100 years after Mein Kampf: From the personification of the devil to Zionists

I acknowledge that I am not a legal scholar or a genocide expert. I am a Jewish educator, a student of history, and a recent witness. I am passionate about the Jewish people, about the right of Israel to exist, and about raising children who are proud, intellectually honest, and morally alert. That means instilling compassion and the courage to hold our people to account, without ever giving in to lies.

Just weeks ago, my wife and I walked the eerily quiet paths of Treblinka, where 800,000 Jews were murdered in less than a year. We stood in the hot sun at Auschwitz, where smoke and ashes signaled unimaginable mass murder. We walked through the still streets of Krakow’s Jewish quarter, where centuries of life were silenced. And then we ended our journey in Israel, not as tourists, but as people coming home. For us, Israel is more than a state. It is where our memory lives and where our hope has returned us to life. It is the vindication of a people who were supposed to disappear and didn’t.

So when I heard Professor Omer Bartov on CNN, repeating his claim that Israel is committing genocide and comparing Israeli leaders to Nazis, I was stunned. His assertion that “Even Nazi Germany wasn’t saying clearly ‘we’re going to carry out genocide’” was just false. Hitler did declare his intent. In 1925, in Mein Kampf, he called for the removal of Jews from German life. The 1942 Wannsee Conference mapped out the machinery to make it happen. It didn’t “hint” at genocide. It planned it by rail line, by headcount, and by region.

What is sadly striking is that this month, on July 18th, marked the 100th anniversary of Mein Kampf’s publication. Yet not one major outlet ran a retrospective. No museum exhibitions or global moments of reflection. The book that laid the ideological foundation for mass murder passed almost completely unnoticed. Instead, the world chose this moment to label Israel, the state that rose, in part, from that destruction, as the new perpetrator of genocide.

The lies of Mein Kampf did not vanish, they instead evolved. The Jew as devil, conspirator, poisoner of wells has been recast. Today, we are “colonizers,” “white supremacists,” “Zionist aggressors.” Where once we were accused of controlling the world, we are now said to oppress it. The blood libel is back wrapped in the language of human rights.

And all of this at the very moment we are still burying our dead from the fallout of October 7 and praying for hostages yet to be returned.  In addition, we watch the world shrug when Hamas leaders say they will “do it again,” and then every offhand or outrageous Israeli remark is treated as evidence of genocide.

None of this excuses or diminishes what is happening in Gaza. The suffering is real and the humanitarian crisis is immense. As much as it pains me, I do believe Israel must answer for it, not only because the world demands it, but because we should demand it of ourselves. As of now, Israel has effective military control over most of Gaza. With that comes moral responsibility. With the new U.S.-backed humanitarian coordination system in place, Israel cannot simply outsource blame. Civilians need food, water, and safety. As they have stated themselves, they are at war with Hamas, not the Palestinian people, so they must do better, even in the face of UN obstruction.

But the reality on the ground is far more complex than headlines allow. As I write this, there are  hundreds of aid trucks lined up at the Kerem Shalom crossing waiting to enter Gaza. Israeli authorities are not trying to starve civilians. There is an active, ongoing effort to feed them. The problem is not the will to send aid, it is the ability to get it in safely, and then get it into the hands of those who need it most. That is where it breaks down.

UN officials themselves have acknowledged that Hamas-linked gangs and looters have seized aid. Aid workers have been attacked. Distribution networks are a shambles and IDF soldiers have shot too many Palestinians in the chaos.  What is not fairly covered is that Hamas uses this dysfunction as a weapon by diverting supplies, stoking outrage, and ensuring every image of suffering tightens the noose around Israel’s neck. For Hamas, starvation is not a failure, it’s part of their strategy.

And while the Western press speculates endlessly about whether Netanyahu is prolonging the war for political gain, few ask what Hamas gains by avoiding a ceasefire. The answer seems obvious. Hamas remains in power. It maintains control over the narrative and some territory and it continues to use Palestinian suffering as leverage. Their leaders are not underground, starving. They are giving interviews, from Beirut and Doha, about their “next time” and eating the food they steal.

At the same time, it’s important to be honest about how some Israeli leaders have made this war harder to defend. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich spoke of “destroying Gaza” and supported Trump’s suggestion of relocating Gazans. Minister Amichai Eliyahu called for Gaza to be “erased.” These are repugnant statements and morally and politically reckless. They undermine Israel’s moral case and embolden those who falsely cry genocide.

But there is a difference between rhetoric and policy. And that distinction matters. Eliyahu was rebuked by the Prime Minister’s office. Smotrich’s statements, while inflammatory, are not Israeli doctrine. When right-wing protesters tried to block aid trucks, police forcibly removed them. When government officials cross a moral line, they are widely criticized. Unfortunately not enough of that criticism comes directly from Netenyahu, but it does come from many other officials including the IDF which also rejects the idea of a “humanitarian city.” That is not how genocidal regimes behave.

Meanwhile, Hamas’s genocidal intent is not veiled. It is in their 1988 charter, which quotes Islamic Hadith: “The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.” It was in their livestreams on October 7, in every chant of “We will do it again,” and it is in the rhetoric of their backers from Hezbollah to Iran’s Supreme Leader who calls Israel a “cancer” to be “eradicated.”

When an Israeli minister says something vile, it becomes international news. When Hamas butchers families and brags about it, it’s part of resistance. That is not moral consistency. It’s an ancient inconsistency but with a long Jewish memory.

So yes, hold Israel to account. Investigate every misdirected strike. Demand clarity, restraint, and compassion. Demand that Israel live up to the ideals it claims. This is what democratic societies do. But don’t weaponize suffering into false charges of genocide.

Genocide has a definition. It requires intent to destroy a people. There is no Israeli battle plan, official policy, or military goal that meets that definition. Not even Bartov has produced evidence, just conjecture. Additionally, experts like William Schabas and Eugene Kontorovich have called the charge legally absurd. Dov Waxman has warned that such language undermines the very cause of human rights.

I know many in our community are not ready to extend empathy, not yet. The wounds are still too deep and the utter magnitude of the attack of October 7th, still painfully traumatic.  But I believe we must hold grief and truth together, as messy as it is. We must not let our history be rewritten, not by critics, not by scholars, not by those who have never tried to know or understand us.

None of this is new. We have been cast as devils, conspirators, colonizers, and now, perpetrators of genocide.  And essentially we are blamed for our own survival. However, we are the people who kept faith when the world burned and tried to burn us. We are the people who came home after 2,000 years of exile. And  when those who continue to dream of our destruction accept our permanence in the State of Israel, only then will we be able to move towards a true peace.

A hundred years after Mein Kampf, the world still finds new ways to recast the Jew as the villain. But I will not be silent.