I did earlier this week about how recognizing a Palestinian state will impact efforts to end the war in Gaza — a topic for a future piece. Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem. — A.M.

On September 1, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) drew international headlines by declaring that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The vote — taken by just 129 of an estimated 500 members — was based on discredited sources, a faulty reading of international law, and deeply prejudiced assumptions.

I was horrified, not only by the content of the resolution, but by the process that produced it: an association that once represented a growing, serious field has been exposed as a body with sham membership standards, an autocratic approach to resolutions, and — most disturbingly — a clear animus toward Israel.

For me, the disappointment was personal. I joined IAGS as a doctoral student in 2013, believing it to be a serious forum for the study and prevention of genocide. Back then, I was the only student at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University pursuing comparative genocide research. My work in Rwanda— examining the agency and impact of women who perpetrated the 1994 genocide as well as those who risked everything to rescue Tutsis — seemed niche. I had heard of IAGS but most of my colleagues did not take it seriously. They dreamed of presenting at top conferences about the Holocaust or the Armenian Genocide. But when I attended my first IAGS conference in 2014, the energy was palpable. Young scholars from around the world were digging into root causes of genocide and asking how their research might help prevent future atrocities.

The 2013 version of me would be shocked to learn that, twelve years later, IAGS has failed to fulfill any of its promises.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists murdered, tortured, raped, and abducted Israeli civilians in a brutal campaign of mass violence. The attack was genocidal — intended to kill Jews because they were Jews — and Hamas leaders openly promised to perpetrate atrocities again and again. The IAGS leadership’s response was chilling: no urgent resolution, no statement condemning Hamas, no recognition that the atrocities met the criteria of genocidal violence.

That December, I published a peer-reviewed policy brief analyzing Hamas’ crimes, intent, and ongoing threats. I concluded that Hamas’ attacks against Israeli civilians were acts of genocidal violence, and that its promises of further massacres constituted a grave risk of genocide. I recommended that IAGS and other scholars recognize this reality, denounce Hamas, and help combat denial and disinformation.

IAGS ignored these recommendations entirely.

Instead, the leadership remained silent about Hamas’ explicitly genocidal violence and, on September 1, forced through a resolution falsely accusing Israel of genocide. I was appalled, both by the content of the resolution and by the deeply flawed process that produced it: a vote taken by just a quarter of the group’s membership, without any debate, drawing on antisemitic and discredited sources and misrepresenting international law. I went public with my concerns, and scholars and experts quickly joined me in dissecting the resolution’s factual and legal errors. For an association supposedly dedicated to prevention, this reversal of moral clarity was unthinkable.

The problems go deeper than one vote. Membership is not limited to scholars, practitioners, or professionals — anyone with a credit card can join and participate in IAGS’s decision-making process. That might be defensible, even laudable, if the association were transparent about whom it represents. Diversifying the association can be a strength, but at the same time, it cannot purport to be a body of experts if its membership is open to all who are interested in the field — including activists without training or expertise.

This lack of integrity has consequences. By branding Israel as genocidal, IAGS cheapens the meaning of the word “genocide,” dishonors the memory of its victims, and provides cover for terrorists who call for and attempt to perpetrate more massacres. Worse, such resolutions can be weaponized to justify antisemitic rhetoric, discrimination, and even violence.

Thankfully, the scholarly community is not standing by. More than 500 scholars and experts have signed the Scholars for Truth About Genocide open letter, demanding that IAGS retract its resolution and affirm that Hamas is guilty of genocide. Their voices reflect the seriousness and integrity that IAGS once aspired to represent — and they show that many in the field reject the politicization and distortion that have overtaken the association.

This controversy is not an inside-baseball dispute among academics. The words and actions of scholarly associations shape public discourse, influence media narratives, and guide policymakers. When experts abdicate their responsibility — or allow their platforms to be hijacked by ill-intentioned activists — society suffers. We have seen this before. German scholars lent their prestige to normalizing Jew-hatred during the Holocaust. Today, when a leading genocide association fails to recognize Hamas’ genocidal violence while smearing Israel, it echoes that betrayal of academic responsibility.

