Bad For The Jews

This is not who we are. We’re better than this.

I grew up in a household of Holocaust survivors. The question of whether something was good for the Jews or bad for the Jews was both ever present and all important. The feeling that something like the Holocaust could happen again thrived among all of us. Israel was the insurance policy. And advancing Jews in America was paramount (my grandparents, for example, decided who to vote for based on whether a candidate had a Jewish sounding name).

Back then, the lines were clear. Israel was good for the Jews. America was good for the Jews. The PLO and the Arab world were bad for the Jews. Liberalism and freedom were good for the Jews. Authoritarianism was not. And maybe above all else, we were proud of Israel’s might. Proud that this tiny, brand new country could fend off invaders from all sides multiple times, could build a military that truly excelled worldwide, and, quite frankly, that countered the stereotype that Jews are weak. So whatever kept Israel safe was good for the Jews and, by definition, good for us. It was a relatively easy construct to follow.

I don’t think that intellectual framework still applies. Like a lot of American Jews, for a long time after October 7, in my view, anything Israel did was justified. Hamas invaded, they brutalized, they murdered children and the only way to repel it was to respond with overwhelming force again and again. That made total sense to me. I was on board with whatever came next.

But somewhere along the way, that changed. Israel went from doing what it needed to do to undermining itself without any clear upside for anyone other than Netanyahu, who has used the continuation of the war to stay in power.

While hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested Netanyahu’s earlier machinations to “reform” the judiciary in order to stay in power before the war, almost everyone — both Jews in Israel and across the diaspora — came back together on October 7 and stayed together for a long time. We held firm in the belief that protecting Israel was paramount and Bibi was justified in being extremely aggressive. That belief was not only the type of mentality my parents and grandparents and all of their friends and relatives in the U.S. would have subscribed to, it was the belief of their children too. It was the common sentiment among my cohort of Jews in their 40s and 50s.

But not anymore. I truly think that if my grandparents were alive today and able to rationally assess the situation in Israel, both domestically and militarily, they would conclude that the ongoing relentless prosecution of the war is the opposite of what makes Judaism a great religion — the belief that serving others, that finding meaning and fulfillment is the purpose of life.

The Jewish people have survived — and thrived — for 5700 years because life is meant to be about more than just ourselves. It’s about the next generation, it’s about an ethical life, it’s about sacrificing and investing and building for the future. That’s not what we’re seeing right now. To put it simply, anytime you’re even mixed up in a genuine debate about whether you’re committing genocide, it’s a problem.

Of course, not everything we read or see or hear about the war is true, especially on platforms like TikTok. Most of it probably isn’t. But some of it is. When actions are dictated by legitimate military need, then you can decide to accept the trade-offs. But I have no confidence that legitimate military need is still driving each decision. That lack of legitimacy only helps anti-Semites — in academia and on campuses, in leftist and extremist politics, in the media, at the UN, in European capitals, in the non-profit world — justify their behavior and views and get away with it.

Yes, of course I have grave concerns about the rise of rampant anti-Semitism on the left and their use of "colonialism" to justify old-fashioned hatred and intolerance. And yes, Hamas won’t ever agree to a true ceasefire because they also care far more about their own power than they do about the people they’re supposed to represent and serve. And yes, Israel’s recent wins over Iran, Syria and Hezbollah are remarkable and that show of force should help bring the Saudis into the Abraham Accords fold. That’s incredible.

But none of that is mutually exclusive with recognizing what we’ve come to in Gaza. Israel has had leaders before who were just as militarily strong and successful (and also didn’t allow something like October 7 to happen in the first place) without losing the moral center.

The center isn’t holding because Judaism is based on adhering to intellectual rigor and moral behavior. Right now, there’s none of that to hold onto for people like me. I hate that because being Jewish is a focal point of my life. It’s a source of great pride. So is Israel. It’s, in many ways, how I identify myself and my belief system.

To be clear, I’m an American Jew, not an Israeli Jew. Which means life is much easier for me, full stop. I don’t know what it’s like to have my kids stationed on the front or to attend funeral after funeral of people you know lost in the war or to even live with air raids and bomb threats at every turn. But just rebutting every concern with “they started it and they won’t release the hostages” clearly isn’t working.

Latent anti-Semitism always exists across the globe but it wouldn’t be this vocal, this open, this strong if there wasn’t some legitimacy to the argument that Israel has more than made its point. Just pounding the people in Gaza indefinitely is not working. Hamas knows this and is more than happy to maintain the status quo indefinitely. It works for them. But so is Netanyahu. It works for him too. We cannot let the ambitions of one man and one terrorist group dictate the fate of two different peoples.

And let’s be honest: this is not all just a propaganda campaign against us. A lot of it is. But at some point, we have to look inwards too, not just about whether a military strategy is working but also at its cost — to them and to us. There’s no one answer to what it means to be a Jew but I know this: we don’t let people starve.

Just blaming Hamas isn’t a solution. Hamas is genuinely evil. And corrupt. And ruthless. And dishonest. They can’t be worked with, can’t be trusted. They have no regard for human life. All of that is true. And people across the globe are and have always been anti-Semitic. But the war is now doing us more harm than good, let alone the impact on regular people in Gaza who are suffering.

This is not behavior that ensures our long-term survival. This is not behavior that has allowed Jews to excel throughout history. This is how cultures who kill each other and perish behave. We cannot become like them because if we do, we will end up like them. And the fact that our own people who appear to be the most pious are the ones leading us down that path doesn’t change anything.

This is not who we are. We’re better than this.