Opinion

As the post-Oct. 7 pro-Hamas protests and resulting surge of antisemitism have shown, it is the idea of a Jewish state that’s under attack, not Israel’s policies or actions.

(May 13, 2024 / JNS) Amid the celebrations of Israel’s 50th birthday in 1998, there began to be talk of the Jewish state entering into a post-Zionist era. To many Israelis as well as Jews in the Diaspora, the idea of Zionism or identifying as a Zionist seemed irrelevant to the realities of a country that was, for all of its challenges, a firmly established reality. The very term seemed to conjure up a bygone period when advocacy for the right of Jews to sovereignty in their ancient homeland was a heroic struggle against the odds.

This year’s Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day, starting on the evening of May 12, will be unlike any in the Jewish State’s history, as it is the first since October 7.

“Hamas U.” “Terror on Campus.” “Jihadi Student Body.” “The Columbia Caliphate.” All of these headlines and more dominated the news over Pesach, where most Jews would have happily had a media blackout. Instead, they were forced to wonder how this could possibly happen in America? How could the generation that witnessed 9/11 raise a generation of students that would cheer another 9/11?

AMIT Children has always been touted as promoting Jewish values. Its part of our mission statement, core to our century old organizational narrative and, at the end the day, our raison d-etre.

A generation of young Americans was taught to universalize the Nazi war on the Jews, leaving them vulnerable to being seduced by antisemitism and woke lies about Israel.

(May 6, 2024 / JNS) For decades, American Jewry has marked Yom HaShoah—Holocaust Remembrance Day—with the same rituals and rhetoric. They heard from survivors, whose numbers continue to dwindle and who bore witness about their horrific experiences. They also heard from scholars, who were part of what had become a growth industry centering on Holocaust studies, which to many Jews and non-Jews became the sum total of their knowledge of the history of the Jewish people. And they also heard from politicians and community leaders, who mouthed empty rhetoric about “never again” letting such an awful thing happen.

The news following Shabbos that Iran attacked Israel with hundreds of missiles and drones was a reliving of the October 7 nightmare all over again for the American Jewish community. The result of this attack, as opposed to October 7, did not leave as profound an impact on the lives and psyche of Israelis and the Americans who support them, due to the technological wizardry and the Divine Intervention that led to 99% of those missiles and drones to be intercepted before hitting Israeli soil.  Instead of picking up the pieces and then asking “how this happened,” we can go straight to the asking.