I am not sure how IAGS can restore its legitimacy. Its leadership has compromised the association’s academic, professional, and moral integrity in pursuit of headlines and interviews. At a minimum, it must retract the September 1 resolution and acknowledge its flaws. It must either reform membership rules so that the organization reflects actual experts, not whoever pays dues, or change its acronym to accurately reflect its membership. And it must confront Hamas’ genocidal violence with the same clarity it applies to other cases.

Absent such reforms, journalists and policymakers should stop looking to IAGS as a credible authority. The responsibility for clear, rigorous, and courageous scholarship falls to those willing to uphold standards, not compromise them.

I joined IAGS because I believed genocide studies could save lives and prevent atrocities. That belief has not changed. But the association that once gave me hope now undermines the very mission it claims to serve. The next time questions arise about genocide, let us turn to actual experts — those committed to accuracy, prevention, and truth. Sadly, the International Association of Genocide Scholars no longer fits the bill.

Sara E. Brown is Director of the San Diego office of American Jewish Committee. She holds the first Ph.D. in comparative genocide studies from the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University.

Editor’s note: We’re back from an end-of-summer hiatus and are looking at a period of reduced activity due to the holidays, but we have some compelling and timely pieces coming your way over the next few weeks, so be sure to watch your inbox. In the meantime, thank you for being a part of the conversation and we wish you and yours a sweet new year. Shana Tova and Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem. — A.M.

Several months ago, I met with a group of mostly non-Jewish students from a top American university who were visiting Israel for the first time, as I do fairly regularly. We talked about what it was like to run an Israeli newspaper before and during the current war, why so many Israelis view international media coverage of the conflict as hopelessly slanted, how domestic politics are influencing the conduct of the war, and a host of related topics.

Toward the end of the lively Q&A session, a young woman raised her hand.

“Have you ever felt unsafe?” she asked. “Have you ever feared for your physical safety?”

I had never been asked that question before, and I contemplated it for a few moments before responding.

“I have to say,” I finally told her, “I was in Israel on October 7. I have been here throughout the war, during rocket barrages from Lebanon and missile attacks from Iran. I have lived through wars and waves of terror attacks and have attended more funerals than I can possibly count. But I have never felt more unsafe than I did recently when speaking on a U.S. college campus.”

Their jaws dropped.

I am not sure they would have reacted the same way had that conversation taken place this week.

To many — myself included — Charlie Kirk’s gruesome assassination last week during a campus event at Utah Valley University was shocking, but not altogether surprising. It seemed only a matter of time before the violent rhetoric and intimidation on college campuses were going to result in murder.

According to a new survey conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a third of college students (34%) say using violence to stop someone from speaking on campus is acceptable at least some of the time — a fourteen-point increase compared to just three years ago. Seventy-one percent say shouting down a speaker to prevent them from speaking on campus is at least occasionally acceptable, and 54% say physically blocking other students from attending an on-campus speech is acceptable at least some of the time.

Predictably, this has had a chilling effect on students’ willingness to engage in conversation on controversial topics in academic environments that are supposed to cultivate and encourage those very exchanges. More than ninety percent of students surveyed by FIRE (91%) said they self-censor during conversations with other students on campus at least on rare occasions, and most — 59% — say they do so at least once a month. Eighty percent of students said they feel that they can’t express their opinions about certain topics because of how other students, a professor, or the university administration will respond at least some of the time.

Of all the topics that are difficult to discuss on campus — from abortion to gun control to racial inequality — the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was identified by students as the most fraught. After two years of campus protests and encampments that have, at times, featured violent attacks on Jewish students and attempts to prevent them from accessing parts of their own campuses, it is hardly surprising that many Jewish young people say they keep their Jewish identity and views on Israel to themselves. Only 27% of Jewish students surveyed by Hillel International and the Anti-Defamation League said they felt comfortable with others on campus knowing their views on Israel. Some forty percent (41%) said they felt a need to conceal their Jewish identity on campus and more than one-in-five (22%) said they felt compelled to take additional security precautions to ensure their physical safety.

But as I told that group of students in Jerusalem, while my recent experience on a college campus reflected the validity of those concerns, it also showed that there can be another way.

I had been invited by the University of Denver’s Center for Middle East Studies — part of the renowned Korbel School of International Studies, named after its founder, the distinguished Czech American diplomat (and Madeleine Albright’s father) Josef Korbel — to give a talk about wartime journalism, based on my experience as The Jerusalem Post’s editor-in-chief during the war.

The original plan had been a moderated conversation between me and Al Jazeera Managing Editor Mohamed Moawad, but Moawad was unable to make it, so the decision was made to hold two events: one with me, the other — some weeks later — with him.

Hundreds of people had registered for the event, and as the hall filled up, I caught a glimpse of one or two attendees sporting yellow ribbons for the Israeli hostages in Gaza and several wearing keffiyehs.

The evening opened with remarks by the Korbel School’s dean, who stressed the importance of open and civil discussion and set ground rules for the event, including that disruptions would not be tolerated.

I then came to the lectern and started speaking about my unusual path to the leadership of The Post, about the period leading up to October 7, the day itself, and the first few weeks and months of the war.

I had only been speaking for a couple of minutes when the first disruption occurred.

“Shame!” screamed a bespectacled blonde girl in a keffiyeh seated in the second row as she leapt to her feet. “Shame on you for denying genocide!” She was joined by two other protesters in chanting, “Free Palestine now!” as they made their way out of the hall.

“You will see us again, don’t worry,” one of them hissed as she stabbed her finger in my direction. “You will feel our wrath,” she added ominously.

Several more disruptions ensued, and campus police officers showed up to restore order. It soon became clear that this was a coordinated effort to prevent the event from proceeding; shortly after each cluster of protesters was removed, another would stand up and shout. I implored them to stay, stressing that I would answer any question they had, no matter how challenging, so long as they engaged civilly.

“Fuck you!” spat an agitated young man in a beanie, his eyes filled with hate, as he was escorted out of the hall.

I fielded questions from audience members in the room, as well as from those watching the livestream. Some were well-informed, others somewhat less so. One participant asked a pointed question about the destruction of hospitals during the war; another charged that the presence of Israeli settlers in Gaza had prompted the events of October 7 (I gently reminded her that there have not been any Israeli settlers in Gaza for twenty years).

Then something remarkable happened.

As we neared the end of the two-hour event, a small woman in a pale gray hijab standing in the back of the hall received the microphone. She identified herself as a Palestinian American, born in Jerusalem, and told the audience about the difficulties of daily life in the West Bank. She spoke about the challenges of navigating roads riddled with security roadblocks, about her frustration at her inability to worship freely at Al-Aqsa, about violence perpetrated by Israeli extremists against innocent Palestinians.

When she was done speaking, I thanked her for sharing her experiences with such dignity and grace. “Some part of me wants to give you a hug,” I said, before responding that the situation she described only highlights the need for a fair and equitable solution to the conflict, one in which Palestinians and Israelis are both able to realize their national aspirations and secure their individual rights and freedoms.

When the event finally concluded, I came down from the stage and made a beeline for her. She looked up at me and opened her arms. We embraced for several long moments.

We wound up speaking for about 25 minutes as the hall emptied around us. I was aware of several people who came over wanting to engage in conversation, but I kept my attention on her and her story. The sight of a man in a kippah, wearing a yellow hostage pin, in conversation with a hijabi woman sporting several Palestinian flag buttons was enough to cause them to back away respectfully.

At the end of our conversation, we exchanged WhatsApp numbers and expressed the hope that we might be able to meet up during her next trip to our shared homeland. Noticing that I was starting to lose my voice, she promised to share a recipe for a concoction sure to restore it (she later sent it over, along with an offer to bring honey and lemons to my hotel).

The evening, however, ended on a bitter and unnerving note.

As I made my way to the exit, accompanied by the center’s senior staff, a student came up from the lobby and informed us that a group of protesters had gathered downstairs, in an apparent attempt to confront me upon my departure. After a brief discussion of what to do, we hurriedly made our way through a passageway in the back and exited the building via a rear staircase. The staff insisted on escorting me to a waiting car and ensuring that I left campus unscathed.

In all, the evening felt like an encapsulation of so much that is wrong with the campus conversation surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and so many other difficult topics. It also offered a more constructive alternative.

The disruptions had come from individuals with no apparent skin in the game — young people so certain that their views are wholly right and that any others are beyond the pale, yet so woefully unable to defend their convictions that they would rather shut down the debate and threaten speakers than see their beliefs crumble under scrutiny. Confronted by uncomfortable truths or ideas that differ from their own, they scream and shout, filled with righteous indignation, until they are ultimately thrown out, leaving a stunned silence in their wake.

But in that silence, a simple moment of connection between an Israeli and a Palestinian — the only two people in the room whose daily lives are actually shaped by the conflict — offered a glimpse of a more hopeful possibility, one marked by difficult but civil dialogue that tackles the most challenging issues head-on while acknowledging both sides’ basic humanity.

Yes, it is the harder path, but it is the only one that can lead us forward.

Editor’s note: As the new academic year gets underway, we invited Hillel International President and CEO Adam Lehman to write a letter to Jewish college students returning to campus and those starting their academic journeys. Please feel free to share this letter with the college students in your lives. We wish them all a safe, fun, intellectually stimulating, and personally enriching year ahead. Shabbat Shalom. — A.M.

Dear Jewish college students,

Mazel tov!

Whether you're stepping onto campus for the very first time, or returning after summer break, you’re entering one of the most exciting and transformative chapters of your life.

Arriving on campus ahead of my first day at Dartmouth College in the mid-1980s, I felt the wide-open possibilities of discovering who I was, what I believed, and how I wanted to contribute to the world. My experiences at Hillel during those four years played a critical role in that journey of self-discovery.

I recognize that being a Jewish college student today feels very different from when I was in college — and even different than when my daughters graduated just a few years ago.

Since October 7, 2023, Jewish college students have experienced an unprecedented rise in antisemitism on campuses. During the last academic year, Hillel International documented more than 2,300 incidents of antisemitic discrimination and bias directed at Jewish students on college campuses — the highest level on record and a tenfold increase from pre-October 7 levels.

Behind each of those numbers is a real student like you, who was harassed in a dining hall, excluded from a student group, denied access to a building, physically threatened, or made to feel unwelcome simply for being Jewish or expressing a connection to Israel.

And yet, amidst these challenges, I have been inspired time and again by the incredible opportunities for Jewish students to nonetheless thrive, grow, lead, and experience Jewish joy — opportunities that will be there for each of you as well — and by Jewish students’ eagerness to embrace them.

Every day, I see Jewish students enthusiastically participating in Jewish life on campus. Last year, nearly 190,000 students across 850 campuses worldwide participated in Hillel programs, events, and services. Last week, I met with our Hillel International Student Cabinet, twenty student leaders from around the world, and was inspired to hear how Hillel has transformed their college experience — and how they are going to bring their passion and ideas back to their campuses to shape great Jewish life experiences for others.

Already this fall, students are diving into Jewish life on campus with over 250 Welcome Week events at Hillel — from barbecues and block parties to opening Shabbat dinners and FreshFests — on campuses from coast to coast. Jewish students need and deserve opportunities to feel a meaningful sense of belonging within their Jewish community and more broadly across campus, and we are working to ensure that environment for every Jewish student.

Most of all, I want you to remember this: You are not alone. We have your back.

There are more than 1,000 campus Hillel professionals who are excited to meet you and support you along your Jewish and life journeys. They and Hillel student leaders are there to create community with you, serve as mentors and supporters, and unlock pathways for life-changing experiences and lifelong friendships.

Our Hillel teams are also dedicated to making sure that if you encounter any issues — whether in classrooms, in dorm rooms, or on the quad — you have the resources and support to ensure your full inclusion on campus. Our Campus4All website and Instagram account are full of resources to help you understand and identify antisemitism on campus, and empower you with strategies to address it when necessary. Our ReportCampusHate.org tool provides you with a secure place to report incidents when they occur 24/7, and anonymously if desired. And our Campus Antisemitism Legal Line (CALL) provides free legal support if you need help to pursue a discrimination claim.

Know that every day, we are working with thousands of university leaders and administrators, through our Campus Climate Initiative and deep local relationships, to ensure fully welcoming and inclusive campus environments for Jewish students.

Remember, too, that being Jewish is about so much more than what you're seeing in the news. Judaism offers incredible wisdom on building community and finding meaning and purpose that you can rely on when you're adjusting to college and all the new life experiences it will bring. As you embark on new classes, activities, and interests, you can find ways to connect your Jewish identity with whatever you're passionate about — in domains as diverse as the arts, community service, music, bridge building, leadership development, sports, Israel and global Jewish peoplehood, civic engagement, your academic interests, and preparing for your career.

By tapping into the power of Jewish wisdom, values, and community during your college years, you can unlock your own unique superpowers and passions to become the kind of thinker, doer, and leader that our world desperately needs.

By being proudly Jewish in whichever ways you choose, you are helping your campus, your community, and your fellow students. By bringing your identity and perspectives to a conversation in class or in the dorm or by forming friendships with others (some of whom may have never met a Jewish person), you are fighting ignorance and breaking down barriers.

So, as you unpack in your dorm or reunite with friends after the summer, enjoy and take advantage of every moment of college. This is your time to grow, learn, and start figuring out what kind of person you want to be. It’s also a time to find the Jewish journey that works for you, and we are excited at Hillel to support you on every step of that journey. I know this year holds endless new possibilities for you, and I can’t wait to see what you make of it.

Best of luck!

Adam Lehman

Adam Lehman is President and CEO of Hillel International, the world's largest Jewish student organization with a presence on more than 850 college and university campuses in the U.S., Canada, and 16 countries around the world.

Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series about the future of support for Israel in the two major U.S. political parties. You can find the first piece, by Jewish Democratic Council of America CEO Halie Soifer, here. We will be exploring these themes in greater depth on the Jerusalem Journal Podcast over the next few weeks. Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem. — A.M.

The last two years have been tough for American Jews. Attacks against Jews in this country have surged since Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, 2023. Restaurants and synagogues have been damaged, identifiably Jewish people have been assaulted in broad daylight, and some have been murdered. Online posts or comments in support of Israel are met with a deluge of attacks, from putrid name-calling to threats of violence and doxxing. It’s scary out there.

For Jewish Democrats or progressives, life is particularly hard. Extreme ideas they could once dismiss as fringe have become part of the Democratic mainstream. Based on polls and the sentiments expressed at activist gatherings, the typical 2025 Democrat views Israel as not just off course, but as guilty of “genocide” — outright evil. In many instances, Zionist Democrats have been pushed out of once-welcoming political and community spaces, including the universities, professional associations, and political organizations they helped build.

For those of us on the Republican side of the aisle, the virulent antisemitism and anti-Israel activism coming from the left is no surprise. We’ve watched it grow for decades, slowly at first, faster under President Barack Obama, taking new forms in President Trump’s first term, and then surging again under President Biden and presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

Social media is filled with anti-Israel and antisemitic content. Young people who get their history from progressive university professors and their news from TikTok are conditioned to accept the most outrageous lies about Israel and go along with the growing extremism we are seeing on the left. That is likely why recent public polling shows a sharp decrease in support for Israel among young voters on both sides of the aisle.

Recent events — most notably the dramatic and successful joint U.S.-Israel action to lay waste to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure — put a spotlight on a few high-profile people on the right whose isolationism has veered into hatred. The preeminent example of this is Tucker Carlson, who has openly trafficked in antisemitic conspiracy theories and has given Israel haters and Holocaust revisionists the opportunity to spew their propaganda to his audience unchallenged, but he is not alone.

When people who claim to stand on the right express extreme views about Israel and Jews that mirror those on the far left, it demonstrates the validity of the so-called Horseshoe Theory, suggesting that political extremes come together in their hatred of Jews and of Israel. Young people who reject progressive ideology can still be exposed to the same poisons in some corners of the right.

What many young people miss is Israel’s history and reality. Though a young and imperfect state, Israel is a vibrant democracy where citizens of all faiths enjoy equal rights, religious freedom is protected, and holy sites safeguarded. Despite attempts by Muslim authorities on the Temple Mount to erase Jewish history, Israel ensures access to Muslim holy sites across the country.

Under constant threat, Israelis have resisted bitterness, building a society rooted in family, tradition, and education. In Israeli universities, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim students prepare for the country’s high-tech future; in hospitals, Muslim doctors treat Jewish patients and vice versa; in the citizen army, immigrants and natives, religious and secular Jews, Druze and Muslim soldiers serve together.

Since the 1950s, Israel has shared life-saving agricultural and medical expertise with developing nations and responds immediately to disasters worldwide. It is also a global leader in medicine, technology, and security, providing benefits far beyond its size, while its partnerships with the U.S. and Europe enhance safety and innovation for all.

That is not to say that Israel is perfect, that its leaders are always wise and right, or that Israeli and U.S. interests are always fully aligned. It is okay for Americans, Israelis, or anyone else to criticize Israel’s actions. But demonizing or delegitimizing Israel, holding it to impossible double standards, and denying its right to exist — as so many do — are not constructive criticism: they are rank antisemitism.

How do we, today, bring a positive, factual assessment of Israel to the fore and push back to the fringes those extremist voices on the left and right? How do we counter the incredible volume of hate-filled, lying, pro-violence, anti-Western civilization activism that we’re seeing in America?

For the Republican Jewish Coalition, which has been fighting this fight for 40 years now, the answer is clear: keep fighting and fight harder. Since its founding, the RJC has advocated for a strong strategic alliance between the US and Israel and has spoken up, fearlessly and publicly, when politicians on either side of the aisle took actions that could weaken that alliance.

Likewise, the RJC fought alongside Republican Party leaders to make sure that toxic cranks Patrick Buchanan, David Duke, and Steve King stayed where they belong: on the sidelines of a GOP that supports Israel and defends Jewish Americans.

The RJC has supported primary challengers to incumbent Republican members of Congress who vilified Israel and Jews. We hate to spend money in GOP primaries, but we will if we must. One part of the fight is to hold elected officials accountable for their statements and actions — and to help pro-America, pro-Israel candidates get into office.

The RJC also knows that for good or ill, American policy starts at the top, with the occupant of the White House. We are extremely fortunate to have in Donald J. Trump a president who deeply and sincerely supports Israel’s right to exist and prosper. Israel has never had a better friend in the Oval Office.

There is a long list of President Trump’s actions that have strengthened the U.S.-Israel alliance and defended the rights and safety of American Jews. It includes presiding over the Abraham Accords peace agreements; moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem; recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights; providing Israel with diplomatic support — and even more importantly — defensive weapons, to fight Iranian proxies Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran itself; and taking the fight to Iran directly by committing U.S. military forces to an historic operation against Iran’s nuclear weapons program. President Trump’s executive orders, and his Justice Department’s robust activities regarding antisemitism on college campuses and elsewhere, have helped protect American Jews from attack. Not only did Joe Biden not do these things — he and Kamala Harris did just the opposite.

Under the Biden/Harris administration, the U.S. withheld a critical arm shipment to Israel while the Jewish state was at war on multiple fronts. President Biden also exerted significant pressure to force Israel to hold back from key moves in the Gaza war, including a major military offensive in Rafah. These constraints gave Hamas both military and psychological encouragement to continue fighting, which lengthened the war.

The Biden administration decried antisemitism on college campuses but never held universities accountable for failing to protect their Jewish students. Biden accepted empty words when strong action was needed.

The adage that “elections have consequences” is even more true at the presidential level, so the fight to keep a pro-Israel Republican in the White House is vitally important. Sadly, there don’t appear to be any viable, truly pro-Israel Democratic presidential candidates on the horizon.

Pro-Israel Americans can do much to stem the growing anti-Israel and antisemitic activism growing in America just by voting thoughtfully. But there are other ways as well. Keeping the truth front and center is a critical one. We know that there is a vast difference between criticizing an Israeli policy or politician and calling for the destruction of the one Jewish state in the world, the one democracy in the Middle East. That is a distinction that we must keep making, clearly and loudly.

Likewise, we must hold accountable the people who educate, inform, and influence Americans — from universities to news outlets to social media influencers — and not let lies go unrefuted. The more solid information we can all put out there, in every medium, and the more we can provide facts and thoughtful analysis, the better.

The pro-Israel community should be investing heavily in reaching people where they are, with the tools to think about Israel and the Middle East coherently.

It is possible to push extreme ideas and their advocates back to the fringes. The GOP and the conservative movement have done it before. It is possible to hold people accountable and call out anti-Israel and antisemitic words and actions when we see them. It is possible to use every means at our disposal to fight the information war being waged against Israel. It is possible, and it is imperative.

Step up,speak up, and teach others to do the same. This is no time for quiet — “never again is now” in more ways than one.

Matthew Brooks serves as Chief Executive Officer of the Republican Jewish Coalition, an organization dedicated to enhancing ties between the Jewish community and the Republican Party. In addition to his duties leading the RJC, Matt also serves as the organization’s principal spokesman. In this role Matt has been a frequent guest on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC and has been quoted extensively in publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other major newspapers.